Let’s say you own one of those mid-sized boutiques gathered inside a bazaar or an apparel plaza and every day, hundreds of people come by your shop. Some just stop and stare at the products displayed on the glass window, some step inside and browses through your inventory, some try out some dresses and others end up buying stuff.

As a hands-on salesperson, you want to assist your customers, but logically speaking, it’s impossible to distribute your efforts evenly to all of these people. You would only want to prioritize those who exhibit real interest towards buying. The problem is, customers don’t walk around with signboards on them that declare whether or not they will buy from your store.

So how do you determine which leads are of high quality and which are not?

Low quality leads are sometimes called Top-of-the-funnel (ToFu) leads . These are your respondents that resulted from registration forms, PDF or eBook downloads, or the co elements section of your blog. Leads like this usually show interest on the idea that you presented or the free stuff that you offered, but not necessarily on the brand that you’re promoting.

ToFu leads are still in the research stage of their buying process (that is, if they are indeed intending to buy something from the market). The good thing about them is that they are easy to talk to ; they still don’t have an idea of what exactly they’re looking for, so it gives marketers the chance to present something. The specific needs of a lead can now be addressed and it lets your sales reps personalize the nurturing process based of particular desires.

On the flip side, there are high-quality leads or Marketing Qualified Leads (MQL) . You can easily recognize them – they’re the ones who would usually fill-out a Contact Sales form, or sign up for a trial of your product or service. They would constantly engage with your sales team for questions or demos to facilitate their almost-ripe decision-making.

Naturally, MQLs are “stronger” on account of them being ahead by several stages in the sales process. If you relate it to the boutique scenario, MQLs are the ones trying on 2-3 dresses and are obviously aimed at buying, only that they don’t know which one yet.
MQLs may be quicker in doing business with you, but don’t let that ebb the significance of ToFu leads. Although the latter is still in the research stage, the potential cannot be ignored. If marketers could only “collaborate” with ToFu leads on that research process, they become a noticeable choice for future purchases. They don’t transform into MQLs by themselves – they have to be guided, informed, and nurtured.

This content originally appeard at Smart Business Marketing

I received this email from one of our users last week:

I actually didn’t make that recommendation…this was actually the first I had heard of a new sales tool!

So I jumped in. Enter PrepWork.

PrepWork connects to my calendar and looks at the appointments I have scheduled and delivers me tailored email briefings for the of the people I’m meeting or calling. This help bring a personalized touch to my sales interactions.

Here’s an example of some of the information I’ll receive:

PrepWork gathers infor from multiple sources to create the most inclusive briefing on the people that are important to me.

It includes:

1. Jobs and Education

Background info from LinkedIn

2. Social Info

Who are they following on Twitter? From interests to businesses, it includes many of the things I need to know to help paint a picture of their background.

3. Blogs

If the person you’re interested in is published online, you’ll find their latest posts. You can view the most current and popular posts in full and get a feel for their writing style and views on topics of importance.

3. Company News

Whether it’s acquisitions or hiring, the briefing will describe the most current information about the company, as well as links to more in-depth information about each option. You can also receive the company’s revenue information in order of importance.
–
You can also forward emails to domy@prepwork.com and it will return intelligence about everyone who is on the thread.

They were recently acquired by HubSpot, so the product is sure to grow and span other fields that are important to sales professionals.

Check it out and let us know what you think!

Your fiscal year is coming to a close in a couple months. When you assess the performance of your sales leader, perhaps you’re feeling let down. You wanted to grow 25%, 50%, or even double this year. It hasn’t worked out.

You hired a good guy. He works hard. Your team likes him. Your customers like him. But, it feels like he’s a bit lost.  

As you plan for next year, you have two options:

1. Pull the Plug – Fire your sales leader and find someone else
2. Rescue your current sales leader – Help the current guy make the number next year

While many CEO’s may select option 1, today’s post focuses on option #2.

To learn what the best sales leaders are doing to prep for 2014, sign up for SBI’s Annual Research Session. When you do, you will get access to the Sales Leader Execution Kit.

 

 

How did this happen?

When you hired your sales leader, perhaps you made some mistakes. You focused on things like:

• Industry experience
• Domain or product expertise
• Culture fit

While these are important characteristics, they don’t predict results. As your sales leader has settled in, it has become apparent he is “green.” Strategic planning is a foreign concept. Day-to-Day execution and cadence are erratic. You need to course correct heading into next year.

Why Rescue Your Current Sales Leader?

Q4 is not prime hiring season for sales leaders. ‘A’ players are waiting to collect big year-end bonus checks. Pulling them away from their current gig will be very difficult.

Q4 is prime firing season. The market will be flooded with ‘C’ players. You could end up spinning your wheels with re-treads.

You feel like the current guy can get it done. You just need to close the gaps. To avoid this again next year, you need ways to rescue your sales leader. Here are a few ideas for you on how you can help.

Strategic Planning

Many sales leaders struggle with strategic planning. Perhaps yours struggles with prioritizing his initiatives. Rather than focus on 2 or 3 core initiatives, everything is a priority. Your sales force has become fatigued by this.

To fix this, you have a few options:

1. Take Over – realize your sales leader cannot develop your sales strategy. Instead, provide him with the strategic playbook. Keep him laser focused on executing your vision. Here is a way to help you do this.
2. Prevent Thrashing – provide him with the tools necessary to prioritize, sequence and execute on strategic initiatives. Consider providing him with this ebook for starters.
3. Collaborate – You may have heard SBI is offering strategy sessions: How to Make the 2014 #: A Sales Strategy You Can Execute. Some of your peers selected this option. It’s helped their sales leaders prepare for next year.

Field Execution

In other cases, your sales manager may struggle to implement a defined strategy. When it’s time to roll up his sleeves, he’s not sure what to do. This results in nothing getting done.

Here are a couple ideas for you on this:

1. Sales Management Coaching – Many times, the best reps are promoted to management. When they were sales reps, they were taught what and how to do things. As a sales manager, that instruction is often lacking. It’s assumed they know how. We’ve provided extensive resources to help in our blog. This includes a number of free tools and templates.
2. Sales Leader Execution Kit – Today’s post offers the Execution Kit as yet another free resource (Get it here). In it, you can get access to things like:
   1. Weekly time management tracking
   2. Best practice time allocation and cadence
   3. 1on1 coaching guide
   4. Sales rep ride along debrief form

If blocking and tackling prevents you from missing next year’s number, these will help. It may sound simple, but often sales leaders just need basic tools for improvement.

Call to Action

It’s annual planning season. If you’re missing the number and are wondering how it happened, this may help. As a next step, feel free to sign up for our annual research session. Get access to the best practices of your peers for 2014. Rescue your sales leader from making the same mistakes again next year. 

Author: Ryan Tognazzini

Follow @RyanTognazzini

Follow Sales Benchmark Index @MakingTheNumber

If you enjoyed this post, never miss one again by subscribing your Email Here and/or subscribing to the RSS.

Competition is present in every major B2B account. Today it is diverse and dynamic and not just based on price. Having a clear picture of the competitive landscape is crucial to crafting a successful sales strategy.

When most salespeople think about the competition they usually think of the companies they regularly face as competitors. Interestingly, this is only one source of competition in major account sales.

There are two others: passive competition and competition for resources. Both sources are important for salespeople to consider and to keep on their radar screen. After all whether you lose a sale to a real competitor or to a customer who decides to do nothing, or to a customer that decides to spend its resources on something else – you still lost the sale!

• What is passive competition? Sometimes the most challenging competition is the customer “doing nothing.” In major accounts there are two sales going on at the same time. First you have to be perceived by the customer as better than the competition. The second sale is about the customer perceiving the value of committing resources to changing the status quo. To win the second sale salespeople need a strategy for overcoming the no-decision momentum. In many cases the salesperson wins the first sale and loses the second and ends up with no new business.
• A second source of competition comes from broadening the definition of competition. Often the competition is not for a similar product or service but a “competition for resources.” What happens is a company who is selling an entirely different product is competing with you for the same budget resources.

Regardless of the type of competition there is an old saying that conveys some wisdom to winning against competition. The old saying is – “keep your eye on the ball.”

When it comes to formulating an effective strategy for dealing with competition, the ball is the customer. For example when it is a real competitor it is easy to take your eye off the ball and fall into the trap of getting in a defensive mode by reacting to the competition. They set the rules – you play their game. That is not an effective way to manage a competitor. Successful salespeople know it is critical to stay focused on the customer’s needs, challenges and concerns. Top performers focus on the customer and manage the competition.

If you found this post helpful, you might want to join the conversation and subscribe to the Sales Training Connection.

Losing the first mover advantage on sales call is a tough spot to find yourself in. This is the typical case when you receive an RFP from a client. But all is not lost!

These situations can be turned to your advantage but it’s very important to first realize that you aren’t the only cook in the kitchen.

Probe for Answers

Ask them where they are in the buying process and why they started looking into possible solutions in the first place.

Figure out what problems they face and what the catalyst was for started the RFP or discovery process.

Something like “Regarding your “XYZ” problem, what steps have you guys taken in regards to making this decision?”

Avoid leading questions that might point them to potential competitors because they might not have gotten that far yet!

Look For Warning Signs

Having an inbound and seemingly hot lead come in the door can amp up even the most experienced sales rep, but it’s important not to get too excited and overlook some potential warning signs.

A potential client that truly is interested in the RFP/proposal from your company will be willing to be flexible and see what you have to offer.

Some common warning signs of a company simply out to fill an RFP quota or do their ‘due diligence’ include:

1. Using a competitors name or their marketing jargon
2. Not reading material you send over (pro tip: use read receipts on all emails you send!)
3. They are unwilling to make schedules work together.
4. Being slow to respond to your typical follow up questions
5. Or they are reluctant to share basic inside information
6. Push to get you to submit a proposal to meet a self-imposed and unnecessarily short deadline

If you notice any of these signs, it’s important to see that the odds are stacked against to and it’s likely that they have been dealing with your competition.

You could throw in the towel, and move on to a hotter sales opportunity or you could try and reverse the odds. Which is the subject of our next post. Make sure to subscribe to the blog for updates!

Aberdeen Group recently published research examining how the best-performing B2B companies reinvest in their employees, processes and technologies to maximize the value of marketing and sales alignment, specifically around messaging creation and sales content.

The research uncovered that the #1 strategy of companies looking to overcome stalled deals and lengthening sales cycles is to improve the positioning and differentiation of their messaging to tell a better, unique story. It also shows that 74% of leading companies make a point of engaging Sales in developing marketing campaign themes and sales content, instead of producing it in silos.

Download the full report

The results of Aberdeen’s survey acknowledge the pain points of many B2B companies today when it comes to increasing qualified leads and revenue. Marketing and sales teams need to work together to create a more integrated, customer-centric approach to message development and delivery, especially in selling conversations. In other words, only those companies that can effectively tell an engaging and unique story will be successful in capturing the market share they are looking for to meet their revenue goals.

The year was 1997. My friends had dragged me to see the movie Titanic. Three and a half hours and one terrible Celine Dion song later, it was all over. I will never get those three and half hours of my life back, and my ears will never recover from the screeching key change of “YOU’RE HERE, THERE’S NOTHING I FEAR!!!!” What I do have from this traumatic experience is an analogy, albeit an odd one, to the fascinating world of marketing.

You shouldn’t need me to recap what happened for you, but SPOILER ALERT, the ship hit an iceberg and the boat sank. Here’s the interesting part though: the mentality of many people after the iceberg hit. Even after the gravity of the situation sank in (no pun intended), many people just couldn’t comprehend that the ship was actually going down. The thought was, “God himself couldn’t sink this ship,” and it was unimaginable that the Titanic would be swimming at the bottom of the Atlantic.

It wasn’t until the lifeboats were all gone, the ship started to split in half and all of that other terrible stuff that everyone finally got it: the Titanic is a goner.

So what does this have to do with marketing? In the past, many people relied on what is called outbound marketing. Our marketing tactics relied on shooting out our sales messages through cold calling, expensive advertisements, TV commercials and nonstop direct mail campaigns.

If these are your sole methods for marketing, I have bad news for you: ICEBERG, RIGHT AHEAD!

The ROI on these tactics are suffering. Why? In the past decade, we’ve experienced significant communication and cultural shifts. Two key thoughts:

1) Today’s buyers are “insulated”:  Your prospects filter your calls – you can’t get through the Receptionist or are sent directly to voicemail. Targets don’t accept meetings from salespeople who show up at their doors. People are so sick of being blasted with competing sales messages that they drown them out and ignore them. It’s harder to get in touch with our contacts.

2) People have technology at their fingertips: No matter where your prospects go, they can pretty much connect to the Internet. That’s where they go to research solutions and they can do it on their terms.  Studies show that 2/3 of the sales cycle now occurs online.

How can we overcome this and become the Unsinkable Molly Brown of sales? In today’s competitive environment, you need an inbound marketing strategy. With this method, you provide insightful and valuable content on your website and support it with social media, blogging, public relations and e-mail marketing.

Don’t wait until your ship has sunk. Inbound marketing is your lifeboat to new sales!

Image source.

In our first post on this topic, we examined why marketing is generating too few sales-ready qualified leads and our solution to the problem; marketing must take on the responsibility of pre-qualifying leads to a higher level prior to passing them along to sales. Remember, sales resources are expensive and precious resources that we want to optimize. And studies prove that highly qualified “sales-ready” leads have a much higher lead acceptance rate and conversion rate into sales. However, developing leads to this level is no easy task. It can take 7 to 13+ touches to generate sales-ready, qualified leads.

In this post, we’re going to explore one of the primary reasons it takes so many touches to deliver qualified sales leads. Sales requires a lot of data to determine whether the lead is qualified or not. This data is hard to get in one or two—or even three—touches. We’re going to look more closely at the data that sales requires to consider a lead “sales-ready qualified,” and the importance of a multi-touch lead qualification process.

What is BANT Data?

BANT stands for Budget, Authority, Need and Timeframe (within which the lead needs/wants to purchase). (See Figure 1.) Note that BANT represents the categories of information that each company must customize for its unique sales scenarios. You must specify your company’s version of what BANT means at your company. And yes, it’s okay to rename your sales-ready criteria—just be sure to customize it.

The reason for all this is simple economics. A salesperson needs all or most of this information to determine if the prospect is a sufficiently qualified opportunity to stage a sales campaign with his/her limited resources. It sounds simple, but obtaining this information is a multi-step process.

BANT criteria will vary from one company to the next. Not all BANT data may be available and some will be more important than others. For example, knowing need, timeframe and next steps may lead to a greater sense of urgency. When you’re on the phone with a prospect you may also find out more valuable information to prime the lead for sales, such as: What is the prospect’s desired outcome; Who is on buying team; When the prospect needs to buy; what stage in the buying process they’re in; what information they need that we can deliver for each stage in buying process.

Warning: as you evolve into more advanced levels of information exchanges, you must “earn the right” to ask these questions. This is NOT a salesperson discussion yet and prospects will rarely give this detail on line or on a web form landing page. You’ll need a peer-to-peer level pre-sales lead development conversation to insert your company’s value and create a credible relationship. Once the sales-ready information is gathered and the score moves into the “qualified” zone, then you’ll want the tele-qualification rep to close on the first meeting appointment with the sales team. The value to your sales team is that a sales-ready lead is delivered along with a positive relationship.

Setting Up the Sales Qualification Data

The sales department defines what criteria are required for a sales-ready prospect, not the marketing team. So when you are designing a pre-qualification data gathering process, you must work very closely with sales. As we mentioned in our last post, sales and marketing aren’t always in synch, and there may be a considerable credibility gap. The first step is to develop a good working relationship with sales.

In some successful cases, marketing and sales have actually created a “contract” of mutual support where the responsibilities of each department in supporting the other are spelled out. This document includes what sales considers sales-ready criteria. It also states that if marketing delivers on this higher caliber criteria, the sales team will engage in the sales process within a stipulated timeframe—no exceptions.

Create a “Perfect Prospect Profile” that sales and marketing can both agree upon. Review the historical sales data (you’ll need that good partnership with Sales to get this). Segment by customer types and review the profitability data for each segment. Understand the buying process in your industry, where customers go for information and how they typically purchase. (There are often several members of a buying team, and each may have his/her own agenda for the purchase.) Then build a buyer persona with the relevant messaging tracks for each segment.

People Buy from People

Marketing automation is great, and can be of tremendous assistance in automating some of the grunt work of the marketer. We endorse marketing automation tools, but in the B2B sales world, the fact is that 90% of inbound leads never turn into qualified sales opportunities because people buy from people, not from software. In addition, people are very reluctant to fill out response forms because they don’t want to have salespeople interrupting their day with phone calls and emails. In any case, most people will provide only limited information online, if any.

Once a response form has been filled out, now is the time to engage in peer-to-peer discussions with the prospect. Start by building a relationship. Launching immediately into the BANT questions (Are you the purchaser? Do you have approved budget?) is a turnoff. First leverage the digitally collected information as a bridge to determine where the prospect is personally. Open-ended questions (rather than buttons on a web form) will accelerate this qualification process. What problem is the prospect trying to solve? Where does it hurt? What is going on in their world that triggered the need? What would be their perfect solution if they could describe it? Are they collecting information for a team? What’s their timeline they are working with? What information would you need from us to be considered as your solution? Great phone/social skills are a huge plus here. And for most Sales teams, the earlier your prospect is in the buying process, the better—it gives your team a chance to be consultative and influence the specs, thereby gaining the inside track. Once you have enough data to determine BANT, try to move the prospect toward meeting with a sales rep. As a result of this process, most real prospects will see the meeting as a mutual best next step, and that’s where most Sales teams want to be.

Marketing automation systems score the digital data collected from response forms, etc., but we believe that by itself, digital scoring is inadequate. Some claim this can be resolved by doing progressive profiling within marketing automation, but we have observed it is very difficult (if not impossible) to get the critically important BANT criteria established using progressive profiling and as we’ve said, prospects typically are not willing to divulge this information on lead forms. Devise a way of scoring non-digital data obtained via professional peer-to-peer phone conversations and other research. Figure 2 shows how digital and non-digital data can be combined to determine whether a prospect is sales-ready, and to add significant competitive advantage for the sales team, which will also boost lead acceptance rates and in turn, sales closure rates. This is the new “best practices” model for B2B selling firms. If you can get to this point, your firm will be at the top of its industry.

Source: Direct Marketing Partners

To further support these advanced levels of B2B lead development process Sirius Decisions added the tele-prospecting touch process into their highly respected lead-to-sales waterfall process. (See Figure 3.)

This model shows the best practices lead-to-sales funnel multi-touch process flow in detail, illustrating the multiple touch points required in B2B complex sales lead generation. In 2012 Sirius Decisions added the tele-qualification/tele-prospecting component. Adding the tele-prospecting touch points helped to increase lead quality and reduce over-reliance on marketing automation*; such software lacks the peer-to-peer-level critical thinking skills needed to uncover buyer needs, determine the solution’s fit to the buyer’s issues, and whether or not there is sufficient urgency to qualify as a sales-ready lead.

In our next installment on this topic, we will cover ways to shorten the lead-generation process, including ways to align sales, marketing and management with your lead-qualification program.

The prospect or customer who wears you down on price will wear you down on everything else..

Never discount your price.   You do not want the customers you attract by discounting.  You will set yourself up for dismal failure, because low prices create lousy customers.

Build your business around quality customers who see value in what you offer.

To hear more about this, check out this video:

Copyright 2013, Mark Hunter “The Sales Hunter.” Sales Motivation Blog. 

My blog posts and articles mostly deal with marketing issues. But we don’t conduct marketing in a vacuum, and even if you stay strictly on the marketing side of the fence, it is a good idea to understand what your colleagues in sales are experiencing. After all, our main purpose is to create the foundation to enable our colleagues in sales to make their target numbers—or even exceed them! In B2B marketing, the sales department is usually your most important customer, and if they fail, you fail.

The goal is to have a well-oiled, end-to-end marketing and sales machine that will accomplish corporate objectives. To do this, practice the first key to creating an unstoppable sales machine: Make sure there is complete alignment between the marketing and sales departments. A service level agreement (as discussed in other blog posts) will help keep the alignment on track.

Woody Allen once said, “There are worse things in life than death. Have you ever spent an evening with an insurance salesman?” And even though I find the quote amusing, I don’t agree with it. In fact, one of my closest friends is an insurance salesman, and he never talks business at our parties. Nonetheless, the quote illustrates the negative context in which many view salespeople in general. The perception is that salespeople will do anything to sell you stuff you don’t really need.

This brings me to the second key in creating an unstoppable sales machine: Concentrate your efforts on finding the companies and individuals that have a genuine need for what you offer. Isn’t this a much easier and less stressful way of doing things—for both you and your prospects? Response rates will be higher, close rates will be higher, and you will not have to manipulate anyone.

The next key is one that truly separates the world-class sales organizations from the also-rans: Never lose a deal alone. Selling at its best is a team effort and it is a serious error to lose a possible deal because the sales rep neglected to bring in the rest of his or her teammates. You need to be very aggressive about letting your reps know about all the resources they have available to help them at every stage of the sales process. And one of the most important resources you can provide is a fresh perspective.

A good way to kill the productivity of a sales force is to throw too much at them. Too many products, too many offers, and too many messages equate to too many chances for the sales team to mess things up and lose sales. One of my clients had great technology, but had a very bad habit of changing its product offerings and value proposition every six months or so. The sales team was encouraged to spend their time on the newest offerings instead of what had worked for them in the past. This required extensive retraining of the team, and they never found their rhythm. To avoid this problem, my next important sales key is: Keep things simple and focused on as few priorities as possible.

I hope you find these keys useful in creating your own unstoppable B2B sales machine. Stay tuned next week for Part 2.

In the world of business, sales has long been the lifeblood of the organization. From the first customers to where a business is today, the success of sales attributes much to the achievement of the organization.

This is precisely why sales professionals are usually the highest paid employees within the organization, often making 2-3 times more than the operations, finance and marketing managers which are the ones behind the scenes helping them to get the job done.

Having said that, sales also tends to carry the most risk. Often a substantial portion of their income is tied to their performance (directly and indirectly) as well as their ability to keep customers when projects go awry. However the ability to keep the customers isn’t so much a sales role as it is a customer service role, which is why the end of the sales pro, at least as we know it, may be upon us.

Networking is the new sales; Google is the new Yellow Pages

So if no sales, then what?

Let me ask you a question: When you want to buy a house, a car or a new flat panel television, who do you call? Oh wait, you don’t call anyone? You research on Google? You call your friends and ask them what they have?

You know what that is called? It’s called “The New Sales” and it is how we consume things today. And guess what, it is how the buyers of just about every product on the planet consume today.

Given that buyers today engage with twice as much online content as just one year ago (According to Forrester), it also is showing to be a trend that is growing more, not less, prevalent. This means a company’s ability to market online is the new sales, and the role of the traditional sales person has really just become customer service.

Is that a bad thing? It is for some people who have been the “trusted advisor.” But like everything, times are changing and there is just no way a sales rep can keep up with the changes as well as Google and the trusted communities of the buyers. Make sense?

Sales will never fully go away, but change is imminent

Some people probably won’t like that I’m saying this. I’m okay with that, but note when I say, just like gone are the days of the high margins on commodities and consumables, we have entered the day of the “New World Sales,” a place where margin and profit is determined by the value you bring and customer experience that you create.

This means sales needs to focus more on managing customer relationships, delivering unparalleled service and being highly available when they are needed. These aren’t necessarily new items, rather they were items that would be neglected when talking about new technology and live demos took precedence.

But the consumer as we knew it has been lost, absorbed into a world where Google answers their questions and social/trusted networks fill the voids.

Good news though…

With every great change comes great opportunity. Now that the customer is armed with as much information as we have, we can turn our attention back to nurturing the relationships through great customer experience.

So maybe sales isn’t going away, it is just changing. Leaving businesses to ask themselves, how will your organization embrace the shift?

Photo credit: Shutterstock

Your brand may already be working with social media sites like Facebook and Twitter for content delivery. But did you know that 85% of B2B marketers believe that LinkedIn is the best social network to deliver content? Let’s take a closer look at what makes LinkedIn relevant to the content world.

Your LinkedIn Profile: Not Just For Your Resume

Most business owners and marketing professionals have a LinkedIn profile, it’s true – but most of these LinkedIn profile pages look like resumes. These pages may be showing off skills and experience, but they are lacking something huge in the marketing world: relevance.

According to this Forbes article by LinkedIn expert Kristina Jaramillo, the LinkedIn profile of Wizard Media founder Jimena Cortes is a wonderful case where LinkedIn marketing went right. Cortes has a system. Her profile itself offers content that is intended to resonate with her target audience, opening with a strong statement about what visitors to her profile might be doing – in the case of Cortes, it’s generating leads through SEO, PR, and social media marketing.

Leveraging LinkedIn Groups

The profile goes even further, however. Instead of simply listing credentials, Cortes lets readers know where they can find even more content – through her LinkedIn groups. Through these LinkedIn groups, Cortes offers access to her webinars for even more information.

You can do the same. Successful LinkedIn groups are a great way to gain like-minded followers who are all focused on a similar goal. You can message your members once every week via email, letting them know of any promotions or special campaigns that may be happening. Consider the corporate LinkedIn group by Citi, which has had enormous success.

It’s a beautiful content delivery strategy that directly ties content marketing to a LinkedIn business page. With endless opportunities for creative content marketing on LinkedIn, there are plenty of ways to strategize.

Has your business used LinkedIn for content delivery? What have you done with your company page?

This article is about retaining 'A' player talent by developing new skills.

The top reason good sales people leave an organization is their boss.  A sub reason is that their boss doesn't invest in their development.  Providing simple sales training is easy.  Developing a systematic approach to skill development is not. 

Training is your responsibility as a sales leader.  Don’t leave it to L&D, the training department, or a 3^rd party. They may assist, but the ongoing development of your people falls squarely on you. 

There are many reasons why sales training efforts fail.  We aren’t going to focus on those reasons in this article.  We are going to focus on making training successful.  For Sales Leaders, training success is defined as sustainable skill improvement that can be monetized.  Training should lead to observable behavior change in your team.  It shouldn’t be focused on your product or company. 

Execute training as outlined below and your team will value it.  The best part is that you can start doing this today.  You own it.  

The first step is training on the right topics.  Don’t train on yesterday’s topics.  Click here to register for our free annual planning session.  You will get a list of the top 5 skills for today’s 'A' player.  I also provide a training meeting agenda template you can use for your next meeting.  Download them now to make your people better.  Investing in your best people will keep them engaged.

Pre-meeting

Pick the right topic – don’t train on your product or service.  Train on a skill your customer finds valuable.  The topic should require interaction and be a complex skill.  If the topic can be learned with self-study, don't waste your team's time. 

Set Clear objective(s) – be very clear why the training is taking place and the results expected.  Baseline both leading and lagging metrics.

Assign Pre-work – get your team thinking about the topic prior to the meeting.  Have them bring examples and questions to make the session more productive. Use e-learning/LMS systems to start teaching the topic and get the participants engaged. 

Meeting Execution

Set Expectations (5 mins) – let everyone know what is expected of them during the meeting.

Cover the topic (15 mins) – transfer knowledge on the topic.  Give everyone a clear understanding of what the skill is.  Make the topic impactful by incorporating video, audio, and humor.  Also have your A players lead some of these sessions.

Use Cases and the contrast method (20 minutes) – take a recent win where the skill was executed properly.  Then take a loss where it wasn’t.  This will transform the discussion from theoretical to real.  Theoretical training doesn’t stick.  Make it real with use cases from the field. 

Role Plays (40 minutes) – “Perfect practices makes perfect” – John Wooden.  If you aren’t utilizing role plays, you are failing your team.  They work.  Roles play the skill and have your team provide feedback to their peers.  This builds peer accountability and teamwork. 

Wrap up/Next Steps (10 minutes) – gain commitment on what behaviors will change.  Ask the participants what they will do differently this week.  Ask how they want you to help hold them accountable and support them.  Leave with a clear understanding of the path forward. 

Post Meeting

Reinforcement – don’t do training if you aren't planning on reinforcing it.  You are wasting time.  Here are the forms of reinforcement that are most effective?

1. Peer Accountability – have influential participants reinforce the key concepts with the team and lead by example.
2. Direct Observation – get in the field and see if they are using what they learned.  Nothing beats real time coaching.
3. Immediate Best Practice Sharing – when you see someone use the training tell others.  Make them feel good for attempting, whether successful or not.
4. 1-on-1 Debriefs – keep talking about it.  Your team is watching to see if you are serious about sticking with it.
5. Positive Reinforcement – make people feel good about the little wins related to the training.  This will encourage usage of the new behavior.

Measure Results

Determine what you are going to measure and broadcast leading success indicators.  Use multiple channels to do so.  i.e. - CRM social features like Chatter or Jive, meetings, email. 

5 different levels of indicators:                                                  

• Level 1 - Observed behavior change
• Level 2 - Advancing deals                                                           
• Level 3 - Winning deals                                                    
• Level 4 - Quota attainment
• Level 5 – Lagging company indicators (revenue & margin)

Make your sales development program more effective today.  Train on the New 'A' Player Topics.  The investment will keep your top people engaged and improve results.

Author: Scott Gruher

 

Follow @ScottGruher

 

Follow Sales Benchmark Index @MakingTheNumber

 

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When we talk about ROI, we often think about it through a marketing prism. How much is your company investing in marketing efforts? How have those tactics and investments impacted your bottom line? It is the marketing department that tends to be expected to track these things since it’s the marketing department that invests the money into different marketing tactics. The reality, of course, is that measuring the effectiveness of your marketing requires at the very least some input from sales. This is difficult to accomplish in many companies because the sales team works in a parallel world to the marketing team. Sales concentrates on nurturing leads, making active sales calls, and more. Interfacing with marketing does not happen often. This distance is sometimes further exacerbated by a sense of competition between sales and marketing. When sales increase, both teams may strive to take credit for the win. When sales decrease, finger pointing often ensues.

If you want to focus on relationships, make friends with your sales force

Last week we talked about how many marketers are confused about how to track ROI when so much emphasis in the online world is placed upon relationship-building. The fact of the matter is that the first people you need to befriend are the people on your sales team. There are numerous reasons why marketing and sales need to be able to work seamlessly together. Among those reasons are:

• Sales can let marketing know when sales are spiking. Marketing can look at recent initiatives and the two departments together can see if there is a cause/effect relationship between certain tactics and increases in sales

• Sales can report to marketing whether leads generated from certain tactics are high quality or not. This requires a collaborative effort between both departments to find a way to track leads from specific tactics, of course.

• A collaboration between sales and marketing can help prevent mixed messages. Potential customers will get the same “pitch” whether in person from a sales representative or whether via an ad in a trade publication.

The list goes on and on.

It’s not just measuring leads that matters

As marketers, we often get distracted by tracking “leads.” We think that if we are generating leads, we are doing our jobs. Ultimately, that is the best that marketing can generate often times, and then those leads are handed over to the sales team for nurturing and conversion. However, to be truly effective, marketers need to understand how many of the leads they are delivering are actually converting into sales. That is where the true ROI is found, no matter what marketing tactic you are talking about. A marketing tactic that generates 500 “clicks” still may not be generate any sales, ultimately. Sales needs to communicate this kind of information to marketing on a regular basis so that plans can be shifted to create more of an impact and to be more effective. Obviously if a company sells products with a long sales cycle (capital equipment for example), tracking leads to sales is even more difficult.

There have been numerous surveys lately that have reported that CMOs are predominantly clueless as to how to track the ROI of what they are doing for their companies. Part of this most certainly rests on the shoulders of the CMO him or herself, but sales should also be held to the fire a little. True ROI measurement depends upon sales and marketing collaborating, communicating, and cooperating. If your company does not currently claim that kind of relationship between the two departments, true measuring of your marketing efforts will remain elusive.

Image Credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/safari_vacation/7496765660/ via Creative Commons

If you were to ask any business owner what they would claim as one of their most valuable assets, a large percentage of them would include their customer/prospect data and history. You can burn down the building, you can replace (most) of your people, but there would be a serious problem if you erased all of the client/prospect and sales history in the database. The data from your sales force automation and CRM is the lifeline to the growth of the business.

A serious challenge exists with companies in keeping their sales information fresh and contact history relevant. Whether it’s a cell phone number or notes from a cold call conversation, each little nugget of information can make all the difference between a cold call and a closed deal. So, why then is it such a pain in the neck to convince your team to document and update information in your system? Mainly because it’s not convenient, it’s too much work, and it’s a process that everyone isn’t bought into. Busy and successful reps don’t have time to update notes or keep records current; that’s understandable. But for the sake of your business, it’s vital to have a process in place in order to sustain accurate sales history.

Data has come a long way over the past 5 years. With business models focused solely on sales contact information, it has become far easier to obtain org charts and email addresses of your target audience. At varying price tags, tools like discoverorg, LinkedIn, data.com, ZoomInfo and Hoovers give your team the names of the people they need to target in order to effectively prospect. However, the gap between having an accurate list and accessing past contact history is quite vast. This is where your sales team’s documentation efforts make a huge impact to your business.

From a business owners perspective, a sales documentation process is quite valuable because it will help others transition opportunities should there be any turnover among the sales force. Keeping precise records on sales deals and prospecting will also help keep your team more organized and successful. On the other side of the fence, it’s a time consuming effort which could decrease time allotment to prospecting. It’s beneficial to balance the short term activity with the long term gains by effectively planning your data collection and enforcement strategy. It’s important to remember that in the long run, sustainable accounts and relationships owned by the business (not an individual) are what keep an organization thriving and growing. Prospecting in a way that paints a story in your ATS or CRM is vital to the success of a sales team.

So, the question remains as to whether or not your business forces its hand in requiring all sales information be logged based on a defined sales documentation process. What can you do to make them comply and what’s in it for them? We’ve seen some organizations implement different programs that incentivize sales teams to comply with documenting sales history. Here are a few examples:

1. Quarterly bonus based on accurate data. Perform a random audit on information each quarter. No documentation, no bonus.
2. Deals are paid based on information documented at each sales stage. Percentage commission is based on documentation behavior.
3. Leads and new prospects are assigned based on documented history. If a rep wants to claim an account, but there is no documented history of their activity, the account is up for grabs.

There are other options for changing sales behavior, but a fine line is drawn when forcing the hand of your team to document their efforts. If you examine high performing business development (not account management) teams against those that are lagging, it’s almost certain that the companies that are doing well with prospecting have tight data and well documented history. We often hear prospects tell us that they are looking to open new accounts and increase lead generation. Our follow up question is “How well documented is your sales data?”. The answer is almost always “Pretty bad and outdated”.

Check out our 10 Hidden Sales Metrics eBook.

Business Insider is hiring a junior sales planner.

The planner will be joining a fast-paced, creative team.  He/she will develop proposals for national brands as well as keep us all up to date on the latest and greatest research.   The planner will also manage the development of sales and marketing materials, including case studies, sell sheets, editorial calendar and more. The planner may also assist with surveys and prospecting among other things.

We need an individual who's passionate about digital advertising and can think outside the box.  If you're both creative and analytical with a lot of pizazz and a keen eye for detail, we're looking for you.

The role is an incredible learning experience for anyone interested in understanding how online marketing works. You'll interact with internal marketing, editors, and sales folks.  In addition, you'll master mobile, email, video, rich media and social formats with an eye towards emerging formats.  It's an excellent first step into digital sales or marketing.

Duties include:

• Program creation
• Proposal generation
• Marketing collateral upkeep
• Brainstorming big ideas
• Interacting with top advertising agencies on major accounts
• Working closely with account execs and Director of Sales Development

Previous digital advertising and/or marketing experience is a plus, and you should also be comfortable with Excel, PowerPoint, Photoshop, and web analytics tools.  Understanding of social media and extensive web knowledge required -- in other words, this is one of the rare jobs where tweeting and being a Facebook power user are advantages! To succeed here you must be able to meet deadlines and juggle multiple priorities. The position is located in our Manhattan offices.

Please send resume and email to mdenhart@businessinsider addressed to Michelle Denhart with subject "Jr Sales Planner" telling me why you are perfect for this position.  Thanks in advance.

Join the conversation about this story »

In Microsoft's fiscal first quarter of 2014, Windows revenue from OEM partners fell 7%. That's a noticeable decline, given that Windows revenue from third-party hardware partners is the most ‘Microsoft' income that the company has.

The decline, however, is somewhat blunted compared to what Microsoft anticipated. Here's what the company said in its fiscal 2013 year-end wrap up, regarding the first quarter of fiscal 2014: “Excluding the impact of the Windows Deferral, OEM revenue (~65% of total) should decline mid-teens.”

To see that decline come in at 7% means that the fall in OEM revenue for the quarter was around half of what the company expected. That's surprising.

Naturally, Microsoft doesn't make predictions that it doesn't think that it can't at least meet, so the “mid-teens” estimate was likely somewhat conservative. But you don't tell investors to expect a revenue decline of 15% or 16% in one of your key revenue streams if you don't mean it.

Oddly, there are some rays of light in the PC market, a place in the technology world that has had a damningly bleak year. Following the rollout of Windows 8, and its lackluster round of hardware that shipped with it, the PC market has recorded painful, repeated quarterly declines. In the third quarter, for example, the PC market contracted around 7.6%. That was a surprising beat for PCs.

But that 7.6% decline in different context is slightly benign. In the first quarter of 2013, the PC market contracted by 13.9%. That was a rollicking moment, as it came in the first quarter following the release of Microsoft's new operating system, and first line of tablets running its own code.

Ouch.

And yet, there are some encouraging signs. Microsoft won't disclose new Windows 8 (8.1, etc) sales numbers, but it will tell you that October was the biggest month for Windows 8 activations yet. And Surface unit volume doubled in the recent quarter. And OEM revenue fell about half as far as it was supposed to. And the larger PC market is contracting slower than before.

We are not at the bottom. But now I'm starting to feel that there will be a bottom, instead of a long inexorable decline. A 7% slip in OEM revenue for Microsoft is not clean. And it does hurt. But if it is indicator that the PC market is finally slowing its record declines, then we can view it as such.

A note: Unit volume for the PC market was 81.6 million in the third quarter. That's a massive base to decline from. Will the PC market find a floor at 70 million units per quarter? 60? I know that we are increasingly post-PC in our daily lives, but I still can't get fuck done on a smartphone other than tweeting from the dive bar.

The moment we are looking for will be the first next quarter that shows positive year-over-year unit growth in the PC market. Shall we take bets?

Top Image Credit: Dell Inc.

In a conversation at the GMIC mobile conference this week, Y Combinator co-founder Paul Graham gave the most recent stats on the seed stage incubator. Of the 511 companies that had passed through YC prior to its most recent Summer 2013 class, 306 had valuations tied to them. The total value of those companies is now $13.7 billion, up $2 billion since Graham's last update on the number in June.

So what's happened in the past couple of months that would juice the total valuation so much? Is the it due to growth among many YC startups, or concentrated at the top?

A Rising Tide

There are likely several reasons for the increase in valuation. For one thing, as more Y Combinator companies raise their first rounds, their valuations get added to the pool. The aggregate valuation also increases each time it sees an alumni company get acquired. And, of course, later-stage companies raising their rounds at higher valuations will also drive that number up.

Of course, not every YC startup ends up raising money or getting funded right after demo day. And many that do initially get seed funding do so with convertible notes rather than through priced rounds, so you can't really peg down a valuation as such.

But for those you can calculate - either because they died, got acquired, or sold stock at a specific valuation - the value of the YC portfolio has jumped considerably.

Some of the growth can be attributed to an increase in the number of companies funded. At the 500 Startups PreMoney conference in June, Graham told me that there were 285 YC companies with post-money valuations, compared to 306 now. (Check out the video below.) At that time, the total amount that YC companies had raised was $1.7 billion.

Those statements echoed data that Graham had previously shared on Hacker News.

A number of YC companies have also raised additional rounds of funding in the past several months. Twitch (formerly Justin.tv) raised $20 million, E La Carte raised $13.5 million, Clustrix raised $10 million, and Instacart brought on $8.5 million, among others.

And, finally, there have been a few notable exits since June. YC alum Xobni was acquired by Yahoo, Cue was bought by Apple, and Lanyrd got purchased by Eventbrite.

Major Changes At The Top?

But the bulk of the increase probably comes from a major change at the top. Like many private equity investors, the lion's share of Y Combinator's investment value is concentrated in just a few high-flying startups. Back in June, Graham told me that the top 10 companies accounted for $8.6 billion of its $11.6 billion total valuation.

Y Combinator wouldn't break out what the valuation of that top 10 is right now, but it seems likely that some major change in the value of those companies is the biggest reason for the increase. That could mean a revaluation among one or more of the ten, perhaps triggered by an equity sale that has closed but hasn't yet been announced.

For the conspiracy theorists out there, it's very possible that YC wouldn't share this data because a company (or companies) doesn't want that information to be public. After all, saying that the top 10 now accounted for $10 billion of the $13.6 billion total valuation - and note, YC did not say this, but if it did - that would mean that somebody just got a big boost in funding, or perhaps saw shares revalued through a secondary sale.

Ignoring the fact that we don't actually know this to be true but assuming this is the case,* which of the ten was it?

Well, there was that big Airbnb funding round that was never quite announced.** It's possible it took forever to get done, and didn't actually close until the summer. Or maybe Stripe has raised money that we just haven't heard about yet. It's become a sort of poster child for Y Combinator success, after all. Or perhaps Drew Houston & Co. have sold off some secondary shares in Dropbox.

Or maybe, maybe, none of the above.

For newshounds like me, the fun is in figuring it out.

Photo Credit: Paul Miller via Compfight cc

==
* And full well knowing the dangers of making an ass out of u and me
** Shameless plug: Can't wait to ask Airbnb co-founder Nate Blecharczyk about this at TC Disrupt Europe next Monday around Noon CET.

Author: DJ Waldow

“So I’ll pick you up at 7?”

If you received an email with that subject line, would you open it?

What if it was from your significant other? Your best friend? Another family member?

What if it was from Jim Williams? You might be asking, “Jim who?”

Heidi Bullock, the Director of Demand Generation here at Marketo, opened it. “I thought it was a mistake,” Heidi told me. “I mean, nobody was picking me up at 7. Ha! I figured it was sent to the wrong person.”

And then she opened the email and saw this:

Did you read it? Did you read every single word? If not, take a minute to read it (again) now. I’ll wait.

Okay. Welcome back. Pretty awesome, right?

You Can’t Convert Customers Without an Open

Before reading that email, had you ever heard of Influitive? I hadn’t. Did you know Jim Williams, VP of Marketing at Influitive? I didn’t, but I do now.

Jim and Influitive were able to cut through the clutter of my Heidi’s inbox, but they took it one step further. An open isn’t trivial, but it’s still just an open. In email marketing, a click is better than an open. And a conversion is still better than a click.

However, a conversion doesn’t happen without a click. And a click doesn’t happen without an open.

The subject line, the email copy, the design, the call to action – all of it – was brilliant. Here’s why:

• The creative, interest-piquing subject line led to the open.

• The eye-catching header image drew me in. Can’t you just hear her saying, “UHHHH. WHO ARE YOU? WHY ARE YOU TALKING TO ME?” Awkward.  (P.S. Is that Mackelmore in the background?) Interested in designing a good-looking email message of your own? Check out our email design cheat sheet.

• The personal opening ensured I continued to read. Just like in any great presentation (or first date), your opening is everything. This opening line – “How awkward is that, Heidi? We don’t even know each other and I’m already planning to pick you up!” – ties together the subject line and the header image.

• The witty, human copy – with some company facts (“5x the rate of other leads”) weaved in – meant I actually read the email. Did you notice the P.S. at the end? Ha!

• The simple, clear call to action led to a click. There were only three clickable items in this email – two of them led to the demo (the action they wanted me to take).

• The click led me to watching the 2-minute demo (a mini-conversion, if you will).

I’m now in the Influitive lead funnel … bringing me one step closer to becoming a customer. Well done, Influitive. Well done Jim Williams.

The bottom line?  Using humor, being creative, showing your human side, and being different — these are all smart marketing techniques. 

What do you think of this email campaign? What creative, funny, different, human marketing campaigns have you seen lately? Please share in the comments below!

---

That’s So Awkward: Why You Should Use Humor in Your Email Campaigns was posted at Marketo Marketing Blog - Best Practices and Thought Leadership. | http://blog.marketo.com

Think you have a great service that no one knows about? Even if it's not new, it might be worth promoting anyway. Edible Arrangements tried it and increased sales. The e-commerce team increased same-day delivery orders on the Web 8% with simple promotion in a handful of channels. See where the team promoted the service, how, and where the campaign is headed.

If you market your business online, there is a good chance you have heard of the fastest growing social network, Pinterest. The photo and video sharing site is exploding in popularity. It has 25 million members, has registered over half a million business accounts and gets 2.5 billion page views per month. Whoa! So what … Continue Reading

Top 7 Reasons Your Business Should Be Interested In Pinterest by Julia Campbell - Maximize Social Business - Maximize Social Business - Your Social Media for Business Resource ... Featuring Contributions from Global Thinkers . 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.

   

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On the way to a recent barbecue, I dropped by a local gourmet market to pick up ingredients to make my famous Korean-style ribs. While the butcher was initially thrilled with my unexpectedly large 30 pound order, his mood soured when I asked him to thinly slice the ribs “flanken style” (cut parallel to the ribs). After 20 minutes of intense slicing (and several reminders to “slice it thinner”), the meat was ornately packaged and ready to go. Then, out of curiosity – let’s call it “research” – I asked if I was entitled to a volume discount since I was buying so much. Without giving it a second thought, the butcher chopped the per pound price from $8 to $6. As a consumer I appreciated the $60 savings—but as a consultant who helps businesses optimize their pricing, I wondered if the butcher realized how much of the store’s operating profit margin disappeared due to his hastily-considered discount.

In my work with companies on their pricing strategies, I’ve noticed that virtually all managers price according to the mantra of “the more you buy, the lower the per-unit price.” “Why?” I always ask. A common refrain is, “It’s a token of appreciation to our customers.” I agree–it’s important to express gratitude in a business transaction. However, there are many less costly alternatives such as, say, a handwritten thank you card. And remember, not every customer is seeking a discount – so providing one may be costly and go unappreciated. Some managers claim that since customers believe it’s cheaper to sell larger quantities, they feel compelled to provide a lower price. I understand, but since when are the specifics of your company’s cost structure any of your customers’ business?

There are only four primary reasons to offer a volume discount:

To capitalize on the law of diminishing utility: The concept of “the more one person consumes within a period, the less they value a product” is a cornerstone of microeconomic theory. Convenience stores and movie theaters, for instance, understand that thirsty customers are willing to pay a hefty price for the first 12 ounces of a cold soda relative to the next 12 ounces. To entice customers to consume more, the additional per-ounce price is significantly reduced in larger cup sizes. As a result, consumers are often faced with the conundrum of calculating whether it’s worth it to spend an extra 75 cents to double the size of our fountain drinks.

To compete with rivals who offer them: If your close competition provides volume discounts and you believe that by not granting similar price breaks you’ll lose the sale to a rival…trim away.

To lock in customers: In highly competitive markets, volume discounts nudge customers to commit, to the detriment of rivals. If a competitor is entering a market, locking-in customers preserves market share as well as thwarts the new entrant.

To encourage a large order instead of a series of small ones: Pharmacies often offer a discount if you purchase a year-long supply of a common prescription, for instance, instead of filling it monthly. This price break yields higher profits as pharmacies only have to incur the costs of filling a prescription once, instead of twelve times.

Although it’s counterintuitive, there are actually opportunities to increase prices for larger volumes as long as the premium can be justified by providing additional value. Magnums of champagne (1.5 liters) are often sold at more than double the price of individual 750ml bottles. Why? One reason is because it’s more festive (and hence valuable) to show up at a party with a magnum compared to two regular bottles. Magazines, for instance, can sell collections of back issues for a premium if they provide additional value such as special packaging, rare issues, and a collection-wide index.

While there are sound reasons to provide volume discounts, most companies over use them and offer them with too little thought. The next time you are contemplating offering a volume discount, ask yourself, “Do I really have to do this?” Back in my gourmet store, I’d already committed to buying 30 pounds of Korean ribs, discount or no discount. It was a classic case of a manager extending a discount that took a wholly unnecessary slice out of profits.

Everything you do in business builds your brand for good or ill, as your actions generate feelings, associations, and ideas in the minds of your consumers. The challenge is to make sure those actions create a meaningfully different experience that people want to repeat. This is because people are predisposed to choose things that stand out from the crowd. A brand’s difference gives consumers an easy rationale for choosing it, and a ready justification for paying a price premium. Research by Millward Brown finds that brands with a meaningful difference command a price premium 13 percent higher than weaker category alternatives.

For example, look at Lululemon. Founded in 1998, Lululemon produces sports apparel for women that is fashionable, environmentally friendly, and as technically advanced as sports apparel for men. The company spends virtually nothing on advertising. Instead, it concentrates on building an ardent consumer base by creating a unique customer experience. Instructors wear the clothing at in-store events like self-defense and goal-setting workshops, simultaneously building product awareness and forging ties with local communities. Through the community portal on its website, Lululemon invites customers to share their experiences via Instagram and Twitter. They are encouraged to apply to become Lululemon ambassadors, “unique individuals … who embody the Lululemon lifestyle and live our culture.” The company now has over 200 stores, and sales soared from US $40 million to US $1.37 billion in eight years. In the US alone, sales grew 40 percent in 2012.

People have always been attracted to brands with meaning, whether their experience of that meaning is tangible and functional or more of an emotional nature. Meaning drives volume; brands that stand for something meaningful and different in customers’ minds can generate five times more purchases than less meaningful brands.

What is marketing’s role in realizing such results? For one thing, we know that getting the word out about a brand makes it salient – marketing’s term for being included in the set of options a customer is considering. The faster a brand comes to mind in relation to a specific need, the more likely it is to be chosen. Meaningfully different brands are the most likely to benefit from a marketer’s efforts to improve salience. (In fact, a better way to think about how salient a brand is would be to ask: How quickly does a sense of what the brand stands for form in the mind of the consumer?)

But marketing plays a broader role in shaping a brand. It does not just manage to get a brand into a customer’s consideration set; it powerfully influences which aspects of that brand the customer notices and experiences. Good marketing helps ensure that brands are meaningful, different, and salient.

Chobani provides an example of how a product that delivers a noticeably different experience can overtake the competition. The company came along in 2005, after years of focus on low-fat products had left the US yogurt market vulnerable. Chobani’s brand strategy focused on the taste, texture, affordability, and authenticity of its “real” yogurt. Consumers responded enthusiastically and the brand attained mass distribution in just two years. In five years, the company held over half of the U.S. Greek yogurt market, and nearly 20 percent of the total yogurt market. By 2011, Chobani was the number-one yogurt brand in America.

Or consider the Mini Cooper, a car that reentered the US market in 2002 after an absence of 30 years. Younger, more non-traditional car buyers were attracted to the unique brand appeal of the Mini’s compact size, fuel efficiency, and fun, sporty performance. The company relies on clever stunts (challenging a Porsche to a race), event marketing (annual road trips for owners), and offbeat outdoor advertising to stand out in a crowded marketplace and appeal to the non-traditional consumer base. As a result, Mini has grown from one to seven available models at 119 dealers in 38 US states. Sales in the US have eclipsed those in the UK, and the company posted a 26 percent increase in 2011 and 15 percent increase in 2012. Mini’s well-defined and targeted purpose clearly made a clear impact on the bottom line.

By working in ways like these to make a brand more meaningful, different, and salient, Marketing drives the positive consumer behaviors that yield financial value growth. Our analysis of the annual reports for 49 corporate brands found that the strongest brands returned an average of 31 percent more operating profit as a proportion of revenues than those that lacked meaningful differentiation. Additional analysis looked at changes in value market share over time and found that meaningful, different, and salient brands are also four times more likely to grow.

This finding should come as no surprise. Strong, profitable brands are meaningful to their consumers, perceived as different from the competition, and are more salient than the alternatives. These three qualities determine how likely people are to choose the brand, pay a premium for it, and stick with it in future. If a brand is more meaningful, different, and salient than its competition, then it will likely command the highest value market share among its target audience. And this value is what will drive sales and profits, not just for now but for a while down the road.

After he was done mocking hydrogen fuel cell cars, Tesla CEO Elon Musk discussed future infotainment options for the Model S during a speech in Germany. Google Chrome and third-party apps are on the menu.

The post Google and Tesla combine forces to bring Chrome inside the Model S by end of 2014 appeared first on Digital Trends.

It is no accident that many successful sales force’s are highly ethical. When customers are treated the right way and their best interests are made a priority, they reward their suppliers with more business. Immoral and dishonest sales people don’t achieve long term success (and they certainly don’t sleep well at night), but getting your sales reps to be honest and behave ethically can be a challenge – the pressure to perform is high and short term success is often rewarded, and furthermore many sales people (and sales organizations, for that matter) see sales as a zero sum  game where winning must be achieved at all costs – even at the cost of the customer’s best interests.

What are some of the things you can do to ensure your reps are behaving ethically?

1. Make Ethics Part of Your Culture- Use sales meetings and presentations as an opportunity to highlight the role ethics play in success and the importance to your organization. Showcase examples and talk through common philosophical challenges – ie situations where in order to make a quota, a rep may be tempted to close a piece of business that is not entirely in a customer’s best interests. Take ethics seriously and discuss it often.

2. Reward the Ethical Behavior – Not only encourage your reps to be transparent with customers and treat them with the ighest level of care and respect, but find ways to reward reps for doing so. Competitions, spot prizes and public recognition will go a long way to helping set the tone.  Also don’t be afraid to come down hard on offenders and those reps who repeatedly disregard the customers best interests.

3. Walk the Talk - Sales reps emulate the actions of those around them, so it is not enough to simply talk about the importance of ethics. As a sales leader have to lead by example in showing the highest level of integrity and professionalism. Talk up your customers and act in the exact way you want your reps to act.

If you create a culture of ethical sales, your customers will reward you.

To your success!

Watch this New Rules of Marketing Virtual Event session with Jeffrey Eisenberg on how to improve marketing and sales using big data platforms.

Okay, you’re going to want to sit down for this blog post. Oh, and also keep your back straight but slightly inclined, elbows slightly out and resting on their adjustable armrests, wrists relaxed and at the same height as your elbows, head straight, and screen at a comfortable eye-level. Okay, got it?

… perfect.

Inside sales is all about sitting for hours on the phone, the computer, and other devices. This is one place where no pain, no gain doesn’t apply.

A recent piece on CNN Money explained that pain associated with bad posture and desk-fatigue will cause the average sufferer to lose 5 1/2 hours of productivity per week. There’s no way your teams can afford to lose that much time. Back in September, I wrote that it helps to think of the journey along the path from identifying a lead to closing a sale as a long swim through unpredictable waters. The key isn’t speed, but mental endurance — and physical endurance is a big part of supporting that.

Thankfully, there is a wealth of knowledge out there about proper ergonomic practices that inside sales pros can benefit by. Here’s some top practices that don’t require you to buy a $1,700 chair.

Free shipping?! What a deal!

1. Take small desk breaks. Get up from the desk a couple of times an hour to stand, stretch, walk about, and give your fingers a break from typing. Remember, it’s the repetition — day in and day out — of these office tasks that’s the cause of recurring pain and discomfort. Break up the pattern and you’ll strike at the heart of the problem.
2. Focus on the Big Three. That’s the Keyboard, Chair, and Screen. Most problems arise from repeated bad posture related to one or more of these. Get a chair with adjustable height and arm rests, and a back rest that supports the lower back or has room for a pillow or rolled up towel. Sit at a slight incline, chest back and head straight. Position your monitor so that your eyes naturally look at a point a bit beneath the top of the screen. Place your keyboard so that your hands are at the same height as your elbows and your wrists are flat.
3. Get some budget basics. Phone headsets let you keep your head in a comfortable position, and they generally cost under $20. A footrest can make a world of difference, relieving pressure from the back and legs. If you work on a laptop, get yourself a wireless keyboard. Place it in a comfortable position so you can keep your wrists flat.

The post Ergonomically Correct Inside Sales appeared first on TeleSmart Communications.

Anyone will tell you that excelling in a career takes hard work and perseverance. But when I started working in an inside sales position here at memoryBlue, I got a whole new perspective on hard work and the approach I’d need to take to succeed. Beyond hard work, excelling in an inside sales position takes a special kind of grit and fearlessness.

What does it take to be able to really thrive in an inside sales role? The answer to this question is something we all seek every day here at memoryBlue. While everyone has to find his or her own best practices, here are three rules that I’m dedicated to following, and by doing so, have established a solid foundation for a successful career. Use them to build you own personal success strategy for inside sales.

Rule 1: Make prospecting a game

The way that you approach your everyday workload should be a reflection of your personality and passions. If you can’t find ways to inject enthusiasm into prospecting and make it enjoyable, you’re not going to be in this position very long. The way I see it, you must make prospecting into a game. Make sure you’re enjoying yourself when speaking to prospective customers and clients. Stay relaxed by treating every conversation as if you’re sharing it with one of your best friends. You can ensure success when you learn to be yourself regardless of the situation, while always utilizing good sales tactics. Try something unique every day, you never know what will grab your prospect’s attention until you try it.

Rule 2: Set your own goals

The number one way to ensure success in a sales career is to set personal goals for yourself on a daily basis. No one can argue the importance of setting yearly goals, or overall life goals. But what’s more important, especially in an inside sales role, is to make sure you set goals for yourself on a daily basis. What I do is take five minutes every morning to carefully plan out my entire day – down to each hour. I make sure I have a game plan for the morning and afternoon, and then set a goal that I can work to achieve by the end of the day. Once these goals are set, I make sure to do all I can to reach and even exceed those goals. I make sure to set my personal expectations much higher than the goals my boss or client has for me. The key is to be completely committed to reaching them but not to make them so unattainable that you are discouraged – because a goal never reached is not a goal at all. Over time I have found that by making this a habit, I’ve been able to control my activity, hit my quotas, and improve my sales game significantly.

Rule 3: Strengthen your mentality

Anyone who’s worked in sales for even the shortest amount of time can tell you – attitude is the single MOST important thing, and your most valuable asset. Dealing with the ups and downs of our everyday interactions requires a specific mindset. That mindset should be centered around gratitude and appreciation. I recently read a book by master salesman and author Robert Terson titled, “Selling Fearlessly.” If you haven’t read it, I strongly suggest you do. In it, he uses his experiences to convey the many strategies used by sales people in their daily conversations with prospects. His emphasis on building a strong emotional foundation is what stuck out to me. As you grow in your sales career, you will experience countless moments when the task at hand seems impossible and negativity takes over. You must learn to make the most of each experience, whether good or bad. In the words of Terson, “The salesperson who has a heart full of gratitude sells a lot more than the one who doesn’t.”

These rules are a great place to start when building your personal strategy for success in inside sales. Over time, you might adjust mine or find more of your own. Once you find a set of rules that work for you, stick to them and incorporate them into your daily lifestyle — you’ll be on track to a successful and fulfilling career.

Sales Training Article: 3 Steps to Avoid Death by RFP

By Scott Gruher, Sales Benchmark Index (SBI)

Image courtesy of satit_srihin at FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Why are RFPs wearing you out? Because your offering is becoming more commoditized every day. Customers want to level the playing field. Your team is responding to RFPs that they have little chance of winning. You need to change course quickly to avoid the competitive blood bath. In this post we will discuss how to avoid the RFP plague.

Winning more deals at higher margins requires getting in early. To get in early requires a paradigm shift. It requires transformational thinking versus taking the easy path of what worked yesterday.

We are offering free expert advice on how to avoid the RFP plague. Sign up for our annual research tour. An expert will help you think through your sales strategy. Next year is coming fast and you have decisions that need to be made now. Get out of the blocks before your competitors. Sign up now and get the Sales Strategy Grader to ensure you are ready!

Moving upstream is what we call "selling in the orange" (see visual below). Selling in the orange involves influencing the buyer before a rep is present. It necessitates a shift in your sales strategy. It is much more difficult than selling in the white space shown below. Selling in the white space is becoming less effective each day. If you sell in the orange you will win more deals at better prices.

Your Choice

3 Steps to Develop a Sales Strategy to Sell the Orange...

Click here to read more from SBI.

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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.

Recently I’ve been working with a number of salespeople making sales calls that stretch across a wide range of industries, and one thing stands out — Sales Leadership.

With each person with whom I’ve worked, it is amazing to me how the demonstration of sales leadership makes a huge impact. This is true when working with an existing customer and when courting a prospect.

At the core of sales leadership is trust — the level of trust the other person places in the salesperson and the level of trust the salesperson has with the customer.

Trust opens doors by allowing for meaningful information to be exchanged. 

What makes the meaningful information so critical is the sales leader knows what to do with it.

I’m not talking about blurting out an answer or some sort of textbook answer.  What I’m talking about is the ability for the salesperson to take the meaningful information and build on it even more.

Sales leaders are not afraid of hearing bad news, and they’re not afraid of hearing information or questions they don’t have an answer to.  No, they relish both as an opportunity to dialogue more with the prospect and to engage them in an even deeper discussion.

All of this discussion allows for one very simple thing to occur.

The salesperson is able to deepen their level of engagement with the customer and as a result uncover more opportunities to assist them.

At the core of sales leadership and the development of trust is a genuine level of interest in being able to assist the customer or prospect.

A sales leader understands the challenges of the customer from their perspective and not solely with the objective of maximizing a sale.

This does not mean a sales leader is not going to seek to maximize the sale, but they will do so knowing how the sale will truly help the customer.

Copyright 2013, Mark Hunter “The Sales Hunter.” Sales Motivation Blog.