BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT and SALES EXPERTISE

“If you have need of a biz dev professional, especially Social Business Development - then Rob is your man!” ~ Viveka Von Rosen | Best Selling Author | Forbes Top 20 Most Influential |

SMALL and MEDIUM-SIZED BUSINESS MARKET SPECIALIZATION

“This man is an urgent learner, constantly re-inventing himself and staying up to speed on every new idea and technique. A wonderful resource and the consummate professional.” ~ Mark Schaefer | Best Selling Author | Forbes Top 10 Authorities on Social Selling |

DIVERSE BUSINESS and TECHNOLOGY EXPERTISE

“I was impressed with his deep understanding of social media marketing and willingness to apply his knowledge to an industry which needed it: B2B Information Technology Professional Services...deep understanding and ability to apply what he knows about social media marketing” ~ Neal Schaffer | Best Selling Author | Forbes Top 50 Social Media Power Influencers |

DIGITAL MARKETING AND MARKETING TECHNOLOGY

“Modern marketing is a dynamic, changing place these days, and Rob is on top of it all. I admire his approach!” ~ Ann Handley | Best Selling Author | Forbes Top 25 Marketing Influencer |

ROBERT (ROB) BURNS

Robert (Rob) Burns is the founder and Managing Partner of gnooko digital marketing. Rob is no stranger to sales, marketing, business development, technology and digital marketing. With the help of these approaches, along with strategy and implementation expertise, and best practices, Rob has been helping companies solve their business issues for many years.

Rob didn’t want to just lay a long list of expertise, credentials, background and experience in this biography. He wanted to outline why his background and expertise would be of importance to his two market segments, the small to medium-sized business owner and the marketing influencer within a medium-sized company.

This biography page’s objective is to provide some insights into Rob’s background and personality, his unique value proposition, expertise, experience and his business development approach to digital marketing.

SMALL AND MEDIUM-SIZED BUSINESS (SMB)

Rob’s primary audience focus is on small and mid-sized businesses, specifically the small business owner and/or the designated marketing influencers within these companies.

What constitutes the definition of a small and medium-sized business? Rob doesn’t believe there is a hardened definition, it can vary. For the purposes of this bio, a small business can be defined as a business with less than 100 employees and a medium-sized business with 100-999 employees.

Audience – Persona Focus

One of Rob’s unique capabilities is his persona development skills. Rob is a firm believer in developing robust client, preferred and future client profiles and personas. Personas that include in-depth insights at all the stages of their market research, buying journey, decision making and buying stages.

Rob’s tenured and diverse business experience complements his persona development activities and projects. Rob’s unique persona development services enable the discovering of vital information that helps the growth of a business, including the development of content that is of interest to a client’s audience at all stages.

Lead Generating Websites

One of Rob’s business development and digital passions is the strategy, design and development of websites that contribute to the growth and success of a small to medium-sized company, a lead generating website.

Of course, Rob can have business-based discussions about varying types of websites, including branding or awareness based websites.

However, Rob’s primary focus is on websites that can align with a business’ overall business development and growth strategies, support a business’ overall business objectives, attract the right audience at the right time and nurture that traffic through their buyer’s journey and their decision making and buying stages.

Business First Approach – Listen and Empathize

When Rob speaks with his clients and future clients, they often tell him that they appreciate his business based approach. He doesn’t rush to solutions or technology without understanding their goals, objectives, needs and requirements and their company, in detail.

He empathizes with their situation, both from their personal/professional and business levels. This approach benefits the clients, in many ways. Most likely the meeting or discussion will be quite detailed and thorough, the client’s needs and requirements will be covered (and often more), which will include known and possibly unknown requirements or risk.

Business Strategy

Once Rob understands his client’s business and objectives, he will then start talking about strategy, planning, tactics, next steps and won’t move forward during these phases if critical information is missing, vague or incomplete.

Rob will ask many questions during his strategy discussions, integrating his many years of business, sales, management, business development, information technology and digital marketing to component the strategy exercises and process.

Digital Marketing

Rob began his digital journey many years ago during the e-commerce era, which soon lead to the digital marketing era. Rob’s passion for digital marketing was more of a “see a need, fill a need” experience.

Rob has always had a passion for business development and lead generation, so when these new digital tools emerged, Rob immersed himself in these new technologies and became an urgent learner and student of the digital marketing craft. One of Rob’s unique capabilities is the strategic application of these digital tools to a business serving application.

Problem Solving Approach and Methodology

Times have changed with today’s cloud based solutions.

During the technology surge in the early-mid 1980’s, before you could recommend a hardware solution, you had to know what software the client needed to solve their problems. And to recommend the appropriate software you had to understand what the client’s business problems were. And to understand their business problems, you had to really understand their personality, their goals and objectives, priorities, mandates, their definition of success, their barriers, their business case process and their decision-making criteria and process, and of course their specific requirements, and much more.

This approach is a lost art and is why Rob has been successful in his sales, business development and digital marketing career and business. And why small business owners and marketing influencers appreciate his business first approach.

Rob doesn’t rush to conclusions, solutions or technology. Rob listens, gets his clients and future clients to expand, often repeat what they have said for clarification and continues to ask more questions, before he offers a recommendation or solution.

Multi-Generational Approach

Boomers, GenX, Millennials, GenY… Rob understands the value of a multi-generational culture in organizations today. Although Rob has a tenured career and experience, he is also quite capable of integrating within the multi-generational culture. His curiosity and problem solving mindset complement his open mindedness, capabilities and his ability to embrace new and emerging technologies.

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