OnTarget Partners had a great time supporting the Charity Community Partners of Dallas recently.

Community Partners of Dallas is a nonprofit organization dedicated to ensuring safety and restoring dignity and hope to abused and neglected children by providing resources and support to the caseworkers of Dallas County Child Protective Services.

Community Partners of Dallas served more than 16,000 children last year through six unique programs:

• Rainbow Room, an emergency resource center providing critically-needed items for children in the care of CPS
• Kids in Crisis, provides funds for children’s clothing, transportation, therapy, enrichment activities, housing and medical expenses
• Adopt-A-Caseworker, connects individuals and businesses with CPS caseworkers to help them meet the needs of clients
• The Heart Program, an internationally-recognized program that provides therapeutic group treatment to victims of sexual-abuse and their non-offending family members
• Caseworker Appreciation, events that are held to show appreciation and gratitude to caseworkers
• StoryLine, (214) 446-2222, a phone line that children can call 24 hours a day to hear a story

As a result of its broad-based community support, Community Partners of Dallas was named the Outstanding Volunteer Organization of the Year by the Volunteer Center in Dallas. In addition, Governors Bush and Richards appointed two of our founding members to the Board of Texas Department of Protective and Regulatory Services. Community Partners of Dallas’ programs have been replicated across the state, and Rainbow Rooms and Adopt-A-Caseworker programs currently exist in more than 135 cities in Texas. For more detail on the children we serve please download our 2010 Fact Sheet.

For more information on how you can help us help the abused and neglected children in Dallas County, please contact us directly at (214) 624-7557, or follow Community Partners of Dallas on Facebook and Twitter!

For more information about child abuse and child abuse prevention, visit the following sites:

• Texas Child Protective Services
• Dallas County Public Defender’s Office CPS FAQ’s
• “It’s Up to You” Child Abuse Prevention Campaign
• “The Little Voice,” Texas Young Lawyer’s Association

To report a suspected case of child abuse, call the Texas Abuse Hotline at (800) 252-5400. The hotline is answered 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Reports can also be made at https://www.txabusehotline.org/.

Here is a pic of some of us sorting and organizing school supplies:

And here is our “Community Involvement Leader”, James Widman:

Thanks, James, for a job well done!

-Ed Trachier

Ed Trachier, CEO

I have read a lot recently about Revenue Performance Management, and the new title that is becoming more and more prevalent, Chief Revenue Officer.

The concept is pretty cool.

Take your marketing team lead, and your sales team lead, and force them to work together by making them the same person!

Many of my clients have struggled with sales and marketing communications.  It is an age old problem:  Marketing creates great content and value propositions that never seems to get used by sales;  Sales folks are in front of prospects and clients daily, and feel that marketing just doesn’t get it since they never communicate with these (potential) buyers.

Even in the best of times, these relationships can be strained.  When you talk about as difficult of an economy as we have dealt with recently…well, let’s just say the boiling point can easily be reached.

Does the Chief Revenue Officer position solve everything?

The answer is “no”.

Teams need to learn to work together.  Good leadership is key.

If the Chief Revenue Officer is a great leader, good things will happen.  If not, teams will remain fractured and revenue performance will remain underwhelming.

-Ed Trachier

Ed is Founder and CEO of OnTarget Partners.  He can be reached at 214-618-4960, or via email at trachier@ontargetpartners.com.

Ed Trachier, CEO

What do marketer’s need in this troubled economic time?

How can OnTarget continue to perform well in a struggling environment?

The answer to these questions is the same, and the reason we are in business.

OnTarget, without the space, is all about putting you, the marketer, On Target.

Finding the right prospect, at the right company, in the right vertical or geographic marketplace, is tough.  Qualifying that prospect for need, budget and time-frame for buy is even more difficult.

OnTarget’s responsibility to our clients is to put them On Target.  We use demand generation services and lead generation activities to help your sales team qualify prospects better.  Our successes come when we put you on the right prospect at the right time and you CLOSE BUSINESS.

Find out more by requesting a free consultation here.

-Ed Trachier

Ed is Founder and CEO of OnTarget Partners.  He can be reached at 214-618-4960, or via email at trachier@ontargetpartners.com.

I read a lot of blogs these days, especially those pertaining to B2B Marketing.  Jeffrey L. Cohen, the managing editor of SocialMediaB2B.com, is one of my personal favorites.  His writing is clear-cut, to-the-point, and easy to understand.  He also puts lists together – and I truly adore lists.

I recently came across a blog he posted on December 13, 2010, called “11 Predictions for B2B Social Media in 2011.”  We are quickly closing in on the final quarter of 2011 so I thought it might be interesting to see how his predictions are holding up.  Granted, there are still 3 months left — but it will be 2012 before we know it.  By then there will be new predictions, I’m sure.

Just to let you know — I am neither an expert nor a guru.  I have worked in the world of B2B since the early 90’s and I consider myself to be a social media student – and I am currently very enamored with blogs, Twitter, and LinkedIn.  In the meantime, here are Jeffrey’s 2011 predictions: (http://socialmediab2b.com/2010/12/b2b-social-media-predictions-2011/), along with my commentary (not necessarily the opinions of OnTarget Partners or any other B2B company):

1. Mobile, Mobile, Mobile

“With 4.6 billion cell phones in use around the world, this prediction is not too hard to make.”

• Think about QR (Quick Response) codes – they seem to have gone viral this year.  You can find them all over the place – from shampoo bottles to airline boarding passes.  And Smart Phone applications?  There seems to be one for anything imaginable.   Yes, there’s an app for that.

2. Open APIs Support Information Portability

“Information will become more portable and the importance of open APIs will become clear to many B2B companies.”

• 2011 has shown increased usage of websites with Open APIs like HootSuite and TweetDeck by companies offering B2B solutions.  These sites combine major social networks (Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn, for example) into a single, uniform interface, making it easier to track and respond to posts from their clients.  The website sharing is seamless and easy to use.

3. Collect, Analyze and Visualize Data

“Once APIs are in place (see above), companies will start doing a better job collecting and analyzing data from their social platforms.”

• HootSuite and TweetDeck also make it extremely easy to pull data and analytics so you can instantly see who is engaging and how often.  This should be more appealing to B2B social media managers who may have only limited knowledge of APIs and the technology behind them.

4. Share Compelling Stories

“2011 will see storytelling come into its own. As more companies adopt social media as a way to connect with customers, they will begin developing compelling stories to share that message.”

• There are still far fewer social media success stories in the B2B realm than B2C.  That being said, there has been more focus on social media by B2B companies so the success stories have been more prevalent in 2011 than in previous years.  I expect this trend will continue due to the diligence and persistence of B2B bloggers.

5. Continued Growth of Social Search

“The importance of search engines, primarily Google and Bing, is already huge for B2B decision makers, and it’s hard to imagine the expansion of that, but in 2011 search and social will come closer together.”

• Slowly but surely this is becoming reality.  Once again, B2B bloggers are making this happen with their use of pertinent long-tail keywords and an increased mastery of the content.

6. Expanded Forums of Social Communications

“While the big three platforms of Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn will continue to reign supreme for most B2B companies, niche industry sites and forums will become more important this year.”

• Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn still continue to reign supreme in 2011.

7. The Year of Conversions

“If 2010 was the year of social media interest and adoption for many B2B companies, 2011 will be the year that companies refine their approach to social media, provide clear calls to action on their messaging and drive leads and sales as a measure of success.”

• We may see this more in 2012 since B2B companies are still warming up to social media in 2011.

8. Customer Service is More Social Than Marketing

“More than even, customer service reps are the front lines of a company and they need to be socially savvy. Reps will understand that every response can be broadcast to a wider audience.”

• Absolutely this has become increasingly important.  B2B clients have Twitter and Facebook accounts, both personal and otherwise – and they are not afraid to use them.  As the focus on measuring client engagement has increased in the B2B world, so has the focus on communicating with their clients via social media.  And understanding that once a post is made – positive or negative – it’s really out there for the world to see.

9. Daily Deals and Group Buying Change Pricing Models

“While 2010 saw the beginnings of daily deals and group buying benefits in the B2B space, the changes this will cause in 2011 are deeper than many realize.”

• Although even more of these sites have appeared in 2011 – and Groupon has even flirted with an IPO – I haven’t seen that this increase has applied at all to B2B.

10. Social Media will be More Accepted in the Enterprise

“Large enterprise companies represent the biggest dichotomy in social media. Many tech companies are leading the way with social media initiatives and have really incorporated it into many aspects of the business.”

• This has certainly been the case so far in 2011 and does not appear to be falling off.

11. Companies with Limited Results Pull Back from Social Media

“And finally, since it can’t all be positive, there will be B2B companies that prematurely discontinue social media efforts because they are not realizing enough value from them.”

• Unfortunately this may be true.  Luckily, most companies are realizing that results aren’t instant – just like the B2B companies themselves, their social media will require time, patience, and understanding.

So what trends do you see continuing into the final quarter of 2011 and into 2012?

OnTarget Partners invites you to share your predictions with us; comment below if you would like.

We also invite you to visit us on the web at www.ontargetpartners.com, Like us on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/ontargetpartners, and Follow us on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/ontargetpartner.

-Jennifer Hanford

Jennifer is Social Media Coordinator for OnTarget Partners.  She can be reached at jhanford@ontargetpartners.com

I recently had the opportunity to hear and learn a wonderful story. The story is one of opportunities found…then lost. We have all been there and maybe this story holds true for you as well.
This is the story as I heard it:
When the great library of Alexandria burned, the story goes, one book was saved. But it was not a valuable book; and so a poor man, who could read a little, bought it for a few coppers.
The book wasn’t very interesting, but between its pages there was something very interesting indeed. It was a thin strip of vellum on which was written the secret of the Touchstone!
The touchstone was a small pebble that could turn any common metal into pure gold. The writing explained that it was lying among thousands and thousands of other pebbles that looked exactly like it. But the secret was this: The real stone would feel warm, while ordinary pebbles are cold.
So the man sold his few belongings, bought some simple supplies, camped on the seashore, and began testing pebbles.
He knew that if he picked up ordinary pebbles and threw them down again because they were cold, he might pick up the same pebble hundreds of times. So, when he felt one that was cold, he threw it into the sea. He spent a whole day doing this but none of them was the touchstone. Yet he went on and on this way. Pick up a pebble. Cold – throw it into the sea. Pick up another. Throw it into the sea.
The days stretched into weeks and the weeks into months. One day, however, about mid-afternoon, he picked up a pebble and it was warm. He threw it into the sea before he realized what he had done. He had formed such a strong habit of throwing each pebble into the sea that when the one he wanted came along he still threw it away. ~Author Unknown ~
Oops. So it often is with opportunity.
The opportunity developers at OnTarget Partners want to make sure you are not casting away your golden opportunities. Our Associates are experts at making consultative cold calls to executives at every level and in virtually every industry and marketplace to identify opportunities with the highest probability for your organization to close.
Is your business searching for its own “Touchstone”? Are there opportunities out there that you would rather not lose? We would love to hear more about your company and the “pure gold” you are searching for. Please check us out at http://www.ontargetpartners.com/customprospecting.html to see how we can help you in your search.

Jennifer Hanford is Social Media Coordinator for OnTarget Partners, and can be reached at jhanford@ontargetpartners.com.

Ten years ago today, our world was changed forever.

I remember with distinct clarity the fear and the sadness.

To see our typical vehicles, large commercial airplanes, crashing into buildings was unimaginable and unbelievable.

Things have changed an awful lot since then.

What has not changed is the American spirit. The outpouring of love for this country by it’s servants, each of us, was and still is awe-inspiring.

May God bless America, especially today, as we remember all of our fallen heroes.