Achieve Stronger Sales Results Through Better Preparation

“By failing to prepare, you are preparing to fail.” – Benjamin Franklin, Scientist, Inventor, Statesman

It’s early January and many New Year’s resolutions have already fallen by the wayside. If there’s room for one more on your list, I encourage you to add this one: Preparation.

Anyone who has painted a room knows the importance of properly preparing before painting. Proper preparation generally takes more time than painting itself and can be tedious, which is why many choose to skip or cut short this step in favor of “just getting on with it.” A true professional might get away with less prep than the average person, but a sloppy job is a constant reminder that cutting corners rarely pays. Doing the job right from the start requires a good plan, patience, and discipline. The resulting satisfaction from a job well done likely includes the realization of how important those preparation steps were to the process.

In sales, the need to prepare is no different. Even the greenest sales rookie knows to take time to prepare before a sales meeting or call. But what’s the proper way to prepare? What boxes should you check before proceeding?

We take preparation very seriously and categorize it into three groups: strategic, client, and technical. Here are a few ways you should prepare when going after new targets:

Strategic Planning

Look at the big picture. Where are you in the sales cycle with this client? What do you hope to achieve as a result of the meeting? Envision how you want the meeting to end and then build from there.

What are the possible curveballs that can be thrown your way and how can you avoid them? The devil is in the details, and knowing what challenges may arise and how to overcome them will greatly aid your level of preparedness.

Client Planning

This step includes multiple layers to be researched and explored before sitting down with your client.

• Company – What does the company do? How do they make money? Who are their customers and what do they want? What division are you targeting? Is the company growing, stagnant, or struggling to compete? Has their leadership changed recently? What does the company say about themselves, and what are others saying about them?

• Individual buyers – Hopefully you have an internal project champion to help guide you. Try to find out about your target buyer and influencers. How senior are they? What’s their position and role? Is their focus local, regional, national, or international? Do they have buying authority, or are they researching for their boss? Look them up on LinkedIn to find out what groups they belong to and whether or not you have any common contacts and to see what topics they are posting or commenting on to get a sense of their level of experience and sophistication.

• Competitors – Who are your target’s key competitors and what are they up to? How might that influence your sale? Is your target leading their industry or playing catch up?

• Past projects or history – Have your companies worked together in the past? Not doing your internal homework is a rookie mistake that can make you look really bad in front of the prospect. Even the smallest project in another business unit from 10 years ago counts as history. Know who did what, when, for how much, and with what results before talking to your buyer.

Technical Planning

Once you have answered the strategic and client questions, you need to align that information with your company’s products, services, and capabilities.

• Capabilities – What challenges do they face that you can help resolve? How do your products or services fill a void, fix a problem, or otherwise help them improve their business? What features and benefits of your services directly relate to their needs? Don’t drown them in every last detail about your business, but rather pick your specific capabilities that can help the client.

• Industry and market trends – What are the trends across the industry? Not only should you know what’s going on, but try to dig deeper to uncover an insight that would be of interest to your prospect. It could be something they already know but perhaps weren’t aware of the scope, or it might be something significant that presents a threat or opportunity. Show that you’ve done your homework, but be careful to be respectful and not insulting when presenting the insight.

• Objections – How would you respond if confronted with “We don’t need your help – we can do it ourselves. You’re only here because my boss wants a dog-and-pony show.” What other objections might you face and how would you overcome them?

Where should you look for answers to these questions? Search Google, LinkedIn, Twitter. Industry publication websites are also great sources of information. Simple keyword searches will usually yield helpful results beginning with basics such as “banking industry trends” or “top issues in banking 2014.” Of course, using keywords that are specific to their business or issues will get you more granular results.

Your New Year’s Resolution: Preparation

We’ve all been guilty of Ready-Fire-Aim at some point. But when it becomes an everyday habit, your ability to be successful will likely be extremely compromised. Good preparation takes thought, time, and discipline to set yourself up for success (and avoid failure). Sales managers need to encourage action and monitor progress, but also to instill the importance of properly preparing for sales meetings and calls. As you look to the New Year ahead, resolve to make preparation a priority.

What are your tips for preparing for client meetings? What pitfalls have you encountered along the way? Please share your thoughts in the comments below. Or, if you would like to learn more about Richardson and we may be able to help your sales team with their preparation, please contact us at info.richardson.com or visit our web site at http://www.richardson.com

 

 

The post Achieve Better Sales Results Through Better Preparation appeared first on The Richardson Sales Excellence Review™.

Attempts to keep up with changing buying behaviors are very much like a car chase scene in an action packed movie. Just as we are about to catch up with the buyer, new technology accelerates buyer progress. Creating an ever present need to gain insight into newly forming behaviors on the part of buyers. Otherwise, the chase ends.

This year marks the twelfth year since the first buyer persona development methodology was created. We have come very far yet we have far to go. Understanding buyers in this new century is no easy climb. One constant has remained during the past twelve years: in order to inform critical marketing and sales strategies, deep insights about buyers are now a requisite for success.

New Developments Are Focused On Buyer Foresight

Last year, I introduced the notion of buyer foresight. Not only do businesses require foresight on adapting to changing buying behaviors, but also buyers are developing new expectations in understanding how their future can change by a relationship with you. B2B business success hinges on newfound abilities to turn buyer insights into buyer foresight. And, be the guiding light for buyers and customers to navigate difficult paths towards accomplishing goals – both organizational and individual.

Impact On State Of Buyer Personas

During the past year, I have been quite fortunate to be able to work with several leaders in marketing and sales as well as participate in numerous buyer interviews. These efforts help to shed light not only on buying behaviors, but also to ponder the impact on the state of buyer personas in the future. What follows are reflections on the State of Buyer Personas today and in the future:

The journey ends. As with all things in B2B buzzword land, a word meaning can take a life on its’ own. It was hard not to miss the fixation on the “buyer journey” during the past year. Today and in the future, this journey perspective does not adequately serve the needed insight and translation into foresight about buyers. Preconceived and generalized process views blind us to what matters – understanding what confronts buyers as they attempt to accomplish their goals.

Situational context counts. Related to the above, is the need to shift to situational or scenario-based understanding of buyers from a process context. This means embracing the core principles of buyer persona development around goals and multi-persona views. This means shifting from the “leading question” effect, which occurs when focused on buyer initiatives and buying criteria.

Buyer insights research gains traction. Acknowledgement of changing buying behaviors is leading forward thinking marketing and sales leaders to commit to research-based buyer personas. With previous efforts based on win/loss analysis telephone calls having little impact on content marketing and lead development, the value of field qualitative research expertise is rising.

Product gives way to brand experience. Narrow initiatives around a specific product are giving way to a renewed focus on understanding the impact of brand experience. As competitive advantages wane on the playing field of products, gaining buyer insight into the impact of brand experience on buying behavior is essential.

Omni-presence is the new B2B. A significant development over the next few years will be the Omni-presence of buyers. Meaning multiple levels of buyers now being able to interact with capabilities to be everywhere at anytime. B2B companies who are still wedded to the single buyer in a single channel approach to market strategies will need to adapt – quickly.

What the above indicates is buyer insights research and buyer persona development are finding their way back to the strategy plateau they were originally intended to serve. Moving beyond a narrow focus in product marketing or content marketing, buyer insights research is maturing into a critical component of planning for B2B organizations.

Needed More Than Ever

Buyer insights research and buyer personas are needed more than ever as rapid changes in buying behavior continue unabated. B2B companies who do not invest in some form of insight-based capabilities will see themselves out-smarted by those who do. Competitive advantage by product is no longer sufficient. Insight turned into foresight is the new competitive advantage. And, this is one piece of insight B2B companies must get.

Hugh’s redneck alter ego shares his philosophy about being afraid to ask for the sale or ask for an appointment. Check out the video and hear Toby’s solution to fear of selling. Then Hugh will take over and tell you how you can take advantage of a FREE webinar that really will help you stop being afraid of sales.

CLICK HERE to register for the FREE webinar being presented on January 30, 2014 by Hugh and Jonathan Manske, The World’s Only Cerebral Sanitation Engineer. He’ll take out your head trash for you!!

Are you really being yourself on your sales calls? I know I wasn’t. Every time I made a sales call, I subconsciously became just like every other salesman. My voice changed. My tone changed. I spoke a little deeper. I became serious. I was all business, focused on getting the close. And the person on […]

A healthy, driven inbound marketing department is great, but over-reliance on inbound marketing (what I like to call “inbounditis”) negatively affects the revenue backbone of any company. In fact, it makes the whole sales pipeline sick.

The 3 major symptoms of inbounditis are: 1) deal sizes slowly decreasing as inbound leads increase, 2) high-performing reps avoiding inbound lead follow-up, and 3) the percent of sales accepted leads decrease while lead quotas increase.

If this sounds like your sales pipeline, it’s time to take action. How can you cure inbounditis? Find out in this week’s PowerMinute.

PowerMinute™ is a series of 1 minute videos produced to give you helpful tips to energize your lead generation results.

 

By Dan McDade

For three years in a row, the highly influential benchmark and advisory firm Sirius Decisions has reported that the number one revenue inhibitor in complex B2B sales environments remains the average sales person’s inability to communicate value.

You’d hope that we would have made more progress in solving this. I believe one of the reasons that we haven’t is that most of the effort has been spent focusing on the value of our solutions and not on the cost to the prospect of not dealing with the problem.

Personalising our value

Of course, we need to find effective ways of conveying the value of our solutions in ways that are personalised to each specific customer and quantified in terms that are relevant to their unique situation.

But that by itself - no matter how good we are - is not enough. We can out-execute all of our competitors in positioning our solution and communicating our value and still not get the order.

Competing against "do nothing"

One of the clues lies in another damning statistic - this time from the equally well-respected CSO Insights - who have consistently found that over 50% of forecasted sales opportunities are not closing at the time and for the value expected, if at all.

They go further to identify the prospect deciding to do nothing (rather buying from a competitor) as an increasingly common outcome. These “no decision” deals are consuming an incredible amount of wasted sales resource.

The costs and consequences of inaction

Why do so many apparently well-qualified sales opportunities end up in this state? I believe that one of the primary reasons is that the sales person failed to properly position the cost and consequences to the prospect of sticking with the status quo.

In short, sales people need to sell the value of addressing the issue before they attempt to sell the value of their solution. In fact, if the prospect’s Cost and Consequences of Inaction aren't high enough, this by itself should qualify them out, no matter how good our solution fit appears to be.

Your prospects will always have far more things they would like to do than they have the money or resources to implement. That won’t stop them looking at potential solutions - but they are unlikely to actually buy anything unless their case for change is compelling.

Critical questions

Some of the simplest, most effective questions sales people can ask are “what would happen if you did nothing about this issue” and “who else would be affected”, closely followed by “how have you tried to deal with it before” and “why is it critical you do something now?”

If we’re really determined to fix this intractable inability to communicate value, lets start by doing a better job of getting our prospect to agree that the problem is worth solving in the first place. And let’s get a whole lot smarter about qualifying out if we can’t.

One final thought

Great buildings have to be built on solid foundations - and the same is true of great sales campaigns. Establishing clear costs and consequences of inaction - and ensuring the prospect agrees them - is the essential foundation for a successful sales campaign.

We can illuminate the compelling value of our solution far more powerfully if we can relate it to the cost to the prospect of the issue we address. If we get that right, then maybe next year we can focus on eliminating a different revenue inhibitor.

As sales professionals, we’re constantly seeking new ways to learn and grow our skills. Scott Albro, Founder and CEO of TOPO, has been leading the charge on getting us to think more about the Buying Experience, or “BX.” We’ve all included some of this thinking in our sales process for many years, but Scott’s approach is new in many ways.

The traditional sales process is envisioned from our perspective, not the customer’s. But a modern BX approach is defined strictly from the perspective and experience of the buyer. Today, more than ever – when the majority of the buying process is done before prospects even contact sales people – we need to be more aware of the buyer’s experience and how we can meet their needs.

Scott’s research with Topo finds that above-average buying experiences have a huge impact on revenue growth. Companies that provide great buying experiences typically benefit from more traffic/leads, higher conversion rates, larger average deal sizes, shorter sales cycles, lower churn rates and more referrals. And improving the buyer’s experience also helps the company’s overall success, with growth rates trending more than double that of companies that provide “average” buying experiences.

The focus on BX is a new way to think about how your prospects perceive the experience of buying a product or service in your market.

The post Superior Buying Experiences Equals More Sales appeared first on KnowledgeTree.

Increasingly, brands are waning from the use of traditional advertising and taking advantage of the effectiveness and benefits of content marketing.

But what exactly is content marketing?

Content marketing is an approach to create and to share quality content to promote ideas, to educate and engage your target audience, and to encourage them to build a relationship with you. Anything from blog posts, social media posts, online videos, infographics, and much, much more are used as a means for content marketing. As well, it has become more apparent that content marketing provides a more meaningful connection with your audience, which can eventually lead to customer loyalty and sales.

So you have great content, but how do you know that you are reaching your target audience and generating leads?

1. Matching specific content to specific target audience

When you produce content for your brand, you need to remember to make it specific enough for your target audience. Think about who it is for, what solution does it offer, and how it will be packaged. Some ways you can present your content to your audience are: articles, how-to guides, online videos, white papers, webinars, and podcasts. It will result in your readers feeling more connected to what you have to say and to your brand.

Aspire, inform, and educate your readers to gain their interest and loyalty. Instead of being overly promotional about your brand, it is best to be useful, helpful, and original. The right content can move a lead further down the sales funnel and turn them into a client.

2. Don’t forget your call-to-action

A call-to-action is an essential part of content marketing. It allows for your readers to become engaged with your brand. It may involve them leaving a comment on blog posts, sharing your content via social media platforms, signing up for a newsletter to receive more information about your brand’s ongoing efforts and accomplishments, etc.

3. Collect leads’ information

After you build awareness and loyalty with your audience, it may lead to their active buying stage. With an intent to buy a product or service, they will seek out more direct information about the company and what they offer so they can find a solution. It may be as simple as having them provide their email to receive a proposal or more in-depth information, providing an email or phone number in order to speak with a representative, etc.

To bring this article around full circle, here are 13 statistics from a great article on 24 stats about the importance of content marketing, where we curated the best stats to prove content marketing generates leads:

1. Eighty percent of business decision-makers prefer to get company information in a series of articles versus an advertisement. (Source)
2. Seventy percent say content marketing makes them feel closer to the sponsoring company. (Source)
3. Sixty percent of consumers feel more positive about a company after reading custom content on its site. (Source)
3. Ninety percent of consumers find custom content useful, and 78 percent believe that organizations providing custom content are interested in building good relationships with them. (Source)
4. More than 90 percent of CMOs think custom content has a positive effect on audience attitudes, strengthening the bond with consumers. (Source)
5. According to 37 percent of marketing managers, the most important channel for engaging customers is content-led websites. (Source)
6. Seventy percent of consumers prefer getting to know a company via articles rather than ads. (Source)
7. Thirty-seven percent visit content marketing websites at least once a month. (Source)
8. Sixty-eight percent are likely to spend time reading content from a brand they are interested in. (Source)
9. Sixty percent are more likely to be on the lookout for products when looking at content marketing. (Source)
10. Content marketing costs less than traditional, outbound marketing. Statistics show that content marketing costs 62 percent less per lead than outbound marketing. (Source)
11. Thirty-seven percent of marketers say blogs are the most valuable content type for marketing. (Source)
12. Per dollar, content marketing produces roughly three times as many leads. (Source)
13. After 36 months, content marketing has generated 31 leads per $1,000 spent, more than three times as many as than the nine leads for paid search. (Source)

Last August I wrote a blog for Top Sales World titled “Lead Generation Hogwash: The Top 7 Lies.”

I detailed 7 lies to be aware of to avoid a lead generation disaster (read the blog for the specifics):

1. Any list will do.
2. Voicemails are a waste of time.
3. Outbound calling is interruption marketing.
4. Write it and they will come.
5. Automated systems accurately score (prioritize) leads.
6. Give up after 1 – 2 calls. You are better off calling someone who actually wants to talk with you.
7. More leads are better than fewer leads

I received a lot of positive feedback about the article and decided to ask our PointClear PowerViews Alumni (those who have been on the PowerViews show) for their input on the most dangerous lead gen lies out there.

Here’s what they had to say:

Ardath Albee | Marketing Interactions

A form completion is a lead. Hogwash! A form completion is an expression of potential interest in what your copy describes that the person will get in exchange for their information. Period. The only intent a person has when completing the form is to gain access to what you’ve promised. Why marketers refuse to acknowledge this reality is beyond me, but it’s also a reason that salespeople continue to ignore the leads sent to them by marketing. And, it’s irritating to your prospects. Their fear that you’ll turn on the hard sale based on that form is one reason they lie. Dirty data doesn’t help and is costly to clean up. Wouldn’t it make more sense to respect the interaction?

Craig Rosenberg | The Funnelholic

Leads suck. If a great conversion rate is 30% of leads to sales qualified leads than 7 out of 10 failed to pass through. If a six-sigma consultant looked at that type of waste, they would freak out. The truth is, it’s okay. Actually I take that back, it’s not okay if you pass those 10 leads to quota-carrying sales reps. It is okay if you filter those leads via a combination of lead nurturing and sales development (or lead qualification) before you pass to your sales team.

Paul Gillin |Paul Gillen Blog

Sales is all about value for the dollar. Value is important, but B2B buyers are often deeply invested at a personal level in the decisions they make. Jobs or even careers may be on the line, so make an effort to understand your buyers’ fears, ambitions and motivations so that you can sell a solution they can be comfortable with. Remember that they’re buying a relationship as much as a product. Are you someone they can relate to?

Ginger Conlon |DM News

One touch is enough. Reading the “7 Lies” post reminded me of a conference presentation I saw years ago. The speaker asked an attendee to hammer a nail into a board with only one strike. Of course, the speaker easily pulled out the nail. He then asked the attendee to strike the nail 12 times. The nail stuck. His point: One contact, even two or three, is rarely enough for sales or marketing to connect with customers deeply enough that there’s real interest. Consistency is essential. And today, that consistency needs to reach across channels.

Jamie Turner |60 Second Communications

Social Media Marketing is an effective lean gen channel for B2C but not as much for B2B. Au contraire – B2B companies often struggle more than B2C to create a personal brand that prospects can connect with and trust. When B2B marketers use social channels like LinkedIn and Twitter to showcase thought leadership they create an opportunity to gain credibility with key decision makers and potentially take relationships with prospects and existing customers to another level. Social is a huge door opener and a great way to participate in conversations that would otherwise never exist.

James Obermayer |Sales Lead Management Association

Jim has lies, lies and more damn lies (he provided 28, I picked my favorite 5):

1. Telemarketing doesn’t work, I get calls every night and I hate ‘em.
2. Our products are so good we don’t need leads.
3. We don’t ask qualifying questions on our web form, I hate them.
4. Marketing is a variable expense. Cut it and we’ll never miss it.
5. Those leads are a month old, they’ve already bought.

Reader, what say you? Do you agree/disagree with these lies? Any others you would add? I look forward to hearing and sharing your thoughts with our community.

In a recent blog post, Dan McDade with PointClear wrote that in “chaotic” organizations, 70%-94% of leads generated by marketing are ignored by sales reps. Dan’s statistic pertains to what he considers to be poorly-performing companies, not average firms. Nevertheless, this statistic seemed to be shockingly high, so I decided to look for other recent research regarding sales follow-up on marketing leads.

• An article at Business2Community by Sherry Lamoreaux contained a reference to a survey by CEB in which 49% of surveyed sales reps said they ignored more than half of all marketing-generated leads.
• The 2013 Lead Management Optimization survey by CSO Insights paints a slightly more positive picture. In this study, 46% of respondents said that sales reps actively pursue at least 75% of marketing-generated leads. Unfortunately, 42.6% of respondents indicated that sales reps actively pursue less than 75% of marketing generated leads.

Even if the CSO Insights study provides the most accurate view, it’s clear that there’s still a significant disconnect between marketing and sales in many companies.

Let me be blunt here. In 2014, successful B2B demand generation requires a coordinated effort by both marketing and sales, and a lack of alignment between marketing and sales is now both intolerable and inexcusable.

Marketing/Sales Misalignment is Intolerable

The lack of marketing/sales alignment is intolerable because it results in waste and significant lost revenue opportunities. As proof, consider the following research findings.

• Companies’ inability to align their marketing and sales teams around the right processes and technologies has cost them upwards of 10% or more of their total annual revenues each year. (IDC)
• Companies with highly aligned marketing and sales functions achieved an average of 32% annual revenue growth, while less well-aligned companies saw a 7% decrease in revenues. (Aberdeen Group)
• B2B companies with highly aligned marketing and sales operations achieved 24% faster three-year revenue growth, and 27% faster three-year profit growth. (SiriusDecisions)

Marketing/Sales Misalignment is Inexcusable

The lack of alignment between marketing and sales is inexcusable because the process for creating alignment is well known. The marketing/sales alignment puzzle has four major pieces.

Value Creation – This refers to how you create value for customers. Marketing and sales must be aligned on this issue because it’s the foundation of your entire demand generation system. To create alignment, marketing and sales should agree on your core go-to-market value propositions.

Target Market Definition – This includes both the kinds of organizations that will make your best prospects and the identity of the individuals within those organizations who make or influence the decision to purchase your product or service. If marketing and sales use a common target market definition, there will be fewer disagreements about the quality of leads produced by marketing.

Messaging – This refers to the content you use to tell your story to potential buyers. There is often a huge disconnect between marketing and sales when it comes to messaging. Various studies have shown that between 50% and 90% of the content resources produced by marketing are not used by sales and that sales reps spend hours every month creating their own sales materials. These problems can be avoided if marketing and sales agree on the major components of your company’s messaging.

Lead Management – In this area, alignment means that marketing and sales have agreed on:

• What constitutes a “sales-ready lead”
• How the hand-off of leads by marketing to sales will be handled
• How sales will follow up with leads supplied by marketing
• When leads will be passed by sales back to marketing for additional nurturing

None of these steps is particularly complex or difficult to implement. The only thing preventing better marketing/sales alignment is the unwillingness of marketing and sales leaders to put aside cultural baggage and take the necessary steps. The time for lame excuses is over.

The New Year often brings new models, new gadgets, new and improved services and items to sell. Is your sales kickoff rolling out the latest and greatest function and feature of the product you’re selling in 2014?

Don’t fall into this trap.

Salespeople are often enticed by the magic bullet product feature. They fall victim to the new shiny feature, and spend their sales conversations touting that knock-out function that makes their solution stand out in the eyes of the customer. It’s a classic symptom of Seller Deficit Disorder.

If you’re a veteran seller, and many of you are, you know that product uniqueness is fleeting. What’s unique today will often be copied tomorrow by your competition. If you rely solely on the latest and greatest feature of your products, you are crippling your longevity with a customer. It may work once, but good luck when it’s time to renew with the customer. You’ll need another magic bullet or you’ll be forced to lower your price.

Instead, focus your sales conversation on your defensible differentiators – those characteristics that drive long-lasting customer value and repeat business. Being able to articulate your differentiation is a critical component to effective sales messaging. In order to create value for the customer, you need to be able to show that what you’re selling:

1. Maps to the prospect’s required capabilities
2. Achieves the positive business outcomes he/she is looking to achieve
3. Does both of these differently and/or better than the competition

Make these differentiators DEFENSIBLE, by providing evidence that backs up their credibility to your claims. Give tangible evidence that your solution does what you claim. Provide the proof with metrics and proof points.

Drill down on the positive business outcomes of your solution. Always look for specific measurable results – in dollars, numbers or percentages – when gathering evidence on the impact of your product and services.

Third-party testimonials can also help you demonstrate defensible differentiation. Don’t make your customer “take your word for it.” Give them third-party references that show your differentiation.

Proof points are one of the most effective components of the sales conversation, and they make your job as a seller a lot easier, especially when it comes to articulating value and differentiation. Create a process to consistently gather proof from your customers. The more you’re able to show the tangible results you achieved for another customer, the more your prospects will see the value in doing business with you.

Only in travel can you see the world in the nuanced way. But Don DeLillo warns you against it. Either way, read this infographic to learn more about it.

On a recent post examining the bribery that is going on over at Empire Avenue, reader Shawn Manaher asks:

“Do you feel paying for any kind of traffic to a website or social media post is appropriate at any time or any level? Just wondering if you feel that there is something inherently wrong with that or not?”

If you care about marketing and love social media, you are probably raising the roof with a resounding “NOOO!”

And, as much as I would like that to be the answer, I owe you intellectual honesty on this blog and the answer is YES — it might make sense to cheat the system — in one situation.

Faking your way to superstardom

Buying fake followers or bribing people for traffic will not provide long-term sustainable business benefits, but it can effectively do one thing: Build a short-term image of power, authority and popularity.

Several years ago, a social media celebrity confessed to me that he was a fake. He had purchased more than 100,000 empty Twitter followers on eBay. He organized a scheme on Empire Avenue to “like” his Facebook page and share his blog post. He even lied about having a book contract to create a facade of importance. He built a profitable speaking career on the foundation of pure fabrication. So, faking it worked … but we’ll return to his story in a minute.

Numbers matter

Truth is, people may perceive the value of an individual (or even a business) based only on the numbers — followers, friends, tweets, likes. Why? Because in our hurried world, these numbers are shortcuts to help us decide what to do and who to listen to. This is a well-known psychological concept – people believe something because there is a signal that other people are thinking something or doing something and that gives the content, idea, or individual credibility.

It’s a fundamental human process to assign legitimacy, validity, and value to those things we believe that other people are assigning value to, whether it is true or not.

It’s easy to be a fake

Perhaps you’re upset by people blatantly cheating their way to fame. The Internet offers an unprecedented opportunity to manufacture social proof through tricks and devices. It’s possible to market your own prominence through strategies that don’t have anything to do with real insight, authority or value.

Because of the Internet’s vast ability to grant social proof, and our willingness to accept that evidence as truth, the talent to manufacture social proof can be a legitimate source of online influence – even apart from an individual’s actual experience, ability, or personal accomplishments. 

That might sound icky, but the answer to my blog reader is “yes.” There is some value to bribing or paying for social proof because on one level that might be all that people care about.

In the short term.

Let’s go back to my friend’s story. The reason he was telling me that he was a fake was because he was also saying farewell.

In the short-term he was able to fake his legitimacy through lies but eventually, his customers expected him to deliver the goods. Real value. Real insight. The pressure to keep his real world in line with his fake world became unbearable. He was beginning to fail so miserably that he decided to drop off the Internet altogether. He folded up his fake tent and got a “real job.”

The courage to be real

I would like to end this post with an appeal for you to stay strong, stay centered, and avoid the easy temptation of faking it. Yes, being honest is the right thing to do, but there are solid business reasons for this, too:

1. I sincerely believe that in the long-term, true authority and expertise will rise to the top. That’s why I don’t get upset when I see people cheating the system. In the short term you can fool a few people but in the long term, the real people will win. Do the hard work. Earn those readers, followers, and likes the old fashioned way.
2. Building your social proof in an organic and honest way drives the right business behaviors. You will have to learn, adjust, adopt, and deliver value to create REAL social validation. Cheating is lazy and an addiction that will ruin your business.
3. Finally, we should all be concerned about staying relevant and standing out in a crowded market. I believe one of the ways to do that is through radical honesty. These days, it is so easy to be a fake, and so common to be a fake, that the people who have the courage to be honest will be rewarded.

At least that’s what I’m counting on. And I know I’m right. So hang tough {grow} people. Let’s support each other and grow our businesses the honest way. Agree?

Illustration courtesy BigStock.com

The post The business case for cheating your way to social media superstardom appeared first on Schaefer Marketing Solutions: We Help Businesses {grow}.

I want to believe.

The forecasts for wearable computing are remarkable. The headline in Wired declared, “Wearable Tech Will Be as Big as the Smartphone,” but the article went even further:

“We’re...seeing an explosion of these devices on the market.... A new device revolution is at hand...wearable devices are poised to push smartphones aside.” (link)

So wearables aren’t just a new market, they’re the replacement for the smartphone.

The article acknowledges that may seem like an outlandish prediction, but argues:

“It may seem laughable to suggest that people will soon neglect their iPhones in favor of amped-up watches, eyeglasses, rings, and bracelets. But then again, 10 years ago it seemed laughable to think that people would use their smartphones to email, surf the web, play games, watch videos, keep calendars, and take notes.”

Just for the record, ten years ago the PalmOne website told people they could use their Treo smartphones to do e-mail, surf the web, play games, watch live TV, keep calendars, and yes, take notes. It didn’t work as well then as it does now, of course, but people weren’t just thinking about doing those tasks on smartphones ten years ago, they were doing them.

It makes you wonder if Wired’s editors are all under age 25 or stricken with a tragic case of group amnesia. But I digress.

I’m a gadget guy. I love devices, and I especially love the emergence of a new computing platform, because it creates so much opportunity for developers and so much innovation for customers. So the idea of getting in on another new platform is incredibly enticing to me. If you work in technology, it should be exciting to you too.

But precisely because a wearable revolution would be so enticing, we should be super-careful that we don’t get swept away by optimistic groupthink. For every computing revolution I’ve lived through, I’ve seen several others that arrived decades late or fizzled out entirely.

So while my heart wants to drink the wearable Kool-Aid right now, my head says to step back, think about it, and ask if the foundations really exist yet for a new computing revolution.

So far, my head is winning. I do believe wearable computing has a bright future, and in some vertical markets it’s already taking off. But is it the successor to the smartphone? Not now, and maybe not ever. Here’s why.


Two fatal flaws

I think there are two big problems with wearable computing today. First, the term is a catch-all, not a category. Second, even if you get the definition right, I think we haven’t yet found the killer app.

What is wearable computing, really? The term is kind of self-referential: wearable computing is computing gear that you wear. It attaches to your body or clothing, like a pair of glasses or a watch or a brooch. But those are extremely different form factors. I’m a Google Glass user and I’ve followed smart watches ever since Fossil worked on its late, lamented Palm OS watch in the early 2000s. Watches and glasses are completely different beasts, with different usage patterns and very different strengths. Grouping watches and glasses together in a single category makes as much sense as grouping together missiles and cargo planes and calling them flyable devices. The label is factually correct but meaningless in terms of predicting how the market will develop.

So rather than talking about a wearable revolution, we should be asking if there’s a smart watch revolution or a smart glasses revolution coming. When you look at the world that way, it gets a bit less exciting, because you see the weaknesses in each category of product.

Will wearables eat the smartphone? The tech industry is always full of predictions that some new type of device is about to swallow another one. It’s called convergence, and I’ve been hearing about it ever since the late 1980s, when Apple strategist Ken Lim started talking about it.

But there are always many more convergence predictions than actual convergence events. In an example of successful convergence, home stereo systems used to consist of separate modules: disc player, amp, tuner, etc. They eventually converged to a single unit for many buyers.

On the other hand, for decades many computer manufacturers predicted the imminent merger of the printer and personal computer. Converged computer/printers were promoted heavily in Japan, and several prominent efforts were made to bring them to Europe and the US. They all failed. Today PCs and printers are still separate devices.

Why do tech products sometimes converge and sometimes not? The general pattern is that devices converge only when the merged product is a fully-functional substitute for the devices being replaced. So smartphones rapidly killed the PDA because they could do everything a PDA could. Printers and PCs never converged because making a combined PC and printer required some pretty heavy compromises on the quality of the printer. Instead, printers merged with scanners and fax machines, which did not require major compromises. The only place where converged PC-printers got serious traction was Japan, where desk space is sometimes at such a premium that people were willing to accept a lower-quality printer in exchange for a smaller footprint.

So, for smart glasses or smart watches to replace smartphones, they have to be able to take over all of the functions of smartphones, without a major loss in functionality. Can they do that? Absolutely not.  The screen is too small on a watch to browse, and smart glasses lack the touch controls that would let you control a browser or sophisticated app.

Even more importantly, neither device has the battery power needed to function as your full-time phone. In fact, today most of them rely on the smartphone to give you wide-area connectivity when you’re on the go. In other words, they are smartphone accessories, not replacements.

I can imagine a future wearable product that could do a lot more. You could browse the web or run a complex app if the glasses or watch had a full gesture-driven interface (something like Leap Motion, not the awkward stem-swiping interface of Glass). And eventually batteries will become powerful enough that a small one fitting in a watch or glasses could power a cellular radio for a full day. But that will require at least several years of development, plus a significant breakthrough in battery chemistry that can’t be forecasted. We’ve been waiting for it in smartphones for more than a decade; don’t hold your breath. By the time it happens, we’ll have bendable screens, and we’ll be able to create smartphones that collapse down to the size of a roll of LifeSavers candy.

So the real competition to a smartphone-replacing watch or pair of glasses is probably a smartphone so small that you can wear it on a cord around your neck or wrist. Everything eventually gets small enough that it’s wearable, and yeah I guess you can call that a wearable computing revolution. But it won’t happen this year, it won’t happen next, and we may all be quite a bit older and grayer before it becomes practical.

Where’s the killer app? If glasses and watches can’t replace a smartphone in the foreseeable future, the other way they’ll get broad adoption is if they do something else that a smartphone can’t do at all, or cannot do as well. This is the way most major computing platforms get started: They enable something new and compelling, people buy them for that purpose, and the devices then branch out into other usages. Mainframes started as military calculators. PCs started as word processing and spreadsheet machines, BlackBerry started as an e-mail pager, and the iPhone started as a phone that could also browse well and play music.

What’s the compelling, broadly appealing usage that could drive adoption of a smart watch or glasses? So far I don’t think there is one.

I’ve been playing with Glass for weeks now, and have put a lot of apps on it. It’s a bold experiment, I applaud Google for trying it, and there are some things I really like about it. I had tried camera glasses before, but without a screen you couldn’t tell where the camera was pointed. People often move their eyes rather than their heads, so a camera focused straight ahead often doesn’t show what the user is looking at. Because there’s a screen in Glass (and a surprisingly bright, readable screen at that), you can see exactly what you’re photographing. The sound playback also works surprisingly well (sound recording sucks in a noisy environment).

But for me, the negatives outweigh the positives. Battery life is very short, and the user interface based on swiping the stem of the glasses is alarmingly nonintuitive and limited (it’s like trying to have a conversation where you can only say “yes” or “no”). The spoken commands work a bit better, but I’m not comfortable speaking to my glasses in public, and I doubt most other people will be either.

But the biggest problem is that none of the apps I’ve seen so far makes me want to wear Glass on a regular basis. The apps are vaguely interesting, and the geek in me enjoys playing with them. But I’m not getting the sort of big revelatory feeling I had when I first used PageMaker on the Mac, or when I first browsed the web on an iPhone.
   
We have seen some traction for wearable devices in vertical markets, especially sports and health. Smart watches and other wearable fobs are a great way to track your exercise, and sports goggles are a cool way to make videos of your ski runs. It’s very telling that these devices have sold well on their own, without any need for hype or even a heavy marketing budget. That’s what happens when you find the right app -- it takes off on its own.

Unfortunately, fitness is too narrow a vertical to carry a platform to the takeoff point. You may get nice sales for the company that made a device, but the installed base of devices won’t get big enough to attract a large group of third party developers who then create the apps that take the device horizontal.

The main horizontal usage for wearables that’s being advocated today is notifications. You can configure Glass to show incoming messages, and most of the smart watches can display things like caller ID for your smartphone. The idea is to let you consume (and send) small amounts of text and images without taking out your smartphone. To save a few seconds per notification, you have to pay for a separate device, learn to use it, and remember to recharge it every night.  Will the benefit exceed the cost and hassle for tens of millions of people?

It’s been tried before. Does anybody remember Spot, the smart watch platform Microsoft promoted in the mid-2000s? You could configure the watches to give you notifications, headlines, and messages, and they didn’t even require a smartphone because they received notifications from sideband FM broadcasts. Despite a hefty Microsoft investment and several licensees building devices, Spot went splat in the market.

That does not mean notification wearables are destined to fail forever. Many tech product categories fail repeatedly before they succeed. But Spot did prove, very decisively, that just adding notifications to a wearable device won’t drive demand. There’s some additional step of clever software, improved user interface, or integration with other products that’s needed to make the app a killer.

If it can become a killer at all.

So the reality is that today’s forecasts of a wearable explosion are based on faith, not analysis. If you believe a wearable killer app is coming, then it’s easy to convince yourself that many millions of these things will be sold. I want to believe that too. But I think I need to see the app first.

Sales forecasting is tricky. But to your board and executive team, it’s an absolute necessity. Proper forecasting involves mapping your deals, identifying trends and reading customers correctly.

Fortunately, there is a science of forecasting, but don’t let it overwhelm you and force you into making these common mistakes:

#4 (Mistake): You Forecast Sales Based On Your Own Timelines

Wrong. Your quota and personal pressures have no place being pushed on your customers. I see this all the time. You haven’t closed four deals all quarter, but you’re going to close 5 on the last day? Focus on your buyer’s needs and the timeline of their journey…not yours.

At SalesLoft we have two tiers of opportunities: those just created and those above 30%. Nothing under 30% has a timeline on it forcing our reps to work hard to understand true schedules.

#3 (Mistake) – You Assume Discounts and Incentives Will Speed Up Your Buyer’s Decision.

Remember nothing is going to happen until you align with your buyer’s objectives. It’s a waste of a good offer to incentivize clients before you’ve gotten deeper into the sales cycle.

There’s a tendency to assume buyers are stalling or confused because of price. It’s your job to find out the true root cause. You’ll only find trouble by trying to close too early.

#2 (Mistake) – You Haven’t Created Repeatable Milestones For Effective Sales

We’re not just talking about those drop down “stages” in Salesforce.

Whether it’s procurement, approval, funding, or my favorite – on-boarding success…establishing your personal “routine steps” for each sales process will create predictability and forecast-ability.

Unfortunately, the most common forecasts I see are lists of what the seller has done (found the decision maker, mapped the organization, demo, proposal, etc) and not what their prospects are doing.

#1 (Mistake) – You Don’t Constantly Refine Your Forecasts

Of course you update your forecasts the night before the sales meeting, but just how often do you reflect on them and adjust the timeline? All forecasts are just snapshots in time.

One great idea is to automate an email to hit your inbox daily with a dashboard of your current pipeline (pulled from CRM). This will keep your opportunities well groomed and up-to-date.

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Avoiding these mistakes will allow you to better deal with customers and understand what you to expect in various situations. Most importantly, you’ll be able to share timelines with the executive team.

So sales managers: what other big mistakes do reps make when forecasting?

You have been waiting. You have been watching. You have been considering whether or not social sales may be right for you and … now you are ready to start out your 2014 by jumping in! Excellent! Here are 10 tips to get you started. 1. It’s what you do, and who you are, already! … Continue Reading

10 Tips for Getting Started With Social Sales On [Insert Network Name] by Craig Jamieson - Maximize Social Business - Maximize Social Business - Your Social Media for Business Resource . This copyrighted content was originally published on Maximize Social Business and may not be republished on any other website or in any other format without explicit permission from the publisher.

It is challenging and stressful to get a new sales position – even if you already work for the company in another position, or if you already have been in sales elsewhere and consider yourself a pretty good seller.  Once the excitement wears down a bit, there are real issues about ramp up and metrics and productivity that a sales position can’t hide like other positions in a company.

The reason it can be hard is because you want to learn only the things that are important to you becoming a competent sales rep in the new position you’re at. You want to get rid of anything in your brain that will not help you, and there is no shortage of information coming at you now, right?

If you consider yourself a sponge in the first year at your new position, you will have the opportunity to learn much more than someone who come in or transfers over thinking they know it all.

We see this in training sessions quite often – people come in with their arms crossed tight. That body language is telling – it says – “I’m closed to what you are talking about”. One of my top goals when working with sellers is to see their arms uncrossed eventually. I have shown them something they can believe and know that I’m there to help them grow revenues.

Back to sponges -

Be sure to not be a dirty old kitchen sponge – those sponges absorb liquid and are used for cleaning.

Be a natural sponge, like the one pictured. Here is what is so great about them -

The aquatic invertebrate called the sponge draws in a current of water to extract nutrients and oxygen.

That’s the sponge to be when you are ramping up your knowledge – you’re drawing in many ideas and skills then extracting what will sustain your success in selling. You can do this in four main ways -

Watch what the most successful sellers in your company do.  Mega author and success guru Anthony Robbins has said this for years. Find people who are the best at what they do and use them as examples.

Learn what others in your industry are doing – this includes competitors as well as industry experts.

Study the components of salespersonship.  Become an expert in communication, human psychology, change, and motivation.

Read anything you can get your hands on that could positively support your role.

This means taking an optimistic approach with a realistic mindset. The best sellers are grounded in both being upbeat and forward thinking but also not so optimistic that they miss seeing real challenges to overcome.

Lori Richardson is recognized as one of the “Top 25 Sales Influencers for 2013″ and one of “20 Women to Watch in Sales Lead Management for 2013″. Lori speaks, writes, trains, and consults with inside and outbound sellers in technology and services companies. Subscribe to the award-winning blog and the “Sales Ideas In A Minute” newsletter for sales strategies, tactics, and tips in selling. Increase Opportunities. Expand Your Pipeline. Close More Deals.

email  lori@scoremoresales.com | View  My LinkedIn

The post Inside Sales Power Tip 148 – Be a Sponge appeared first on Score More Sales.

This guide is not for big old vendors or inside sales; this guide is for tech founders of enterprise software startups looking for outside sales people to generate millions of dollars for the company year in and year out.

Here are nine things to look for to find the A-team sales guys for your company.

1. Track record. This is easy with sales guys: You can see how much they've sold in past years, but don't make the mistake of being too metrics-driven. Selling a hot product for a big brand in a booming market is relatively easy compared to breaking into a new market for an unknown startup. More importantly, being too metrics-driven can blind you to the other attributes. Would you hire a developer simply on how many lines of code they deliver?

2. Passion. Entrepreneurs talk a lot about the need for passion—for good reason, as passion is typically what sustains a business through tough times—but too many entrepreneurs think, when it comes to sales, they should hire cynical mercenaries who can "sell ice-cream to eskimos." That may work for the big old vendors, but it fails in the startup world where intelligent customers can smell the BS. Team building between developers and sales, based on mutual trust and shared interests, is the true key to success here.

3. Integrity. Here is a bit of timeless wisdom from Warren Buffet: He advises that, when hiring, you should look for brains, energy, and integrity. But if the people you find don't have integrity, the other two qualities will kill you. Unfortunately, there is no magic trick for spotting integrity. Sure, do background checks, but it's important to also be human and trust your instincts.

4. Intelligence. Enterprise sales using disruptive technology is complex, and it requires intelligence to understand the nuances of the enterprise needs and how they relate to a rapidly evolving technology.

5. Empathy. The ability to relate to other people at a human level is essential to sales. This is not a technique, it is a human quality that is probably a mix of genetics and early childhood learning. 

6. Great questions. The great sales guys are not looking for a job, they are looking for great products to sell. Do their questions reveal an understanding of the dynamics of your market? Are they prepared? Have they done their research? Are the questions boilerplate, or specific to what you do? What they ask in an interview will indicate what they will ask on a sales call, which segues to point No. 7.

7. Listening. Great sales people use their two ears more often than their one mouth. If you listen well—really attentively with great questions—the prospect will reveal the key driver for the sale. The rest is easy.

8. Energy. The road is long and hard, and you will need physical energy. Hire sportsmen who know about discipline (e.g. in diet), how to endure pain, and how to do what it takes to win.

9. Ambition. Call it drive mixed with passion. You want people who will bounce back the next day after a crushing defeat.

Reeling In Your Players

We've only explained how you find A-team players; how do you make sure you actually get them? Here are four tips that might help:

1. Invest your time. Hiring is your most important job. Take the time to interview several candidates; cast a wide net. As a side benefit, interviewing a lot of smart people is a great way to learn more about your market. Spend lots of face-to-face time with candidates on your short list. Meet with their references—note: meet, not email, not phone. Meet with their family and friends, if it's possible and not too creepy.

2. Don't compromise to "fill a slot." Hiring for the sake of hiring may allow you to check off that empty box, but hiring the wrong person will create 10 more boxes to check off if you get it wrong. Don't be afraid to delay until you find and draw the best possible person.

3. Use onboarding wisely. All that talk about taking your time can lead to analysis paralysis, while speed is of the essence in almost any startup. Most headhunters will give you a three-month money back guarantee and a three-month probation period in an offer. You don't want to make a hiring mistake, but you have three months to spot any mistakes and course-correct without too high a cost.

4. Focus hard on building a win/win compensation plan. That is, a win for the company and a win for the employee. This is hard to do right. Even good compensation plans get gamed, which is why Buffet's advice about integrity is so critical. Be generous, but also demanding.

Balancing Speed With Efficacy

The biggest mistake many entrepreneurs make is not hiring appropriate to the lifestage of the venture.

Don't rush to replace the passion and creativity of the founders—which got those critical and tough early deals—with too much process too soon.

Everybody wants process—for the other guy!

Developers want to see sales guys follow a process, so that they sell what can be delivered. Sales guys also want developers to follow a process so that they get quality deliveries on time. Both tend to underestimate the amount of art versus science in the other person’s job. That lack of respect can lead to toxic behaviour that damages the business.

When you see how the truly great developers are not just a little more productive than the average developer—or even two times more productive, but 10 times more productive—you would be crazy to load process onto their creativity.

Working with armies of average developers requires boatloads of process, but that is typically the maintenance type of work sent offshore. It is all about where you are in the lifecycle. Early in the lifecycle, you want to give individual creativity full reign. A bit later you have some light processes for small teams—that is what being agile is all about. In the latter stages it is all about metrics and scalable, repeatable processes. You move from artisan to factory worker.

The same is true in sales. By the time the product is a market leader in a big mature market, the sales teams need lots of process. You can visit the sales teams of companies like Oracle and IBM to find out how to do this well. However, if you are bringing a new product to market, you need to unleash the creative drive of a few great thought-leadership sales people.

Vivek Ranadive, the great entrepreneur who built Teknekron and later TIBCO, understood this concept better than most. He believed it was better to find the stars, to set out a few clear rules, give them good incentives and then give them a lot of free reign. I am sure TIBCO does not work that way today since it is a more mature company these days, but that's how it worked when they were building the huge value that you see today.

Startups need thought-leadership selling because “you have to capture mindshare before you capture market share.” That may sound like marketing, but the thought-leader salespeople are also marketers. They don’t expect brochures and canned messages to deliver; they create the messages based on a thoughtful synthesis of their company’s value proposition and the pain they hear from the market. Startups need to see evidence of that kind of thought-leadership selling before hiring decisions can be made.

Image from Ocean's Eleven (1960) under fair use

Do you feel tired over the many things that can go wrong in your IT lead generation campaigns? How about feeling incompetent when trying to close a deal with IT sales leads?

Surely, you are wondering what you are doing wrong during the meeting. But that should not seriously bother you. You see, this is also the same problems that other businesses experience when dealing with the IT and software industry. Basically, you might be committing a mistake in your marketing process. And while it is true that there are so many errors that you can possibly make, there are three major ones that you have to deal with fast:

For starters, you might think that you have given your B2B leads prospects all the information they need. For example, you provide customized mobile applications for businesses. Sounds complete, right? Unfortunately, that is not the case at all. You just gave your prospects an idea of what you can do. What is missing here is the connection between you and your prospects, and why they should be doing business with you in the first place. Now, that would require a little more active discussion with them, probably over the course of a couple of days. This is just to get the whole idea of your business to sink in. A little patience and you might be able to reach your goals.

Second, you might fail to defend a higher price tag with the vision you have in mind. You see, a successful business is one that not only solves the pain faced by your business prospects, but also able to provide a totally different experience to their customer. Usually, this would require a higher price, since you provide a better service after all. That would require you to fully itemize the benefits that your prospects can enjoy from your business. Yes, it might be hard to do, but with the right explanation, you can make them see reason. It helps if you have a competent telemarketing team to help you.

Third and last, you forget that every time you talk to your prospects is a time for negotiations. Every time you spend with a business prospect is an opportunity for you to share your vision of the future with them. If you can explain to them why you are their best choice, then they will come to you. But you can only do that if you truly spend time with them, learning more about their pain, understanding what solutions you can provide, as well as identify business opportunities along the way. These take time, and a lot of patience. Still, if you can work on it well, then you will be able to make them see what you mean. It would be a boost to your B2B appointment setting then when that happens.

Well, if you can avoid these mistakes during your B2B appointment setting campaign, you will be able to reach your marketing numbers better. Be aware of these and be a more effective marketer.

This content originally appeared at The Three Mistakes When Negotiating With IT Sales Leads

Someone recently asked me what is the path to becoming a sales professional that employers want to hire.

Study greatness. Be great.

It is pretty straightforward I replied. Study greatness. Be great. Watch what elite salespeople do to be successful. Read about their habits. Get training. Then commit to doing whatever it takes to be successful yourself. Get better rest. Get up earlier. Eat well. Prepare better. Listen more carefully. Make more calls. Work a better plan. Close a lot of business. Whatever it takes. Be great.

Image via Stuart Miles | freedigitalphotos.net

Whether you’re managing sales for a large enterprise organization, or are trying to build business for your own one-man-shop, these tips should help guide your thinking, strategy and action when building and managing a bigger sales pipeline.

Why do you need a pipeline in the first place?

• Most leads aren’t sales-ready: Whether you’re sending out campaigns or fielding inbound calls, as little as 15 percent of your leads are going to be both qualified and sales-ready. The majority of your leads may be qualified, but they’re not ready to be worked into an active buying cycle. You need a pipeline that can triage and communicate with these prospects accordingly.
• You can’t focus on everything: You simply cannot keep everything in your head. Notebooks and post-its on your computer monitor aren’t going to help either. You need a system to manage lead volume, status, next steps, reminders, etc. for you. Your time, right now, is best spent on the best prospects, ready to take the next step. Let your pipeline manage the rest of the work for you.
• The right message at the right time: With every stage of the buying process, your prospects will want (and accept) different things from you. This includes type of information, frequency of contact, and channel(s) used to communicate. By using a pipeline with defined stages, most of this thinking is already done for you. You simply execute.
• Maximum sales, minimal work: An effective sales pipeline strategy will help you get the maximum sales and conversion from your prospects, while doing as little work as possible. It’s not about being lazy or taking shortcuts, it’s about working smarter and respecting your buyers. And it works.

How to approach your sales pipeline:

• It’s a pipeline, but your prospects shouldn’t know that: The last thing you want to do is make your prospects feel like they’re in some kind of sales funnel. Don’t treat them like a number, and don’t force them to go faster than they’re willing or ready to go. An effective sales pipeline will nurture prospects on their time with occasional offers to let them self-select into a more active communication and buying cycle.
• DO NOT SELL: Seriously, especially in the early stages when prospects aren’t ready to buy. Instead – add value, educate, connect and empower. Become a trusted adviser for your prospects, someone they know won’t sell them something they don’t need or that won’t benefit them. The more you build value, the more your prospects will look forward to hearing from you.
• Automate as much as you can: This means reminders for next steps, the next steps themselves (based on activity triggers), content templates you can quickly customize for individual prospects, etc. Custom communication is important, but if you understand your customer base, there’s plenty to templatize and automate to save you significant time and hassle as you execute.
• Differentiate from competitors: As you build value and communicate with prospects all along the sales pipeline, also build differentiation and preference for you and your products/services. Don’t slam competitors, and in most cases don’t even address them directly. But make it clear that you’re special. You’re different. Differentiation and preference will lead to action and decision in your favor.

Key strategies for effective pipeline execution:

• Use a lead management system: At minimum, make sure you have a CRM system that integrates contacts, accounts and sales opportunities in one place. Salesforce.com does a great job of this, but may be too much for small businesses. For smaller or early-stage organizations, I’d also recommend PipelineDeals or Highrise.
• Clearly define lead & opportunity stages: Define not only the stages your prospects go through (from the very beginning, nurture stages through to the sale), but also define your communication strategy at each stage – what do they get, how often, in what format, etc. Defining this up front will make decisions and actions both faster and more successful as you execute (especially if you have a team where common definitions are critical).
• Focus on great content: Be remarkable. Be educational. Make yourself required-reading for your prospects. Teach them how to do their jobs better, how to live their lives better. Great content, especially in today’s information-overload world, can be a powerful differentiator and attractor of new business.
• Make it easy for prospects to move forward: Give your prospects ample chances to “raise their hand” to move forward more actively into the buying stages. Create offers that inherently mean they’re interested in moving forward – price estimator tools, free trials, buying guides, etc. Integrate these offers into your other content, putting the prospect in control of taking the next step. If you’ve done your work up front – building value, differentiation, preference – they’ll come to you to buy far more often.

Every year sales pundits offer their best guesses about the year ahead. Are they right? Who knows. We rarely revisit past predictions.

That's why I've never much liked them ... until I read a Making Predictions Makes You Learn Better by Annie Murphy Paul. In essence, research shows that it's really not the prediction that counts. It's the thinking process that goes into it -- and the resulting curiosity to find if what you've guessed is right/wrong that really matters. 

So here's my 2014 sales prediction:

And, it's very much related to my new book, Agile Selling, which I've been thinking about for two years now: 

In today's ever-changing business world, sellers are now the key differentiator. Not your products. Not your services. YOU!

And, in 2014, sellers who are agile learners will dominate. Their mindset, combined with their ability to rapidly assimilate new knowledge and acquire new skills will enable them to win significantly more and better deals. 

But what's more important is YOUR 2014 prediction.

• What do you think will happen? 
• What changes are occurring? 
• What does that mean for sellers?  

You'll get smarter by peering into the future and venturing a guess. And, we'll get smarter from pondering what you predict. 

Today’s guest post is from Liza Sperling from ClearSlide. The “how-to” series on the Funnelholic has done really well and Clearslide has a lot of buzz. It’s a great match! BTW, Liza is like a ball of energy if you ever get the chance to meet her.

It’s go time. After weeks of research, emails and phone calls, it’s time for the sales presentation. Whether you are presenting virtually or face to face, sales presentations can feel more like a land mine than an opportunity, but presentations are a more critical part of the sales process than ever. As Forrester‘s Lori Wizdo explains, buyers now spend anywhere from two thirds to 90% of the sales process on their research before reaching out to a vendor. That means sellers need to take their presentations to another level to leverage the narrow window of opportunity and engage a far more educated buyer. Follow these ten steps, and you’ll be in great shape.

1. Maximize your selling time by minimizing technical issues.

Don’t spend your time troubleshooting technical issues or dodging firewalls or worse yet, have your prospect spend their time with these issues. A link-based presentation platform will help you avoid download snafus. All attendees need is a browser and a link to join the presentation – that’s it. ClearSlide’s technology is seamless, so that you can focus on one thing: engaging your audience.

2. Upload and organize content.

You can upload more than just Powerpoint. Make sure you include videos and images. You may also want to sync your ClearSlide account with your storage site of choice, including Google Drive, Dropbox or Box.

 3. Start your presentation in one click with Start Live Pitch.

See that blue button below? Click it. You are live and ready to go.

4. If you are presenting online, simply share your “viewer’s link” with your audience.

In this case the viewer’s link is clearslide.com/yourname.

Pro-tip: If you are presenting in-person, you may want to use ClearSlide Remote. You’ll have access to all of your content in the palm of your hand. ClearSlide is “device agnostic” so you can participate or present on all mobile devices. If you meet a prospect at a conference, you can call up a presentation and pitch them live.

5. Expect the unexpected, and prepare accordingly.

Smart sales people always plan for tough questions and objections. You should organize your content around these objections, so that you can easily respond immediately to requests for testimonials, case studies or product detail.

6. It’s a conversation, not a presentation.

A great presentation is a dynamic conversation and requires communication. That means letting the conversation and your customers’ needs drive the flow, not the deck marketing rolled out at the last sales kickoff. Don’t stick to the usual powerpoint slides. Include different types of content like videos, images, animation and live websites. If there’s a question about a vertical or calculating ROI, respond with a video of your customer answering that question.

7. One size does not fit all. Ditch the elevator pitch.

Most customers have done their homework before a sales presentation and don’t want to hear the boilerplate pitch. Tailor your content to the specific audience and to their reaction and questions. Remember “Choose Your Own Adventure” stories? Your presentations should develop in a similar way. Toggle to the specific piece of content you need precisely when you need it. Do a deeper dive on areas that resonate with your audience and skip the content that doesn’t resonate. Scripts are important for training and familiarizing yourself with new subject matter, but a sales presentation requires a genuine conversation and the ability to partner with your audience to “choose your own adventure”.

8. REPEAT.

Now that you are on a roll, don’t lose your momentum. Don’t stop to log your activities into your CRM. ClearSlide has you covered, and your activities will be automatically logged into your CRM. Can’t remember if you covered pricing or shared a case study? Don’t worry,the pitch recap captures the history of all content covered down to the second.

9. Strike a pose – a “power pose.”

Your mom was right. Sitting up straight matters. Amy Cuddy’s research on body language asserts that we can change other people’s perceptions – and even our own body chemistry – simply by shifting our body into positions associated with dominance and power. She suggests “power posing”: stand up, expand and uncross your arms and legs.

10. Have fun.

Too often this advice is lost on presenters who are focused on the content or technical hurdles. but if you are not having fun, your viewers are sleeping or miserable. You know your content, you have eliminated technical hurdles, so now it’s your job to enjoy the conversation. Fun is the result of being in your sweet spot. Do you remember the last time you saw a presenter have fun? I took this photo of Kathy Sierra presenting at Hubspot’s Inbound conference. Kathy was having fun. She knows her subject matter and loves sharing it while striking a power-pose. Kathy was not trying to sell anything but an idea, but she could have sold each member of the audience a pony during that 45 minute session. Now that’s fun.

Now it’s your turn. If you’ve made it this far, you are ready. You’ve got this.

 

Liza Sperling is the Evangelist at ClearSlide, where she drives thought leadership, industry partnerships and influencer relationships. Prior to ClearSlide, Liza focused on growing market share at three software startups, all of which were acquired. With 15+ years of experience launching, marketing and selling enterprise technology and managing strategic relationships to drive revenue, Liza has a proven track record of driving measurable success both in Silicon Valley and on Wall Street.

Craig Rosenberg is the Funnelholic and a co-founder of Topo. He loves sales, marketing, and things that drive revenue. Follow him on Google+ or Twitter

 

I love talking Sales Management and New Business Development, and this fun, quick-htting interview on Joe McGonigal’s podcast was absolutely a blast. We jammed a ton of value and ideas into this brief conversation. Whether you’re a senior executive, sales leader or individual producer, you’ll be challenged and entertained. I shared blunt thoughts on topics ranging from the lack of sales mentors today to the importance of strategically segmenting customers and target prospects, and also offered some practical, easy tips to sharpen your sales story.

Thanks to Joe for inviting me to contribute, and for sharing his passion and expertise about Sales as well.

Click the image to link over to the podcast:

On Bad Intentions in Sales is a post from: The Sales Blog | S. Anthony Iannarino

Your language and body language project your intentions, whether or not you are conscious of this fact or whether or not you want your intentions known.

My friend Charlie Green’s trust equation suggests that the more self-oriented you are, the less you are trusted. What makes you self-oriented? What signals bad intentions?

• Pitching your product instead of trying to help your client produce better results is self-oriented. It says to your dream client that you are more concerned with your deal than their results.
• Mentioning your company’s profitability or your personal commission reeks of self-orientation. It betrays that you are more concerned with your gain than your clients.
• Not really listening is an indication that what you have to say next is more important than what your client just said. You may not believe that they can feel that, but it hits your prospective client like a hammer.
• There aren’t too many things you can do that will betray your bad intentions more than old school closing behaviors. Asking for commitments that you haven’t earned signals bad intentions.

Sometimes we appear to have bad intentions without meaning to. We believe so strongly in our product that we pitch like the devil because we know it can help, all while unintentionally ignoring the results your dream client really needs.

We push back on price by explaining that the customer’s demand eliminates our profitability instead of sharing that price is really about the investment necessary to produce the results your dream client wants.

We ask for commitments too soon, without having first built the trust necessary rather than spending the time developing a stronger foundation for our relationship. We want to go faster, and that manifestation of self-interest looks like bad intentions.

You have to want to win. You have to want to compete. But if your intentions are purely motivated by getting what you want, you will never do as well as you might in sales (or any other human relationship).

By Tibor Shanto - tibor.shanto@sellbetter.ca

Sadly I am at an age where I find myself saying “I remember the first time that was cool”, I have seen thin ties come and go enough times enough time to know not to throw out any ties, because it is only a question of time before someone says, “wow, that’s a cool tie, is it new?” The only thing I can’t remember if it was 1987, 1993 or 2007 when I actually first bought it.

Well it seems that cold calling is coming back into fashion. Not only do you find people dropping euphemisms when referring to the activity, companies popping up all over the place to perform a service many are needing but forgot how to execute. Many closet callers are coming out and proudly proclaiming not only that they regularly part take in cold calling, but that it producing results that exceed the expectations many, and helping many exceed quota.

Amazing what an Arctic Vortex will do.  Here we are less than two weeks into the New Year, and the signs are all over that cold calling is cool again. Just last week I had a notice for a webinar from one of the original Sales 2.0 gang, inviting me to a webinar on cold calling.  BTW, if you want to attend a webinar from someone who never wavered from cold calling, click here.

Other pundits who not so long ago wrapped themselves in the Sales 2.0 cloak, before dawning top layer of social selling, are now shedding their load, and freely speaking about the virtues of cold calling.

What is truly refreshing in some of their proclamations, is not so much their embracement of this staple and age old tool of sales success, but more importantly their abandonment of the “Us vs. Them” dribble that often dominates the debate.  The former stance that cold calling is dead, and it is all about the new thing, is now more reasoned and tempered, and sounds more like those of us who were out in the cold for a while.  Namely that it is about a blend of approaches and means of engaging with potential buyers, not one means vs. another.

Maybe it has more to do with the fact that the economy is showing some life, revenue expectations by Wall Street and companies themselves, are causing people to realise that they will need to be more than found if they are going to make quota, they’re actually going to have to go out and find some potential buyers who are not currently in the market or expressed that they may care to be.

In a recent LinkedIn group discussion asking if cold calling is dead or not, the comments were absent of the usual posturing about how cold calling was bad or dead.  The tone was more logical, again, putting cold calling alongside social selling and other techniques and tools that make up a successful tool kit.

LinkedIn itself, seems to be leading the charge back.  Despite a recent article “Cold Calling is Dead, Thanks To LinkedIn”, seems to have jumped on the band wagon.  As with most leaders and pundits, the measure of their commitment lies in what they do, not always in what they say.  Since a picture is worth 1,000 words, let me point to a recent advert for a sales position at LinkedIn, promoted on LinkedIn. When it comes to Responsibilities, just look at what is number one on the list:

About the only thing that could make cold calling more fashionable is to call it Zombie Calling!

What’s in Your Pipeline?
Tibor Shanto

Sales Training Article: The Sales Manager's New Year's Resolutions

By George De Los Reyes, Sales Benchmark Index (SBI)

I am big on New Year's resolutions. It's a great opportunity to challenge yourself to grow, both personally and professionally. Resolutions are all about setting challenging goals and holding yourself accountable to achieve them.

In this post I want to recommend three ideas to raise your game in 2014. Each recommendation addresses the biggest obstacles every sales manager faces to making the number:

• Not enough 'A' players on the team
• Lack of quality leads
• Reps struggling to get in front of Decision Makers

Before jumping into the trio of recommendations, let's address the elephant in the room. Every sales manager is time starved. So before suggesting three more things to do, let's discuss three things to stop doing (or less of).

Sign-up for one of these sales training workshops to get on track to making your new year's resolutions in 2014.

INTERNAL MEETINGS
Sales Managers should be spending 75% of their time coaching their team. Most don't. I have worked with sales organizations where managers spend up to 65% of their time on admin. The greatest part of admin is spent on internal meetings. The problem with internal meetings is that they're usually inwardly focused. If you're going to meet that much, make sure it's outwardly focused - all about the customer.

POST-SALES SUPPORT
Stop the role corruption. Let customer service or post-sales support handle this. Again, your role it to ensure your team makes the number. Place your efforts here. Focus on coaching-up your talent and helping out with deal strategy.

TRAVEL
Travel is another area where managers waste valuable hours. You're not going to be able to stop traveling. Just be smart and strategic about it. You need to be out in the field with reps - at least 6 times per year per rep. I am a big advocate of face-to-face coaching. Leverage FaceTime, GoToMeeting Faces or something similar to fill the gap.

So where is your time really going? Want to find out? Download this simple tool to track the three aforementioned productivity killers. You will be surprised by the results.

Having covered what to stop doing, let's turn to the three recommendations.

BUILDING A TEAM OF 'A' PLAYERS
Sounds obvious. Every sales manager wants a team of 'A' players. But not every sales manager knows how to do it. Building a team of 'A' players starts with assessing your talent. Who are my A/B/C players? Don't let stats alone deceive you. Many B&C players look like A-players on paper. When analyzed closely, they are in sweet patches with massive opportunity.

Assessing your team starts with defining the A-player. What are the skillsets and competencies that define success in the role? With an A-player profile in-hand, you're ready to assess your team.

Here's a blog post that covers the best practices on how to assess rep talent. The output of the assessment is a 'talent portfolio' - who are your A, B & C players.

A-players - Incent them more and put them in your best territories

B-players - Identify talent gaps and coach them with individualized development plans

C-players - Move them into other roles or out of the organization

PRIORITIZE THE PROSPECT UNIVERSE
Are you giving your reps a list of accounts and telling them to 'have at it'? If so, that's a problem. Not all leads are created equal. Like you, reps are time-starved. They need to prioritize how and where they spend their valuable selling time. Start the year by prioritizing the prospect universe. Prioritizing leads includes two

1.Defining your Ideal Customer - who best suited to be your customer

2.Ranking leads by potential spend - who has the greatest revenue potential (new & expansion)

Here's a blog post that covers the best practices of how to prioritize the prospect universe.

SOCIAL PROSPECTING
The customer is getting busier and busier. They have little time or desire to meet with reps. Getting that fist appointment is getting harder and harder. If you want to make your number in 2014, your team needs to master social prospecting.

Social prospecting is leveraging social media to generate appointments. It is using tools like LinkedIn to get face-time with Decision Makers inside target accounts.

Here's a blog post that covers the best practices of Social Prospecting. You need to get your team up to speed.

CALL TO ACTION: Start the year strong. Challenge yourself in 2014 with a serious New Year's resolution. Partner with a colleague to hold you accountable to your personal goals. Set milestones throughout the year to track progress. If you want to make your number in 2014 get your productivity killers under control. Use the Sales Manager Time Tracker. And then focus on (1) building a team of A-players, (2) prioritizing the prospect universe and (3) teaching your reps to Social Prospect.

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Need some help with your sales performance? Take a look at the sales training workshops available to you and improve sales performance.

Read more sales training articles from CustomerCentric Selling® - The Sales Training Company.

We continue to get a fair number of companies asking for our perspective on outsourcing the sales function and whether we are talking about independent reps or outsourced call centers, our answer remains the same and it is based upon experience. It make sense if:

Your product is well known – If the market knows your product and will be asking the reps for your product, there is a higher chance of success since the reps don’t know your product that well, they tend to sell what is being asked for, particularly in the case of reps that carry other products.

Your product is not complex – When a product requires strong domain knowledge or there is a long sales cycle associated with closing new business, then the outsourced model is problematic, because it is difficult to transfer that type of knowledge to a third party, with VAR’s being the exception.

You don’t need to be close to your customers – If the product is mature and detailed feedback from customers is not required, then the outsourced model might work, however this is not the case for many start-ups where the product management team needs to be in very close contact with customers to gather feedback critical to the evolution and improvement of the product.

You don’t need to own the customer relationship - If follow on business is a big part of your business and this requires relationship development with customers, then it serves to have that in-house where you can control the development of the relationship and handle matters like staff turnover. Conversely, if most of the sales are one-off, then an outsourced model can work.

When branding is less important – It can be difficult to control the brand and reputation of the third party selling your product, and your message may get watered down, particularly if the third party seller is representing other brands. Plus in many cases, particularly call center type sales models, you don’t actually know who will be selling your product. This may or may not be an issue depending on your business.

You don’t need complete visibility on activity – Depending on the outsourcer, you may or may not get detailed or timely insight into sales activity and calls. If you want that market data, it needs to be part of your arrangement with the third party seller.

You need trained salespeople quickly – Notwithstanding any of the issues mentioned above, going with an outsourced sales model can be attractive because they take care of hiring, training and managing the sales reps so you can focus on your business.

I have seen a lot of disappointment with outsourced sales models, but I have also seen it work well. Your business and sales plan dictates whether it will work for your organization.

To your success!

image courtsey of stockimages| freedigitalphotos.net