Rnordman

The Minimizer

When asked the question “What do you do?” most people minimize their value. Minimizers position themselves by either their title or by their products/services. Their elevator speeches are brief and factual. They really dislike “puffery” and bragging and give the most concise response possible.

Here are some common examples of The Minimizer elevator speech:

• "I sell software."
• "I'm a consultant."
• "I'm a mortgage broker."
• "I'm self-employed."

There are two main problems with the way Minimizer's respond to the big question:

1. It's boring! When you lead with your title, most people immediately assume they know what you do. How many other web designers are there? How about printing salespeople? Marketing communications companies? IT specialists?

As a consequence, people typically aren’t too interested in learning more, and the conversation ends or moves on to a different topic. You’ve shut the door on any opportunity to build your referral network.

2. You become a commodity:  When you position yourself by the products or services you sell, you also put yourself into the same category as your competitors, which makes you a commodity.

If someone needs what you do, they immediately want to know how much you charge or what your price is. No matter what you say, you’re in trouble! Buyers automatically compare your price tag to other suppliers – even though they don’t know why you may be a better value, more productive or more capable.

Perception is everything. Don’t let people assume they know what you do. Make sure to clearly articulate the value you bring to the companies you work with.

Download my ebook, Attracting More Customers, to get more examples of elevator speeches.

1. Follow up as soon as possible. Give yourself less than 24 hours after an interaction to send a follow-up email. If possible, don’t wait until you get back to the office.  Send the email from the cab or the airport
2. Use regular mail as well as email. Receiving a note in the mail a few days after the email will make your message stand out and add a personal touch
3. Convey credibility. If you are a relatively unknown quantity, draft off a reference by mentioning a familiar person or institution
4. Keep it brief. Think in terms of a text message.  You don’t have to say everything in one follow-up email. Hit a few points and save the rest for an email to be sent the following week
5. Use emails as a chance to safely reduce formality. If culturally appropriate, use first names in email.  If the target replies using first names, you’ve reduced formality. If the target continues to use last names, drop the attempt

A few years back I was the Online Marketing Director for a marketing agency specializing in the healthcare industry. The job was fantastic and exposed me to lots of very cool projects but there was a catch: the job was 2 hours each way from where I was living.

Three days a week I would drive up to the office to collaborate with my peers. The drive left me with a lot of time to think… too much time to think. So I had to find ways to amuse myself during my trek up the Washington coastline. The need to amuse myself for four hours a day coupled with my goal of continuous self-improvement guided me perfectly to a solution: marketing podcasts.

Since I had no knowledge of marketing podcasts, I did some quick Googling and subscribing (not while driving) and found myself with more podcasts than I knew what to do with. But I had lots of time, so I began to listen. I could knock out 2-5 podcasts on a trip depending on what I was listening to. From marketing theory to digital marketing best practices I found content ranging the gamut and I was soaking it up.

What I didn’t expect was that I found myself arriving to work more excited than ever and eager to share what I learned on the drive. The culmination of ideas was helping me make connections and expand on my own way of looking at things. I felt a great sense of understanding about the trends, updates and best practices more than I ever had browsing through a few articles a day.

Well, I’m only human and ultimately the drive got to me and I found myself looking for new opportunities – but not before I found some great podcasts that I still listen to today. I’ve listed them here (in no particular order – they’re all awesome for their own reasons) so you, too, can get just as much out of them as I do.

The BeanCast
Bob Knorpp hosts a great weekly conversation with business leaders, journalists, CMOs, bloggers, authors and more to discuss the latest news and trends in marketing. What I love is all of the various perspectives and the thought leadership that goes into every show.

Marketing Over Coffee
John and Chris provide lots of information I can use immediately and they challenge me to rethink the way I do things and leave me considering new tactics.

Duct Tape Marketing
Great interviews with marketing and business authors

Marketing Smarts
Like everything MarketingProfs produces, Marketing Smarts is an insightful, interview-style podcast with some great guests.

Six Pixels of Separation
Mitch Joel of Twist Image brings marketing and communication insights from the edge.

Internet Marketing Podcast
Andy White of SiteVisibility brings you the latest news and advice for generating online leads and sales.

Did I miss any of your favorites? Of course I did, there are lots of great digital marketing, SEO, PPC and online business podcasts that deserve a mention! Please feel free to share your favorites in the comments.

The post The Best Marketing Podcasts Every Marketer Should Be Listening To appeared first on Optify.

There’s a huge difference between a healthy sales pipeline and a rotten one. It’s long been a hobby horse of mine, and something I’ve regularly written about. But I don’t think I’ve ever managed to articulate the problem quite as well as my friend Dave Brock in his recent article “Pipeline Stench”.

Dave paints a graphic (and splendidly olfactory) picture of the difference between a healthy and a rotten sales pipeline. I strongly recommend that you read his article. I won’t attempt to paraphrase the full article (and I doubt that I could do it justice anyway). But I would like to build on Dave’s thinking, and offer a few additional remedies that could help stop pipelines turning into stagnant, smelly sewers.

Sewers are designed to carry rubbish, and all manner of unpleasant substances. Pipelines, on the other hand, are intended to carry your future customers from stage to stage in their buying decision process.

Filter out the rubbish

So the first obvious conclusion is that you shouldn’t allow rubbish to enter the pipeline in the first place. Your marketing should target people and organisations that closely align with your ideal prospect profiles - and if you haven’t yet achieved organisation-wide consensus about what an ideal customer looks like, you need to address that problem immediately.

Next, you can’t afford to allow your sales people to qualify sales opportunities on an ad-hoc basis. Heaven knows, I’m no great fan of the traditional BANT approach to opportunity qualification for the reasons outlined here, but without a consistent, organisation-wide approach to qualification, you’ll end up allowing a load of opportunities that could never possibly close to clog up your pipeline.

Unblock the pipe

Then, assuming that you’ve eliminated “opportunities” that could never by any rational assessment become customers, you need to clearly understand where and why otherwise well-qualified opportunities end up getting stuck in your pipeline. Where are the blockages? Where are the constraints? Where do you need to take a high-pressure hose to remove the bottlenecks?

Some of these, inevitably, will be outside your control. But if you take a systematic approach to identifying where and why deals typically get stuck, I can guarantee that with a little lateral thinking you can find un-blocking remedies. You just need to be aware that many of the reasons deals get stuck at a particular stage are because of things that happened or didn’t happen upstream.

Make change happen

An opportunity hadn’t been sufficiently well qualified. An obvious potential blockage or land mine hadn’t been anticipated and pre-empted. The prospect had been “oversold” by an over-enthusiastic sales person about how easy it was all going to be. Most commonly of all, the sales person hadn’t recognised the project as a change management programme within the prospect, and ignored the difficulties and dynamics of making change happen.

Deal get stuck, and start to rot, when we fail to qualify well, when we fail to surface and pre-empt predictable objections, when we lack a strategy, when we fail to implement an effective action plan, and when we fail to approach the problem as a change management project. And once opportunities start to loose momentum for avoidable reasons, our chances of ever closing them diminish alarmingly.

Cut out the rot

Read Dave’s article. Put away the air freshener. Have a really good deep sniff around your pipeline. Flush the rotten and stagnating deals away (or conduct major surgery to remove the rotten bits). Open up your pipelines so that the well-qualified deals can flow through. And then commit to stop putting any more rubbish to the pipeline in the first place.

Will the apparent value of your pipeline go down? Absolutely inevitably. But then, the value was never real in the first place. All it did was to encourage you to come up with completely unrealistic and unfeasible revenue forecasts. Wouldn’t it be far better to start with a clean, accurate pipeline, and keep it that way?

The most effective pitches craft a sales story that connects with a customer’s need and offers the product as the perfect solution for fulfilling that need. This is no groundbreaking revelation, but it’s surprising just how many businesses fail to incorporate this strategy online. A well-written website sales page will proactively address your prospect’s biggest questions, paint a picture of a better future, and leave him feeling like your company understands him.

The most compelling argument for creating an engaging, strategic sales page is that, in reality, you can’t be open for business 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. Even if your job is specifically sales-oriented, there comes a time when you have to close up shop. Your website, however, is the part of your business that never closes and isn’t limited by the distance between you and your customers.

When you’re unavailable, your website acts as your surrogate. Usually, when prospective customers come to your site, they’re ready to act and want an immediate response. It’s great to have a trained team for sales, but having an excellent sales page is the next best thing. Some benefits of a great sales page are:

• Less time spent actively selling
• Less money spent on your sales force
• More time to focus on delivery
• Less time wasted on unqualified prospects or prospects who aren’t serious about buying

When a Sales Page Fails

Many people don’t like sales pages because they’re long and elaborate, but we have them for one very compelling reason: they work. Problems arise when a sales page fails to do the research necessary to be effective. Here are five common page mistakes that result in lower sales: 

1. If a page fails to understand its audience’s motivations and problems, prospects feel as if their needs are not being met. 
2. If a page fails to adequately anticipate the audience’s objections, customers will have unanswered questions and feel justified in not making a purchase.
3. If a page fails to paint a powerful picture of what’s possible when using its offerings, prospects won’t be able to visualize the benefits of owning the products.
4. If a page fails to demonstrate understanding of the audience’s problems, customers will give their business to a company they feel is on their side.
5. If a page fails to show the value of the product and the pricing, the customer will purchase from another company that can demonstrate value and justify pricing. 

How You Can Create a Better Page

A well-written sales page will proactively anticipate your prospects’ biggest questions and answer them. Here are five tips for creating an engaging, strategic sales page:

Clearly identify your audience.

A 35-year-old mom and a 25-year-old bachelor might want the same product, but what they’re looking for in the product is very different. It’s crucial that you understand who your audience is and what their specific wants and needs are so you can craft your message in a way they will be able to hear. Create different stories for each audience you’re trying to engage. This is not manipulation; rather, it’s about giving each person the individual attention he deserves.

Clearly identify the problem your product solves.

When you know who your audience is, you can be very explicit about the problem you are addressing. Customers buy products that are relevant to their specific problems, so if you can’t articulate the problem you’re solving, they won’t pay attention.

Show your audience’s story.

There’s a saying in creative writing: “Show, don’t tell.” This is as true for crafting a sales story as it is for any novel. Don’t tell people their problems; they know what they are. Instead, paint a picture of the issues they face and how they’re having a negative impact on their businesses or personal lives so they can identify without feeling as if they’re being lectured. When you show them you understand where they’re coming from, they’ll be more likely to say, “This person gets us. I want him to help me.” 

Paint a picture of what life is like after they buy.

When people have a problem they can’t solve on their own, they often have a hard time seeing beyond the problem. It’s your job to show them what’s possible when the problem is solved and life gets better. People aren’t really buying a product — they’re buying a result. You have to show them what life will be like when they relieve the tension or achieve their desire.

Sell the benefits, not the process.

Most entrepreneurs think people care about how we do what we do. They don’t. They care about results. If they get the results, then they know the process worked, so don’t waste time selling something that’s irrelevant to why they buy. Best-case scenario: you waste your time and theirs. Worst-case scenario: they become frustrated and go to a competitor’s website. 

In reality, even when people want to buy from you, they are intrinsically looking for reasons not to. Customers want to feel okay about not making a purchase, so they look for ways to disqualify you and your product. However, when you take the time to craft a powerful sales page that empathetically addresses the customer’s problem and paints a picture of a better future, customers’ perceptions change. Instead of being seen as a salesman, you are seen as a confidant who can help.

The harsh reality of being in management is that along with the buzz you get giving someone a job and a chance to earn their living and work at something they (hopefully) enjoy, there will be times when you have to fire the very same individual and in sales unfortunately this invariably happens more often than in other company functions.

Whatever the reason for the termination of their employment, here are six ways NOT to fire someone and yes, these are all examples I have experienced personally or recently heard about either from sales people or from sales managers. I recommend you don’t make these mistakes:

1. Send a termination message by Text. It’s bad enough when you have to let someone go by phone either because they are remote and travel to their location is not feasible or because you are stuck somewhere and are forced to make a change on short notice, but via SMS? Our recruiters spoke to someone that was relieved of their duties this way and while I appreciate that no one likes to deliver a termination message live,  there may be legal issues with not providing a full and complete termination notice and it is certainly more human to have a call or meeting so you can address any questions the departing sales rep might have.
2. Neglect to be upfront as to why you are firing them. While saying too much could give them ammunition to fire back at you in a court challenge to their dismissal, telling them false reasons, even if it is to make everyone feel better about the firing, is wrong. It will only come back and haunt you. Whenever I have had communicate a termination, I have always couched the message in such a way that they leave accepting they were not suited for that role, but are still worthwhile individuals. Keep in mind that their ego is going to be bruised and they have to find a new job. Furthermore, if they give their new employer spurious reasons why they were fired and, when checked, the new boss discovers a different story, then that won’t help the departed staff member at all.
3. Try to make things lighter. You are doing something that is not pleasant, for you or them so don’t try to make it into something it isn’t. Now is not the time to try to boost their confidence with compliments that will likely seem insincere. You are changing their life’s course. They now have to find new employment and figure out how they are paying next month’s bills. Also don’t offer more help than you can give. You can be as helpful and supportive, but ultimately you are parting ways so there is no point in offering them more support than you are actually in a position to provide. Strike the right balance.
4. Tell them they are fired before securing company assets. This could be your price list, client list or some other proprietary information. Letting them go back to their work-station and log on to the company network might not be the wisest of moves. Except for a couple of times, I have always had a departing sales rep surrender company assets such as lap tops, mobile phones, cars and product information at the time of the dismissal. Even if there is no perceived security threat, it is an emotional experience for everyone and always best to err on the side of safety and in any event, it is always easier to retrieve everything in the moment.  In some cases, you will want to walk the person out of the office and as ‘Big Brother’ as it may look to other staff, having security or a more senior executive accompany them as they clear out their things makes good sense. How it is done is the key to everyone retaining their dignity and morale. The alternative, losing perhaps millions of dollars of company assets just to not ruffle the feathers of the dismissed employee often impacts unfairly on everyone else’s job security. Your call.
5. Forget “administrivia”. Upon termination, a departing employee will want to know what termination pay they will be entitled to and any trailing commissions. You need to have these answers and you will want to make sure you are clear on these prior to the termination meeting so you know what commitments you are taken on as a result of the dismissal.
6. Fail to be sympathetic. It is a big deal, most likely the biggest thing they have had to deal with in their time with the company. It will impact their life and the lives of their loved ones so after you tell them they are fired. Over the years, I have had dismissed employees break down or express anger. As I said it is an emotional experience, so give them a moment to absorb and process the news.

Firing someone is never fun, but it can be done with dignity and respect for all concerned and move on to bigger and better things for all concerned. If you handle it well.

Jeb Brooks
President of The Brooks Group

The other day, I was in a meeting where someone was remarking about how difficult it is to find “good salespeople.” She was expressing frustration because she’s hired salespeople who look good during the hiring process, but quickly fail in her environment.

Of course, my first inclination was to introduce her to our sales assessments, but I stopped myself because her issue goes beyond screening candidates.

It’s a common question that’s rarely answered directly: Where are the good salespeople? The reason people don’t have a good answer is because it’s difficult to say what makes “good salespeople.”

First, it's tough to find good salespeople because even bad salespeople are skilled at selling themselves. I've written about this before.

But the bigger issue for the woman in my meeting (and maybe you, too) is that there's a tendency to believe that the only good salespeople come from whatever industry you're operating within. That makes hiring good salespeople difficult because capturing a truly great salesperson from a competitor is challenging. Instead, it's easier to find someone's worst performer (or at least an average one). Why? Because your competitors likely do their best to keep their top performers happy.

So stop looking at the same people! Get a fresh perspective by looking outside of your industry.

How do you do that since your business is unique? Start by asking these questions:

1. How complex is my selling environment?
2. Do I sell through distribution or directly to end-users?
3. How long is my sales cycle?
4. How easy is it to access decision makers?
5. How new is my market?
6. How new is our industry?
7. Are we selling a high-tech offering or a low-tech one?
8. How much technology is used by your salespeople?
9. How much technology is used by your clients?
10. How competitive is the industry I'm in?
11. How differentiated is our offering?
12. How customized is our offering?

Once you have a clearer picture of what selling for you looks like, you can begin to look outside your industry.

By the way, a truly skilled salesperson doesn't need a huge contact list. Instead, if he or she has built one in a similar selling situation before, they can do it again!

- @JebBrooks

The post Where are the Good Salespeople? 12 Questions to Ask appeared first on Sales Evolution.

Yes, you’ve read dozens of articles with hundreds of ideas about how marketing goes wrong. They’re surprisingly consistent, and what frequently goes wrong is response – that it comes too slowly or that it is too generic.

It’s not that B2B companies don’t learn, but that they must learn continuously to adapt to new best practices and evolving technologies. Thirty years ago there was no marketing automation, and 15 years ago, CRM was in its infancy. And technology can overwhelm salespeople, who because of inbound marketing likely have three or four times the number of leads they had a decade ago.

Let’s look at three common pitfalls in lead response, why they occur and how to avoid them.

1. Poor follow-up, particularly in the case of web-generated leads. This one never goes away. Optify in March released findings that just 24% of the top B2B marketing companies use autoresponders in marketing automation. So, a web searcher fills in a form to perhaps download a white paper, sign up for a webinar or receive a follow-up call. Optify found that only about 17% of companies send an email within 15 minutes of form submission, and a little over half of those (about 9% of companies) personalize those responses.

What if the response is not automated – what if the expected response is a sales call? A 2012 InsideSales.com study found that of 696 companies with online lead forms, sales reps were making their first attempt to reach a lead fully 39 hours after the lead was generated; and almost 36% reported that at one time or another, they had failed to respond at all to a submitted lead within a two-week tracking period. Just 24% of companies responded to a web-generated lead in the much-ballyhooed five-minute window – despite the fact that the rep is 100 times more likely to reach the new lead and 21 times more likely to push that lead into the sales pipeline by making contact in the first five minutes.

The solutions are obvious in the case of autoresponders and marketing automation; program them better, and program them for personalized response. Fairly simple.

But in the case of non-automated response? Lazy salespeople get sorted out early in their careers, so let’s look for other causes. Four likely causes are that 1) the salesperson is otherwise engaged (like being on another sales call); 2) the salesperson doesn’t receive the leads timely; 3) the salesperson is overwhelmed with leads; or 4) the salesperson is not sold on the need for immediate follow-up.

Each of those instances is a process problem that can be fixed by relying more upon marketing automation, or better using pre-sales or sales-enablement personnel for follow-up. Or, by coaching the salesperson about the error of his/her ways.

2. Giving up on green leads, which is closely akin to failing to nurture leads. Thanks to Marketo for pointing this one out. Marketo estimates that about 45% of inbound B2B leads (from people who have inquired about a product or service) become buyers. But does a salesperson who gets 100 leads from Marketing doggedly pursue those leads until 45 of them close? No. The salesperson finds that just four are “ripe” and ready to buy. The remaining 41 leads aren’t bad leads, but they’re not ripe, yet. Maybe they’re not even ready to make an appointment; but somewhere down the line they will, if not with you, then with a competitor.

Once again – this salesperson is probably not lazy. But he or she probably has limited bandwidth, and naturally devotes more time to riper leads. Let’s say your salesperson is a new hire with no leads, who then gets 100 leads a month, and has a quota of closing five per month. In the twelfth month, that salesperson will have as many as 1,140 leads to nurture. Is that even feasible? Or, is it a job for Marketing? As we’ve pointed out before, Marketing may have exited the sales funnel prematurely, when there should be no hand-off from Marketing to Sales until the deal is done.

3. Ignoring the pain points and sticking to the script. This happens at every point on the sales continuum.

A salesman once told me he learned a great lesson in sales from, of all people, his doctor. Sometime in the mid 1980s this guy made an appointment with his GP because of pain in his abdomen. The doctor began the appointment by lecturing him about safe sex. He quoted frightening statistics, gave him a couple of pamphlets with repulsive clinical photos, and asked “Any questions?” “Yeah,” said the salesman, “are you at all interested in my hernia? That’s why I’m here.”

“I learned from that,” the salesman told me. “If I don’t know what the customer’s pain point is, I either don’t go on the call or I ask about it before I make a pitch.”

The point is – pain points must drive the conversation, in both sales call and in marketing response.

So, yes, you’ve got lots of interesting feature/function statements in your toolkit. The prospect is interested in only one or two. Does your elegant form somehow capture the customer’s pain points? If not, does some event tip you off as to the pain point, like downloading a white paper on cybersecurity or joining a webinar on risk management? Where, in your lead generation process, do pain points become clear?

Recall that figure from Optify, that just 9% of B2B companies personalize autoresponses. Using the prospect’s name is personalization, sure. But saying that “we understand your need for greater cybersecurity at a lower cost” is deeper personalization

The upshot of all this; a personalized response tells the prospect that you listen, and an immediate response sends the message that you’re listening now, and will in the future. That’s the kind of company that wins business.

Image: Mark Hill, JDE Tips

Americans are retiring later than ever and companies are trying to attract these older workers with competitive retirement options.

The National Institutes of Health recently ranked as the best company for older workers.

NIH's retirement options allow employees to transition into retirement by reducing hours or working part-time. Employees are given the option of a trial-retirement program, which allows retirees to return to work within one year of retiring if they decide they aren't ready to leave the workforce.

"Industries that want to be competitive and want to retain the best talent are going to have to look for ways to [support older workers]," says Philip Lenowitz, deputy director in the office of human resources at the NIH. "People are expected to work longer today and people are going to live longer as well."

"You can't let everybody who's been here a long time just go out the door without sharing what they've learned through the years. The skills and knowledge that they have are still valuable," he says.

There's a good reason why NIH has created so many attractive retirement options: 47% of its workers are age 50 and older.

"After all of their schooling, a lot of our workers are starting their jobs in their 30s or even 40s so they have less time to contribute," Lenowitiz tells us. "It makes sense to have structured retirement programs for people who are coming to work at a later age so that they're not falling behind."

Below, Lenowitz explains the retirement options that has put NIH at the top of any Boomer's dream company list:

1. Trial retirement option

If the former worker decides within one year of retiring that they would rather come back to work, NIH allows them to do so.

"They come back to positions that are similar to their old positions, but a huge component of it also has to do with mentoring," Lenowitz says.

Although the option is available, Lenowitz says that most people choose the part-time options so that they don't have to come back to a full-time job.

2. Part annuity, part salary option

This is part of NIH's phased retirement program which allows workers to work part-time and retire part-time. The workers would collect a prorated salary and a prorated retirement annuity.

"They can still work and collect their salary for the time they work and collect annuity for the time they're retired," he says. "This is a good way to phase retirement."

3. Contract option

This is another way NIH workers can use the company's phased retirement program. Employees that are of retirement age can choose to be a contract worker. This way, they can still collect their entire annuity and get a portion of their salary.

For example, if an employee retired from a $100,000 salaried job and they have a retirement annuity of $50,000, they can come back to work as a contractor and receive a salary of $50,000. This way their total income will be the same as before retirement. In this option, they are also able to work part-time and a portion of their role will involve mentoring.

"We're specifically taking advantage of their experience, their long-term knowledge and passing it on to less experienced folks," Lenowitz says.

4. Volunteer option

This option is for retirees who want to come back to NIH as volunteers to use the company's resources for ongoing research.

NIH also hosts job fairs aimed at older workers, provides emergency day care for employees' children, grandchildren and parents, and offers retirement and financial planning seminars.

For his own retirement in the future, Lenowitz tells us he's planning on taking advantage of NIH's phased retirement program.

"I'll look for consulting, part-time work to pass on the knowledge that I've learned in my years to the future generation," he says. "But not anything full-time, especially September and October — that's when I have a bicycle ride across North Carolina and other things I need to take care of."

SEE MORE ON OPEN FORUM:

• 5 good reasons to hire older workers >

• How employers can retain talent in the entrepreneurial age >

• 7 powers leaders can use for good or evil >

Join the conversation about this story »

There's a chasm widening between old school and new school marketers. New school marketers, typically those closer to social marketing channels targeted at Millennials, are telling me they're having a hard time getting their projects funded internally because old school marketers in the C-suite don't understand the new context and metrics driving social marketing.

This often results in CMOs retreating to their comfort zones and wasting money on what I call "studio-based" marketing channels, which still take their cue from the traditional awareness-consideration-action sales model that was debunked almost five years ago by McKinsey.

Studio-based channels require the slow and methodical creation of studio assets (via film or photo shoot) with the goal of beaming the creative to a designated "appointment" (a slot on Modern Family). The guiding principle is the content itself — any hope of conversation around that creative is mitigated by a marketing (not consumer) defined hashtag burned into the spot. It's a one-way proposition at best, as useless and pretentious as the ethnocentric American who shouts the same thing louder and louder hoping that the Korean tourist he's giving directions to will finally understand.

This type of marketing isn't the be-all-end-all that it once was simply because the one unit of measure it relies heaviest on — time — is the same measure that will render its obsolescence. In today's social communities, quick-thinking and hustle (not a precious and polished spot) are the currencies most revered. That's because the audience most addicted to these social channels — Millennials — expect brands to live in the same world they live in, speaking the same language about the same issues they care about, find humorous, or strike an emotional chord. And since this generation collaborates online more freely than any other, the exponential reward of their sharing pays off with a far higher return on customer acquisition. For every Millennial customer acquired, chances are you'll acquire another two Millennials for free just from their word-of-mouth endorsement on social channels (the "share" at its purest form).

In order to create content that thrives in this social environment and maximizes shareability — people having conversations related to your brands — marketers need to behave less like studios that charge by the hour and more like newsrooms that charge by the word (even if those words are limited to a mere 140 characters).

For brands that were born into the world with a Facebook page on launch day — think Virgin America, Lululemon, and Warby Parker (the Ryan Gosling of brands at the moment) — conversions don't result from shouting product promotions; they result from a deeper emotional connection stemming from what's actually going on in its customers' lives and communities. It's almost like making new friends in high school: You don't walk up to someone and say, "Be my friend. Be my friend! I'll pay for your lunch if you be my friend!" You need a savvier approach, striking up a conversation about something you may have in common with the prospective friend.

In order to contribute to and sustain a presence in social communities, brands need to post with the in-the-know mentality of your hyper-social friend on Facebook or Twitter — the one who's exhausting to hang out with, but still knows what's hot at the end of the day.

I refer to this method as "newsroom marketing". Every post, every engagement is breaking news optimized for the speed of pop culture. In this model, it takes hours, not weeks, to create content — and it will cost you less than a :30 network ad on TV. These newsroom tactics complement typical display advertising, which now has the job of retargeting the user with promotional messaging several sites after the prospect enjoyed the newsroom-style branded engagement.

If all goes according to plan, the brand's daily commentary becomes the opening joke of a stump speech, and the audience is more likely to consider that brand's products and services when they are prepped for product investigation or purchase. Unlike studio marketing, the content isn't king; context is.

So how do you gain footing in this new arena? At Virgin Mobile, we made the decision to learn from platforms that thrive in this environment — and who in turn need brands to help fund their innovation through paid media.

Our results from working with BuzzFeed for the past year have been extraordinary. On the day Instagram launched on Android, for example, Virgin Mobile could have simply announced its arrival on our Facebook page. Instead, we created an emotional connection among fans. "11 Things No One Wants to See You Instagram" hit a chord with readers who were huge Instagram fans, but could also relate to the trappings of tragic, try-hard Instagram posts. The piece's virality shot up, allowing for roughly 1.2 million views of the post from over 8,000 sharers across Facebook, Twitter, StumbleUpon, and LinkedIn.

In general, our subsequent clickthroughs from retargeted banner ads following campaigns like this are higher, and if we append a targeted flash sale to the campaign, we'll often see lifts of 95% in phone sales. According to a Vizu study BuzzFeed conducted earlier this year, prospects who enjoyed our branded social content were 235% more likely to investigate Virgin Mobile for their next phone service versus those that didn't see our content.

Currently, Virgin Mobile boasts an average 3 million views a month for its social content, rivaling the online audiences of Pitchfork and Rolling Stone. Why? Because we create content on a platform that was perfectly optimized for shareability. The name of the post, the length of the list, the photos selected — all these choices were thoughtful results from the A/B tests that founder Jonah Peretti and his disciples ferreted through before indoctrinating them as gospel. Of course, there are several platform options marketers can choose to take advantage of this trend in native advertising. But to truly reap the benefits of it, marketers need to tailor all of their assets — even their studio assets — to drive prospects to conversion by bridging seductive content with hard-core commerce. If a platform like BuzzFeed can optimize storytelling for content shareability, why can't marketers optimize storytelling for sharing products?

The social "share" metric has single-handedly redefined what it means to engage with an audience on a regular basis. New school marketers are less concerned with the unique monthly views on their microsites and are increasingly more obsessed with "owning the water cooler" — that is, owning the spaces where stories spread most. Even if you don't have a partner like BuzzFeed you can share a stream of photos on Instagram during Fashion Week, provide real-time commentary during the Oscars on Twitter, or create gasp-inducing fireworks GIFs on Tumblr to help strengthen your voice.

Before your C-suite execs finalize their bloated budgets in the fall, they should first take a hard look at the total "shares" from the campaigns conducted by their new school marketers. Hopefully they'll realize that some of the best acquisition tactics are earned, not bought. In other words, stop acting like a marketer. Act like a friend.

I love this: true wisdom indeed.

How to Nap Effectively infographic by smithapat.

Newly hired employees of an Indian call center were at least 60% less likely to leave within a period of a few months if they went through an onboarding process that, instead of emphasizing conformity, focused on their individual strengths, for example by highlighting what was "unique" about them, says a team led by Daniel M. Cable of London Business School. In a related lab experiment, new hires whose individual strengths were highlighted ended up performing more efficiently and making fewer errors. Thus the best way for an organization to develop early organizational commitment may be to encourage employees to make daily use of their unique strengths, the researchers say.

After tsunamis, protests, wildfires, and riots — to name just a few recent major disruptions — few managers can be unaware of companies' vulnerability to the vagaries of politics and extreme weather.

You'd think. Yet three quarters of the 195 large companies surveyed recently by APQC got hit by an unexpected major supply chain disruption in the last 24 months. We are talking here about an unforeseen event involving a physical asset owned by the enterprise or a third party. Major means an event that has the potential to severely interrupt a business' ability to deliver on its promises to customers — perhaps a power station for a vital assembly plant going dark for months. Survey responders (mostly supply chain risk operators) said things got so bad that C-suite executives had to get involved in the fix-it process for a sustained period of time.

But these are the same senior executives and middle managers that have supposedly been embracing formal enterprise risk management (ERM) for some time. Why did these systems fail so spectacularly?

Part of the problem stems from the familiar gap between the talk and the walk. Survey findings indicate that most organizations' leaders did indeed express concern about the impact of political turmoil, natural disasters, or extreme weather. But the findings also show that the people at the front lines of the business were hamstrung by a lack of visibility into risk. Nearly half said they lacked the resources needed to adequately assess business continuity programs at supplier sites. Many relied on the suppliers filling out perfunctory, unreliable checklists.

It's likely that the push to protect profits during the recession made matters even more difficult for supply chain operators. Seventy percent of the respondents to the APQC survey say their organizations pruned their lists of suppliers over the past five years, with the intent to reduce costs. Moreover, nearly three-quarters (74%) of the companies over the period added suppliers physically distant from their facilities, with 63% acknowledging that their suppliers are located in areas of the world known for high-impact natural disasters, extreme-weather events or political turmoil. It appears the urge to source in low-cost regions clouded the cost-versus-risk calculus for some.

Finally, supply chain disruption risks often got painted as an operations-level risks and for that reason never made it onto the list of 15 or so major strategic/enterprise risks assessed and managed by the Chief Risk Officer's formal ERM process. Many ERM assessments focus on risks related to competitive strategy or the customer experience. The result is that too many boards don't think to ask about — and are not briefed on — the risks of, say, sourcing key components in risky regions of the world. They wind up blind, therefore, to many crucial strategic risks.

"The important thing is to figure out what might be a severe disruption and to do this you have to look down into the different tiers of supply. People at the top need to ask: 'What might be out there that we are not currently aware of,'" says Dr. Paul Walker, an expert in ERM at St. John's University in New York.

The good news in all of this is that nearly half of the survey respondents said that their firms are now adding rigor to the process of assessing supply chain resiliency. Let's hope the purse strings will be loosened enough to get this right.

The recent toppling of Australia's first female prime minister, Julia Gillard, continues to raise questions about women and leadership. Gillard was regarded as smart, capable and resilient. However, a string of bad decisions and broken promises had the public and politicians questioning her capacity to lead. In her final exit speech before Kevin Rudd took her place, Gillard responded to the "gender wars" discourse that had come to represent her leadership, saying that "the reaction to being the first female PM"—in other words, gender—did not explain everything nor did it explain nothing.

So, when do we know it's about the gender and not about the leadership? My research on women and leadership concluded that it was difficult to make any generalizations about women and leadership simply because there were so few women leading organizations. It was difficult to distinguish between the woman doing the leading and whether her manner of leadership was specifically her own or part of a gendered pattern of leading. To paraphrase Gillard, gender explained something about leadership but did not explain everything.

So what can help women leaders make the most of their own style of leadership? How to keep the focus on leadership, not gender? Here are three suggestions.

Understand the relationship of power to authority. Understanding the connection between power and authority means that you know that having power does not give you authority. With power, you can carry out your own will; with authority, your command will be carried out by others. Others need to respect the leader's power and her authority to lead. This is why women are divided over quotas and affirmative action. While these measures may elevate more women powerful positions, the perception is that they are somehow not deserving. In other words, power can be given, but authority has to be earned. Authority is a social relationship between the leader and followers. It requires consensus: mutual expectation and mutual recognition. A legitimate rise to power carries with it the authority to lead. Because leaders need to achieve their power through their talent and through others' recognition of their talent, ensure you have the authority to lead.

Recognize that being first isn't always best. While "the first woman..." may be heralded as an achievement for womankind, this may not be for the longer term good. As the saying goes, you only get one chance to make a first impression; therefore, while some women may be given opportunities to lead and create a historical moment, they need to determine whether being first will enhance or detract from their leadership. Sheryl Sandberg and Marissa Mayer lead dynamic, diverse, and creative organizations that rely on the next new thing. They have an integral understanding of their organization and the need to update and innovate. Their leadership is suited to the context. Many younger women are well qualified, well connected, and have enough determination to lead, yet they may be missing the key ingredient that will enhance their leadership: wisdom. Wisdom means having advanced levels of cognitive, reflective, and affective capacity, and these factors have a positive effect on followers. The beginning of wisdom is to make a personal assessment of the leadership role in context. Is wisdom a hidden asset in the job? If so, then it may be wiser to wait for the next opportunity to lead.

Make sure you have sufficient resources and support. In their research on the glass cliff phenomenon, Michelle Ryan and Alex Haslam identified the tendency to appoint women leaders in times of crisis but also showed a pattern of these women leaders inevitably failing. Further analysis showed that the failure was not because of the leadership itself, but rather because the leadership was under-supported and under-resourced. With limited resources and support, women leaders desperately try to implement their strategic vision for renewal—but they inevitably fail as their vision and strategy cannot be implemented. An important lesson for any woman taking a leadership appointment is to ensure that you have the resources and support that you need to make it work; without them, your leadership will be precarious and likely to fail.

Leadership requires certain conditions to flourish, under which women—and men—can make good leaders. As more women take up the challenges of leadership, to avoid the gendered stereotyping of their leadership, they need to have the authority and wisdom to lead, and all the resources and support necessary for leadership.

Sometimes the first conversations you hear at an event stay with you the whole time. That happened for me on Monday at the Sales 2.0 Conference Boston – a gathering of sales experts, practitioners, sales leaders and sellers all coming together to talk about what is the latest in professional selling.

On the ride in to town I was reading notes about the pre-event speakers dinner where the discussion was on whether salespeople are lazy. Lots of sales leaders say this – and I have heard it for years. At least with the companies I choose to be around, the opposite is true. I don’t typically have that issue to deal with.

Some of the hardest working folks in business are sales professionals. Top sellers are like elite athletes – they come in early, plan ahead, work a process, perform in clutch situations, do whatever it takes, and are well compensated for the art they bring as they apply the science of the system.  For me, whether salespeople are lazy is not the question to be discussed – whether your company has great sales leadership IS. Other thoughts got me going as you can see below.

I love it when those who share my passion for helping companies grow sales revenues get together. Big ideas are created, and all sorts of side conversations erupt. Here were some of the highlights for me at Sales 2.0 Boston:

Event founder and host, Gerhard Gschwandtner, Founder & CEO, Selling Power kicked the day off with his aha realization that a logical next step in business is in developing “video sales enablement”. This is the idea that video is the next best thing to being in person, so should be incorporated more into interaction with prospects and clients. Video for sales training and coaching is a given. Nothing fully replaces in-person interaction with prospects, clients, or in-house training, yet video can work as a close second in augmenting in-person meetings.

Also check out the Storify summary of the event via Koka Sexton and LinkedInSelling.

Gerhard had been in the UK recently for a Sales 2.0 Session there, and he was most impressed by something Google is doing causing tremendous success.

“We are eliminating phone calls since we are much more focused and more productive using video calls” – David Keene, Head of Enterprise Marketing, Google, UK

Gerhard gave a number of video examples and set the tone for more discussion during the day. I support the idea of video making huge strides this year.

Jim Crisera of The TAS Group spoke next and really caught my attention because of the great statistics he shared based on their research:

Only half of sales reps can access key players at a prospect company – 54% to be exact

Only 61% of reps are good at uncovering customer problems

30% of reps don’t develop a competitive strategy

Only 59% are good at opportunity creation

Certainly that leaves a LOT of room for improvement in B2B sales teams everywhere.

A panel on The New Sales Reality included three of my favorite people:

Matt Bertuzzi – the brilliant marketing mind at The Bridge Group, Inc

Devon McDonald – Director of Sales & Marketing Support at OpenView Partners

Anthony Iannarino – B2B sales coach and consultant, The Sales Coach Blog.

“Every sales manager should periodically be on the phones – understand the pain of prospecting and building the pipeline”

“Sales managers should hire learners, not students. Learners will take your input and take initiative beyond that.”

“The most successful business professionals, including sellers, have grit – and scars.”

“You cannot teach attitude or enthusiasm”

Highlights for me in the afternoon sessions included:

The Five Faliure Points of Today’s Selling System presented by Diane Gillespie of SAVO. Among other important points, I took away:

Only 19% of companies are effective in following a consistent sales process.

Create an influence map of your prospects and populate with social intelligence

Only 8% of companies analyze their sales pipeline for root causes

Most surprising?

78% of companies prepare their proposals manually (wow- I find that hard to believe – thought it was just us SMBs)

The last session of the day was on the main stage – it held the most takeaways and actionable examples. This presentation was with local Boston B2B inside sales expert Trish Bertuzzi, President of The Bridge Group, Inc and Ross Kramer, Co-founder and CEO of Listrak.

Trish discussed some trends in selling now, and Ross had some stories of how they have adapted to these things:

Role specialization – focusing on a core competency instead of lots of varied tasks = greater productivity and success

Data is the doctor – analyze your data for better sales results

Utilize technology but separate tools from toys

Be interesting in every human connection – email, voice mail, social media, and live.

People do not want canned conversation.

It was a very full day with lots of tips and ideas which I’ll be sharing in more detail soon.

My review of last year’s event in Boston focused more about the Speed of Change in Selling

If you attended, please post your thoughts, take-aways, and favorite companies represented there.

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.

The post Salespeople are Lazy – and other Musings from Sales 20 Boston appeared first on Score More Sales.

Last week, I delivered a webinar for sales trainers only.

We covered a lot of ground in 45 minutes. (See agenda to the right.)

As an introduction, I spoke about the changes in ESR’s business model. Most important is that ESR will be providing all our research for free, except for the Evaluations of sales training providers. Needless to say, registration will be required of anyone who intends to download ESR content.

I covered a series of sales training buying trends, including:

• Virtual training
• What’s hot versus what’s tried and true
• New vertical markets for trainers
• The growth of channel and inside sales

Next I touched on some of the acquisitions and alliances driving a bit of consolidation in the market.

We dipped into technology-enabled learning and selling as well as social media as content for sales trainers as well as a marketing tool.

I had the opportunity to mention a number of excellent new sales books:

• Bottom-Line Selling / Malcolm
• Strategic Sales Presentations / Malcolm
• Smart Sales Manager / Feigon
• The Joshua Principle / Hughes
• Whiteboard Selling /Sommers & Jenkins
• Hire Right Hire Profits / Lee Salz (not yet published)

I offered the attendees some news. You can either view/listen to the archive or wait until we make two formal announcements.

If you’re interested in what companies were mentioned during the event, here they are:

• Mercuri International
• Miller Heiman
• The TAS Group
• Corporate Visions / BayGroup International / Whiteboard Selling
• Franklin Covey / NinetyFive 5
• Performance Methods, Inc.
• The TAS Group
• White Springs
• Revegy
• Richardson
• ValueSelling Associates
• Huthwaite
• Complex Sale
• RainGroup
• Sales Benchmark Index
• Sales Performance International
• AchieveGlobal
• Top Sales World

Here is a link to the archives (MP3, WMV, PDF) of “The State of Sales Training: What You Need to Know.” (Free registration required.)

Note: I’ll be hosting a webinar with Tony Hughes, Author of The Joshua Principle, on July 24. Register.

I’m fuming right now so apologies if this blog post comes across as a bit of a rant. But I think there’s some lessons to be learned here for all of us.

I’ve just got off the phone with a salesperson from an email marketing company (I originally put their name in the post but I want the post to be more about learning than beating them up). It’s probably the worst series of interactions I’ve had with a company in my recent memory.

I’ve been bleating for a long time now about how busy we all are these days, and how that means that if you want to sell someone something you’ve got to respect their time and give them something of value up front.

This company are a perfect example of how not to do that.

Firstly I get a cold email from their sales person.

Usual cold pitch. He was “keen to understand if there is an opportunity to have a conversation in relation to your email marketing?”

The rest of the email was the usual blather about sending timely, targeted emails to your subscribers. About deliverability guidelines, how their emails rendered on smartphones etc. All the normal stuff every email system does.

It was clear the guy hadn’t bothered to look up who I was or what I knew about email. So I flashed him a message back saying “Tell me what you know about me and how I do email marketing already, and how you think your product might benefit me over and above what I do now”.

Rather than taking the hint and doing some proper research, he got straight back…

“…well first of all I see that you are collecting data on your website, however I got your details from a friend of mine who passes me everything that goes into their junk folder as this is always an opportunity for us as we provide email services to ensure you are hitting the inbox and the last mailings you have sent have gone straight to junk.

Are you only mailing to opt in address or have you purchased data. Do you know how many emails are actually being delivered ie inbox placed?”

Great. So now people are subscribing to our emails so they can set loose an email marketing company with scare stories.

Here’s the thing. With 5 minutes of work this guy could have subscribed to my emails and seen who I used as a provider. He then would have known whether his system had better deliverability and better features than mine. He could have given me a tailored email suggesting where his system was better. He would even have been able to compare the pricing structures between the two systems.

I emailed him back to tell him that. And also that since I sold a course on email marketing I was familiar with pretty much every vendor on the market (ie don’t ask me stupid questions).

Not taking the hint, he then phoned me up and continued the pitch. As I got angrier and angrier instead of doing as I suggested and doing his homework first he proceeded to ask me about email volumes. When I told him I send about 80,000 emails a month he said they could save me money (without knowing how much I was currently paying).

When I then proceeded to tell him that it wasn’t really worth discussing as I used my system for membership sites, shopping cart etc, he told me his system did all that (they don’t mention it on the website).

In exasperation I told him – “look, do your homework. Check out your system vs mine and tell me what the benefits are. You’re really wasting my time right now”.

At which point he decided he’d insult me. He didn’t want me as a customer. I was too critical. I was wasting my own time.

Of course, that wasn’t enough for him. After we’d hung up he emailed to tell me I was being very short sighted because they have over 200 customers using their software (wow!) that they could promote me too.

OK, so apart from the benefits of venting my anger a bit – what can we learn from this.

There’s the usual customer service stuff like not arguing with potential customers.

But I think the bigger lesson is about doing your homework.

At minimum, he should have done some research on me rather than just firing off a couple of emails and calling me with no real idea of who I was and what I was already doing.

A simple visit to my website and a signup to my emails would have told him all he needed to know and allowed him to add some value in his first interaction with me.

Instead he wasted my time.

When you contact potential clients, do you do your homework? Do you check what they’re already doing so you don’t insult them by going through stuff they already know? Or waste their time talking to them about something that won’t help them?

Or do you begin your conversation by gently suggesting some opportunities for them based on what you’ve already researched?

Do you say “why don’t we speak on the phone to find out more about each other’s businesses?” (to which the only real answer is an inward groan) or do you already suggest how your businesses might fit together based on what you’ve seen?

Do your homework. Bring something useful to the table. 10 years ago you could get away with bringing nothing. Today it makes your prospects angry.

The post World’s Worst Sales Call? appeared first on Get More Clients: Proven Strategies to Attract and Win Clients.

Many top-tier Facebook employees have recently announced their departure from the social media giant.

Without naming his next move, U.S. sales chief Tom Arrix gave some indication yesterday — appropriately posted on his Facebook — as to why he's leaving after seven years:

From 8m users in 2006 to 1.2 billion today and counting!

I want to let you all know that I’ll be leaving Facebook and plan to spend a lot of time with my family over rest of the summer. This was an incredibly difficult decision to make. I feel strongly that the work I set out to take on here at FB is complete, we built the foundation for the future of our Ads business. And because of that, it's an ideal time for me to move on. I'm really excited to take some time but so energized to explore what's next to build.

Emphasis is ours.

Before thanking usual suspects Mike Zuckerberg, Mike Murphy, Sheryl Sandberg, and company, Arrix touted his ad team for their "world class" work and accomplishments:

We crafted a vision that allowed marketers to better connect their brands with people, we started from scratch and built a multi-billion dollar business, we adopted and excelled at mobile advertising faster than anyone could imagine and we have the most passionate and amazing teammates around the world. In short, we have risen to every single challenge put in front if us, because collectively, we are the strongest team and company out there. In my heart, I know the best is yet to come, and I can't wait to see what Facebook accomplishes in the years ahead.

Read the rest of his post here.

Other coworkers that left Facebook in the last few months have gone to Shift, Intercom, and Dropbox.

SEE ALSO: One year after the IPO, Facebook talent is fleeing to find the next big thing

Join the conversation about this story »

Keeping up to date on the latest innovations and opinions in sales can be time-consuming, especially in the the digital space. Sales Sphere features relevant blog articles from PointClear's online B2B sales circles.

Can Fewer Leads Mean More Sales?

Does this sound familiar? Marketing reports an increase in the number of sales ready leads, but sales reports they have no good leads. This was the situation shared by Christine Nurnberger, VP of Marketing at SunGard Availability Services. Learn what steps she took to align her sales and marketing teams to increase lead quality and sales. Via BtoB Magazine

The Five Greatest Inhibitors to Sales Effectiveness

A repeated topic at this year’s SiriusDecisions Summit was sales enablement and effectiveness. In this article Matt Heinz summarizes the five greatest inhibitors to sales effectiveness shared by John Neeson. Also interesting are new statistics on gaining buyer’s trust. Via Heinz Marketing

[Video] Why Prospects Avoid Making Buying Decisions

In this short video, Jill Konrath, shares her recent experience from the other side of the table—as the buyer. Watch to learn her advice on a common sales challenge and how to potentially overcome it and influence the buying decision. Via Jill Konrath

Advice for Sales Managers from their Salespeople

What you feel are your greatest strengths and weaknesses as a manager and what your sales team would say may surprise you. One company wanted to find out just that so they surveyed their 1,500 B2B salespeople. Read to find out what item sales managers ranked absolutely worst at according to their team. How would your team rank you? Via TopLine Leadership Inc.

What Is Sales Enablement?

SiriusDecisions does ongoing research around the function of sales enablement. A recent survey of companies revealed that this function continues to broaden and expand in its responsibilities. To help organizations manage this process they developed the SiriusDecisions Enablement Framework. Read to learn more. Via SiriusDecisions

Do you have a resource from your sphere to share? Let us know in the comment section.

People love to talk about the ROI from social media. But ROI doesn't just fall from the sky. If you want your social media efforts to drive actual sales, you need to understand how your customers and potential customers actually use social media in their purchase process. And once you have that understanding, you need to tailor your social media strategy so that it pushes your customers towards a purchase.

The latest issue of the Harvard Business Review shares research findings that can help you tailor your Pinterest strategy. How Pinterest Puts People in Stores, which I co-authored with my Vision Critical colleague David Sevitt, shows the impact of Pinterest on purchasing. As part of a larger study that compared the impact of Pinterest, Twitter, and Facebook on sales, David and I uncovered patterns in Pinterest use that point towards the following best practices for businesses using Pinterest:

Combat showrooming. Retailers often worry that the Internet has turned brick-and-mortar stores into little more than showrooms: places where customers maul the merchandise and pester salespeople for advice before going online to buy the same products at a lower price. But our study of social media-driven purchasing showed that social media sends more customers into stores than the Internet pulls out: 1 in 5 Pinterest users has bought something in a store after pinning or liking it on Pinterest, and 1 in 3 Pinterest users under 35 has done so. If you want more people walking through the door of your store with a purchase in mind, design your Pinterest strategy to send as many people to your stores as to your website.

Drive personal pinning. While 60% of Pinterest purchases were discovered on Pinterest, the vast majority were discovered through the boards or streams of regular human beings: 19% of purchases were discovered through a friend, and 24% through a stranger, compared to just 7% being discovered on a retailer's Pinterest board, and 10% through Pinterest search. That means you can't rely on your own Pinterest presence to drive significant sales, and instead need to think about how to drive repinning (where your viewers and customers share items they find on your pinboards to their own pinboards). To encourage customers to pin items from your site to their Pinterest boards, make sure you include a "share on Pinterest" button on every product page, and consider running promotions to encourage pinning (some examples here). To let your customers know that their pinning is appreciated, pay extra attention to the people who share your content the most, by repinning and liking their pins.

Pack images with information. One of the major ways Pinterest influences purchasing is by providing additional information about a product. Any visitor who comes to your site from a Pinterest link should land on a page with relevant information about the product. Better yet, save them the trip by embedding product information directly in the images on your website and Pinterest boards, either with text or (better still) visual cues about product ingredients or usage. For example, compare two images from the Williams Sonoma site, and you'll see that one of them instantly conveys the utility of a new kind of measuring cup, while the other leaves you wondering — but it's the latter image that the company features on its own product page. Featuring the image that contains the most information about a product is the way to succeed on Pinterest.

Pin that deal. Our Pinterest data was drawn from a larger study of nearly 6,000 social media users who also told us about the impact of Facebook and Twitter on their purchasing. But where 37% of Facebook users and 32% of Twitter users say that those networks helped drive their purchase by alerting them to a deal, only 19% of Pinterest-driven purchases involved finding a sale or deal through the site. This suggests massive room for growth by incorporating sale notifications into pinnable product images, or conversely, by enhancing the design of online sale announcements so they are charming or informative enough to get pinned.

Engage with recent pinners. More than 40% of Pinterest-inspired purchases are made within one week of pinning, and 80% are made within three weeks. That means your best window for nudging customers towards purchase is within one to three weeks of the moment when they pin one of your products. This is the time to reach out to customers, ask if they need more information, or simply thank them for sharing. If you're in a business with high-value transactions (like real estate or car sales), it's well worth following up on the indication of interest represented by a pin by using Pinterest's own analytics or a third party tool to see who is pinning items from your site or pinboards. If and when Pinterest finally releases its long-promised API, expect to see the emergence of tools that can automate or facilitate this kind of tracking and response.

Talking to Pinterest users about their Pinterest-inspired purchases helped identify specific business tactics that align with the way people actually share and shop online. Explore the infographic for more insight into how people use Pinterest in their purchasing process, and you may find your own proof of social media ROI.

After several years bumbling around on social media, Fortune 500 companies are seemingly climbing aboard and approaching the usage levels of their more nimble INC 500 brethren.

That is one of the conclusions of a new report out of the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth Center for Marketing Research. The center has been conducting this type of research since 2008. A few of the report highlights:

Twitter on the rise

77% of the Fortune 500 companies have an active Twitter account, leading all other social media platforms. This is an increase over 70% in 2012.

The Wall of Shame: Five of the 2013 F500 companies had Twitter accounts with no activity on them: CF Industry Holdings, Joy Global, Laboratory Corp. of America, O’Reilly Automotive and Omnicare.

Corporate Blogs surging

In 2013, 171 companies (34%) had corporate blogs, showing the largest increase in use of this platform since the study began in 2008.

The F500 is still far behind INC 500 companies (44% have blogs), non-profits (63% have blogs) and universities at 66%.

Facebook up 4%

348 companies (70%) are now on Facebook. This represents a 4% increase since last year. Nine of the top 10 companies (WalMart, Chevron, Phillips 66, Berkshire Hathaway, Apple, General Motors, General Electric, Valero Energy and Ford Motors) have Facebook pages. Exxon does not.

The percent of corporations with Facebook pages varies by industry with Retail (96%), and Telecomm (88%) leading the way. Utilities (44%) and Automotive (40%) are laggards.

Google+ and others

Pinterest has grown in membership since its public debut in 2010 and is showing up in the F500. In 2012, 11 (2%) F500 companies had Pinterest accounts. This year that number has grown to 45 companies or 9%. Half of the top 10 ranked companies have Pinterest boards.

69% of the F500 have YouTube accounts, a 7% increase from last year. YouTube is as popular with the F500 as Facebook. Berkshire Hathaway is the only company ranked in the top 10 without its own YouTube channel.

Google+ was included in the study for the first time. Although 35% of the F500 have accounts, more than half of them are inactive. The university noted that this is the only platform where companies generally have accounts but no activity.

Any comments or surprises on this data?

Mark Schaefer is a educator and marketing consultant specializing in social media workshops. He blogs at {grow} and is the author of several best-selling markting books including Return On Influence.

Go ahead and read the list and think to yourself about how none of the 6 apply to you.

If you read the list and think none of them apply to you, then guess what?  Most likely they do!

Failing to follow-up
Talking too much
Thinking it’s all about you
Ignoring the customer
Trying to prove the customer is wrong
Failing to ask for the sale

We in sales are a finicky group. We tend to breathe each other’s exhaust and believe too strongly in the mythical belief that if salespeople were truly in charge, the world would be a better place.

The six items listed above have a couple of things in common, most notably they all take into consideration the self-centered salesperson.  We may not think of ourselves as being self-centered, but in reality, there are too many situations where we become exactly that when we are with a customer.

We need to be continually assessing our sales process and challenging ourselves on these six items and ask ourselves how close we are coming to doing them.

I’m being soft here and giving us the benefit of the doubt by saying “how close are we coming to doing them.”  Hopefully, by not saying “we do them,” we might be in a better frame of mind to assess if we actually are.

There are two simple questions we all need to ask ourselves:

How is my follow-up?

How much time does the customer do the talking compared to me?

Be honest with yourself.   When we take a step back and honestly assess our process, there is not one of us who could say we have not done at least one of the six on a recent sales call.

The real question we need to ask is, “How many more sales could I close if I didn’t do any of the six?”

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

In the series ‘S&OP: More than forecasting’, we looked at the concept of Sales and Operations Planning and the role of IT in carrying out the processes involved effectively. Here, we dive deeper into the key reasons for pushing adoption.

With supply chains becoming longer, wider and more complex, there has never been more “distance” between the raw materials and the consumer. At the same time, modern technology has made it possible to keep all stakeholders informed at every step of the way.

Today’s competition is no longer between individual companies but between networks of companies. Accurate processes to optimize a company’s role in these complex environments have become essential. Without end to end planning covering the entire ecosystem of business relationships, achieving success promises to be a real challenge.

Understanding the customer
In addition to the wider reach of company activities, it is essential that businesses respond promptly and effectively to fluctuations in customer demand. Changes in customer needs directly influence planning for logistics, manufacturing and procurement. Companies need to be able to work with these changes effectively, ensuring they are stocked to meet needs without tying up capital unnecessarily.

As product life cycles get shorter, accurately matching supply and demand is certainly not getting any easier. Balancing them to maximize profit has become a key, complex discipline in its own right. Simple, unscientific forecasting, using underpowered IT support, will not give businesses the platform they need to realize their potential.

Solving existing issues
Executed effectively, S&OP addresses a wide range of internal issues related to unacceptable lead times, excessive on hand inventories, customer service issues and ineffective utilization of resources. It helps companies move away from finger pointing between sales and operations. It ensures optimal use of resources in accordance with effective execution of the company strategy. And if things do go astray, clear ownership allows problems to be addressed quickly and effectively.

S&OP-driven businesses can provide clear answers to questions around which products will be sold, where and when they should be available, in what quantities and at what price. The planning proposes a framework to deliver on the strategic objectives, providing a clear case for the proposed demand and the business’ ability to profit from it. It confirms that the proposed course is fully executable with the available resources, and marries the projected sales and operations numbers to the annual business plan and budget.

Increased accuracy boosts the margin
Improved coordination, communication and team work will result from clearer starting points for processes, and clearer signposting of where activities should be leading. The details will make it clear who is responsible for what, leading to greater ownership and more careful management of day to day activities.

More accurate supply plans can lead to leaner execution of manufacturing processes. Logistics, Warehousing and Distribution benefit from fewer changes, while more precise inventory management (less working capital in the form of safety stock) results in fewer incomplete orders and better customer satisfaction.

Put simply, S&OP is an integrated set of business processes linking the company’s top level strategy to the day-to-day activities in place to realize it. Although external factors can never be controlled, having a thorough knowledge of the company’s current position and past performance can provide a reliable basis from which to make important decisions for the business’ future.

Having access to a broad and organized information collection, analysis and reporting tool, able to gather and manipulate wide ranges of current, accurate data, is one of the prerequisites for success. With a clear picture of the business issues that need addressing, it can provide the insight needed to steer the business on a path to success and growth.

Provided strong leadership ensures buy-in from both sales and operational departments, the S&OP’s process has the power to touch the entire business. Detailed plans, based in sound business intelligence and responsive to actual progress, become the blueprint to which the whole company can look for guidance. While sales forecasting can give businesses an idea of where they are headed, S&OP is the process to help companies go about making corporate strategy an operational reality.

Analytics are a critical part of any business. In Marketing, the importance of analytics has expanded beyond traditional analytics platforms (e.g. Google Analytics) to integration into CRM platforms such as Salesforce.com. This allows Marketing to not only report on the initial impact that their campaigns had but also how it impacted sales pipelines over the long-term.

There are lots of custom reports that can be built inside of tools like Salesforce.com to give you the data you need to deliver the insights that you want. Here are 6 Salesforce.com reports that we use at Introhive to help us figure out which sources are driving our leads and sales pipeline.

• Current Month Leads by Source: This report details the number of leads we’ve had in the current month. The report is broken out by marketing source and includes but is not limited to leads from our website, live chat and online advertising.
• Marketing Leads – Month over Month (tiered by source): The month over month marketing leads report shows a comparison of your total marketing leads by month, broken our into a calendar year. Each monthly total is stacked by lead source, giving the viewer an idea of which lead sources are contributing each month.
• New Marketing Pipe – Month by Month (tiered by source): The new marketing pipe report details all qualified leads that have been turned into sales opportunities. The report provides insight into which sources are the biggest contributors to growing our pipeline.
• Lead-to-Opportunity Conversion Rate (broken down by source): The conversion rate of your leads that get turned into opportunities. This report helps gauge the quality of leads per marketing source and gives us a good idea which area we should be investing our time and efforts in.
• Marketing Wins – Month-by-Month (tiered by source): Shows all closed-won deals that marketing contributed. Stacking by source also allows us to quickly see which source is contributing to these won deals.
• Marketing Wins by Source – Average Deal Size: From your closed-won deals, this report shows their average deal size. This provides an understanding of which lead sources are generating the biggest deals and coupled with the Lead-to-Opportunity Conversion Rate gives a great indicator on which marketing sources should take priority.

These are the main reports that we use for our marketing dashboard inside of Salesforce.com as it gives us a great snapshot of how our leads are doing as well as our contributions to the sales pipeline.

Are there any other reports that you find useful?