Share what you know with millions of people

Focus is the best place to turn what you know into remarkable content

×

David Baker

Follow Following Unfollow

Principal, ReCourses, Inc.

321 points

Speak, write, and advise marketing service firms (advertising, marketing, PR, interactive, design, and in-house departments that do the same). Lots of international speaking and publication coverage. Author of three books.

WEB: ReTake: personal pix

Dec. 29, 2011

David Baker and 13 other people answered this question

What "hard truths" must HR pros learn to accept?

John, the question was about the "Hard Truths that HR Pros Must Learn to Accept," not the truth about how HR firms operate now. One of those truths is that some managers are conflict averse and in those cases the HR department needs to step ... more

General Management

Human Resources

Dec. 28, 2011

David Baker and 4 other people answered this question

What does the future of selling look like?

I'll comment just on the professional services side of selling. I believe that the need for outbound sales will diminish significantly for the most well-positioning firms who also concentrate on long-term marketing activities that draw the right prospect to them. As such, the traditional "sales" ... more

Sales Challenges

Sales Management

Dec. 17, 2011

David Baker and 2 other people answered this question

What are the benefits of consciously choosing to not terminate employees around the holidays?

I agree with John. A lot of my clients ask me just that question, and I ask them to put themselves in the other person's shoes. In other words, would YOU rather know now or later?
I'd certainly want to know now, just so that I ... more

Human Resources

Employee Engagement

Talent Management

Dec. 17, 2011

David Baker and 4 other people answered this question

Who are the top agencies for technology marketers?

Lauren, this isn't the traditional answer you might expect, but I'd have to say these folks:
http://www.altimetergroup.com/services/advisory
They are very well thought of. more

Information Technology

Marketing Agency

Dec. 14, 2011

David Baker and 1 other person answered this question

My design agency is running in a loss. How do I market my company?

Sunil, I'm not looking for work so this is not a sales pitch, but I think you'd benefit from some of the free position papers here:
http://www.recourses.com/resources-marketing
Essentially, there are short term answers and long term answers. The reason you are losing money is almost certainly a ... more

Online Marketing

Nov. 14, 2011

David Baker and 1 other person answered this question at this roundtable

Practical Social Media Goal Setting, Measurement and ROI [11/17 @ 11 am]

What is an example of a social media metric that every organization should follow?

Tom, would you mind explaining where you find the detail on impressions? I haven't been able to find it. more

Nov. 14, 2011

David Baker and 14 other people answered this question at this roundtable

Modern B2B Marketing Strategies [7/12 @ 1 pm]

What's the number 1 thing every b2b marketer should be talking about but isn't?

The marginalization of implementation work. That requires an engineering-type mind that makes more money by increasing efficiency and lowering cost. Entrepreneurs in the marketing space don't have that. They take the opposite approach and just make more money instead of paying attention to those factors.
I ... more

B2B Marketing Week

Content Marketing

Nov. 14, 2011

David Baker and 5 other people answered this question

Should big banks start worrying about losing their customers?

Yes. There is a significant move towards credit unions, especially among the lower class. They are viewed as more community based and more trustworthy. Canada is far ahead of us in this regard, and we are moving more and more toward their model. more

Customer Service

Angry Customers

Nov. 14, 2011

David Baker and 8 other people answered this question

Which email marketing software is the best?

I've experimented with about one-half dozen packages. You want one big enough that they have the power to remove themselves from a blacklist. I use iContact, and am happy with it (my opt-in list is ca. 10,400), but if I had to start over I'd ... more

Email Marketing

Email Marketing Software

Nov. 9, 2011

David Baker and 5 other people answered this question

Is it smart to share customer success stories in your email newsletters?

I would say a huge "no". Most prospects have zero interest in reading them, and they look like big long advertisements. more

Customer Success

Email Marketing

Nov. 9, 2011

David Baker and 9 other people answered this question

What questions should you ask your team members in order to evaluate the leader's effectiveness?

1) If you just found out that you had to take a car ride with the department leader for 10 hours, would you look forward to it or dread it? Enjoying that sort of car ride means the leader must be self-aware, must listen, and ... more

Human Resources

Effective Communication

Nov. 9, 2011

David Baker answered this question

What are some of your biggest pain points in social media marketing today?

Lauren, this isn't true for me, but in my work with firms with little social media presence who let me guide them to proper participation, the biggest obstacle for them seems to be: "do I really have anything to say." That's why I designate "regular ... more

Oct. 30, 2011

David Baker and 3 other people answered this question

Have you shifted from long form to short form blogging?

I strongly feel that you should host your OWN blog. Blogging platforms are only driven to host blogs to generate traffic to their site, and some make it difficult to pull all that content out. Plus, how are you going to migrate all those faithful ... more

Content Marketing

Oct. 15, 2011

David Baker and 4 other people answered this question

What personality traits predict higher job satisfaction?

I don't believe that there are any reliable scientific indicators of job satisfaction within various personality profiles. There are various ones that can measure it, but not that can predict it.
In the widely used DiSC variant of Marston's work, highest "i" and highest "S" folks ... more

Human Resources

Employee Satisfaction

Job Satisfaction

Personality Trait

Oct. 12, 2011

David Baker published a post

Playing Whack-a-Mole with Prospects in a Professional Services Firm

Oct. 8, 2011

David Baker published a post

Integrating a Remote Workforce

Human Resources

Sept. 28, 2011

David Baker and 4 other people answered this question

Should sales reps be trained on how to buy vs trained on how to sell?

Mark, I asked that question because of this: I have worked with 650+ marketing firms, and in many of those engagements they have hired a business development person. In those experiences, a sales person who has been very successful at transactional sales falls short in ... more

Human Resources

Buying Behavior

Sept. 28, 2011

David Baker and 1 other person answered this question

Do you suggest Web Traffic Marketing in your business?

I'm not sure what you are asking, Christoffer, but traffic (and page views and clicks) mean absolutely nothing to a business. All that matters is conversions. For my website, e.g., that conversion is signing up for my content rich email list. The last email I ... more

Do You Suggest Web Traffic Marketing in Your Business?

Sept. 28, 2011

David Baker and 2 other people answered this question

With so many people connecting on Linkedin do you think it will lose value as a networking tool?

There is a network out there that forces you to keep it at 50 or below people, if I remember correctly. I can't remember the name of it, but a Google search might turn it up. I think it's an interesting idea--sort of like making ... more

Information Technology

Sept. 23, 2011

David Baker and 14 other people answered this question

POLL: Personality Tests should be used to evaluate candidates in the hiring process (Pick YES or NO)

For those of you who are skeptical about their use, let me just cite one example in my research (which includes 13,000+ applications and then using algorithms to find correlations).
I gave the same profile tool to 1,340 entrepreneurs--in other words, they were active owners of ... more

Human Resources

Employee Assessment

Sept. 22, 2011

David Baker and 4 other people answered this question

When hiring, what is the biggest red flag you look for when interviewing a candidate?

1. Not respectful (which usually means not deferential in an interview setting).
2. Isn't genuine and honest. For example, when you ask their biggest weakness, they pause as if they are thinking deeply about it, and then say "it would probably be that I work too ... more

Human Resources

Sept. 7, 2011

David Baker answered this question

Market Researchers: what do you consider a good response rate on survey initiatives?

I have asked some of my clients to provide an incentive (always very small), but I've never done so with my surveys. more

Business Research

Conversion Rate

Email Marketing

Sept. 7, 2011

David Baker and 3 other people answered this question

Is there a company that can get current email addresses for our current customer base?

Try http://www.thelistinc.com

Email Marketing

Following 17 Topics

Customer Service

Email Marketing

Human Resources

Inbound Marketing

Lead Generation

...

Online Marketing

Public Relations

Search Engine Optimization

Talent Management

Following 11 People

Followed by 38 People

Knowledgeable in 53 Topics

#179 of 2984

Content Marketing

#24 of 294

Human Resources

#127 of 1481

#3 of 68

#128 of 1456

Customer Service

#94 of 785

#45 of 339

#53 of 356

#5 of 53

#27 of 210

#40 of 244

Online Marketing

#47 of 360

#16 of 152

Talent Management

#90 of 470

Email Marketing

#60 of 273

Marketing Technology

#17 of 64

#23 of 90

Customer Experience

#37 of 160

#44 of 172

#65 of 206

#56 of 244

#68 of 386

#114 of 480

#397 of 1429

B2B Marketing Week

#18 of 54

#178 of 519

Marketing Automation

#167 of 531

Lead Management

#75 of 261

#15 of 22

Customer Feedback

#14 of 36

#59 of 115

#61 of 126

#163 of 220

#150 of 234

#210 of 300

Career Development

#223 of 311

#342 of 466

#271 of 466

General Management

#946 of 1194

Information Technology

#1306 of 2263

#1751 of 2156

#18 of 25

Decision Makers

#16 of 25

#34 of 40

#65 of 84

#115 of 141

Lead Generation

#209 of 250

#330 of 372

#107 of 115

#120 of 127

#183 of 201

#269 of 290

Inbound Marketing

#115 of 119