FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE                                                                                

Contact:  Irene Majuk 212-903-8087/*protected email* 

SMART SALES MANAGER

The Ultimate Playbook for Building and Running a High-Performance Inside Sales Team 

Inside sales is exploding—it’s one of the fastest-growing profit-driving segments of businesses across the board. Companies now rely on inside sales teams—business-to-business professionals working remotely and virtually—to generate up to half of their total revenue. But with the demand for inside sales leadership exploding, top-ranked reps with outdated skills are being thrust into management roles without formal training or without expert guidance. These newly minted sales managers under are intense pressure to produce . . . fast! They scramble to create an outstanding inside sales team, but they find themselves woefully unprepared and in way over their heads.

“It’s time for managers to ramp themselves up or manage at their own risk,” says Josiane Chriqui Feigon, a widely sought out authority on inside sales development. In SMART SALES MANAGER: The Ultimate Playbook for Building and Running a High-Performance Inside Sales Team (AMACOM; July 9, 2013; $24.95 Hardcover), Feigon covers everything fledgling inside sales managers need—the skills, tools, strategies, tactics, and insights—to get up to speed fast and move themselves, their team, and their organization up to the next level of excellence.

SMART SALES MANAGER tackles the entire Sales 2.0 ecosystem, combining cutting-edge knowledge with practical action steps. Takeaways include real-world managers’ secrets and stories, and quick reference management “cheat sheets” packed with how-to tips, checklists, and innovative, ready-to-implement ideas for motivational contests, spiffs, and incentives.

With Feigon as their personal inside sales management trainer and coach, readers will swiftly learn how to:

• Help teams members get inside the mindset of the new independent, elusive buyer and sell effectively.

• Harness the talent pool of multitasking, technically savvy Millennials to create a winning team of disruptive sales superheroes.

• Raise their Tool IQ, choosing the best tools—social, mobile, and video—for their sales team.

• Recruit, hire, and retain inside sales superheroes, using integrated training and trust-based coaching to create a sustainable sales culture.

• Create and maintain strong sales team communication, collaboration, and camaraderie, even when members rarely or never physically work together.

• Take charge of their management role by modeling the behavior they want to see, motivating with fun, reinvigorating sales meetings, being in an always-be-recruiting mode, recognizing and creating top talent . . . plus much more.    

“Inside sales is a complex and delicate operation,” says Josiane Feigon, “and managers need to be prepared to succeed.” SMART SALES MANAGER gives managers the skills they need to create an outstanding inside sales team and lead it to success..                             

About the Author

JOSIANE CHRIQUI FEIGON is President and Founder of TeleSmart Communications, a global leader in developing inside sales teams and managers. She has provided consulting, coaching, and training solutions for hundreds of Fortune 1000 companies, including Cisco, Oracle, and Hewlett-Packard. A prolific writer of articles on sales trends and talent, she is also the author of the popular book, Smart Selling on the Phone and Online (AMACOM, 2010), and maintains a top-ranked sales blog, Inside Sales Thought Leadership. She lives in San Francisco, California.  You can find more information about Josiane at http://www.tele-smart.com/  and you can follow her on twitter @JosianeFeigon.

Title:               SMART SALES MANAGER: The Ultimate Playbook for

                        Building and Running a High-Performance Inside Sales Team                       

Author:            Josiane Chriqui Feigon 

Pub. Date:        July 9, 2013

Price:               $24.95 Hardcover

Pages:              268     

ISBN:               978-0-8144-3283-9

For a review copy, call 212-903-8087 / fax 212-903-8083 / email *protected email* 

Visit AMACOM online at http://www.amacombooks.org

Find book covers and author photos online at http://www.amacombooks.org/go/art/

The post A Guide to Leading Exceptional Success in the Daunting New Sales 2.0 World appeared first on TeleSmart Communications.

One thing that many businesses are learning about their blogging efforts is that creating great content is not enough to drive traffic, leads, and conversions for their business. In order to get those three things, you need to promote your content, and the best way to do it is by optimizing it for social media … Continue Reading

How to Optimize Your Blog Content for Social Media by Kristi Hines - 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.

         

Related Stories

• 9 Roads To Greener Pastures Via Social Sales
• Social Media in the Workplace: 5 Reasons to Not Friend Co-Workers
• Corporate Social Media: Social Media in the C-Suite

 

Will Brooks
Executive Vice President, The Brooks Group 

Is Sales Training a wise investment in your sales team or a complete waste of money?

Well.  That all depends.

Hiring an outsourced sales training provider to conduct a sales training initiative can either be one of the most successful investments you can make in your sales force, or it can be an enormous – and embarrassing – waste of your company’s time, money and resources.

So, if you’re evaluating the cost of sales training, I hope that the following information can help guide your decision and make sure you know how to get the most out of your outsourced sales training partner.

1. When evaluating the cost of sales training, make sure that the sales training companies you’re evaluating offer customized approaches to the training content itself.  It’s been our experience that the most successful sales training initiatives involve a high level of program customization.  This isn’t to say that we recommend building your sales training program from the ground up; instead, we recommend taking a proven sales process (such as IMPACT Selling) and customizing the language, exercises and support tools so that they are absolutely seamless to your salespeople’s selling environments.  That way, the material becomes immediately usable and doesn’t require any “intellectual leaps” to tie it into daily selling activities.

2. Make sure that the cost of sales training includes some sort of pre-program discovery process.  Best-in-class sales training companies will recommend some sort of discovery phase to a meaningful sales training initiative.  In other words, they will invest time, energy and resources into gaining a rich understanding of your sales team’s strengths, weaknesses, competition, etc. so that the sales training content addresses those areas in the context of the sales process.  There’s nothing worse than training that doesn’t help further an organization's sales strategy and reality.

3. Find out: does the cost of sales training include reinforcement with measurable outcomes and ongoing coaching?  Event-based training is dead.  Or at least it should be.  Top tier sales training companies offer robust approaches to follow-up that ensure that what is taught in the classroom gets used in the field by the program attendees.  Online sales training following a live event is good; however, many of the online platforms currently available to buyers are learner-led and require a pretty motivated salesperson who is willing to go out of his or her way to maintain the learning momentum.  Leader-led reinforcement, such as the type delivered via our IMPACT Sales Coaching platform is far more impactful, giving program attendees access to a coach who can help them with questions about knowledge application in real-world selling scenarios while at the same time providing the accountability that comes with being required to participate in a live distance coaching session.

There are many other components to consider when planning a successful sales training initiative.  These are just a few.  Don’t assume anything and ask a lot of questions.  It’s important for you to make sure that you know exactly what is, and isn’t, included in the cost of sales training.

- @WilliamPGBrooks

The post The Cost of Sales Training: A Wise Investment In Your Sales Team Or A Complete Waste Of Money? appeared first on Sales Evolution.

At a recent presentation, I introduced the concept of the “goodness movement”. I defined this as a global wish for social wellness that is driving corporate social responsibility today: a recognition by brands that those that are seen to do good perform better; and a response to a wish by consumers to make a difference. Buyers want to tell themselves they are doing the right thing, and as part of that, they want affirmation on the part of the brands they buy from that good is being done.

That’s never been easier. Purchases are increasingly tied to beneficial actions that, if I can refer back to my direct marketing agency days for a moment, amount to a “social premium”. The new coupon is social. Once consumers clipped physically to get money off. Increasingly, when they buy the brand, a good action is now included. Pampers, for example, have teamed up with UNICEF in a program that sees one dose of the tetanus vaccine donated for every pack of product bought.

Brands are increasingly presenting consumers with what I termed in the presentation a “million little actions” in the form of these social premiums. And those actions range from giving to doing to supporting.

Fairtrade is a powerful example of this “social premium” at work. The company has grown to being the most recognized and best understood ethical brand in the developed world because they have understood the power of consumers feeling that they are making a difference for others. Fairtrade works so powerfully as a “social premium” brand because it has such a very simple message: look for this label, buy the product and someone gets paid fairly. The brand has succeeded for four key reasons. It found that the market was willing to pay a premium for social justice. It recognized that it had something that corporates wanted: a name for enhanced reputation. It understood that in a world of brands, you had to be a brand in your own right to thrive. And it delivered a simple value equation to consumers who now know what they have to do, and the difference it makes. Goodness couldn’t be easier.

Just as brands reflect who people are, so, increasingly, do the social actions they choose to take or be associated with. People buy cage free and free range because they want to see change in the world but also because it’s available and it reinforces what they want to be seen to believe. No-one wants to be seen as cruel or as condoning cruelty. The critical success factor here is amplification: giving people small tangible actions they can take that will, collectively, generate big inspiring benefits that they want to be associated with.

What the goodness movement looks to bridge of course is the increasingly important link for consumers between what a company offers (product) and how a company behaves (reputation). There is an increasing expectation on the part of consumers that good brands are sold by good companies. And good companies are judged by how much they impart, and more particularly are seen to impart, goodness.

At the same time, brands wishing to highlight their goodness find themselves under significant scrutiny from the likes of Oxfam with its Behind the Brands campaign that increasingly function as social proof for goodness assertions.

I predict that we will see more of this. And such tension between what brands say, what consumers believe and others’ assessment of the actions being taken are positive in the sense that, slowly, responsibility is becoming a mainstream conversation and a tangible commercial factor.

Recently, I listened to a Kim Hill interview with Pavan Sukhdev, founder and CEO of GIST Advisory, on Radio New Zealand. What an amazingly interesting man. In the interview, Sukhdev discussed in detail the need for companies to step up and fully audit and declare their externalities (by which he means the full cost of what they do) as Puma has been doing since 2011. I want to come back to some of the things he discussed in a later post, but, here, let me just touch on one idea he discussed that is highly pertinent to the goodness movement.

While greenwash is a deception he says, it is also a transition. Instead of simply hunting out and dismissing greenwash, analysts, the media, investors and consumers need to read and analyze what companies are saying they are doing and then hold them accountable to that data. In other words, they need to pursue the investigation. Part of not taking things at face value is pressing companies to declare the real value and the real impact using their own statements as the basis for searching questions.

And while greenwash is a bad side-effect of the goodness movement, Sukhdev believes, it is actually a stage in the social evolution of a company. First there is denial that they are doing anything wrong, then reluctant acceptance, and then greenwash. At least, the spin raises consumer expectations and indeed government expectations about the company’s commitments. What the world must now do, he says, is use the disclosure to prompt real actions. Some declaration, even spun declaration, is better than none.

At the moment, as I have said previously, most responsibility statements tend to amount to a catalog of good works intended to protect corporate reputation. Looking ahead though, and taking on board Sukhdev’s points, a number of storylines have the potential to interweave to form a much more accountable and transparent model. Perhaps this is the future direction of how we truly monitor good actions. Those storylines might be developed by the companies themselves, they may be done or verified in co-operation with third parties such as NGOs or they could even be crowdsourced through a range of sources including academic channels. I’m not pretending for one moment any of these options will be easy – and I’m not qualified to speak about the legal ramifications – but such an approach might include:

•  More comprehensive disclosure of the impacts of product manufacture and of the predicted longevity of  products themselves
•  How companies are trading off negative impacts they have identified in the manufacturing and sourcing processes (so that there is rectification in the same space as the damage that is being done)
•  What companies are doing by way of responsibility initiatives – e.g. social premiums
•  What they are offering consumers the opportunity to do by way of concrete actions and the true effects of those actions in terms of generating meaningful difference
•  How all of that compares with the total externality cost of the business and the strategic plans that brands have to close that gap over a set period of years

Contributed to Branding Strategy Insider by: Mark Di Somma, Brand Consultant

Sponsored by: The Blake Project’s Brand Licensing Audit

FREE Publications And Resources For Marketers

World-class? Killer? Taking business to the next level? Yuck. Are you using those lazy, meaningless words in your copy? Maybe you’re using other marketing buzzwords that make your readers and listeners cringe… 

Buzzwords do sometimes sneak into our speech and copy, so we need to be mindful of what we say and write. When we aren’t mindful, we create reactions like those mentioned in the following slideshow. (One reaction was: ARRRRRRRRRRRRRGH.)

After publishing the first buzzwords slide show, 15 Marketing Buzzwords to Stop Using, we received plenty of illustration-worthy comments both on the post itself and on the SlideShare page.

Unable to resist the opportunity to illustrate such buzzwords like “icon” and expressions like “take this offline,” I created a follow-up illustrated slide show, inspired by our witty readers. As a sequel to the 15 Marketing Buzzwords to Stop Using, here are 10 Marketing Buzzwords to Stop Using Right Now.

Here’s a look at some of the buzzwords included in the slide show…

From the Business of Women: “Marketing Expression to Stop Using: ‘To the next level.’ What? Do you mean upstairs?” (Click to tweet!)

From Melanie Kissell: “Marketing Buzzword to Stop Using: Killer. Killer should be killed. Let’s help it find its way six feet under.” (Click to tweet!)

From Lyn Meany: “Marketing Buzzword to Stop Using: Icon. These days, everyone is an icon, and everything is iconic.” (Click to tweet!)

Check out the illustrated slide show for more buzzwords to stop using right now!

As the largest restaurant chain in the world, McDonald's is no stranger to the effects that digital has had on consumers.

Those who are responsible for using digital to drive people towards those magical Golden Arches have thought of some clever digital marketing campaigns over the past couple of years. These campaigns not only drive footfall to stores, but also help to increase brand loyalty and engagement.

In an age where customers are deserting offline shopping, campaigns that blend the physical and the digital offer an opportunity to connect with digitally-savvy consumers.

We've put together ten examples from across the world where this brand has succeeded. Read below for more...

McDonald's Extended Restaurant Hours

As detailed in this post on location-based mobile campaigns, McDonald's won numerous awards for this particular example to promote new late night opening hours. 

A third of McDonald’s outlets had their hours extended at the beginning of the year so needed to raise awareness and drive footfall.

With a majority of its late night customers being shift workers and travellers, it targeted them with ads at cash points and petrol stations encouraging them to download a new Restaurant Finder app.

McDonald’s also bought mobile banner ads to promote the app on websites it knew customers frequented at night. 

The result? Over 500,000 visits and an ROI of over 100%.

The Ask McDonald's YouTube campaign

With many members of the public being concerned about the quality and traceability of their food, McDonald's Canada wanted to make sure that customers were informed.

In order to address this, they offered to answer questions from the public about their food.

Over 20,000 questions were asked, of which each one was answered. They also set up a YouTube channel to showcase video responses to some of the questions.

The Track My Macca's App

Another one that addresses issues of food provenance, this campaign was put together by DDB Group Sydney. 

Using GPS to find out what restaurant you are in, the app then uses image recognition software to figure out what the customer is eating and then provides a real-time supply chain info for the product about to be eaten.

The app was downloaded over 45,000 times while the PR campaign behind it received over 600m impressions worth of global PR coverage.

McDonald's Monopoly goes digital

A regular marketing campaign that began in 19987, customers playing McDonald's Monopoly previously had to peel off stickers and attach them to a paper board in order to win prizes, ranging from big cash prizes and cars, through to free food.

To catch up with the digital age, the latest product allowed customers to add these stickers to a virtual game board from mobile devices, by entering a unique code from each sticker.

Digital Happy Meals Play Zones

As covered in Marketing Week, McDonald's is rolling out 150 interactive Happy Meals Play Zones in the UK to encourage children eating at the restaurant to be more active.

With images and characters being projected onto the floor, it uses tracking cameras and infra-red technology to create an interactive experience.

Such experiences are becoming more common as offline retailers bring digital technologies into offline stores.

McDonald's Iced Fruit Smoothie App

Sales of particular products such as smoothies and ice creams are highly dependent on the weather.

With the temperature rising and companies like Innocent raising the consumption of smoothie products, McDonald's wanted a way to connect with consumers looking for this type of drink.

Of note however is that the tool is not in a new app - rather, it is baked in to the app that consumers have already downloaded, with an update from the App Store changing the content.

By playing the interactive game, consumers win a free smoothie which they can redeem instore.

While this may cost something, the upsell opportunity that comes with driving footfall often results in a higher return on investment.

'Kick the Trash' Campaign

Big brands like McDonald's are always looking for ways to demonstrate their corporate social responsibility.

In response to claims that areas outside of McDonald's were dirty, McDonald's Germany came up with this campaign to encourage children and young people to dispose of litter responsibly.

Angry Birds in McDonald's China

In order to get people inside stores, McDonald's China partnered with Rovio to create an Angry Birds game that could only be played inside stores.

To make it even more interesting, particular content could only be unlocked from specific McDonald's stores, rewarding loyalty and repeat visits.

The app also allows customers to vote for their favourite McDonald's branch in China. The winning restaurant will see a gigantic Golden Arches slingshot attached to the store.

McDonald's Denmark Coinoffers App

When big brands are all doing the same things, it can be difficult to stand out.

McDonald's Denmark created a game where people could scan QR codes to collect virtual currency which they could spend on real world food at McDonald's.

On the first day alone, over 30,000 virtual coins were collected, which equals more than 3,000 cheeseburgers. For a country of only 5.5 million people, this is an impressive result.

McDonald's Free Breakfast Day

Outdoor media is somewhere where digital is also having an impact.

In Singapore, McDonald's partnered with Clear Channel to offer dynamic display advertising to alert consumers to free breakfasts at local stores.

With supplies limited, the ads showed how much stock was remaining, creating an incentive for customers to visit.

What other campaigns have you seen?

Have you seen any other excellent digital campaigns run by McDonald's? Or is there a big-brand campaign that is your favourite?

Let us know in the comments below!

An effective, user-friendly mobile checkout requires a fine balance, as retailers need to present all the necessary information to encourage a sale without cluttering the pages and making them difficult to navigate.

In my experience the best mobile checkouts tend to be those that have stripped out any unnecessary information and data fields so customers can make a purchase as quickly as possible.

In the early days of m-commerce retailers presented mobile users with a version of their desktop checkout, so fields were too small and CTAs were difficult to click.

Times have thankfully changed, but I thought it would be interesting to see how the top US retailers have designed their mobile checkouts to see how user-friendly they are.

Here’s a quick recap of the criteria I evaluated using my Android smartphone...

The criteria

• Registration before checkout

Making customers register before checkout is a proven barrier to purchase. This is widely understood for desktop sites, and many now have guest checkout options instead. 

However, this best practice hasn't always transferred to mobile sites. Just seven of the retailers with mobile sites have made registration optional, though this is up from five last year.

• Form filling

Filling in checkout forms and entering payment details can be a fiddly process on a mobile phone. Speed is vital, and anything that makes the process quicker will mean more sales. 

Mobile conversion rates are much lower than those on tablets and desktop sites, and smoother checkouts are one way to improve them. 

Form filling should be kept to a minimum, as should page loads within the checkout process. Also, by adding shortcuts like postcode lookup and pre-populating billing addresses, you can speed it up. 

• Contact details and security reassurances

Some people are still wary of the security of mobile transactions, so offering trustmarks and reassuring signs like clear contact numbers can help. 

Also, if a customer gets stuck trying to make a purchase, a clear contact number may just save the sale. 

• Alternative payments

Even with the smoothest checkout process, entering credit or debit card details can be a pain. Offering alternatives like PayPal can mean a faster process (generally just entering an email and password) and may also ease consumers' security worries. 

With these criteria in mind, I've looked at 20 top retailers to see how they handle mobile checkout:

Amazon

Amazon is one of the few retailers that can break some best practice rules without forcing customers to abandon the purchase.

However it’s interesting to note that Amazon doesn’t offer a guest checkout and although it uses big, user-friendly CTAs at the shopping cart it then reverts to fiddly buttons and small text links at the checkout.

The layout of the different screens is then inconsistent in terms of the size of the text fields and Amazon doesn’t offer any user shortcuts.

Presumably very few people will actually have to go through this process as most will already have an Amazon account, but it’s surprising that Amazon doesn’t have a shorter, more user-friendly mobile checkout.

Staples

Staples allows customers to use a guest checkout, but then tries to convince you to register in order to ‘save time next time’. As a result the first form is quite long, but then there are only two forms overall.

Other issues include the fact that the text fields and CTAs are small so some users may find them difficult to press, and that it doesn’t accept alternative payment options.

Overall the design could be simplified as the pages currently include a huge amount of text that makes them feel extremely cluttered.

Apple

Incredibly Apple still doesn’t have a mobile site.

Walmart

Walmart has an extremely user-friendly mobile checkout, offering guest checkout and using massive fields and CTAs.

Though there are a number of forms to fill in they are all quite short and uncluttered, so the process doesn’t feel arduous.

Office Depot

Office Depot gives you the option of using PayPal checkout, guest checkout or logging in.

The text fields and CTAs are also a decent size, though the best feature is that the guest checkout has been condensed into a single form.

It only requires the card details, address, phone number and an email address before you can confirm the payment. This makes the process feel extremely short and should help reduce the amount of dropouts.

Sears

As with Office Depot, Sears gives you the option of using PayPal or its normal checkout, although the CTAs are both incredibly small. 

It also gives a guest checkout option and is one of the few retailers to give a progress indicator so users know how steps are left in the checkout process.

The forms are a decent size as well, although I feel the CTAs could be bigger.

Best Buy

Best Buy has one of the finest mobile checkouts on this list. The large text fields and CTAs mean it’s easy to navigate, and it has a progress bar so users know how many steps are left.

It also allows guest checkout and has stripped out any unnecessary information so the pages are uncluttered. The one minor downside is that Best Buy doesn’t accept alternative payments.

OfficeMax

OfficeMax scores points for allowing guest checkout and having a progress indicator, however it is another retailer that suffers from having small text fields and CTAs. 

On the plus side, there is a click-to-call button at the bottom of the screen, even though it is quite small.

CDW Corp

Though CDW Corp has a mobile site you can’t make a purchase unless you have previously registered an account through its desktop site...

Newegg

Newegg is one of the few retailers on this list to offer a prominent security reassurance on its checkout CTA, and it also accepts both PayPal and Google checkout.

The checkout process is short and there are just a few forms to fill in, however all customers are forced to create an account. 

In conclusion...

In general the brands on this list have done an excellent job of designing user-friendly mobile checkouts, with Apple being the only brand that doesn’t even have a mobile optimised site.

CDW Corp also prevents new customers from making a purchase on mobile unless they have previously registered an account through its desktop site, which seems a bizarre decision.

Six of the retailers offer a guest checkout, while only Amazon and Newegg force new customers to register an account.

Those that allow guest registration have noticeably faster checkout processes, with Best Buy offering the slickest user experience in my opinion.

Sites that offer alternative payments are in the minority, with only Office Depot, Sears and Newegg accepting PayPal. Newegg is the only retailer that accepts Google checkout as well.

In general though, most of the retailers have done a good job of designing usable mobile checkouts and I still find it baffling that Apple has refrained from creating a mobile optimised site.

I was speaking with a friend in the CE industry a few months ago about Nook and he mentioned an interesting bit of apocrypha. Back when the e-reader race was still an actual competition, Wal-Mart was exploring entering the space with a device of their own. Everyone they talked to in the industry recommended they just by Nook. However, at the time, the company wasn’t for sale.

Now it probably should be.

As CEOs crumble and demand flattens for Nook hardware products, it’s clear that something needs to change. Three years ago I wrote that the Kindle won. In the intervening years I have rooted hard for Nook and I have had excellent experiences with all of their products. The Nook Simple Touch is one of my favorite readers and I have seen no material difference in the Kindle and Nook bookstores. In short, Nook shouldn’t have to win… but now it has to lose.

As the company begins unwinding itself from the mess of competition, they should look for a partner that can put them in the remaining millions of homes that don’t have a tablet or e-reader. And that number is fast dwindling. Amazon got into millions of homes over the past few years and, one presumes (they don’t make numbers public), so did Nook. But e-readers, as standalone devices, are now niche and I’d wager even Amazon is having a hard time selling them. However, if Nook and, say, a retail partner like Wal-Mart, could get inexpensive readers in front of folks who may have missed the boat they could still stem the tide of bad news. However, Nook would no longer be a standalone brand, stalwart against the world. It would, in effect, turn the Nook brand into a badge for OEMs to license. It would, in the end, destroy the brand even as it saves it.

I don’t want Nook to go away. While I could tell early on that it would be a hard road for Barnes & Noble and that Amazon was already a few steps ahead, it’s hard to wish ill on a company that has helped turn reading from a paper-based pursuit into an online habit. The irony is that, before all this, the e-reader help gut the thing that birthed the Nook in the first place. I doubt many of us have set foot in a book store in the past few months (or years) and that was Nook’s doing. While I don’t want to get too sentimental, it seems that this war is over, as Arnold once said to his love, “the world, which seems/ To lie before us like a land of dreams,/ So various, so beautiful, so new,/ Hath really neither joy, nor love, nor light,/ Nor certitude, nor peace, nor help for pain;/ And we are here as on a darkling plain/ Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight,/ Where ignorant armies clash by night.”

In the business to business marketing series, this is the 72nd B2B lead generation question and video.

Business to business marketing and sales people fail because they are not given the right tools and information from most of the companies that hire them.

There are four items that B2B marketers and sales people need in order to succeed. Watch the video to see what these factors are, and why most B2B marketers and sales people fail.

To become excellent at business to business marketing and B2B lead generation, there are many questions you need to answer about your business, and how you will develop those leads. I have set up 101 questions to help you and your company become excellent at B2B lead generation. Watch daily for a new video.

All of these questions and answers, in this video series, will help you in your B2B lead generation and overall B2B marketing processes. As we go through each video, you will better understand how marketing has become even more important than sales.

Obviously selling your products and services is the ultimate goal. However, if you do not have an online B2B marketing strategy, along with a strong social media strategy, then the sales, of your products and services, will be few and far between.

This has happened because of the Internet and how people find you first in their search. So an Internet B2B marketing strategy is imperative to your company’s sales success.

To ensure you get all 101 videos in the Q&A series, sign up for either the RSS Feed, or the email notification in the right hand column.

Be sure to “like” this video so your friends and colleagues can see it and follow the videos. Also, send me your questions, to my email below, so I can answer them for you, and include them in the 101 questions.

Please leave your comments about this video, and all of the videos, below.

Kind regards,

Ian Dainty
416.277.4537
ian@b2bbusinesscoach.com

Related posts:

1. In business to business marketing, why is your website your best marketer? In the business to business marketing series, this is the...
2. In business to business marketing how do you attract B2B prospects? In the business to business marketing series, this is the...
3. In B2B marketing and sales, how does your team overcome objections? In the B2B marketing video series, this is the 58th...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

Why do companies invest in marketing?

While this may seem like a rhetorical question, it’s certainly one we’ve seen many companies asking over the past few years. Laura Patterson, president of VisionEdge Marketing, in her presentations on making marketing more relevant to the business, says, “companies expect marketers to be able to prove that they are acquiring more customers, faster, and at a smaller cost than if the monies allocated to marketing were invested elsewhere.” This theme ties nicely into one of our previous posts, Why Funnel Metrics are Essential to Marketing Operations by our ceo, Bonnie Crater, who went into detail about three key metrics that can help both Marketing and Sales Operations measure the health of your business – volume, conversion rates, and velocity.

Volume lets you determine if you are generating enough responses from your campaigns. Conversion rates show how many of your responses move through every stage of the Sales and Marketing cycle. Velocity shows how quickly new responses move through the funnel. Interestingly, according to VisionEdge Marketing’s 11^th annual marketing performance management study conducted with ITSMA and Forrester in May of this year, 59% of Marketers responding to the survey indicated that they do not measure Sales pipeline velocity.

Tracking these funnel metrics is not just critical for your operations teams though. If you can accurately track and measure these key funnel metrics in your CRM solution it will go a long way to driving increased alignment between Sales and Marketing. Imagine you are able to measure the volume of all Sales and Marketing campaigns in once place. You could see which campaigns drive the most leads and then determine how to align the teams to drive leads most effectively.

Let’s take it one step further – if the conversion rates between all your demand generation stages (marketing, telesales, sales, etc.) are all inside salesforce.com (or any other CRM solution) you can see where bottlenecks in the Marketing-Sales hand off take place with each type of campaign, which enables you to see where some Sales and Marketing processes might be broken.

Finally by understanding the velocity of your Sales and Marketing campaigns you can work with both teams to make sure the campaigns being run fit into the time-sensitive goals of both organizations (such as MQLs/month for Marketing or Opportunities generated for Sales).

Having all this information in the same place, especially inside your company’s CRM solution, makes alignment of Sales and Marketing so much easier because everyone is looking at the same data and thus can make decisions from the same metrics, resulting in a much more united demand generation and revenue closing strategy. In its white paper, “Don’t Waste Your Bullets: Accelerate Revenue by Keeping Your Eye on the Target and Using Customer Engagement to Align Sales and Marketing,” VisionEdge Marketing reminds us that we can use the customer buying process to accelerate alignment and offers six stages of observable customer engagement behaviors (contact, connection, conversation, consideration, consumption and community) to create a common foundation between Marketing and Sales.

The crux of the matter really boils down to this: Sales, you need Marketing to help you make your quotas and Marketing, you need Sales to sell your products otherwise everyone is out of a job! Since we all need each other why not leverage funnel metrics and other analytics to make sure you are in complete alignment so you can work together effectively and grow your companies to ensure everyone stays employed?

To learn more about how Full Circle CRM leverages Marketing and Sales funnels inside of salesforce.com check out our Fun with Funnels datasheet.

Talking about the differences between men and women is a tricky thing. But we need to deal with tricky things if we want to be good sales managers.

The recently published book, Top Dog: The Science of Winning and Losing by Po Bronson and Ashley Merryman, has a nugget of knowledge every sales manager should know. As the title suggests, it’s about the science behind why some people win and others struggle.

This is not a sales book, but some of its findings relate to sales and have implications for how to manage a sales team. (Note: for detailed, sales-specific research on what makes a sales winner, take a look at RAIN Group’s recent research report, What Sales Winners Do Differently.)

While Bronson and Merryman’s book covers a variety of topics, it’s what they have to say on risk and its implications for sales management that deserves attention, especially the surprising results when comparing men and women. While the authors struggled to accept these findings at first, the science pointed to differences too large to ignore.

I woke up early over the holiday weekend and found myself immediately thinking about an annoying/stressful situation that took place the day before. At that point, I had to stop myself and wonder what the hell I was doing. I was on the Cape, enjoying what was otherwise a wonderfully sunny few days off with my family. Why did I have to wake up thinking of something that’s bringing me down to negative town? I’ve always been intrigued by people who seem to have life figured out. For some reason, they manage to navigate the same waters we are all floating on, but somehow they always seem to come out clean with little to no stress slowing them down along the way. From what I’ve seen, most of these people always take the necessary step back from a situation and look at the big picture. The existing task they are consumed with could potentially overwhelm them with stress, but they have the ability to recognize that what may seem like a big deal now is generally insignificant in the big scheme of things.

Don’t get me wrong: I believe in a “healthy level” of stress. It helps with added motivation to keep us pushing forward. Sure, we all have expectations placed on us every day, but we need to take that healthy level of stress and find a way to morph it into something positive.

One of the best examples of the person I’ve described above is our CEO, Paul Alves, whose picture is above. Here is just one example of an inspirational quote he came across recently at Personal Selling Power and shared with the AG team:

“When you wake up in the morning, what are your first thoughts? Are they positive thoughts, or do you start the day consumed by dread, fear, stress, or worry? Even if you’re not a morning person and have trouble formulating distinct thoughts before a shower and coffee, you’re already tapping into the feelings and emotions that can shape the rest of the day. Pay attention to what you’re thinking right at the very start of each morning, and take steps to make sure those thoughts are positive and free from negative influences.

In sales, attitude is king. If you don’t truly believe that there are sales out there waiting to be made, then making 100 phone calls, having the perfect script, and doing loads of research won’t help. You may, for example, find yourself prefacing your conversations with self-defeating statements. But don’t dwell on what won’t work or what’s not going right. Be confident that you can find the win-win in any situation, and you’ll learn what a positive impact attitude can have.”

It can be so easy to allow the negativity to creep in when you cold call. Let’s face it; no matter how skilled you are at cold calling you are going to hear “NO” more than “YES”. Our stats show a 3% average lead rate across every project we called on over the years. That means out of every 100 sales conversations we have in a day, 3 of those end up converting into marketing qualified leads. Not the most encouraging stats, but that’s the cold hard reality we live in when dialing for dollars.

However, it’s important to continue inspiring yourself to do better, and concentrate on the positives instead of the negatives of your day. Also, if you’re looking for some periodic sales inspiration, I recommend you check out Paul Castain’s website, Your Sales Playbook.

Paul C. is a perfect example of another guy who always manages to put a positive spin on the sales game, while always keeping the big picture in perspective. I’ll swing by his site for some daily inspiration….especially if I’m feeling a little beaten down.

There are many attributes that are required to be successful when you dial, but as the quote above points out, it all starts with your attitude.

By Tibor Shanto – tibor.shanto@sellbetter.ca

We often hear the expression: “Follow the Money”.  Well in sales that pursuit always leads to the buyer and their reality not ours.  To get the most out of sales, you need to immerse yourself in the buyers world, not work on making the opposite happen.

Here is what I mean:

What’s in Your Pipeline?
Tibor Shanto

We are delighted to announce that July’s edition of the Top Sales Magazine has been published – slightly later this month due to the July 4^th celebrations in the US.

In the interview “hot-seat” this month is Nancy Bleeke, author of the best-selling book “Conversations That Sell”

Also in this issue we have guest articles from Dr. Tony Alessandra, Gerhard Gschwandtner, Dan McDade, Diane Helbig and Jason Dobbs.

Our regular feature writers, Barb Giamanco, Nancy Nardin, Babette Ten Haken and Tamara Schenk are joined by sales management guru Keith Rosen.

As usual we also announce this month’s Top Sales Article and Top Sales Blog Post, and you will find all the details on nominating your favorites for the 2013 Top Sales & Marketing Awards 

Finally in my regular “JF Uncut” column, I reveal my experiences with my first (and only) sales manager, and why you should be defending margin at all costs. 

Here is a taster for you 

“We Must Keep Talking … In this E-World, Conversations Still Rule” A conversation with Nancy Bleeke

Nancy has interviewed, trained, and coached thousands of salespeople around the globe, from Fortune 100 companies to small family-owned businesses, imparting the ability to sell with the belief that selling is helping others do or decide something.

“Time Management” by Dr.Tony Alessandra

Time is nature’s greatest “force.” Nothing can stop it, nothing can alter it. Unlike the wind, it cannot be felt. Unlike the sun, it cannot be seen. Yet, of all nature’s forces, time has the most profound effect on us

“Reaping the Value of Long-Term Leads” by Dan McDade

In 1885, William Lever of Lever Bros. said, “Half of the marketing money you spend is wasted—trouble is you don’t know which half.” Unfortunately, there is a good chance that substantially more than half of your marketing investments are being squandered.

“How to Write an Effective Sales Team Policy” by Diane Helbig

Having a sales department policy is the foundation of success for any organization, no matter how big or small. Whether you have one or one hundred sales people, you need to have clearly defined guidelines and expectations. This keeps everyone on the same course and provides metrics for measuring results.

“Transforming Sales Professionals into Virtual Sales Teams” by Jason Dobbs

For years, I was an outside salesperson. I built relationships for a living. The challenge and reward of building those relationships is integral to all sales, inside and out, but now modern technology—web conferencing, HD video streaming, smartphones and tablets—is bringing the personal connection of the outside sale into the office.

“Why Now Is an Exciting Time to Be a Sales Leader” by Gerhard Gschwandtner

When most people see change, they focus on negatives: the challenges, the problems, and the losses. But when great sales leaders see change, they see more than that. They see opportunity..

“How to Make Sales Enablement a Strategic Discipline?” By Tamara Schenk

“The Fine Art of Using Your Soft Skills” by Babette Ten Haken

You are an artist. That descriptor doesn’t sound like your job title, does it? “You are responsible for understanding and articulating, in language everyone can appreciate, how your core capabilities provide cross-functional value to your colleagues, your organization, and your clients.”

“They Said” by Barb Giamanco

Technology has been my constant companion since the early 80’s. An encounter with an IBM 3270 mainframe propelled me into a sales career selling hardware and software solutions.

“Defend Your Margin – Selling on Price is a Cop-Out” by Jonathan Farrington

I suppose I should consider myself quite fortunate that my first sales manager (and in fact the only sales manager I worked for) was such a strong disciplinarian. By “strong” I mean he was a tough, uncompromising, unsympathetic, no-nonsense type of guy. Unfortunately he was also bigoted, racist, homophobic and chauvinistic.

“The Formula for Coaching Success” by Keith Rosen

While most managers can see the benefits of great coaching from any recent study, if you haven’t experienced great coaching first-hand, then how would you know how to deliver it? Use this formula for coaching success and assess your coaching effectiveness.

“Gamification Solutions for Sales Teams” by Nancy Nardin

If you’ve ever bought a lottery ticket, or checked a bottle cap to see if you won, you’ve participated in Gamification. Gamification is just a fancy word for marketing tactics (games and contests) that get people to engage with a company or a brand in a more personal, social way.

Focus On – Kelley Robertson

Kelley Robertson began his sales career in a men’s clothing store in the mid-seventies. With no experience or training, he struggled to make ends meet and eventually changed directions by moving into the hospitality industry.

If you are already registered, your copy will be landing in your inbox shortly – if not, please sign-up for FREE today

News: I must take this opportunity to remind you that the Inside Sales Level of Top Sales Academy kicks-off next Tuesday – July 16^th. This is a wonderful opportunity for all inside sales professionals to receive FREE coaching from some of the top sales experts in the world, delivered online in ten short, sharp and dynamic sessions. Please register here

Oh, and don’t forget the Sales Management Summit being presented by BrightTalk today – there are a host of “big-hitters” presenting, and you’ll find all the details HERE 

Just the phrase sends shivers up many sellers' spines.

Prospects don't respond. Gatekeepers padlock their gates shut. Sellers shut down.

It doesn't have to be that hard. This year has changed the face of prospecting and opened up a whole new set of tactics to help you grab the attention of your contacts. As I've tested them myself I've discovered that cold calling is now actually FUN!

I know you're doubting me. I see that look on your face across the wire, but really, with a few tweaks to your technique, you can have fun too.

Consider these.

Shake up your message. We all know that what we say can make or break our ability to get noticed. Yes, your value proposition must focus on a business need you uncovered in your triggering event research, or on a breakthrough idea you have to share. Now go further. Bring it to life in your email by adding a bit of your personality. Help prospects imagine the real person that wants to speak with them.

For example, "I'm looking forward to our conversation. I noticed you're based in Hartford, Connecticut. I used to ski nearby when I lived in Danbury. Can't wait to hear how it's changed!"

In a voicemail or an email, that bit of individualization distinguishes you from other sellers also calling with strong value propositions. You sound friendly and engaging. They're going to want to speak with you.

Shout your message. Today you have many more opportunities to get your message out in front of your target market, from Twitter and Facebook, to LinkedIn, email prospecting and cold calling.

The secret is to be sure you're using every avenue, including social media, to be heard. Comment about projects you're doing, vendors you're working with, results your clients have seen. Mention clients by first name and geographical location to add credibility but retain anonymity. If you're not worried about competitive eyes, mention contacts and companies by name. These little comments don't just create awareness, they generate interest in learning more about you. I've actually had prospects contact me from similar ones!

Enjoy the gatekeeper. If a real person is stopping you, revisit your value proposition. The bottom line is, your message isn't compelling enough.

If your gatekeeper is silent, engage the new tools to entice a response.

Check for your contact in LinkedIn, Twitter or Facebook. Get connected and send a direct message using the internal mail systems. For LinkedIn, use the same message from your cold call, even the personalization.

On Twitter, with only 140 characters your message might be something like, "Wanted to connect by phone. Had some ideas on IT security I wanted to get your opinion on. When's a good time?" Here there isn't much space, so your objective is only to start a quick conversation, then set an appointment.

Don't forget about referrals and introductions. It's the people you know who can get you to the people you want to know. Use your social media network connections and reach out.

Embrace recession objections. There are two primary objectives most companies have as they make changes today: make more money or save more money. Use these to break past the "no budget" objections. Eventually you may find there really isn't an opportunity because they can't spend, but I'm seeing some pretty creative deals happening in situations of no money. Don't let it stop you or the prospect from exploring a valuable idea that can help their business.

Switch up your cold calling techniques and you'll soon find you're getting in the door despite any economic situation!

Sales Training Article: Where to Find the Great Sales Jobs

By Geoffrey James, INC - Sales Source

Here's where entrepreneurs should look for a job if they want a break from building their own firms.

A great things about being an entrepreneur is that you quickly learn how to sell your ideas and products to investors, customers and employees. That's a valuable skill set. Really valuable, in fact.

If you're wondering what your skills are worth if you decide to take your selling skills elsewhere, here are the best (or at least the highest paid) sales jobs, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics:

Financial services. Salespeople in this industry earn average yearly compensation of around $100,000. However, that average is a bit skewed because the very top salespeople earn many millions of dollars. The job consists primarily of selling investments to individuals and institutions, by explaining the costs, benefits and risks of making those investments.

Engineering. Salespeople for engineering firms earn a yearly average of around $97,000, with much less variation between the top and bottom of the field. They sell complex technological offerings to businesses, using their extensive knowledge of the products and the scientific processes behind them. Many of these "sales engineers" have an engineering degree.

Real Estate. Both real estate brokers and agents help clients buy, sell, and rent properties. However, there's a huge difference in compensation between brokers, who are licensed to own a brokerage, and agents, who must work with a broker. Brokers command an average compensation of around $84,000 a year, while agents earn only $51,ooo.

Manufacturing. These classic B2B sales reps sell goods and services to businesses, government agencies, and other organizations by contacting customers, explaining product features, answering questions, and negotiating prices. Such jobs command an average yearly compensation of $86,000 for technical industries and $64,000 for "non-technical" industries.

Insurance. Sales professionals in this field earn an average of $62,000 a year. Making money in this business largely depends upon your ability to generate new business by contacting potential customers, explaining various insurance policies, and helping clients choose plans that suit them.

Advertising. Selling advertising services (print, broadcast, and Web) earns an average of $55,000 a year. These jobs don't require Mad Men-style glad-handing any more. Instead they're heavy on knowledge about how companies can coordinate complex campaigns through multiple channels.

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.

Most employment interviews are a waste of time. Candidates think they’re about correctly answering the interviewer’s questions and interviewers think they’re designed to figure out if the candidate meets the requirements listed in the job description. They’re not.

Google just found out after exhaustive research that brainteasers don’t predict on-the-job performance. (To be a bit cynical here, this is not new news. I read about this classic problem in the mid-1990s doing research for my first book.) The bigger news at Google is that they found that very few of their hiring managers have a good track record using the interview for predicting on-the-job success. Google’s revelation is not uncommon.

Given that the common and traditional interview is flawed, including the vaunted behavioral interview (see below), what is a job-seeker, hiring manager, recruiter or anyone on the interviewing team to do? I suggest all parties take a page from any well-trained sales department and convert the employment interview into a discovery call. Here’ssalesforce.com’s blog describing this core activity. In essence, the idea is to use the sales call to find out the customer’s needs and then craft a solution that demonstrates your product is a perfect fit. Whatever side of the desk you're on, this is what interviewing should be about.

During the interview the buyer and seller roles often switch, so conducting parallel discovery can become a bit unnerving – similar to dating. Regardless, here are the basic steps.

The Discovery Process for the Job-seeker

Step 1: Find out what's being sold. Don’t assume the person interviewing you is competent. If the interviewer is either box-checking skills, asking pointless questions, or asking brainteasers, begin your discovery right away. This starts by asking questions at the beginning of the interview to uncover real job needs. Here are some questions that will get you started:

• What’s the focus of the job?
• What are some big problems or issues the person will face right away?
• How will performance be measured?
• Are there any team related challenges?
• Why is the position open?

Step 2: Prove you're the solution. Once you have some understanding of the job, you’ll then need to describe some past accomplishment that demonstrates you’re capable of doing the work required. Use the SAFW two-minute response to form your answers. This involves providing a 1-2 minute overview of a major past accomplishment with just enough details to naturally prompt the interviewer to ask some clarifying follow-up questions. You’ll need to do this for at least 2-3 of the most important aspects of the job during the interview in order to “win the sale.”

Step 3: At the end of the interview ask for the order, or at least find out the next steps. Something like, “Based on what we’ve discussed, do you think my background is a good fit for the position? (Pause) What are the next steps in the process?” If you are a good fit for the job, the interviewer will be specific about the next steps. A vague response is not a good sign.

The Discovery Process for the Interviewer

Step 1: Be different. Don’t ask behavioral questions since all candidates have practiced answering these. (Here’s Google’s multi-million answers.)

Step 2: Figure out what you're selling. Start by making sure everyone on the hiring team is familiar with the performance-based job description listing the top 4-5 performance objectives required for on-the-job success. Interviewing accuracy is dramatically improved when everyone knows what they’re evaluating.

Step 3: Early in the interview find out why the candidate is looking for another job, most likely it’s something involving economic need or lack of sufficient career growth. You’ll use the balance of the interview to determine if your position meets these needs. This will be essential for negotiating the offer, especially if the person is a passive candidate and/or has multiple opportunities.

Step 4: Validate what you're buying. Use The Most Interviewer Question of All Time and the associated fact-finding questions to find out if the candidate is competent and motivated to do the actual work required. This involves describing one of the performance objectives and then asking the candidate to describe a comparable accomplishment. You’ll need to do this for the 3-4 most important performance objectives to make an accurate assessment. From this you’ll be able to determine if the gap between what you’re offering and what the candidate has done is a career move, a lateral transfer or something below or beyond the candidate’s current abilities.

Step 5: Determine thinking skills. Rather than using brainteasers to figure out thinking and problem-solving ability, ask about a real problem the person in the role is likely to face. (This is the second half of the two-question Performance-based Interview.) The purpose is to get into a back-and-forth dialogue to determine if the candidate’s approach to solving the problem is appropriate. Focus on the process of getting the answer, not the answer itself. Then Anchor the question by getting an example of what the person has done that's most comparable to the problem being discussed. (See Anchor and Visualize questioning pattern.)

Step 6: If the candidate is someone you’d like to consider, describe the opportunity gap and present your job as a true career move. Then find out the candidate’s interest in further discussion. (Here's the complete explanation behind the selling process involved in negotiating offers.)

Whether you’re on the hiring or job-seeking side it’s important to recognize that an interview is a sales call. While figuring out who’s the buyer and seller is a function of supply and demand, meeting the performance objectives for the job is what’s being bought and sold. Unfortunately, too many companies, job-seekers and interviewers lose sight of the core purpose of the interview. You won’t, if you put yourself in the shoes of a top sales rep on a 100% commission plan, and are always fully prepared.

Join the conversation about this story »

I can almost guarantee that the hardest days of work for inside sales reps are the first days back from vacation. At least they are for me. Everyone is longing to sleep in and be back with their family or friends. However, the transition back into work mode can be smooth if you stay organized. After having some time off last week, it was hard to put my mind back into the commuting, working and organizing mode.

If you’re like me, then sometimes it is easier to prepare for things beforehand. For example, I always try to make my lunch the night before work so I can focus on other things in the morning. Since I have this mindset, I knew that I wanted to set up some things for this week before I went on vacation for the 4^th of July. I had sent out some calendar invites for this week, pulled in new contacts to start a new pipeline, and wrote notes for mass emails and call shadowing. This was definitely helpful for a slow Monday morning after a long weekend.

If you are not a planner, there are still things you can do on your first day back at the beginning of the work day. Write down a goal of activities you want to complete by lunch. Review recent calls and follow up with emails you missed from your vacation. Once you are caught up with all of the information, you can hit your number before lunch time and set yourself a new goal for the end of the work day, or even before your afternoon coffee break. This might sound silly, but little things like personal daily goals can really help you get back into the swing of things.

Organizing your desk can also help with coming back to work. Throw away old post-its and notes from the prior week while writing new ones for upcoming meetings and discussions. Make a to-do list for the day or the week, as this can help even if you can’t get everything done the first day back. It will be easier to prioritize your day and help get the most urgent things done right away.

My advice: Try to plan ahead so it isn’t so much of a shock coming back to work; and if you really can’t do that, make a list the morning you return to help you get back into work mode.

What do you do to help yourself ease back into reality after some vacation time?

Also, AG Salesworks just released a new guide, “Organization for Inside Sales Teams” that includes tips and tools for organizing your inside sales work life for long-term success. Download it here or click on the button below.

Is Your Sales Strategy Based On Assumptions?
by David Brock

The scene gets played over and over, literally hundreds of times every year.  I’m sitting with a sales person or team, we’re reviewing a deal, building a strategy to win it.

I’ll ask a question, it could be about the problem the customer is trying to solve, their needs and priorities, the decision-making process, the competition, how differentiated the value proposition is.  It could be anything.

The sale person responds.  Say we’ve been talking about the decision making process and I ask who the decision maker is, the sale person says, “Erin is the key decision maker.”  I follow-up, asking, “How do you know?”  Usually, I get a blank stare.  Sometimes the response is, “Well she was in the last deal.”

Or we can be talking about the requirements and priorities, the sales person presents the requirements and priorities, and I always ask, “How do you know?” Again, eyes cross, frustrated looks on a sales person’s face and a response, “Because these are always the things people are looking for.”

The question, “How do you know,” is always the telling question.  It’s central to whether you can win or lose.

The danger sign on responses is when I hear the words, “I think….,”  “I guess……,”  “This is the way it always happens…”  In all these responses, the sales person is making assumptions and not dealing with the specific facts about the deal.

Until it something comes straight from the customer’s mouth, until what we think has been tested and validated by the customer, we are just guessing.  Guesses destroy our ability to develop a winning strategy.  Guesses may cause us to be focusing on things that are irrelevant or unimportant to the customer.

A sales strategy based on assumptions is pure wishful thinking.

Assumptions are particularly dangerous as we become more “experienced” or “seasoned.”  We’ve done dozens or hundreds of deals before.  We, “know” how to do things.   Our experience shapes how we deal with each deal we face today.  But our experience causes us to be sloppy.  We make assumptions—our assumptions may be right, but until validated by the customer, they put our strategies at risk.

Assumptions are driven by our own guesses, point of view, and experiences.  Sales people are eternally optimistic, so that may make our assumptions even more dangerous.  We are developing our sales strategies based on our views, not the customer’s.

We have to constantly test everything with the customer—in each deal.  Regardless how, similar each deal may look, until validated directly by the customer, it’s a guess, and assumption.

As you develop and execute your sales strategies, make sure you are acting based on what the customer has said, what you have validated directly with them.  Until it comes directly from the customers’ mouths, you are just guessing.

David Brock is President of Partners in EXCELLENCE, a consulting firm that works with organizations and individuals to help them effectively and efficiently reach their prospects and outperform and outsell their competition.  Find more of Dave’s wisdom at the Partners in EXCELLENCE Blog.

Looking back over my sales career I would have to say that my focus, for the role I had at any given time, varied due to a number of things – external and internal to the company I worked for.

Those who follow the blog may have seen mention that I have worked with and for 21 sales managers during my corporate selling career – at a number of technology, distribution, and financial services companies as an inside sales rep or outside rep. I have also managed sales teams. What was true at each of those stops on the sales road is also true today – a sales job is what you make of it.

Other than having energy and enthusiasm for the products or services you are selling, keeping focus – a skill you can develop – is critical to success. Barring any medical issues, such as ADD / ADHD, you can help set yourself up to win with a focus on what is needed to accomplish in order to be a top producer. (Note: I am not a therapist or doctor so won’t speak to that). I am a sales success coach and trainer – what I will do is help you break down the barriers that you may not be aware of within your working environment that may hurt your success. It gets messy because we are all human beings, and motivation (or lack of it) comes from within and is part of being human. If you have medical / physiological issues, please talk to someone skilled in that, because you can treat it and be successful in selling.

Ways to keep your focus -

• Keep your goals with you – short and long-term. If you use an app to do this, let me know what it is as I’m compiling a list of them.
  
• Create a master “to-do” list for the day, week, and month. If you feel better checking things off, do that – but it is not necessary to keep focus (it just feels good to those who have that type of style). Stay clear of what is being done and what needs to be done.
• Work to minimize interruptions - it is hard enough to keep focus on your own. Post a sign that says, “CALLING TIME- DO NOT DISTURB” or something like that so people do not interrupt you while you are prospecting.
• Know WHY you are doing what you are doing – why are you in sales for this company instead of another one? What moves you to action? When you know why, you can differentiate. For a big dose of why, watch Simon Sinek’s inspiring TED talk.
• Chunk things down to get small wins and victories. It is better to end today with a win than to work all week on something that needs to be done. Try to find ways to break that big week-long project down into small, successful pieces.

Here are some other posts on keeping focus:

Keep Your Focus and Sell More

Summer B2B Sales Challenge Revisited

What are YOUR secrets to “Keep Your Focus”?

Do you use any technology tools to help you stay on track?

Do you use any “old school” ideas, like an egg timer, to keep you on track?

We’d love to hear your tips and suggestions that work. Share and they help others.

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.

Image credit: donskarpo / 123RF Stock Photo

The post Inside Sales Power Tip 122 – Keep Your Focus appeared first on Score More Sales.

Why Optimize Any Experience?

Research suggests and most would agree that a positive, consistently good customer experience is a good thing. In fact in some cases it might even be considered a competitive advantage.

My wife and I love to shop at Trader Joe’s. We look forward to our weekly visits there. Why? Because they have quality products and the people that work there seem to go out of their way to be helpful. You get the feeling they actually like to work there.

So let’s agree for the moment that an optimized consumer experience is a good thing.

What About Colleague Experiences?

Richard Branson says you should treat your employees the way you want them to treat your customers. I haven’t seen any research on this but intuitively it makes sense. We have all experienced employees who appear to be less than satisfied with their work environment.

Why Single Out the Sales Force?

In “Why Mobile is Essential for Life Science Sales Professionals”, the author is describing the sales environment in the health sciences industry. I have heard the term hyper-connected used to identify the new empowered shopper but today I learned another equally important term: hyper-informed.

Buyers and shoppers both have information advantages over sales personnel in general. This is particularly important in a technical selling environment filled with complex and detailed information.

How Can a So (Social) Lo (Local) Mo (Mobile) Strategy Help?

Using mobile technology to organize and optimize information connects the sales force to relevant information quickly, allowing them to respond in real time to buyer requests. It’s important to design interfaces intuitively and effectively. Powerful smart devices offer a great deal of utility without burdening the sales force with bulky cases.

Keeping current relationship management information up-to-date is possible. Integrated systems can reduce the amount of effort required to keep contact and account information current. An efficient and current customer relationship management system can be a real advantage in understanding and nurturing profitable relationships.

Most buyers are willing to accept electronic product information, which results in cost savings from less printing and postage. More important, there is no delay in receiving the information.

According to this post an Aberdeen study of best-in-class companies that have deployed mobile sales solutions indicated they are experiencing 109% attainment of sales quota compared with 41% quota attainment of companies with little or no mobility solutions. (Source)

Connecting the Social and Local

Use secure social media platforms to connect your sales force. In addition to Yammer and private Linked In and Facebook groups, or IBM Sharepoint all of these allow access and sharing of information and ideas to facilitate learning and sharing expertise.

Ensure that marketing assets are optimized for local search. Where possible allow the sales force to tailor local messages that will add relevance to the messages and interactions.

Many marketers believe that SoLoMo will work for consumers but many are skeptical about B2B applications. Clearly both B2B and B2C have one thing in common, human beings. Leveraging the technology and behaviors of the new marketing landscape can offer real benefits by empowering sales force personnel to be able to respond to the new hyper-informed buyer

What tools do your colleagues rely on to respond to the hyper-informed customer? How would you rate your business in terms of preparedness for customer response? In what way(s) could you be better equipped?

Last summer I wrote the post 3 Sales Prospecting Tools You Can’t Live Without, where I discussed the top necessities every inside sales rep should have in order to be successful on the phones. One of the points I focused on was having a structured call plan methodology to follow, and the idea that there is a science behind how many touches prospects need to receive before they turn into a qualified lead.

The reason for me revisiting the topic is because I recently had a customer ask me for some guidance on how to create the right call plan strategy for inside sales teams. Interestingly, some of the reps on his team did not have any rhyme or reason to the way they were calling into prospects. In some cases, they would reach out to a cold lead two to three times over the phone and then give up. If they were a warmer lead, they would “no contact” the prospect about 10 times a day without leaving a voicemail. The amount of different call plan methodologies out there are endless, and while there are not necessarily “right” or “wrong” methods, there are definitely some proven processes that in my experience I have seen work.

Below are some best practices when it comes to creating the right call structure for your inside team:

Create a call plan methodology that is realistic. In talking with others in the inside sales world and based on my experience, on average it can take anywhere from 10-12 touches before a lead becomes a qualified sales opportunity. This can certainly vary depending on the type of call you are making; for instance, if you are following up on a hot lead, it will take far less time to convert in most cases. However, in general, use the 10-12 touch rule with your team. If you create a call plan that has your team giving up after the third phone call, odds are you aren’t going to be turning over the number of qualified leads you could be.

Be consistent. Your reps must stay consistent when it comes to calling prospects. If they call a prospect one day, and then follow up a few weeks later with another call and then an email the next day, odds are that the prospect has forgotten about the initial reach out and they aren’t making the connection. After all, prospects are receiving phone calls and emails all day every day from your competitors, and you are just blending in with everyone else at that point. What better way to stand out than to create a consistent pattern of touches that they are receiving from you. Waiting a few weeks in between just won’t cut it. You are much better off with reaching out two to three times in one week with a series of calls and follow-up emails instead. The key here is to have your team set follow-up tasks and not allow those tasks to hit their overdue task queue.

Change the plan depending on the campaigns your team follows up on. As I said earlier, the 10-12 touch rule really depends on the type of leads your team is calling into. If they are warm, they most likely have a direct line associated with their lead in your CRM, so it is much easier to call directly into that person without having to go through an operator. When my team calls warm lists from a recent webinar or a recent trade show, I often tell them to simply call through the list and just focus on getting prospects live by “no contacting” them instead of leaving a voicemail every time. Given that the list is hot, I will have them strictly focus on calling that campaign for the entire week, calling each prospect every day. On the other hand, if the list is a cold list, they need to spend more time mapping out the organizations, and they need to make many more touches warming the prospects up. The best way to accomplish this is to call each prospect a few times in a week, with emails immediately following.

I don’t believe there’s a right or wrong call plan structure that is the end all be all when it comes to inside sales. However, you must have a documented process that your team follows across the board in order to yield results. Randomly calling into a list with no structure is just not going to work. By creating a call plan methodology that is realistic, consistent, and able to be altered based on the type of campaign, you are far more likely to meet and exceed your goals. What are your best practices when it comes to your inside sales team’s call plan strategy?

The age old debate of hunters vs farmers in sales has faced scrutiny from all angles. We’ve realized it’s crucial to recognize the skill sets of individuals on your sales team. Let’s dive in from the beginning and see what we can find.

The Hunter

Typically thought of as ‘the doers,’ hunters aim to close as many deals as fast as possible. They often focus on deal quantity and love to explore new areas.

The Farmer

Farmers focus on developing long-term customer relationships and working with others. Sales people with this attitude are happy working with a few customers to create a lasting impact.

How do these two look side by side?

In today’s sales game, it’s important to be well-rounded. Take note of the skill set of each of your sales reps. The most successful may be hunters who know how to farm, and farmers who know how to hunt. Since every company operates differently, knowing your team and having them learn from one another is what really matters.

Gartner published the report What’s Hot in CRM Applications in 2013, by Ed Thompson on June 20, 2013.  The report covers areas of interest by clients in the four areas of marketing, sales, customer service and e-commerce.

The report states that “the 2013 What’s Hot list was compiled after examining Gartner inquiry volumes by topic. It was then supplemented by asking all Gartner CRM analysts to offer their opinions on what has been generating the most interest during all the client inquiries they have taken since the end of 2012 and in the beginning of 2013.”

Big data, cloud, social, mobile and the Internet of Things are the five catalysts that are driving inquiries in the hottest areas of interest. 

Gartner’s Ed Thompson, author of the report, states that “this is where our clients’ interests lie, although not their current CRM spending.”  Technologies highlighted in red are ...

Newsletters are the ATM machines of any website, blog or eCommerce site.  They are reliable sources of income if you don’t abuse them.  You can sell ad space, promote products on a rev. share basis and even sell space on landing pages within your site.  They drive a nice boost of traffic when you send them and can also help your SEO if you include social sharing icons on the email or landing pages when people share your content.  The tricky thing is how do you collect more email addresses on Facebook without having to just flat out ask people to sign up?  Here is one tool that lets me use videos to get newsletter sign ups and also drive measurable and incremental sales.

One of my personal blogs is all about theatre.  Unfortunately I don’t get to shoot video when I go to see a show, but there are a ton of videos of productions where the owners do give permission to use their videos.  Because of this I can take their videos and include them into a player called Viewbix.

Viewbix lets me add in a newsletter app for my email service provider (ESP) and as the video is playing, people can see a slide that asks them to join my newsletter.  After the video has ended, I can and usually do assign the newsletter app display.  Here’s the tricky part: it isn’t enough to have the standard ESP logo; consumers don’t recognize it.  Instead upload your own image that you think will show a newsletter sign up the best.  I like to use envelopes.  Then when the app slides out, have it say join our newsletter.  When the app is displayed after they click, give them a reason to join.  I like to say things like receive more reviews, videos and show tunes in your inbox.  You could also try, tickets, discounts and tour dates or whatever applies to your business.  So how do I make money in addition to having people opt-in to my newsletter?  I combine the newsletter app with a shopping list app and usually twitter feeds for the video owner’s account, myself and also ways to like both of our Facebook pages.

By doing this I can collect email addresses through the video, generate sales, increase my followers across different social channels.  I add a logo to the list app that looks like shopping or use an MP3 logo if I am selling MP3s and music and then name the slide shop for XYZ merchandise here.  Once they open the app I use the product logo, add in a link saying what they will buy (I usually use tracking links or affiliate links (with a disclosure)) and a description that I write about why I enjoy the product or song.  The next thing I do is drive people to the main shopping pages of my website with shop now or buy tickets now using the button on the custom skin.  Now my player is ready to install on my site and bring us to one of the most powerful features of Viewbix.  Regardless of where the Viewbix player is shared, my site, Facebook or Twitter, almost every app, including the newsletter, shopping list, follow, rss feed, etc… continues to work.

As I share the video with my friends and as the followers on my FanPage view and share it, I get a ton of exposure giving people I would not have had exposure to the ability to sign up for my newsletter and shop through my links.  This has worked out extremely well for me with sites that don’t have much traffic.  By using the tool and social media to share original content, I build my newsletter list and bring them to my site over and over again as well as make money.

Here are some stats and a couple of screen shots from a couple of different campaigns I ran at the same time by using the Aweber app and the strategy above.

1 out of every 10 impressions resulted in a video view.  1 in 5 views ended up with a click through on one of the links.  This includes my shopping lists, the call to action button, etc…  I had 66 different social shares and more importantly, out of the 542 video views, the apps were used a total of 472 times.  To be honest, this isn’t unique uses, but 472 actual app uses meaning someone could have used more than one app in this stat.

My Aweber newsletter sign up app took more than 50% of the app uses giving my newsletter sign up the best possible chance to collect email addresses.  In the second screenshot you’ll see that Facebook counted for more than 80% of the social shares with Twitter at 12% and a social shares app taking the rest.  So what does this mean?

After people watched my original content in these specific videos that I shot, the most popular thing they did was look at the app to sign up for my 

newsletter.  The messaging told them they would get more videos like these in their inbox if they did.  My assumption is that by showing them a video that was original and giving them a way to easily access more, they would submit their email addresses and double opt-in to my newsletter.  The next most popular app was the list app.

25% of the viewers were interested enough in the shopping icon to actually click on it and look at what I was selling.  Although I don’t want to share the products or sales numbers because it will giveaway my niche and other internal data, without Viewbix I wouldn’t have been able to make these sales or get the sign ups because I would have had to randomly post the regular video and hope they came to my site.   By having Viewix I was able to keep them watching the video and all of the actions were able to take place there.  Viewbix enabled me to keep their attention and turn the video into an interactive user experience that resulted in newsletter sign ups and sales.

Newsletters are one of the most reliable and important things you can do to make money online.  They are there when you need them and as long as you don’t over use them and they can be the backbone of your company.  By being creative and thinking about how to incorporate your newsletter sign up into your social media campaigns with tools like Viewbix, you can not only begin to grow your newsletter list, but you can generate more likes, grow your fan base and make more money.

Without content, your television would have a blank screen … your radio would be nothing but dead air … your newspaper would display blank pages.  There would be no conversations, no signs, no plays, no jokes, no songs.  In other words, Content is everywhere!

The major challenge for marketers, who specialize in content creation, is to develop and publish the content that gets noticed … and sparks the desired emotion or action.  An even greater challenge might be that this has to be done consistently and over the channels that make sense for each client.

Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Google Plus, Pinterest and other social sites all invite URL links to blog posts or articles. Adding an interesting or amusing image will boost the popularity of almost any content. Sometimes, posting a cute picture or funny cartoon that gets shared can add “likes” or “followers” who will also see the serious and useful content that is subsequently posted.  While it is important to soft-pedal sales messages on social sites, providing useful information about a company and its products can shorten the cycle between first contact and the final sale.

A special note about Google Plus.  While this social network does not share the popularity of its social sisters, posting articles and blogs to this site seems to put SEO on steroids. Articles linked there are often ranked high for their relevant key words. 

What to write and where to publish

Website Content – Writing for the web requires fresh content that gets to the point, explains what is being offered, and includes a strong call to action.  The writing must speak to and interest viewers, but also has to have the keywords and search terms that search engines understand so that the pages rank high in search engine results. (Website links should be posted to social networks whenever new content is added.)

Blogs – Google and other search engines love new content. Blogging regularly is one of the best ways to provide that content. Well-titled and well-written blogs that use good key words help companies not only increase their credibility in the eyes of their customers, but also provide the content that gets displayed on Page 1 of Google results. (Again, links from every possible social site is a key. Also, adding an RSS feed will give people the opportunity to subscribe to a blog, assuring they see all new content.)

Magazine/Journal Articles – Online magazine editors are eager to find writers on almost any subject. While the pay may be small (or non-existent) being published is an important step towards getting found by customers – and improves credibility.  (Linking to social sites and even adding a link to the company blog can boost the popularity of the article.)

Email Marketing/Newsletters.  Blogs can be re-packaged for an E-newsletter mailed to a company’s database, helping widen the audience even more.

Do it yourself or hire a content marketer?

Social media/content marketers understand how to write content for humans AND search engines. They are also fully versed in the social sites. They know the rules, protocols and best practices for each site, including when and what to post and how to get the most “bang for the buck” for each piece of content.  They also monitor the sites, alerting the business owner about questions and comments that should be answered.  However, whether a business owner decides on a DIY approach or uses a marketing service, consistently publishing new and useful content over as many channels as possible will give a decided edge to any company in any industry.

There is no doubt that social media is here to stay. Love it or hate it, it’s a big factor in business and sales. Unfortunately, it can also prove to be a challenge. With the hundreds – sometimes thousands – of updates and contacts, it’s easy to get lost. Not just for you, but for those you’re trying to reach as well. It’s increasingly difficult to break through the noise with folks in your network. Reps often lament that it’s challenging to get their message through to customers and prospects. Read on to discover two lesser-known LinkedIn strategies that can help you break through the noise.

Receive step-by-step instructions on implementing these strategies. Click here to download the LinkedIn Tagging and Targeting Tool. These social selling strategies will also double as new sales techniques in your arsenal.

Social Selling Strategy #1: LinkedIn Tagging

Not everyone in your LinkedIn network provides you the same value. Your 500 connections don’t necessarily have twice the value as your colleague’s 250. Tagging your LinkedIn connections can uncover the true value of your network.

LinkedIn Tagging helps you discover the true demographic alignment within your network. You can uncover all types of connection groups such as:

• Customers
• Personas
• Competitors
• Partners
• Different Industries and Verticals
• Associations or Groups

Two months ago, I wrote about LinkedIn Tagging (click for a more in depth analysis of Tagging). With that article, I provided the LinkedIn Tagging Tool. This month I’ve updated the tool with several key new features. Now there is additional guidance for curating effective content through your tagged network.

The tool included with this article is a combination LinkedIn Tagging and Targeting Tool. It provides step-by-step instructions on how to utilize both of these features. You’ll also receive tips and tricks to assist in your social selling efforts. Discover how to truly leverage the full power of social networks for professional success.

Social Selling Strategy #2: Target your LinkedIn Mailings

Studies have shown that LinkedIn messages receive more attention than regular emails. They also garner more focus than other social network updates (ie: Facebook & Twitter). Utilize this insight to your benefit. For example:

Create pertinent content for your segmented groups (see: Tagging section above). Specific personas will find different content more interesting. Don’t let the opportunity for targeted messaging slip through your fingers. 

• Find interesting content online? Deliver this content to your groups as it’s relevant to them. You might want to target purchasing managers, CTOs, etc. This will show them you’re engaged and trying to offer them a valuable solution.
• Release company info to tagged groups in your network who will find it interesting. Good examples are company updates, industry trends, and news releases. 

There is more information in the LinkedIn Tagging and Targeting Tool. The step-by-step instructions and sales tips will do wonders for your sales toolbox. Furthermore, the social aspect will launch your capabilities into the digital age. You’ll be a more effective sales rep, and will avoid becoming obsolete.

Aurhor: Joel McCabe

If you enjoyed this post, get free updates by subscribing by Email or RSS.

About Joel McCabe

Follow @JPTMcCabe

Follow @MakingTheNumber

If you enjoyed this post, get free updates by subscribing by Email or RSS.

We have all been told many times about the importance of not avoiding making the difficult phone call.

Same goes for when someone calls. It might be tempting to dodge a tough call, but we simply can’t if we’re going to be a truly top-performing salesperson.

I’m going to throw a wrench into this belief and do it all for the sake of creating sales motivation and getting the week off to a great start.

Make a phone call first thing Monday morning, but rather than making a tough call, make an easy phone call.

Your first call should be to a customer who you like and likes what you sell.

Objective of your call is the person on the other end is going to tell you some very positive reasons why they like doing business with you.  The person you call is also going to be glad you  cared enough to reach out and contact them.

It can be amazing what this does for your sales motivation when you do this first thing Monday morning.  The customer is going to think of you in even more positive terms because you demonstrated you care by calling them.   As good as that reason is, an even better reason is the customer in will likely increase the positive outlook you have on your job and what you’re selling.

When you end the phone call, you’re going to be pumped and ready to make Monday a super day, which in turn will carry over and make the whole week that much better.

Remember one more thing. As the customer is sharing with you, make sure you’re writing down what they are saying.  Good stuff should be kept, as it can become a powerful sales motivator for you later on in the week.

It’s beautiful, because it’s so easily done and it accomplishes so much in just a couple of minutes.

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