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If you don’t like the salesperson working for you now because they aren’t producing the results you expect or need from them, you won’t like the next salesperson any better. If you’re not willing to invest the time, energy, and money to improve the salesperson, you will get the same result from the next salesperson who also lacks this investment.

If you don’t like a lead because they are not deep enough into their buying journey to make it easy for you to sell them, you are not going to like the next lead any better. The next lead will be wherever they are in the process, regardless of what might make it easier for you to make a sale. Even if you don’t like it.

If you don’t like your manager because they’re continually asking you for greater activity, you are not going to like the next manager any better. If someone has to ask you about your activity because you weren’t already doing enough to produce the results you need, you will have the same experience in your next job. And the one after that, and the one after that.

If you don’t like the company you work for because they have rules, policies, and procedures that you find constricting, you are not going to like the rules, policies, and restrictions at your next company either. Swapping one set of rules for another set of rules doesn’t change the fact that you don’t like to the rules.

Some salespeople are better than others, producing greater results. Every company has a top 20 percent.

Some leads are better than others. But generally, very few leads will come to you completely ready to buy.

Some managers and leaders are way better than others. Some are so good they literally transform you into a better version of yourself through their investment of time and energy. But there aren’t many who are not going to ask you to give them your best performance, at least not any good ones.

Some companies have a better work experience and employee value proposition than others. But if you chafe against rules, policies, and procedures, the experience may not be that different for you.

It’s Pretty Much Like That Here

There’s an old story about a man who was walking into a new city for the first time. He was greeted by another person who meets him at the gate. The stranger asks the man who lives in the city what the people inside the city are like. Instead of answering, the city dweller says, “What were they like where you came from?” The visitor to the city says they “they were terrible. They were mean, selfish, and hurtful.” The city dweller responds, “They’re pretty much like that here, too.”

Another visitor shows up at the gates and asks the person greeting him at the gate the same question, and the city dwellers offers the same reply, “Tell me what were the people like where you came from?” The visitor says, “they were great. They were caring, kind, smart, and helpful.” The person greeting him says, “Yeah, there pretty much like that here, too.”

The post You Won’t the Like the Next One Any Better appeared first on The Sales Blog.

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A new report by business management consultancy Oliver Wyman suggests that if the UK decides on a "hard" Brexit (by which it would lose access to the single market), the UK economy stands to lose £18 billion to £20 billion ($23 billion to $25 billion) in revenue, £3 billion to £5 billion ($4 billion to $6 billion) in taxes, with 31,000 to 35,000 jobs put at risk.

However, the report added that a hard Brexit might benefit the UK's fintech sector.

Here are the areas in which it says a hard Brexit could benefit UK fintechs:

• Regulation. At the moment, UK fintechs have to comply with EU regulations, not all of which are favorable to UK businesses. In the case of a Brexit, the UK could choose which laws most benefit its companies and implement them on its own timescale, easing the regulatory burden on domestic fintechs. That said, any UK firms that still want to trade with Europe would still have to comply with EU laws.
• Immigration. Right now, anyone from the EU can come to work in the UK without a visa. However, UK fintechs often struggle to find all the skills they need within this talent pool alone. Brexit could enable the UK to prioritize entry for immigrants, from anywhere, with the skills fintechs need. For example, it could simplify the visa process and make it less expensive for companies looking to hire further afield than the EU.

The impact of a hard Brexit on the traditional financial services sector might compel the UK government to ensure the country's fintech sector flourishes. It would be in the government's interest to offset any damage to the economy caused by the barring of incumbents from the EU market.

A hard Brexit could therefore drive the government to devote drastically more resources to creating a comfortable regulatory environment for fintechs, enabling them to focus on growth and efficiency, and thereby continue attracting investment. This is backed by the argument that a Brexit could save the UK £23 million ($34 million) in EU membership fees, which could be invested in fintech.

It is worth noting, however, that there is no guarantee such money would go to this sector, or even that it would be enough to offset the loss in foreign investment a Brexit could cause.

In addition, if UK fintechs were to lose access to the broader EU market, other continental cities may be in a position to steal London's fintech crown. Given the still considerable uncertainty surrounding Brexit, complacency about its potential effects on the UK fintech market is risky at this stage. 

This situation bears watching as we move through the most profound era of change for financial services companies since the 1970s brought us index mutual funds, discount brokers and ATMs.

No firm is immune from the coming disruption and every company must have a strategy to harness the powerful advantages of the new fintech revolution.

The battle already underway will create surprising winners and stunned losers among some of the most powerful names in the financial world: The most contentious conflicts (and partnerships) will be between startups that are completely reengineering decades-old practices, traditional power players who are furiously trying to adapt with their own innovations, and total disruption of established technology & processes:

• Traditional Retail Banks vs. Online-Only Banks: Traditional retail banks provide a valuable service, but online-only banks can offer many of the same services with higher rates and lower fees

• Traditional Lenders vs. Peer-to-Peer Marketplaces: P2P lending marketplaces are growing much faster than traditional lenders—only time will tell if the banks strategy of creating their own small loan networks will be successful

• Traditional Asset Managers vs. Robo-Advisors: Robo-advisors like Betterment offer lower fees, lower minimums and solid returns to investors, but the much larger traditional asset managers are creating their own robo-products while providing the kind of handholding that high net worth clients are willing to pay handsomely for.

As you can see, this very fluid environment is creating winners and losers before your eyes…and it’s also creating the potential for new cost savings or growth opportunities for both you and your company.

After months of researching and reporting this important trend, Evan Bakker, research analyst for BI Intelligence, Business Insider's premium research service, has put together an essential report on the fintech ecosystem that explains the new landscape, identifies the ripest areas for disruption, and highlights the some of the most exciting new companies. These new players have the potential to become the next Visa, Paypal or Charles Schwab because they have the potential to transform important areas of the financial services industry like:

• Retail banking

• Lending and Financing

• Payments and Transfers
• 
Wealth and Asset Management

• Markets and Exchanges

• Insurance

• Blockchain Transactions


If you work in any of these sectors, it’s important for you to understand how the fintech revolution will change your business and possibly even your career. And if you’re employed in any part of the digital economy, you’ll want to know how you can exploit these new technologies to make your employer more efficient, flexible and profitable.

Among the big picture insights you'll get from The Fintech Ecosystem Report: Measuring the effects of technology on the entire financial services industry:

• Why financial technology is so disruptive to financial services—it will soon change the nature of almost every financial activity, from banking to payments to wealth management.
• The basic conflict will be between old firms and new—startups are re-imagining financial services processes from top to bottom, while incumbent financial services firms are trying to keep up with new products of their own.
• Both sides face serious obstacles—traditional banks and financial services firms are investing heavily in innovation, but leveraging their investments is difficult with so much invested in legacy systems and profit centers.
• Meanwhile, startups are struggling to navigate a rapidly-changing regulatory landscape and must scale up quickly with limited resources.
• The blockchain is a wild card that could completely overhaul financial services. Both major banks and startups around the world are exploring the technology behind the blockchain, which stores and records Bitcoin transactions. This technology could lower the cost of many financial activities to near-zero and could wipe away many traditional banking activities completely.

This exclusive report also:

• Explains the main growth drivers of the exploding fintech ecosystem.
• Frames the challenges and opportunities faced by incumbents and startups.
• Breaks down global and regional fintech investments, including which regions are the most significant and which are poised for the highest growth.
• Reveals which two financial services are garnering the most investment, and are therefore likely to be transformed first and fastest by fintech
• Explains why blockchain technology is critically important to banks and startups, and assesses which players stand to gain the most from it.
• Explores the financial sectors facing disruption and breaks them down in terms of investments, vulnerabilities and growth opportunities.
• And much more.

The Fintech Ecosystem Report: Measuring the effects of technology on the entire financial services industry is how you get the full story on the fintech revolution.

To get your copy of this invaluable guide to the fintech revolution, choose one of these options:

1. Subscribe to an ALL-ACCESS Membership with BI Intelligence and gain immediate access to this report AND over 100 other expertly researched deep-dive reports, subscriptions to all of our daily newsletters, and much more. >> START A MEMBERSHIP
2. Purchase the report and download it immediately from our research store. >> BUY THE REPORT

The choice is yours. But however you decide to acquire this report, you’ve given yourself a powerful advantage in your understanding of the fast-moving world of financial technology.

Join the conversation about this story »

I’ve got two announcements for you: First, I’m kicking off a new series of blog posts focused exclusively on telephone prospecting with the goal of helping you absolutely master the phone to increase the number of meetings you secure. We’ll cover everything from our attitude and mindset when it comes to picking up the phone through voice tone and voicemail. And I’ll help you craft your mini-story, stay laser-focused on the objective of the call, and arm you with powerful, effective ways to push past the resistance and auto-reflex “no” we get when asking the buyer to meet with us.

I’m thrilled that many of the “prospecting is dead” charlatans and hucksters have been silenced, or at least minimized, as the general sales population has woken up to realize that, maybe just maybe, tweeting and commenting in LinkedIn groups doesn’t fill a pipeline or feed your kids as well as promised by the #socialselling only crowd. It’s been heartening to see the resurgence in popularity of traditional prospecting, including, I dare say, PICKING UP THE PHONE to call a potential customer. I’m seeing clients have tremendous success securing discovery meetings with strategic target prospects, and I’m looking forward to sharing how they are doing that with you.

Before getting to the second announcement, let me offer you this one teaser thought about telephone prospecting:  I believe you can be building a relationship with someone who has not called you back – yet. Those of you who are prospecting animals know exactly what I mean and I bet you’re having flashbacks right now to giant deals you’ve won that started out with a bunch of unreturned phone messages. And to those of you who think this is nonsense, I promise you it’s not. Furthermore, I promise you that if you truly master the art of prospecting, you’ll fill your funnel exponentially faster than your friends who are sitting around drinking the #socialsellingpermissionmarketing Kool-Aid, writing blog posts, over-tweeting, and commenting on others’ LinkedIn updates!

Meet Anthony Iannarino and Me in NYC on Monday Evening, October 17

My #1 GoTo Sales Guru, Anthony Iannarino, and I will both be in New York for a client event the week of October 17th, and Mark Birch is taking advantage of this opportunity by hosting us at his NYC Enterprise Sales Meet Up.

Almost 100 percent of the speaking engagements Anthony and I do are private sessions for client sales teams. If you’re in or around NYC, please come join us at 6:00pm on October 17th in Midtown Manhattan for this rare public event. We’ll be talking about sales, sales leadership, and sales success. It will be an interactive session where Mark will moderate the conversation and take questions from the audience. We’ve also giving away a significant number of our bestselling books to attendees. Click here to sign up or for more info. Hope to see you there!

“Hey, it’s OurMine Team, we are just testing your security, please send us a message.”

Earlier this summer, that message was blasted out to my followers on Twitter… only I didn’t send it. I had been hacked.

It was embarrassing. I run Hootsuite, a social media management company that prides itself on world-class security for our customers. How could this happen? What did I do wrong?

In the following days, I learned that Ev Williams, the co-founder of Twitter, had fallen victim to the same hackers. And not long before that, Mark Zuckerberg’s Twitter and Pinterest accounts were compromised. So I wasn’t the only one who could have been more proactive on security.

Even so, it should never have happened. After doing a postmortem to see what went wrong in my case, I learned a few basic security lessons that will hopefully help other executives and professionals keep their own accounts safe from hacking.

Beware of the side door. My hack had nothing to do with Twitter or Hootsuite (which I use to manage my Twitter account) themselves being compromised. The hackers who breached my account actually gained entry through a completely different app that I hadn’t used in years. At some point, I had enabled Foursquare to access my Twitter account (this is known as “app authing”). Later, there were reports that Foursquare was hacked and some accounts were compromised. My IT team confirmed that hackers used that info to get into my Twitter.

Today, app authing is even more common. Most social platforms have multiple points of access through partner services—just think of how many apps, from Airbnb to WordPress, integrate into Facebook, for instance. So step one in safeguarding your social media is removing the apps no longer being used, generally via the network’s settings panel. In the case of Twitter, for example, you can see a list of all the services you’ve authorized in the apps tab of your settings page, then remove those that are no longer in use. Step two is being cognizant of which platforms have been breached recently or in the past. A handy resource is the site Have I been pwned, which will allow you to search across multiple data breaches to find out if your user information in particular has been compromised.

Change your passwords. People are tired of hearing this, but strong passwords—those with lots of random numbers and symbols—actually make a huge difference in keeping your accounts safe. If you can’t think of your own, services like LastPass, which generate and manage random passwords, can help. The hackers who gained access to Zuckerberg’s accounts evidently took advantage of his exceptionally weak password: “dadada.” Worse, he had used the exact same password for several different platforms and may not have changed it for years.

Sharing isn’t caring. Even a strong password won’t help if you share it around. Lots of CEOs (myself included) get help from staff with their social media. A natural inclination is just to share your log-in info, but a safer way of granting access is instead using social media security tools that let you authorize other users, without having to divulge your actual password. That way your credentials start and end with you, and you can pinpoint the source of any security breach. (A basic social media audit can reveal how far and wide your password has been spread.)

Insight Center

Two-factor is a no-brainer. After my hacking incident, I did something I should have done a long time ago: I enabled two-factor authentication on my Twitter account. You’ve probably been prompted to do this on several platforms…and ignored the option. But it’s worth the tiny extra headache. Instead of just entering a password, you’ll be asked to enter a special code sent to your phone when logging in from a new location or device. It takes an extra few seconds, but it makes it harder to hack your account.

Careful where you click. We all know by now not to respond to those emails from Nigerian princes. But newer phishing scams, where people attempt to trick you into divulging sensitive information by posing as a reputable company or individual, can be hard to detect and easy to fall victim to. Phishing is up 150% this year on social media, so avoid clicking on links from unfamiliar or suspicious users. Fake customer service accounts are a common ploy, as are accounts designed to look like friends or followers. Basic rule of thumb: don’t divulge user names and passwords unless you’re absolutely sure of the authenticity of the site. This, sadly, happens all the time, especially when communications appear to come from a bank, credit card company, or other service you actually use and trust.

Have someone (or something) at the helm. My hackers struck late on a Saturday night, which was likely no accident. They were hoping that it would be hours before I spotted the fake Tweet, or enough time for my followers to click on it. For executives, who can’t always be monitoring their social feeds, having the right plan in place for these kind of occurrences is critical. For starters, be sure someone is monitoring your feed. After hours, this can be supplemented with monitoring tools that sense unexpected spikes in activity or register a rise in negative mentions. It’s also critical to have a “chain-of-command” chart spelling out who can intervene on your behalf if you’re unavailable, as well as a set of pre-approved responses. Doing a “crisis drill” in advance is a great way to ensure that you have the proper protocol to detect and respond to a breach.

When you’re hacked, time is of the essence. Getting hacked is bad enough. But getting hacked and not responding swiftly makes the situation exponentially worse. For starters, your colleagues and followers are out there clicking on bogus updates from you, compromising the trust you’ve built with them. Plus, hackers will only be emboldened by your indifference to take more aggressive steps. In my case, we were able to immediately delete the offending Tweet, as a first critical step, and I also changed my Twitter password. In this instance, however, hackers were accessing my account through an entirely different service. By revoking access to third-party apps, I was able to stop the breach. Then I changed the passwords on those outside apps, as well, denying the hackers their point of entry and getting to the root of the problem. All of this happened within a few minutes, so what could have been a disaster was instead an important wake up call.

Ultimately, no account or server is entirely hack-proof, as recent high-profile breaches of the Democratic National Committee and World Anti-Doping Agency have shown. But some common-sense steps can go a long way toward safeguarding executives on social media. After all, social media is where your customers, colleagues and employees are. Sitting on the sidelines really isn’t an option. They key is to dive in, with the right protections in place.

Editor’s Note: This post has been updated to reflect that although there were reports that Foursquare was compromised, these were not officially confirmed.

Even before the days of Don Draper, brands used taglines are the main driver for their marketing and advertising messages. Today, any marketing message worth its salt is still often judged by the power and efficacy of its tagline.

“I’m Lovin’ It”, says McDonalds, while a BMW automobile is “The Ultimate Driving Machine.” Buy L’Oréal “Because You’re Worth It.” You get the idea.

Slogans and taglines ruled the roost for one simple reason: they worked. Stuff got sold. Marketers crafted short and sharp messages that not only captured the essence of a brand’s position, but were strong enough to stand out. The thinking was that having something short, memorable, and (hopefully) meaningful had more chance of being remembered – and acted upon. The marketing mission was simple: Grab Their Attention.

Today, however, simply attracting buyer attention isn’t enough – buyers are looking for more.

As soon as a potential buyer for your product or service takes notice of your brand, more often than not they look to the internet to find out more. Maybe they’ll check out your website. But they’re more likely to check out the gazillion other sources of information about your brand – opinions, reviews, forums, social media, whatever. Not only does this mean marketers have little direct influence on a brand’s perception, but the buyer’s digital activity and user journey can be pounced upon by competitors.

Grabbing attention is all well and good. But today marketers need to find ways to hold that attention. Hence the current thinking around brand storytelling.

Storytelling? What, you mean like “Once upon a time there were three bears who lived in the woods” kind of storytelling?

Well, kind of.

The stories that we grew up with, such as Goldilocks And The Three Bears, The Three Little Pigs, or Little Red Riding Hood have various underlying messages at their core, that we want kids to understand and remember. Don’t talk to strangers. Don’t lie, cheat, or steal. So why dress-up the message with stuff about houses made of straw, transvestite wolves, or porridge that’s too hot? Why not just cut to the chase?

The reason lies in how the human brain works. When we’re reading ‘matter-of-fact’ empirical data, the cognitive and language interpretation areas of the brain do most of the heavy-lifting to provide comprehension of the information presented to us.

But when we read a story, other areas of the brain fire up too. Areas of the brain that fire up when we’re actually experiencing something, also activate when we’re simply reading about the experience.

Cognitive Science researcher Véronique Boulenger, and her team at the Laboratory of Language Dynamics, found that reading sentences containing action caused activity in the motor cortex – the part of the brain which normally coordinates body movement. Simply reading a sentence such as “Pablo kicked the ball” makes the brain go through a simulated experience of actually kicking a ball.

Why is that important? Because the brain remembers it better. Most people can’t remember facts or statistics for very long but can remember stories because of the way multiple areas of the brain become stimulated. Mnemonics work on the same principle.

Giving the brain additional hooks to aid in remembering and recollection is one of many reasons why brands need to evolve from simple one-dimensional slogans or taglines, to multi-tiered, story-based communications.

Stop Calling It “Content”

For years, my most hated word in marketing was “Engagement”. Over-used, mis-understood, and dropped into conversations by people who didn’t really understand the fundamental premise but wanted to sound knowledgable.

But “Engagement” has fallen by the wayside. The torched has been passed to a new generation of meaningless marketing terminology: something that marketers call “Content”.

Marketers use the word ‘content’ to describe words, sounds, or images that they consider worthy of vomiting onto websites, apps and social media channels. It is through the crafting of “content”, they insist, that will ultimately endear brands to their customers. They’re so out of touch that they even use the word directly when conversing with their audience – “Click here to share this content”, “Your content will be shown after this short message”.

The problem I have with this is that no-one in the real world would ever call anything “good content”. Real people don’t finish reading a riveting novel, watching an Oscar-winning motion picture, or experiencing an amazing concert and say to themselves “Wow – that was such a great piece of content.”

On the other hand, stories have enthralled human beings for as long as history has been recorded. The power of stories are the reason why we race home to watch our favorite TV show, turn the pages of a real – or virtual – book, or stay glued to our smartphones or tablets. A story that’s interesting and well told cannot fail to hold our attention because it envelopes and consumes us. We want to see/hear/know more.

Creating A Good Story Is Hard

Compared to developing a great story, coming up with a brand message is easy. Stakeholders spitball ideas between themselves, possibly aided by previously-conducted research and insights. The goal is to come up with that single, all-conquering ‘eureka concept’ which will serve to underpin the campaign. What follows next is a tested process of tweaking, honing and iteration to ensure the position can be framed across a range of media, platforms, and formats.

Exceptional storytelling, in contrast, is a much harder task. Great stories are not devised as much as uncovered. An authentic story, by its very definition, cannot be manufactured. The disparate parts that will ultimately take on a life on their own need to be coaxed and cajoled, far away from the merciless scrutiny of the Boardroom. Hemingway is quoted as saying that the first draft of anything is rubbish. But that initial discovery and idea journey is vital, as well as being fragile and vulnerable.

It hopefully goes without saying that none of this can happen on a typical campaign production timeline. This is the main reason why most brand stories are inauthentic, unemotional and one-dimensional.

If They Can See How The Story Ends, You’ve Failed

Conventional ad wisdom is based upon getting the point across quickly, simply, and clearly. There can be no room for doubt, uncertainty, or openness to interpretation on the part of the audience. “The Price is X”. “10 Million Satisfied Users”. “Better, Faster, Cheaper.” Outline the problem, explain how the features deliver clear benefits, that in turn underpin a particular value proposition. It’s the process used for a gazillion campaigns and has become the accepted best-practice for reaching an audience. But it assumes a limited and restricted window of communication: It assumes you have maybe 30 seconds to get your point across.

Great stories, in contrast, can be interpreted in a number of ways. Their ambiguity compels us to take a more active role in understanding the meaning behind the words. Good storytelling – optimally executed – invites contemplation, reflection, and discussion. Obfuscation, blind alleys, and multi-dimensional characters keep us guessing as to the outcome. If we can see how the story’s ending is going to play out from far away, we lose interest.

Light The Touchpaper, Then Stand Well Back

Such thinking doesn’t sit well a typical corporate environment of micro- and macro-management, cost-center fiscal responsibility, not the mention shareholder value creation. The required ‘hands-off’ approach is probably the biggest hurdle preventing companies to become real storytellers.

But the concept of putting faith in the nurturing process, for stories to evolve and take on a life of their own, can be likened to today’s post-internet customer/vendor relationship. As I’ve said before, companies don’t control their brand – customers do.

The balance of power – and influence – in the buyer relationship has shifted in favor of the customer. Brand storylines are no different.

A well developed and executed story should not be considered as little more than neatly-packaged delivery channel for a brand message. The best stories are much more than that, taking on the role of advocates of brand potential that’s still to be properly explored.

As a merchant, you can expect to pay some sort of processing fee when it comes to your point of sale system that processes credit cards. Every merchant who processes credit card payments must pay a fee to process credit cards. They may pass it on to the customer by requiring minimum purchase amounts when paying by credit card, or by using other methods, but it still has to be paid one way or the other.

The thing is, you may be paying more than you need to because you are most likely using tiered pricing instead of the interchange-plus model.

Processing Credit Cards

To understand where some of your fees come from, you have to understand how credit cards are processed. When the card is used, several institutions may be involved. There is the company that handles the processing, then there is your bank, and, last, the bank that holds the credit card account. It is very possible that each of these institutions will charge some type of fee for the credit card transaction.

What Is Tiered Pricing?

This type of pricing looks great on a bill. Everything is bundled into one or a few lines so that your bill looks neat and tidy. In reality, this is just a visual illusion. You feel good about it because it looks so simple, so your brain assumes it must be the best value. The problem is that this type of pricing makes it too easy for banks to hide fees and other costs, only giving you the end result.

What Is Interchange-Plus Pricing?

This type of pricing does not look as simple as the tiered version, but it may involve fewer fees. Instead of all of the fees getting lumped together in one or two lines, everything is itemized so that you can see exactly where your money is going and, potentially, why it’s going there. Though it may not be as visually pleasing as the other method, it offers more information so that you can make better decisions.

For one thing, you can see exactly where the majority of your costs are going. Which payments are costing you the most? Do you need to raise your minimum purchase limit, or is the fee the same no matter what the purchase is? Can you adjust your own prices and processing to make up for some or all of the fees?

These are the questions you can ask with this kind of pricing because you have all the information you need right in front of you. The solution may be as simple as asking your provider for Interchange-Plus pricing or by switching to a different processing company.

When you first decided to take credit card payments, you were probably mostly concerned with the convenience to the customer. Maybe you were willing to pay excessive fees in order to process more payments. Maybe you didn’t even know about some of the fees you were going to be paying. With the interchange-plus model, you can see each and every fee that goes into accepting credit cards.

Salespeople are acquainted with the phrase Always Be Closing. The faster they can reach quota, the better their business will run. Modern sales enablement helps reps accelerate conversions by streamlining processes and saving time. Today we’ll describe how advances in fully integrated content management and customer engagement have made this possible.

From extra clicks to added steps and mistimed syncs to incompatible platforms, friction in the sales process is expensive. It creates distance between reps and prospects, delaying productive conversations and interrupting the flow of information among sales, marketing, and customers.

Removing friction requires a holistic approach to aligning objectives, teams, and the content required to succeed. In short, it centers on accomplishing more with less, a central tenet of sales enablement. What distinguishes leading platforms from stragglers is the magnitude of savings and performance improvements attributable to sales enablement. As indicated by Aberdeen Research[1], best-in-class companies with sales enablement practices in place achieve 50% greater quota attainment, 3x higher annual revenue growth and a 9.5x improvement in their average sales cycle compared with average companies.

Let’s say you’re working with a sales enablement platform allowing you to quickly find the content you need and customize it as necessary. All that stands between you and your target audience is pitching your content and measuring results. The last thing you should want to do is transition from one platform or program to another, let alone download and then upload your content as an email attachment or copy a link to a disassociated program in order to make this happen. This not only costs time (which is money) and focus (which is time), but also lost data and insights. It’s far from friction-free.

Last week during a sales enablement workshop, attendees and I discussed how to transform their sales content challenges into opportunities. Group feedback was consistent: sales content management, while incredibly valuable, is one part of the puzzle. Effectively putting content to use – in a friction-free environment accessible to both inside sales and field sales – is another. It’s this latter component, commonly referred to as customer engagement, that is too often a barrier separating reps and revenue.

As you evaluate sales enablement options, imagine yourself as a seller who has identified content you want to pitch. Map the sequence of clicks and entry points required to deliver your content to your prospect, taking into account the full range of preferred options, from email to live pitch to screen share. How many platforms are required, and how many rules? How many logins and passwords, and how many tracking systems? As logic and experience should indicate, less is more.

Having built our platform with efficient customer engagement at the core, we’re happy to field questions, offer scenario-based perspectives, and share insights on what reps value. In our experience, four sales enablement platform features are most commonly referenced as vital to improving customer engagement and by extension, conversion rates.

1. Seamless pitching capabilities: Reps want the ability to complete a variety of sequential tasks on a single platform, from finding and customizing content to sharing and analyzing what they pitch. Multiple disconnected platforms look better in the rearview mirror.
2. Platform integration options: The combination of flexibility and control will never go out of style. Trouble is, not enough platforms deliver on their promise of either. Sales enablement solutions offering cross-category integration alternatives ranging from Outlook and Gmail to ToutApp, Zoom, Salesforce, GoToMeeting, and many more reduce friction and help make sales reps more effective.
3. Analytics: Pitching content proven to engage – and tracking each content engagement as it happens – helps reps work smarter. It increases close rates, enables sales and marketing teams to relay important knowledge, and raises the potential value of each interaction. To summarize: limited data leads to substandard engagement, which leads to fewer deals (which leads to frustrated reps).
4. Efficiency and effectiveness: Sales enablement leaders and the sales and marketing pros they support need to know that every phase of the sales cycle can be addressed quickly and with precision. From early-stage essentials such as launching platform capabilities and accounts to pitching content in just two clicks, fortune favors teams that can reach out to customers at a moment’s notice and move opportunities forward in seconds, not hours.

Regardless of company size, industry context, sales role, or sales stage, the principles of customer engagement are the same and proximity to your content is just one ingredient. Being able to pitch it without friction is another and at least as valuable. Keep this in mind and adjust your expected ROI accordingly[2].

It’s hard to compete with speed and accuracy. We want you to have both – and the close rates that go with them.

Coffee, anyone?

[1] Source: No Longer a Luxury: Why the Best-in-Class View Sales Enablement as a Must-Have.

[2] Also be sure to check out: Deconstructing Sales Enablement ROI.

Much like Batman and Superman are one-man armies who protect the weak and defeat any and all villains in their paths, hero assets pack a powerful marketing punch that can do a lot of good for your organization.

We’ve been hearing the term “hero asset” thrown around plenty in recent months, but it seems like everyone’s definition is different. What are the characteristics of a successful hero asset? What role do hero assets play in campaigns? Most of all, how can organizations design hero assets to provide ongoing value to their bottom line?

My goal is to show how with the right strategy and planning, you can create stellar hero assets that will save the day for your organization.

Hero assets are…

Rooted in Thought Leadership

Hero assets are larger, higher-value assets like E-books or guides. They serve as the anchors of long-term campaigns — some of which have different topic tracks or branches. Trend-based in nature, these assets are usually longer than the standard 1,000-1,500 word count — up to 2,000 or even 3,000 words in an asset is more the norm.

Although hero assets address a central theme or core topic, they’re extremely detailed and encompass a variety of supporting topics, trends and best practices. These talking points can and should be used throughout your campaign.

Aligned With Your Brand and Unique Tone of Voice

All of your content — especially your hero assets — should reflect your brand’s unique opinions and perspectives. What’s most important, though, is that these large, foundational pieces include your brand’s unique tone of voice. It’ll undoubtedly take a lot of time and effort to create a hero asset, so you want to ensure these pieces represent your brand in the best way possible. That way, as buyers find and download your content from all over the web, you’ll be able to put your best foot forward and paint and accurate picture of your business.

Typically Gated

Over the past year, the rules of content gating have been shaken up. B2B buyers are able to find so much information around the web that they have higher expectations of the content they submit their personal information to access. As a result, marketers are starting to rethink how and when they gate their content.

Despite these shifts, hero assets remain prime candidates for lead-gen forms. Because they’re so detailed and comprehensive, your buyers will be more than willing to share more information in exchange. Besides, hero assets should serve as a starting point for a campaign. Once you capture a visitor’s information, add them to your nurture program and serve them relevant follow-up assets.

Modular by Design

When you start to design your hero asset, always consider the role it will play in your campaign and how it will fuel other assets you need to create. As you develop your ideation, find ways to slice and dice the asset so you can create an army of derivative pieces that dive deeper into different topics, trends and best practices.

Although there will be cases where you can break down and reuse content as-is, your hero asset should also give you plenty of fodder and inspiration to create net-new content. In these cases, you can take narrative points found within the hero asset and expand upon them for more focused follow-up pieces.

If you plan your content with modularity in mind, you’ll be equipped to build a content ecosystem that fuels a long-term, comprehensive entire campaign.

Promoted Consistently…Even As Your Campaign Progresses

With the right strategy and planning, hero assets can give your team plenty of marketing support. They’re detailed and comprehensive, helping you set a powerful stage for your nurture campaign and giving your buyers a taste of the valuable thought leadership they’ll receive in the future.

Hero assets are also powerful weapons for your inbound marketing strategy. If you’re trying to capture buyer attention across search, social media and other channels, it’s wise to leverage a hero asset that covers a variety of different topics and resonates with target buyers in your most coveted industries. That way, you can appeal to a larger pool of target buyers and continue to build and nurture the relationship by serving them relevant, follow-up assets.

As you can see, hero assets can give you the power to ramp up your campaigns and even accelerate your content creation. All you have to do is keep these tips and best practices in mind.

Download our guide to learn about how you can modularize content from the top down, and even the bottom up to beef up your content library.

The immense hype around the Internet of Things (IoT) certainly hasn’t gone unnoticed by businesses, as IDC’s latest research revealed that 31% of companies surveyed have already deployed IoT, with another 43% looking to deploy within the next 12 months. However, a recent study from the IoT Institute shows that only 25% of businesses feel that they have a clear IoT strategy.

What this data suggests is that businesses continue to rush into the IoT fray, but that many are doing so without asking the fundamental question of “Why?”

See also: To predict the IoT future, it helps to look to the past

Without an answer to that critical question, it’s hard to develop a clear business strategy around IoT. Are you pursuing IoT in order to increase efficiency and reduce costs? To introduce new revenue models? Or to deliver new services that enhance your customers’ experiences? Once you know what business outcomes you’re trying to accomplish, the business case for IoT is much easier to define.

The industry has been talking a lot about “digital transformation” over the past couple of years, focusing on the efforts companies are undertaking to transform the way they do business based on new connected technologies. And IoT plays a key role in enabling this transformation for today’s businesses. So by identifying the clear business outcomes and goals you want to achieve with IoT, your roadmap to digital transformation becomes much clearer.

When it comes to defining an IoT strategy, though, too often companies focus solely on how they are going to connect their assets or products. There seems to be a belief that if you connect them, the benefits will roll in.

But IoT isn’t just about connecting things – it’s about engaging in a conversation.

This is what’s most exciting about IoT (and what enables a true shift in the way you do business and make money) – the ability to have a constant conversation with the customers and end-users that utilize those assets and products. And do it in on a massively scalable level.

Always-on means always engaged

IoT provides the always-on connectivity needed to establish an ongoing services relationship with your customers. But this connectivity is merely a means to an end, enabling you to learn and understand how customers are using those products, to learn about the environment in which those products operate, and ultimately use those learnings to find new ways to deliver value.

A packaged food distributor can use a connected vending machine to understand the buying patterns of their customers and ensure that the right snacks are stocked at appropriate times to maximize their sales. A heavy machinery manufacturer can offer a “zero downtime” service that analyzes machine performance and makes sure 3rd party suppliers have parts on hand just in time for replacement. That manufacturer can monetize both the value added service as well as the partner relationship, again by constantly listening to their end users.

So, what best practices should you keep in mind as you bridge the gap from merely connecting devices to achieving business outcomes through a real-time conversation with customers?

1. Think about scale

As you plan your IoT business it’s important to select IoT solutions and business partners that will enable you to scale your connected services over time. Start by selecting a networking strategy that has global reach so that you can quickly and cost-effectively expand your IoT services into new countries as customer demand dictates. In many cases, using the mobile network is an obvious choice. It is ubiquitous, reliable, secure and increasingly cost-effective. Simultaneously, selecting an IoT connectivity management platform that is widely deployed and deeply integrated into the mobile networks worldwide ensures your IoT service is ready for global deployment and scale.

2. Embrace the cloud

Cloud-based IoT platforms will give you the flexibility and efficiency to get to market quickly with your IoT services. The Software as a Service (SaaS) model of such platforms means your connected services can be agile, benefitting from rapid cycles of innovation and the on-demand scale of cloud-based implementations.

3. Automate, automate, automate

IoT and digital transformation is nothing if not characterized by business process automation. Managing connected devices should not get in the way of figuring out how to deliver value out of the conversation. A properly designed IoT platform lets you do just that. Whether it is provisioning the connected services, diagnosing service performance or managing ongoing costs, an IoT platform can automate away many of those tasks, freeing you up to manage your core business. In short, let connectivity work for you – not the other way around – as you uncover new sources of revenue.

Starting that IoT conversation

It’s important to remember that IoT is not solely about things being connected, it’s about the services you can enable through that connectivity. And those services provide the foundation for an ongoing conversation and relationship with your customers that enables you to continuously adapt and better meet their needs over time.

For this reason, companies that focus first on the tactics of connecting their products – instead of the services they plan to deliver and the ongoing conversation those services enable with their customers – often end up having to refine their strategy later on. Instead, begin by identifying the services that you want to deliver to your customers to enhance their experiences, then invest in an IoT strategy that lets you focus on that always-on conversation.

The post IoT isn’t just a connection, it’s a conversation appeared first on ReadWrite.

In my years of consulting and visiting companies I realized that many companies have differences in understanding and implementing an Idea and Innovation Management system. So here is a short description of the Idea and Innovation Management landscape in Germany, as well as some “insider tips” on how to make the most out of your idea & innovation initiative:

1. The difference between Idea Management and Innovation Management in Germany:

Idea Management in Germany is divided into traditional “BVW” (betriebliches Vorschlagswesen) and “KVP” (kontinuierlicher Verbesserungsprozess – similar or equal to KAIZEN):

• The “BVW” is the traditional way of running Idea Management in Germany. It started over 140 years ago and from then slowly began to take its place in the companies. It has developed from a physical letterbox (which some companies still use today) into modern and intuitive Idea Management Software. Some of the main features are that the employees cannot see the ideas of the others (so open discussion is not possible), it has a specific workflow (which includes a review committee) and the implementation of the suggestion is rewarded with a monetary incentive to the submitter.
• The “KVP” is a separate or additional part of the Idea Management in Germany. In difference to the “BVW” the main focus lies here more on workshops with the employees. In these workshops the employees can form a “team” to analyze, discuss and develop ideas and then create an implementation plan for improvement suggestions and solutions.

Innovation Management and what happens after the ideas are generated and collected?

• Innovation Management has the task to pick up the ideas that are “ready” for implementation and follow a workflow until they are implemented. Usually this workflow is based on a specific “Stage-Gate” Innovation Management process within the company.

Broadly speaking, with an Idea and Innovation Management system you can collect ideas of employees (and or clients but then we are talking about “Open Innovation”), manage them, pick the “right ones” up and manage/handle the implementation.

2. The NEW Idea & Innovation Management

More recently, technological development has facilitated a new form of idea management, which is slowly being adopted by German companies. This approach involves implementing a community where employees and/or clients can see the ideas of others and are also allowed to like, comment or even work together on them. The benefit of a specific Idea and Innovation Management collaboration software is also that people from different time zones and places or even with different competences can work on the same ideas or challenges. As a result the value of the idea could grow much faster than if only one submitter is working on it.

3. Why should you use business or strategy consultants in the project?
   

A good and intuitive Idea and Innovation Management Software is important – but what will cause employees to use the software and to make improvement suggestions?

This is a very significant part and that’s where business and strategy consultants should assist you.

The IDEA & INNOVATION CONSULTING – principles

In times of digitalization, new technologies, fast moving markets etc. the business and strategy consultants assist you with specific consulting services and principles in the conception, realization and implementation of an efficient and effective Idea and Innovation Management system for your company.

5 Insider Tips:

1. Make a clear Idea and Innovation Management Process for your company: how do you want to collect the ideas, manage them and complete implementation?
2. Define the usage of the software: in which part of the Idea and Innovation Management should the Software support you?
3. Work with business and strategy consultants: find main factors to get benefits from your Idea and Innovation Management. How does your corporate culture influence the project? How can you increase the acceptance of your employees and raise improvement suggestions?
4. Set monetary and non-monetary rewards: what do employees (and/or clients) get, if they participate in the Idea and Innovation Management?
5. Control and Follow-up in “long-term”: an Idea and Innovation Management project is not a short-term activity. Sometimes you will gain benefits only after a longer period so be patient and have continuous improvement in mind. And in the whole process please do not forget to inform your users regularly about if an idea is submitted, when it goes to the next “step” and whether it is implemented or even rejected etc.

In summary, it can be said that the more time a company spends developing its Idea and Innovation Management initiative – the more it can gain benefits, find improvement potentials and implement them.

“The emotional universes we inhabit are so distinct, and in deepest ways opposed, that nothing fruitful or sincere could ever emerge from association between us.”

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“To approach someone else convincingly you must do so with open arms and head held high, and your arms can’t be open unless your head is high,” the Lebanese-born French writer Amin Maalouf wrote in his timeless, increasingly timely reflection on how to disagree. It is in times as divisive as ours and as sundered by conflicting perspectives that the mastery of such intelligent, kind-hearted, and considered disagreement emerges as a supreme art of living. To respond in a reactive culture, to marry firm moral conviction with a spirit of goodwill and the porousness necessary for appraising other perspectives in order to evolve one’s own, is a Herculean feat of character.

And yet there are instances in which it is unsound to engage with another whose values are so antithetical to one’s own that the collision is bound to shatter one’s sanity rather than build common ground. To recognize those rare instances and choose to stand down is an act of moral courage rather than moral weakness, and no one has articulated that difficult courage with more intellectual elegance and moral grace than the great English philosopher Bertrand Russell (May 18, 1872–February 2, 1970) — a formidable intellect animated by an extraordinary generosity of spirit, awarded the Nobel Prize for “his varied and significant writings in which he champions humanitarian ideals and freedom of thought.”

In January of 1962, Russell received a series of letters from an unlikely correspondent — Sir Oswald Mosley, who had founded the British Union of Fascists thirty years earlier. Mosley was inviting — or, rather, provoking — Russell to engage in a debate, in which he could persuade the moral philosopher of the merits of fascism. Russell’s considered and morally unflinching response, included in Ronald Clark’s excellent biography The Life of Bertrand Russell (public library), stands as a manifesto for the right not to engage in a debate with a counterpart so morally misaligned with oneself as to guarantee not only the self-defeating futility of such engagement but its detrimental cost to one’s own sanity.

Shortly before his 90th birthday, Russell writes:

Dear Sir Oswald,

Thank you for your letter and for your enclosures. I have given some thought to our recent correspondence. It is always difficult to decide on how to respond to people whose ethos is so alien and, in fact, repellent to one’s own. It is not that I take exception to the general points made by you but that every ounce of my energy has been devoted to an active opposition to cruel bigotry, compulsive violence, and the sadistic persecution which has characterised the philosophy and practice of fascism.

I feel obliged to say that the emotional universes we inhabit are so distinct, and in deepest ways opposed, that nothing fruitful or sincere could ever emerge from association between us.

I should like you to understand the intensity of this conviction on my part. It is not out of any attempt to be rude that I say this but because of all that I value in human experience and human achievement.

Yours sincerely,

Bertrand Russell

The Life of Bertrand Russell remains an invaluable portrait of one of the greatest intellects and largest spirits our civilization has produced. Complement this particular fragment with Blaise Pascal on how to change minds, Daniel Dennett on how to criticize with kindness, and Susan Sontag on the three steps to refuting any argument, then revisit Russell on freedom of thought, what “the good life” really means, why “fruitful monotony” is essential for happiness, the nature of time, and the four motives driving all human behavior.

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This U.S. presidential election season is leading us to rethink a lot of norms. But while it feels like a lot of our political conventional wisdom is getting turned on its head, one thing that hasn’t appeared to move forward is how we talk about the economy. We’re focused on jobs, but we’re skipping a necessary discussion of how the digital economy is shaping those jobs. The content of the campaigns still seems largely rooted in the 20th century while much of our work is rushing to meet the demands of the 21st.

The candidates are talking about cybersecurity (indeed they even agreed on its importance in the first debate) – but even that has been dealt with largely in glancing blows. Hillary Clinton has a tech and innovation agenda. And Donald Trump gave entrepreneur Peter Thiel a prominent speaking position at the Republican convention. But their views on how the digital economy will move the country forward still seem unclear.

This vacuum in the campaigns’ content is just as unnerving as many other concerns that voters have about the candidates. Here are five aspects of our shared digital reality that affect the economy – and deserve more attention in our public discourse:

The Digital Economy as a Growth Opportunity

The world’s five largest companies (by market capitalization) are all American and compete in the digital sphere: Apple, Alphabet, Amazon, Microsoft, and Facebook. As most of us know by now, we have an increasingly internet-powered economy. A 2011 McKinsey study estimated that the internet accounted for 21% of GDP growth over the previous five years among the developed countries studied, a sharp increase over the 10% contribution over the 15 years prior.

The rise of the so-called “gig economy” has reshaped how we think about business models and jobs, exemplified by the likes of Uber and TaskRabbit. According to a study by Harvard’s Lawrence Katz and Princeton’s Alan Krueger, all net new jobs created in the U.S. since 2005 are due to this phenomenon. More and more workers are contractors or freelancers and are increasingly relying on digital intermediaries to do their work.

What we could be talking about: Strategies for leveraging the intrinsic strengths of the U.S. digital industries. Can we enable greater innovation through public-private partnerships to accelerate growth, enhance productivity, and create jobs?

The Digital Economy as a Jobs Risk

Even as the internet creates jobs, it makes other jobs obsolete. Erik Brynjolfsson, and Andrew McAfee at MIT have been arguing that advances in digital technology and its applications to automation — from improved industrial robotics to automated translation services — explain the slow employment growth of recent years, and the situation will only get worse.

Consider some sobering analysis from McKinsey based on an analysis of over 750 occupations. If you are a bookkeeping accounting or auditing clerk, 86% of your tasks could be automated with current technology - and there are 1.6 million such workers; as a stock clerk and order filler, 85% of your work could be automated now – and there are 1.8 million such workers; as a food preparation and serving worker, including fast food, 74% of your tasks could be automated — and there are 3 million such workers. A different tool can predict any job’s automation risk, based on an Oxford study.

Until now the jobs at risk fell into very specific categories; with artificial intelligence, big data, sensor technologies, driverless cars, advanced robotics and 3D printing, among other offshoots of digital technology, more sophisticated tasks will be next.

What we could be talking about: Strategies for incorporating rising automation into our workplaces and for reskilling workers to meet these new challenges.

The Digital Economy as a Source of Social Inequities

The changes cited above are going to continue to exacerbate inequalities. The value associated with digital industries accrue to the owners of capital and the highest-skilled workers.

Over the past three decades, labor’s share of output has shrunk globally from 64% to 59%, while the share of income going to the top 1% of Americans grew from 9% in the 1970s to 22% recently. Access to the digital infrastructure is now a critical factor in determining access to opportunities for moving up the income ladder, productivity and access to essential services. According to statistics compiled by The White House, in 2015, one in four Americans did not have internet access at home; Hispanic, Black and Native American households trail white households in internet adoption by more than 10%; overall, older, less educated, lower income, and rural households have fewer choices and slower internet connections, setting up a vicious cycle and deepening a “digital divide”.

Even the benefits of the gig economy are not evenly shared; consider the top cities for ridesharing: they are concentrated in the tech-friendly urban areas, generally far from the electoral battleground states of Ohio or Florida. In other words, a laid-off factory worker cannot automatically be expected to make up for lost income by driving for Uber.

What we could be talking about: How digital entrepreneurship is geographically distributed and how to improve the infrastructure of our internet, providing access to digital opportunity more evenly across the U.S.

The Digital Economy’s Role in Country Competitiveness

Much of the election rhetoric has focused on the ongoing competitiveness and trade agreements with other countries, notably China, as well as those associated with the Trans Pacific Partnership.

It turns out, China, is mounting an even more profound competitive threat on the digital front. Our Digital Evolution Index indicates that China is leading the world in digital momentum, while the U.S. ranked 30th out of the 50 countries studied. Of late, it is China, not Silicon Valley, taking the lead in developing mobile technologies.

“Quite frankly, the trope that China copies the U.S. hasn’t been true for years, and in mobile it’s the opposite: The U.S. often copies China,” according to Ben Thompson, the founder of the tech research firm, Stratechery. “For the Facebook Messenger app, for example, the best way to understand their road map is to look at WeChat.”

As for the manufacturing advantage that often propels China to the forefront, there is a new – digitally led — frontier emerging that will continue to drive a competitiveness wedge between U.S. and China. While, there are still only 36 robots per 10,000 manufacturing workers in China, Beijing has set a goal of raising the robot-to-worker ratio to more than 100 by 2020.

The Chinese government’s “Made in China 2025” initiative provides manufacturers with hundreds of billions of dollars worth of resources for technological upgrades, including advanced machinery and robots, according to McKinsey’s prediction of an impending robot revolution in China. This will add to a compounding of the job creation challenge in the U.S. as Chinese manufacturing renews its global competitiveness.

What we could be talking about: Where U.S. competitiveness sits in the world of emerging technologies and how U.S.-based companies plan to innovate to meet the competitive challenges of tomorrow. We should have an honest conversation about the fact that jobs, competitive advantage, and productivity are no longer stuck in an early 20^th century model of industrialization.

The Digital Economy as a Leverage Point for Public Education

The World Bank’s World Development Report 2016: Digital Dividends proposes investing in the “analog complements” of the digital economy, including adapting skills to get the most out of the digital revolution. The report argues that governments ought to facilitate innovation and strengthen education and skill building. It is even more essential now to invest in an education system that fosters the critical thinking, humanistic and creative skills that set them apart from automated and AI systems. Digital technologies, from computers to MOOCs to interactive games can help reinvent public education.

What we could be talking about: How schools are planning to teach their students the skills and thinking necessary to thrive in a digital world.

Of course, some will argue that U.S. election campaigns are simply about battleground states. How can Ohio, for example, benefit from this focus on digital or other new-fangled industries? I would argue that even in Ohio, there are exciting possibilities being ignored by the campaigns. The candidates would do well by reading The Smartest Places on Earth, in which authors Antoine van Agtmael and Fred Bakker have spent considerable time and energy visiting a multitude of putative future brainbelt locations in the U.S. and elsewhere. Their conclusion: Akron, Ohio, is one of the “smartest places on earth” and it could very well be re-positioned from being yesterday’s tire capital to tomorrow’s polymer capital of world.

Granted polymers are a far cry from the digital economy, but just as rich with possibilities. But at the very minimum it requires the next leader of the Free World – whoever that turns out to be — take a step into the 21st century.

Since 73% of companies understand the business value of data and aspire to be data-driven, but just 29% confirm that they are actually turning data into action – it’s not a leap to suspect that organizations are at risk of collecting data without deploying them in ways that support deeper customer engagement.

This concept – linking insights to action – is an example of a mission-critical imperative that transcends client roles. Consider:

• In Combine Systems Of Insights and Engagement For Contextual Marketing, Rusty Warner sets the stage for marketers that while systems of insight embed intelligence into contextual marketing, it’s systems of engagement that orchestrate customer experiences.
• In Digital Insights Are The New Currency Of Business, Brian Hopkins and Ted Schadler instruct CIOs to prioritize insights-driven actions as highly as data itself – and urge them to build systems of insight to turn data into action.
• Mike Gualtieri and Rowan Curran explore the concept with even greater urgency in Perishable Insights — Stop Wasting Money On Unactionable Analytics – in which they call on application development and delivery professionals to understand that some activities require response times measured in seconds to impact engagement.

My colleagues have captured complex ideas in the reports I reference above, but if I had to summarize the overarching theme, it’s that insights don’t always translate to valuable action, decreasing their value to organizations that have invested in them.

In Balance Predictive Marketing Analytics With Engagement Mastery, I explore the same concept for B2B marketers, urging them to avoid adopting predictive marketing analytics only to see it rendered useless by poor engagement and action. Immature engagement capabilities will lead to B2B marketers uncovering data and insight that has no effect on pipeline or revenue because of inability to apply it to meaningful nurturing and cultivation of leads.

I call for marketers to marketers to assess their engagement readiness with rigor against a specific set of criteria – and to balance predictive marketing analytics with engagement strategies that tip the scale in their favors.

This article was originally posted on Forrester.com.

By Allison Snow

Have you heard this before, “Money is in the list”?

So True!

Email list is the lifeblood of your business.

Michael Hyatt, the bestseller author, and speaker said,

“I have literally built a million dollar business on the strength of my email list. 90% of my income comes from it. Even today, my email list is still my number one business priority-and asset.”

So, all your marketing efforts should be focused on building a list.

But the question is, how to start building the list?

… Social media can be your friend! :-)

Social media has the power to send you a ton of traffic.

Be a smart marketer and turn this traffic into email list.

I’ll show you some helpful resources that will help you to build email list through social media. Enjoy!

#1. Place a signup button on your Facebook page

Create a Facebook tab that leads visitors to your email subscription page. This signup call to action button allows your followers to join your mailing list.

See Medium Facebook page. They have their “Sign up” button prominently positioned so your eyes can easily see it.

#2. Newsletter signup form on Facebook Page

You can embed the newsletter signup form on your facebook page and get email addresses directly. Don’t forget to include a call to action that gives your audience the reasons for joining your list.

Checkout Aweber’s Facebook page below for a great example of an embedded signup form.

#3. Create a Facebook lead ad

You can create a lead generation facebook ad. But first, you need to find your target audience.

Go to ads manager – click on tools – go to audience insights.

You can also add a geographical location, age, gender, interests and more to find the right audience for your ad.

See an example of an offer ad from Jasper’s Market:

Image Source: Hubspot

See another example of Shopify Facebook ad:

Image Source: Adespresso

#4. Create a Facebook contest

Run a special contest or a giveaway on Facebook. Create a compelling graphic of your giveaway that requires an email to join the contest.

Give irresistible incentives to your target audience to take the next step and become a newsletter subscriber.

Mobogenie’s referral promotion contest ask your email address to enter in the contest.

Image Source: Wishpond

#5. Twitter Lead generation card

Twitter offers lead generation cards that allow you to promote your content and collect information.

Sign up for Twitter Ads – find the Twitter Ads feature under the drop-down menu in the upper right-hand corner of your screen – Click on the Cards option – click on the Create Lead Generation card button. – add a description, attach an image, and add the call-to-action button copy.

Here’s an example of a card from The Barista Bar

Image Source: Big Presence

#6. Host a Webinar with Google+ Hangouts

A webinar is an effective and excellent way to grow your email list.

A Google+ Hangout is completely free to use with your Google account. Start by creating a Hangout on Air through your Google+ account. (Hangout On Air has moved to YouTube Live)

Enable live events. Add required details, and select “Public” as your audience. Then invite people through Google+ or share it on other social channels. You can also embed the event link in an email and on your website.

#7. Grow your email list via Pinterest

Pinterest is a great place to target a niche audience. You can’t afford to miss this social channel.

It allows you to give your audience a pinnable, clickable offer.

You just need to create an eye-catchy graphic of your offer, upload it and insert the URL of the relevant landing page.

See an example:

#8. Capture leads on SlideShare

Slideshare is one of the great channels to create and publish an informative & interesting piece of content.

70 million professionals trust SlideShare to learn about any topic quickly from subject matter experts.

So, it can be an excellent way to generate new subscribers for your business.

click on collect leads – choose a presentation or upload a new – customize the lead form (generated by Slideshare).

#9. Start building email list via YouTube

YouTube is second most popular search engine after Google. It’s also a great way to build your email list.

Create an interesting, relevant & informative video, then upload it. Write the actionable description below the video and also mention the URL of your sign up page.

You can also add a call to action card to your video.

Just go to edit screen of video – click on cards – choose the link option to add a call to action.

Image Source: YouTube

#10. Integrate email with social media

Recognize the value of both email and social media, and combine them to grow your email list exponentially and become even more engaged with your followers.

Place the social media buttons/links in your email.

Emails with social sharing buttons increase click-through rates by 158%. (Source)

See how Fancy asks to share their email on Facebook and Twitter.

#11. Share Your guides and eBooks on Social Media

Combine your premium content with social media and email. Share the killer content that could be a guide, eBook, or a huge collection of tips.

You can promote this content on social media channels to grow your email list.

Below is an example of this tactic brought to life from Jeff Bullas. He tweeted this link to his guide on “101+ Tips and Tactics to Grow Your Web Traffic.”

Once you click through, you are brought to a dedicated landing page where need to submit your email address (and other personal info) to gain access to this guide.

#12. Host a webinar and share it on social media

Offer a free webinar on a topic that relevant to your products or services, and one that can solve your targeted audience pain points.

Promote your webinar, and collect the email addresses of those who sign-up to participate in your free session.

On a scale of 1 – 5, email ranked 4.46 and was the top tool for promotion. Scoring a 2.77 out of 5, social media is the second most widely used promotional tool for webinars. (Source)

Check out this twitter post from Jay Baer.

Final Words!

Email list is the best way to stay in touch with your prospects and customers. And social media can be an effective channel for growing your business. Don’t wait, start building your email list today!

Please share your views in the comment section below. I’d love to hear from you :-)

Questions are your best tool for striking the perfect balance in consultative selling. Questions position you as a consultant, and questions help you to sell effectively. But not all questions are created equally. Even with a pure and clear intent to focus on customer needs… even with an ability to ask well-constructed, strategic questions… even with an awareness of how to stay in the moment and conduct a natural conversation… even with all of this, sellers sometimes ask questions that cause buyers to mistrust them.

As a buyer, you probably consider the questions asked by some sellers to be manipulative. As a seller, though, you may ask those very same kinds of questions. This happens when we allow our misplaced perspective to supplant our good judgment and broader goals.

Balance the Two Parts of Consultative Selling

When sellers look at sales opportunities solely through the lens of selling, they over-focus on commissions and quotas. They think short-term and picture buyers as prey. This mindset changes the way they talk to buyers because it changes the way they view them.

It’s also possible to over-compensate. Sellers who only think long-term and look exclusively through the lens of the buyer’s perspective also limit their own effectiveness. They become pro-bono consultants instead of sellers, meeting to discuss the buyer’s business but never advancing the sale.

In consultative selling, sellers need to wear bifocals so they can focus on both perspectives. Building trust and being interested in buyer needs cannot happen when a seller is singularly focused on making an immediate sale. At the same time, sellers cannot focus exclusively on customer consultations.

Sellers must meet their buyers’ needs and sell their own products. Being near-sighted or far-sighted compromises a seller’s effectiveness. This often shows in the poor quality of questions a seller is asking. There’s only one way for a seller to strike a balance between buyer needs and seller needs. That perfect balance of consultative selling is reached when a seller understands the needs of the buyer so the solutions offered meet the needs of the buyer.

Asking quality questions to understand a buyer’s needs and simultaneously advance the sale ensure the right balance in consultative selling. DISCOVER Questions® Get You Connected will show you how to do this. It’s based on research with buyers and packed with practical examples you can apply right away.

Next Steps:

• To learn more about DISCOVER Questions® and how to get connected in meaningful ways with your buyers, order your copy of this bestseller from Amazon.com
• When you need sales or management coaching, customized sales training, or a dynamic speaker call us at 408-779-PFPS or book an appointment with Deb.
• Check out these resources for sales managers and front line sellers. New webinars, infographics, research, podcasts and more added every month!

The award-winning CONNECT2Sell Blog is for professional sellers who believe, as we do, that Every Sale Starts with a Connection.

Deb Calvert, “DISCOVER Questions® Get You Connected” author and Top 50 Sales Influencer, is President of People First Productivity Solutions, a UC Berkeley instructor, and a former Sales/Training Director of a Fortune 500 media company. She speaks and writes about the Stop Selling & Start Leading movement and offers sales training, coaching and consulting as well as leadership development programs. She is certified as an executive and sales coach by the ICF and is a Certified Master of The Leadership Challenge®. Deb has worked in every sector and in 14 countries to build leadership capacity, team effectiveness and sales productivity with a “people first” approach.

The post Striking the Perfect Balance in Consultative Selling appeared first on People First.

Do you really know what your prospects are looking for? Do you know why they are looking in the first place? Were you told by your development group or marketing why your prospects buy? Dismiss it! Buyer’s needs come from, well buyer’s and no one else.

Without the insight into a buyer’s real needs, you are at a major disadvantage. Buyers know what they want before they talk with you. Research from Sirius Decisions indicates that most buyers are 70% through their buying cycle by the time they talk with a vendor. It isn’t so much about features and benefits any longer, it is about value. The buyer wants to know they will get the value in return for what they spend.

Remember that sales training you sprang for? Did it increase your sales? Did you get the long term payback you expected? The answer is likely NO! The problem here is the need for continuous reinforcement of sales basics, and the lack of sales tools. Buyers today are far more sophisticated than buyers of the past. They do research, they create committees to analyze needs from all areas of the organization.

However, there is something you can do to offset this lack of buyer understanding. Conduct a Value Inventory Workshop. (Or better yet, have us do it) A Value Inventory Workshop is an exercise where you work through a series of questions to gain insight into your buyer’s issues, pains, goals, and needs as well as your competitive advantages and who influences your buyers internally.

Here is a sample of the output from a workshop.

The example above is a slice of data collected during a workshop where we capture key information and create content that is used throughout the sales process. This workshop is something you can do on your own, or have ROI4Sales come in and facilitate it.

Aside from the fact you are gaining great insight into your buyer’s reasons for buying, getting your entire team on the same page, and determining the greatest values, you can deliver, you will also be able to see objections before taken by surprise.

The columns are as follows:

• Persona – whose prospects shoes are you pretending to put yourself into?
• Why Buy? – Why do people (emotionally) buy from you?
• Business Issue – begin to quantify the why buy, with an adjective and unit of measure to determine the real reason people buy from you
• Desired Outcome – try to narrow the why buy and business issue down to a metric, like cost per week, month or year, DSO’s, revenue per hour lost, etc.
• Priority – how important is the issue to your prospects CEO? 1 – keeps them up at night, 2 – on short term fix list, 3- need the issues resolved this year
• Solution – can you resolve the problem, and how?
• Competitive advantage – is your fix superior, the same or inferior to the competition?
• Value category – does your solution reduce a cost, avoid a cost and or increase revenue?
• Value Metric – what cost are you reducing or avoiding, what revenue are you increasing
• Circle of Influence – who inside the buyer’s organization has an influence on the decision maker?
• C-Suite Metric – this column ties your value to a prospects financials. It creates the link from value to economic impact.

Complete these columns and learn so much more about your business. For more information on having us come into your office to conduct a Value Inventory workshop please call us at 262.338.1851 or email me at mnick@roi4sales.com.

The post Selling Value: The Missing Piece appeared first on ROI4Sales.com.

We hear a lot of stuff in the world of “thought leadership” about building your brand or building your company’s brand.

We also hear a great deal about the best ways to build your business.

The things that these areas share in common is a high degree of information that is absolutely incorrect and in many cases harmful.

To help you separate the good from the bad, here are 3 pieces of common branding and marketing advice that are definitely costing you and your brand a great deal.

1. If I just give away some of my service or product, it will wet the buyer’s taste for something more:

This seems to be in the area of consultants and tech start ups…but I have heard it a lot of places. “Let’s just offer a freebie or a one time discount and then we can sell them on full price.”

You know, this absolutely pretty much never works.

If you pay attention to the world of retail, you will notice that retailers all over the world are struggling to get people to buy their products because they have trained their buyers that the only right time to buy from them is when things are cheap or deeply, deeply discounted.

Why would you put yourself in that position?

You may not be able to get everything that you want to earn in your first deal, but you aren’t going to get any closer to getting what you are really worth by leading with deep discounts or freebies. In all likelihood, you are going to get further from where you want to get.

So never lead with freebies and discounts.

2. Selling based on price, not value:

This one jumps on the back of the discount train and in too many cases they are often seen holding hands somewhere.

Get this straight, when you are starting your business, you have to often take any work you can get, but fairly quickly you need to start billing your clients by the value you create, not by the hour.

If you are billing based on hourly wages, you are really just a cheap pair of hands and you are always acting in a position where you are ethically compromised. By focusing on value, you can sell it as being something that is in both parties best interests, because you both want to get value created as quickly as possible.

When combined with never discounting, you are going to put your brand in a position to be seen as a high value provider and a quality partner.

3. Trying to be everything to everyone:

I’m as much of a generalist as the next person, but I still have by boundaries.

You should too.

The challenge for your brand is that I see too many of you trying to be everything to everyone. This is big companies and small.

Look at Apple back before Steve Jobs returned when they had so many different computers. They did printers. They had the Newton. They did a little bit of everything and they did nothing really well.

That’s what I see from too many brands and companies.

The fact is that you can’t be everything to everyone, but you can do a few things better than others.

Those things that you like to do and do well, those are the ones that your brand should revolve around.

If not, your brand is heading for failure.

Are you making these brand mistakes? Or, am I way off base?

Some don’t think that branding matters in B2B markets. They say that B2B decision makers are logical beings immune to any such irrational influences. And anyway, it’s all just fluffy marketing crap and a brand is really just a logo isn’t it?

B2B marketers disagree. In fact, our surveys have found that 77% of B2B marketing leaders believe that branding is critical to growth.

Why? Well first off, they realise that rather than simply being a logo, a brand is a perception held about a company. It’s a series of associations about:

• What you stand for
• What makes you different from others in your space
• The functional and emotional benefits (yes, even in B2B) to be derived from working with your organisation or products

So because a brand is a perception held by someone else, you have no choice about whether that perception exists. You can however choose to manage your brand. Those that reject the need for branding in B2B environments should contemplate this. They can be the master of their fate, or they can leave it up to others.

These enlightened marketers have also seen the benefits of building a strong brand:

• It makes you a must-have on short-lists. If your brand is dominant then you’ll often be considered by default as not to do so would raise eyebrows
• In riskier buying situations where the cost of making the wrong choice is high (either for the individual’s reputation or for the company’s effectiveness) a strong brand makes you the safe choice. As the old adage goes, ‘you won’t get fired for buying IBM’
• It simplifies the decision for buyers. The brand acts as ‘shorthand’ which quickly conveys a lot of meaning. Less well-known brands require the buyer to work harder to understand the benefits they bring. This matters because despite what textbooks tell us, B2B buyers aren’t automatons following a thorough, logical process in every buying situation – they sometimes just opt for the easy choice
• It’s a point of differentiation, especially in commoditised markets where there is little apparent difference between products and services. A strong brand also comes into its own in situations where it is difficult to compare products and services (e.g. if the buyer has limited knowledge, if the product is complex) as it suggests inherent quality
• It allows you to charge a price premium because it implies that the product or service is somehow better, or it provides a sense of trust worth paying extra for
• It builds preference and loyalty. Positive brand associations make buyers want to be associated with you and increase the perceived risk of switching

All of the above translate into the most important benefit of a strong brand – commercial success. A brand has real tangible value. For example, Interbrand regularly values the world’s brands in its Best Global Brands series and in 2015 several pure B2B brands (and many more B2B/B2C brands) featured in the top 20 – IBM is ranked fifth with a value of $65,095 million, GE ranks 8^th ($42,267 million), Cisco ranks 15th ($29,854 million) and Oracle ranks 16th ($27,283 million).

Maybe branding isn’t such fluffy marketing crap after all.

One of my favorite boxing moments is Muhammad Ali dodging 21 punches in 10 seconds:

He embodied what it meant to be a great boxer in many ways (accuracy, power, defense, discipline, intelligence, and guts), but perhaps most notable (as demonstrated above) he could move with an absolutely unmatched speed. These traits made him the legend he is.

What qualifies someone for the difficult world of Account Based Everything?

What skills are needed to drive a high-performing program?

At Engagio, we’ve seen a lot of success, and some failure, as companies work to put account-based strategies into place. What we’ve noticed in that experience are common talents that separate the exceptional from the standard. They are traits you should consider when assembling your Account Based Everything team.

5 traits of successful Account Based Everything professionals:

1. Collaborative
   Working with others under common objectives.
2. Data-driven
   Compelled by facts and evidence.
3. Leaders with a strategic orientation
   Interested in the long-term and big-picture gains and how to achieve them.
4. Top-notch communication skills
   Including the ability to listen, assertiveness, clarity, recognizing emotions, and empathy.
5. Naturally curious
   The best ABE professionals are actively interested in the business of business. What’s interesting to them are the complex value chains and relationships between many different players in a market. With such a steep learning curve in Account-Based Everything, a natural interest in the dynamics of business is important.

8 Traits of Great Account-Based Salespeople:

1. Intelligent
2. Disciplined
   With a systematic approach to prospecting, nurturing, staying focused on goals and improving over time.
3. Goal-oriented but patient
4. Great listeners and users of information
5. Have respect for their marketing peers
6. Open to new processes
7. Organizational networkers
   Enthusiastic about forging connections and persistent about strengthening contacts within organizational structures.
8. Natural followers of The Challenger Sale*
   In an age where well-informed buyers are in control of much of the purchase process, the Challenger seller takes back control of the purchase conversation in a way that leads customers back to the unique strengths of their organization. They teach, tailor, and tech control of the buying process. Learn more.

8 Traits of Great Account-Based Marketers:

1. Seasoned, senior marketers
2. Can hold their own with account executives
3. Well-rounded team players
4. Business knowledge and consultative abilities
5. Solution marketing experience (to focus on insight)
   “ABM marketers have to understand how to take account information – behavioral, profile, contact and predictive data – and turn it into insights that are relevant to different people in the organization.” – Megan Heuer, SiriusDecisions
6. Field marketing experience (to focus on interaction and orchestration)
7. Leadership and relationship skills to pitch and manage campaigns
8. Strong project management

Leadership potential

For both sales and marketing professionals with leadership aspirations, Account Based Everything can be a fast-track to future growth. That’s because this is a highly resource-intensive, cross-functional strategy that demands excellence from its players, and its coaches. Those who are successful with ABE as practitioners are often the best candidates for promotion to future management positions.

The team you choose will be critical to the ultimate success – or failure – of your Account Based Everything strategy. With these traits in mind, building the right team for your Account Based Everything strategy comes down to finding the best people for the right roles.

How do you describe the top-performing players on your team?

Bonus Muhammad Ali quote:

“It’s just a job. Grass grows, birds fly, waves pound the sand. I beat people up.”

Silos suck. They have a tendency to hold businesses back from success, because they create departments that are isolated, proprietary, and competitive, and which can have a negative impact on customer experience.

Between sales and marketing, more and more leaders are no longer talking about Account Based Marketing or Account Based Selling as independent disciplines. They’re talking about Account Based Everything.

Account Based Everything is a strategic go-to-market approach that orchestrates personalized marketing, sales, and success efforts to drive engagement and conversion at named accounts. This isn’t a specialized strategy to keep in a box in the corner. It’s a strategic initiative that addresses the three most important revenue objectives of any B2B company:

• New customer acquisition Helps acquire new customers, particularly high value targets
• Pipeline velocity Accelerates velocity of existing opportunities at target accounts
• Account expansion Drives expansion (upsell + cross-sell) at existing accounts

“Adopters of an Account Based Everything strategy are seeing significant lift in engagement rates, pipeline per account, and upsell/cross-sell numbers.” – Craig Rosenberg, Co-founder and Chief Analyst, TOPO

But these revenue objectives are only part of the impact ABE can have on a business. At Engagio, we’ve helped many organizations realize success with ABE, and have seen many of them feel distinct benefits that span far beyond revenue.

These unexpected effects include:

1. Morale rises as you escape the discouraging ‘hamster wheel’ of high-volume, low- engagement tactics.
2. Performance improves as it takes far fewer leads to secure an appointment.
3. The voracious need for net new leads decreases as you waste less time on low-potential situations and invest more time in relevant interactions.
4. Mutual respect grows as everyone in sales and marketing recognizes the value and contribution of their colleagues.
5. You learn faster as more of your team gets direct engagement with the people who matter most.
6. You grow faster taking the big revenue steps that only big deals can deliver.
7. You scale up based on success, with your costs rising directly with your pipeline.

In short, the transformation to an ABE approach is essentially the culture change that sales and marketing have been waiting for.

Quantifying the Impact

When sales and marketing teams work together, companies see 36% higher customer retention and 38% higher sales win rates, according to Altify. When it comes to ABM, the High-Performance ABM Capabilities Benchmark Report reported that over two-thirds of study participants report that ABM is favorably impacting their revenue. The same study found that for those using ABM, over 80 percent state that it is one of the most important revenue generating strategies in use.

But perhaps the best quote comes from ITSMA, who coined the phrase Account Based Marketing. They report:

ABM delivers the highest Return on Investment of any B2B marketing strategy or tactic. Period.

In an age when we are searching for marketing and sales tactics that drive real gains (like the guy in the photo), the proof is hard to ignore.

What other effects are you seeing?

By 2017, companies are expected to invest as much as $30 billion in sales acceleration technology.

But what is it?

Sales acceleration tech helps frontline and behind-the-scenes salespeople identify qualified prospects, connect with them, and ramp up productivity during the selling process. Sales acceleration tools inform users about radical shifts in buying behavior and provide guidance for how sales reps can ultimately win over the account.

Gone are the days when big deals were closed over dinner and cocktails or in-person appointments. Today, sales pros can win over accounts with an online demo and video conference. By utilizing sales acceleration technology, reps gain access to invaluable customer intelligence data about prospects, which results in salespeople having leverage in every conversation with a customer.

Types of Sales Acceleration Technology: Application and Purpose

Market intelligence, list building tools, sales content management, click-to-dial platforms, and email tracking software all assist in the sales process.

With market intelligence, reps are given supplementary data about leads to identify and prioritize newly inbound prospects. It helps salespeople target their pitches, and build and nurture client relationships to secure the account, cross-sell, and upsell. List building tools integrate with your website and advertising creatives to capture target customer information. Sales content management software delivers relevant content to B2B sales reps at each phase of the sales process. Using click-to-dial tools, inside sales experts can automatically dial the right customers throughout the day to spend less time on administrative duties and maximize the number of high-value conversations they have. And with email tracking software, reps know when emails and attachments are opened, and can strategically time their follow-ups and responses.

All around, sales acceleration technology can empower reps to effectively engage buyers and optimize the buying process to close more deals.

The Benefits of Sales Acceleration Technology Tools for B2B Companies

With sales acceleration technology, companies benefit from their increased ability to close bigger contracts, shorten the sales cycle, expand their sales pipeline, and generate additional revenue. Other advantages of sales acceleration technologies, according to business expert Andre Bourque include:

• “Fewer printed documents and/or unused files”
• “Greater self-service efficiency across all sales channels”
• “Better audit activities — reduce overlap and identify gaps”
• “Increased collaboration and coordination between marketing and sales”

Two other benefits of sales acceleration technology, according to CRM specialist Kirsten Forsberg are:

• “Eliminate blindspots. No one likes to be blindsided – period. Too often, however, problems with customers aren’t addressed until they’ve developed into larger issues that require more time and resources to fix than the original snafu itself.”
• “Know who to ask. [Sales acceleration technology] provides you with a map of the employees who are most invested in your client’s success, giving you insight into the key stakeholders you should consult to find out how a particular account is progressing.”

Furthermore, recent research from MarketingProfs found that B2B organizations utilizing sales acceleration technology experience “36% higher customer retention rates and 38% higher sales win rates.” Indeed, sales acceleration tools are designed to automate sales processes and create growth for companies. To continue expanding your pipeline, consider licensing new sales softwares that complement your existing technology stack. And be sure to consult your IT team too in order to implement those technologies for you and the rest of your sales colleagues.

If you don’t like the salesperson working for you now because they aren’t producing the results you expect or need from them, you won’t like the next salesperson any better. If you’re not willing to invest the time, energy, and money to improve the salesperson, you will get the same result from the next salesperson who also lacks this investment.

If you don’t like a lead because they are not deep enough into their buying journey to make it easy for you to sell them, you are not going to like the next lead any better. The next lead will be wherever they are in the process, regardless of what might make it easier for you to make a sale. Even if you don’t like it.

If you don’t like your manager because they’re continually asking you for greater activity, you are not going to like the next manager any better. If someone has to ask you about your activity because you weren’t already doing enough to produce the results you need, you will have the same experience in your next job. And the one after that, and the one after that.

If you don’t like the company you work for because they have rules, policies, and procedures that you find constricting, you are not going to like the rules, policies, and restrictions at your next company either. Swapping one set of rules for another set of rules doesn’t change the fact that you don’t like to the rules.

Some salespeople are better than others, producing greater results. Every company has a top 20 percent.

Some leads are better than others. But generally, very few leads will come to you completely ready to buy.

Some managers and leaders are way better than others. Some are so good they literally transform you into a better version of yourself through their investment of time and energy. But there aren’t many who are not going to ask you to give them your best performance, at least not any good ones.

Some companies have a better work experience and employee value proposition than others. But if you chafe against rules, policies, and procedures, the experience may not be that different for you.

It’s Pretty Much Like That Here

There’s an old story about a man who was walking into a new city for the first time. He was greeted by another person who meets him at the gate. The stranger asks the man who lives in the city what the people inside the city are like. Instead of answering, the city dweller says, “What were they like where you came from?” The visitor to the city says they “they were terrible. They were mean, selfish, and hurtful.” The city dweller responds, “They’re pretty much like that here, too.”

Another visitor shows up at the gates and asks the person greeting him at the gate the same question, and the city dwellers offers the same reply, “Tell me what were the people like where you came from?” The visitor says, “they were great. They were caring, kind, smart, and helpful.” The person greeting him says, “Yeah, there pretty much like that here, too.”

The post You Won’t the Like the Next One Any Better appeared first on The Sales Blog.

Recently, I asked my colleague Dan Sally, a HubSpot and sales veteran, what he thinks is the most important skill a sales rep should develop. His response was profound.

"It’s the ability to determine, out of all the people you speak with, who is actually going to buy something from you," he said.

Our idea of what defines a great salesperson has evolved throughout the years. First it was the relationship-builders, then the consultants, then the Challengers.

But Dan’s remark made me think that a whole new category of reps are on the rise: Qualifiers. They’re the reps who can pinpoint the prospects who will buy vs. the ones who won’t, and spend their time accordingly.

One of my favorite strategies to separate real buyers from casual ones is assign homework to my prospects. Here’s how to use this tactic to qualify your prospects.

Where you spend your time makes or breaks you

Sales success is dependent on resource allocation.

In any given month, quarter, or year, you only have so many waking hours to get your prospects over the finish line. You can be the best consultant, product expert, negotiator, or Challenger in the world, but if you spend your time on prospects who are not going to buy, it’s all for naught.

This principle is simple: Spend your time influencing people who are actually qualified to buy, and you will be a successful salesperson.

How do you know who actually is qualified to buy? That’s where things get tricky.

Qualifying is no easy task

On a fundamental level, you need to know three key things to effectively qualify a prospect:

1. Fit: Do they actually have a problem/goal that your product and/or service can help them solve/reach?
2. Desire: Do they actually want to solve this problem or reach this goal?
3. Ability: Do they actually have the means to act on this desire immediately?

If the answer to even one of these questions is "No", odds are you’re building a deal on a foundation of popsicle sticks (hopefully they are at least the kind that have jokes on them).

Fit and desire are relatively easy to assess, because the prospect can reliably provide this information. All you have to do is ask them straightforward questions around their process, objectives, and frustrations. But ability is much more difficult to suss out, and is the step that makes qualifying so tricky.

When it comes to their ability to implement a product, prospects are unreliable narrators. Ability is not something you can determine by simply asking them a question.

Here’s a real scenario that demonstrates why.

Fit and desire are not enough to drive action

Earlier this year, a VP of sales booked time on my calendar to evaluate the HubSpot CRM and Sales Pro tools.

We quickly established fit. HubSpot CRM would solve his core problem -- his team hadn’t adopted their current system.

After digging into the repercussions of this lack of adoption -- for example, no forecasting for the sales team or any activity tracking -- it became clear he truly wanted our solution. So I checked the box on desire to change.

I then asked a disqualifying question: Did he truly have the time and ability to enact this change given the effort required (including a data migration and internal process changes)? In a convincing manner, he responded yes.

At this point, I got "happy ears” and was so confident the deal was coming in I took an hour to help him set up the CRM. Then he no-showed to our next meeting.

Fast forward two weeks and numerous reschedules and no-shows, when I received the following (paraphrased) email:

I was devastated. I had spent a lot of time -- my most precious resource -- on a deal that was ultimately unqualified.

Here’s where I went wrong: While I believe his desire to change was 100% sincere, I incorrectly assumed that he could act on it based on his word alone. In order to truly qualify and determine if he had the ability to act on his desire, I needed a completely different kind of answer.

Prospects who are serious about buying will demonstrate their commitment

Sometimes a pointed question is all you need to disqualify someone who does not have the ability to change. But in this case, it was not enough.

When I reviewed this call with my manager, he suggested I give the prospect “homework” next time.

"The only way to test for action is by having prospects demonstrate it,” he said.

Human beings love to please and are prone to wishful thinking -- a dangerous combination when you are qualifying. We need to make sure buyers aren’t just telling us what they think we want to hear, or what they want to believe.

I designed an assignment that anyone who was truly serious about moving to our CRM would need to take prior to a purchase. Going forward, whenever I encountered a prospect similar to the VP of sales above, I asked them to complete the homework before offering up my time to help them.

I began to notice that prospects who took the time to complete the homework typically bought, while those who didn’t complete it wouldn’t buy. By introducing this extra step into my sales process, I not only closed more deals, but was also able to spend time helping my best prospects.

How to design a good homework assignment

The approach I used works especially well for software since you can leverage a trial or freemium version of your product and create tasks for the lead to complete in the system, but you can find equivalent tasks for any sales process.

1) Pick a piece of content that educates the prospect.

This could be anything: Reading a case study and/or blog posts, watching videos, or attending events can all be great ways to get your prospect to show if they truly have an ability to act on their desire, while helping them determine if they really are a good fit for your product. This makes it a win-win, not just an ask.

2) Make the workload significant.

The homework should be substantive enough that its completion is meaningful, but not so daunting that it is unrealistic or unfair to expect the prospect to complete it -- this could end up unnecessarily discouraging them. Make sure your homework is actually adding value and isn’t just busywork.

3) Provide structure.

Make the required tasks and criteria for completion as explicit as possible. I like to use numbered lists so it is clear what my expectations are, and the prospect can track when they have completed the work.

Additionally, it is imperative to put a strict due date on the homework itself, typically marked by a prescheduled meeting to go over questions.

Test for action by asking for it

Here’s how assigning homework works in practice.

First, I get buy-in from my prospects that they’re willing to complete an assignment. I usually say the following:

In order to make sure this solution is the right fit for your process, I would recommend walking through a few steps in the software before our next call so you can get a better feel for it. Do you think this would be helpful? If so, I can send them over."

Then, I send them an email template I’ve set up with the assignment outlined in detail. Here's the one I use:

The assignment is long, but every step will add value to someone who’s serious about buying. Prospects who aren’t will disqualify themselves, and you can invest your time elsewhere.

Time is a sales rep's ultimate resource, and the best performers know that you have to allocate it selectively with the prospects that are actually going to buy.

Buying requires change, which requires action. There is no better test of action than asking for it. Give your prospects homework and then invest in the ones who have the ability to act on their desire. I guarantee your close rates will go up as a result.

If you aren’t using a lead generation funnel to help convert your online audience into leads, keep reading.

A lead generation funnel can help you give value to your audience before asking for the sale.

I’m going to share with you a dead simple funnel, plus offer step-by-step instructions to get it working like a well-oiled machine.

Use This Lead Generation Funnel Map

Ian Cleary recently wrote a piece for Curata entitled, “Make Sales From Stories With a Content Conversion Funnel.”

And let me tell you, this lead generation funnel map is incredibly simple to use!

Here’s the map:

If you’re new to lead generation, then this may look a little scary. But don’t worry.

I’m going to lay out the steps for launching this lead generation funnel for you below.

Inbound Traffic

Let’s start with inbound traffic.

Inbound traffic is one way of saying that you’re pulling visitors to your website.

It encompasses the pull versus push methodology.

Places businesses use content to pull visitors to their website include:

• Social media sites
• Email Marketing
• SEO
• Curated, sponsored or co-authored content
• Event marketing

With the above tactics, there is paid, owned and earned media.

Each of the above traffic types can be seen under ‘Inbound Traffic’ in blue in the lead generation funnel map.

Your Sales Funnel Content (Orange)

Now let’s break the above lead generation funnel map into the content you’ll need for success.

Let’s start with the orange boxes on the map:

You’re going to need the following pieces of content for your orange sales funnel:

1. A lead magnet: A lead magnet is just a fancy way of saying you need a give to get. Your website visitors can use this as a place to exchange a piece of information for a “free” piece of content. Once they download this piece of content or lead magnet, they are added to your email list.
2. “Retarget”: One way to retarget users who don’t take you up on your lead magnet is by placing a Facebook retargeting pixel on your website. Then you can run retargeting ads to those website visitors.
3. Retargeting + an email nurture sequence: For people who DO join your mailing list by downloading the lead magnet, you can still send them Facebook retargeting ads. Use your email list and upload it to Facebook as a “custom audience”. Then, you can send targeted ads to people who are already familiar with your brand (now try and close them!). As for the email, try nurturing new email subscribers by segmenting them based on their preferences or interests.
4. A landing page: The reason you want to send your retargeted audience (using the pixel) to a landing page versus a website is because you want them to convert or complete an action versus search for information. If you need more reasoning, read this from Unbounce.
5. A thank you email or thank you landing page: A simple thank you page can let a user know that they’ve successfully completed an action, as well as offer them access to other goodies. You can also point them to your blog to spend some time there.

As for tools for creating custom landing pages, try LeadPages or ConvertKit.

Your Sales Funnel Content (Gray)

The gray part is also stupid simple.

What are you trying to sell? That’s the “offer” listed in the map!

And your upsell is an add-on or something that will make the offer more expensive/profitable.

If we were talking about my company, my offer may be a free consultation. Even though that’s a free offer it’s extremely helpful when qualifying sales leads.

After the free consultation, I may offer an audience analysis or Facebook page audit as an upsell.

Make sense?

Every business can utilize a simple and smart lead generation funnel.

What types of funnels do you find convert most leads? Let me know in the comments section below!

Author: Jeff Day

In today’s frenetic, go-go-go B2B sales environment, it can be hard to ensure that your sales team is having the right—or optimal—conversations with their prospects to deliver value and drive deals forward. The biggest blocker, unfortunately, is a seemingly easy, but in reality complex, problem to solve: equipping sales with the right content based on their unique prospects and specific selling situation.

Shared drives, social file sharing, and cloud document delivery services can hurt our ability to effectively enable sales because they feed the beast of one-off, random, reactive content management. This leads to waste: wasted time, wasted budget, and wasted opportunities for more closed deals. Beyond the content distribution problem lies another issue: inefficient processes for sales teams.

Solving these sales enablement challenges breaks open the floodgates to better content quality, better sales and marketing alignment, and more closed deals. In fact, research from Aberdeen Group reveals that best-of-breed sales organizations are implementing sales enablement practices and seeing incredible results, such as:

• 99% overall team attainment of sales quota
• 9% advantage in year-to-year revenue growth over the industry average
• 4% year over year growth in average deal size

Odds are, your organization already has some form of sales enablement in place, as 80% of organizations with sales teams bigger than ten people currently use sales enablement tools and practices, according to research from Highspot and Heinz Marketing. But are you getting the best results from your efforts?

If you want to make an immediate impact on sales enablement, consider these five best practices to ensure your content creation and distribution efforts drive measurable, bottom-line results:

1. Reduce the Time Sales Spends on Non-Selling Activities

This seems a little straightforward, but most organizations have multiple portals or tools where sales reps are supposed to go to find what they need, and reps are spending between four to eight hours a week just searching for the right marketing content to send their prospects. SiriusDecisions’ webcast Activity-Based Enablement: Helping Reps How and Where They Work provides a great framework for analyzing and eliminating inefficient activities by focusing sales on revenue producing activities and allowing marketing to gain better insight into content usage and impact.

2. Give Your Reps Easy Access to Content

The fact is, 90% of content goes unused by sales, according to the American Marketing Association. This is largely because sales simply can’t find it. Is your sales enablement system flexible? Can your content be organized in a meaningful way for your sales team in one centralized library? Flexible content organization and content recommendations based on performance, informed by your marketing automation platform, help keep conversations on point and accelerate conversions. You might also want to consider adopting a modern sales enablement platform that provides a single, easy-to-manage repository for all your content and tools, and integrates with your existing systems to help streamline the selling process.

3. Make Sharing Best Practices a Best Practice

Sales is a very dynamic environment with products and messaging changing regularly and buyers’ needs varying across industry, company size, and buying stage. Good sales reps constantly communicate with their peers about what is working well in order to improve performance, so it’s important to create a closed-loop feedback process around content, training, and best practices.

Having a platform in place that enables data-driven analysis of what content, strategies, and processes are most effective in various situations lifts the performance of the entire sales team. This applies to them sharing insights with your marketing team as well. Aberdeen Group reports that 60% of best-in-class firms have a formal, current competency around knowledge management whereby marketing has visibility into the sales teams’ utilization of content and assets.

4. Get on the Training Train

According to our own study, the 2016 Sales Enablement Practitioner Survey, 65% of practitioners stated that improving sales training was a top priority for their sales organizations. The idea that you can train an entire sales force—regardless of size—on new products, new methodology, new features, new resources, and even new sales techniques in two days once a quarter is dead. It’s been proven wrong many times, and yet so many organizations are hanging onto this idea as “the way it’s done.” Successful organizations integrate ongoing training and communications into their content and tools workflow so that sales reps know exactly what will be most effective throughout the entire sales cycle.

5. Turn to Technology to Close the Gap

Many sales departments don’t have the time or resources to evaluate and implement new technology. And yet, the right technology solution can help them be more effective in hitting their numbers and closing deals. This is an area where marketing can step in and help. As you’re vetting, deploying, and implementing best-of-breed solutions, consider what applications, features, or solutions can help sales prioritize leads and work more efficiently and effectively, driving results across the entire organization.

Organizations that commit to a structured, measurable sales enablement process through dedicated resources and modern technology are seeing significant improvements across the board. What other tips do you have for improving sales enablement? Share them in the comments below.

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5 Best Practices for Improving Sales Enablement was posted at Marketo Marketing Blog - Best Practices and Thought Leadership. | http://blog.marketo.com

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Effective B2B marketers don’t settle for trendy, flashy, or random content efforts — they carefully identify the ones that work, and they use them to drive engagement through the company websites.

Since B2B marketers who use blogs receive 67 percent more leads than those that do not, 76 percent of B2B marketers in 2015 planned to increase their content marketing efforts. And since those marketers want those people finding their blog articles through search engines to eventually become leads, they pair their blogging efforts with must-read lead magnets.

What is a Lead Magnet?

A lead magnet is an attractively designed, free download or authoritative information that entices people to give some basic contact information in exchange for access to the information. Lead magnets help you identify real people that visit your website and confirm that there’s at least some interest in your product or service. Lead magnets also reinforce brand value, establish authority in your industry, position your company as a helpful resource during a buying decision, and more.

There’s just one problem — many companies struggle to identify what kind of B2B lead magnets will be the most effective for their customers and how to create them without an enormous investment of time and money.

If you’re just starting out, here’s your first break: you don’t necessarily have to generate a completely new piece of content for your lead magnet. Many companies already have materials, white papers, collateral, and more that can be used as lead magnets if they’re tweaked a small amount. In fact, if you find that people are clicking and downloading a PDF on your website, that’s a great piece to start with.

But because variety is key, it’s likely that over time you’ll need to develop other kinds of lead magnets so that there are plenty of opportunities for potential customers to show their interest.

Here are five ideas for B2B lead magnets that you can create to entice more clients to get in touch:

1. Downloadable Guides, White Papers, and eBooks

One of the most traditional B2B lead magnets are downloadable PDF guides or white papers with industry insight or original research. This is a low-risk way for a prospective client to get a taste of the content, branding, and value you offer.

Because a PDF is the most effective way to share a lot of content in a relatively small, beautifully-formatted package, this kind of B2B lead magnet is best for customers that want to be educated about a certain topic or service, or who need to have all of the details at once.

For example, one of our clients is a custom die and tool machinery manufacturing company. Since their clients often need highly technical and detailed information in order to make a purchase decision, their most effective lead magnets are the white papers that dive into a topic and share the company’s technical expertise. 40-50% of the people that see the lead magnet download it, helping to produce qualified opportunities for their sales department.

2. Checklist, Template, or Preparation Guide

Another kind of downloadable PDF B2B lead magnet is content in the form of a checklist or preparation guide specific to your industry. For this effort, you’ll want to avoid giving away proprietary information and but still provide insight into what separates you from your competitors. When done carefully, it’s a very effective way to provide a service or value to your customer that also helps them see the value of working with you directly.

For example, the same die and tool company mentioned in the first example often needs to assist its customers in developing a formal “request for proposal” (RFP). Since this is such an important part of the process for getting the best possible customized machine, the company developed a detailed checklist that walks the customer through the best way to craft an RFP.

If your company helps customers with any important, recurring problems, a print-and-use checklist or template that helps them move forward on the issue will make for a very attractive lead magnet.

3. Webinars and Webcasts

Video has been an increasingly popular form of entertainment and information online for a few years now, and even B2B marketers are jumping on the format: last year, 79 percent of content marketers used video as a content marketing tactic.

If you have an interesting blog post, set of research, or concept that you can present on, consider hosting a webinar or recording a video (or both) and presenting it as a B2B lead magnet that customers can access when they provide their information. This format will meet the needs of both visual and audial learners as well as people that prefer to learn via face-to-face communication.

Think your topic’s too technical? Then you might be an even better fit for a video lead magnet than you think. Often technical industries are overrun with text-heavy content downloads, making your video or audio recording stand out against your competitor’s content.

4. LinkedIn Groups

Getting like-minded people in the same “room” is a powerful way to make people feel successful and supported. So why not assist your customers in this way? Another creative B2B lead magnet idea is to start and moderate a member’s only LinkedIn group around a certain topic. Not only will this place your organization in the position of a thought leader and community builder, but even if you never make a sale (which is unlikely), you’ll have access to the questions, comments, and interactions of a group of engaged prospective customers.

A moderated group is a great idea for your company if you have a large customer base, a large number of people interested in your product, and are engaged in social media discussions. This will provide a forum in which participants can offer suggestions, interesting perspectives, and will enjoy participating in those discussions.

For example, Salesforce.com runs a LinkedIn group and invests in carefully moderating the group’s content and members. The result? Over 50,000 marketers, companies, and readers who are in different stages of engaging with the Salesforce product but who all enjoy being a part of that community.

5. Email Courses

Along the same lines as an instructional guide, an email course is an automated series of emails or PDF downloads dedicated to teaching a prospect about a particular tool or problem over a set period of time. And if you already have marketing automation set up, creating a course can be as simple as creating a series of emails on the same topic.

Using an email course as a B2B lead magnet might be right for you if using your product requires a certain level of education or if your sales team tends to answer the same questions over and over again.

For example, an SEO company that keeps getting questions like, “How can your company help me troubleshoot the most recent Google update?” might decide to offer a short course on the update so that clients feel that they have a professional’s insight into the changes. Or an IT company that offers remote services might provide a short educational course for non-techy clients that explains the many different types of managed services a company can deploy. In both cases, the company is demonstrating its value and expertise while forging a relationship with a prospective customer.

Want to get started with premium content and lead magnets? Read our tips here.

Lead magnets are critical to building relationships with prospective customers. Use this list to develop a few different options to increase the likelihood that your customers will find something that resonates with their needs.

Mobile devices are steadily becoming more important in driving increased email engagement and revenue. Compared to desktop, studies find that more people are reading emails on their mobile devices (35% more, to be precise). And revenue from mobile devices is also starting to grow each year:

• Mobile devices produced more clicks and revenue in Q2 2016 (YoY).
• 52.8% of clicks come from mobile, compared to 47.2% from desktop.
• Smartphones are responsible for more than half of email opens compared to desktop; however, it’s important to note that they only account for 20% of conversions.

A reason why mobile conversions are still less than desktop is many email marketers don’t factor in all mobile conversions. What are they missing? Offline call conversions.

Smartphones have transformed the way consumers engage with brands. Mobile marketing is expected to drive over 108 billion calls to US businesses this year alone. The mobile customer journey now encompasses offline. Plus, calls tend to convert to revenue 10x-15x more than web form submissions. And since most people read email on their smartphone, you can expect your email distribution list to include mobile consumers who would prefer to convert offline by calling. As an email marketer, it’s important you give consumers the option to call from your email campaigns.

4 Tips to Drive Calls From Mobile Email Marketing

Callers often have a high purchase intent and seek immediate answers, which makes converting leads to sales much easier for agents. There’s something to be said about the power of a live conversation, so let’s dive into ways you can drive calls from your mobile email marketing.

Tip #1: Include a Clickable Number in HTML Emails

As people read and engage on their smartphones, you’ll want to include a clickable phone number in your email copy. And to ensure it’s easy to spot, try displaying it within a button that’s placed higher up in the email content. This will also allow a smartphone user to quickly take action and call.

To take it one step further, use a unique tracking number for personal nurturing and prospecting messages. This way, you’ll have great insights into which campaigns are driving call conversions and which are not, so you can allocate budget accordingly.

Tip #2: Use Call-Centric Language When Targeting Smartphone Users

Target only smartphone users, or those who have called your business in the past, with call-centric messaging. Make it clear that you want them to call by using language such as, “We haven’t spoken in a while, give us call today to talk with our local agents about an exclusive new offer.”

These consumers have a natural inclination to call, so make sure your copy speaks to their preferred method of engagement.

Tip #3: Direct Email Recipients to Mobile-Optimized Web Content

It’s important to also include a clickable phone number or button on your landing page if a mobile email recipient clicks through rather than calls from your email. They may call from the landing page you send them to or they may decide to browse your website before calling.

To create a seamless user experience for your mobile audience, your website should be mobile optimized (don’t make visitors pinch their screens to view content) and call optimized (make it easy for visitors to call).

And by using dynamic number insertion (DNI) and call attribution, you can track your mobile visitors activity throughout your website. You can even give credit to the email campaign that drove any call conversions after multiple touch points on your website.

Tip #4: A/B Test If You’re Not Sure Where to Start

You can start simple by using your current email template without a phone number and A/B test it against another version that has a “Call Now” button. Over time, this should help you determine whether or not your audience is more inclined to call and convert.

You can also try testing different “Call Now” button CTA colors, button placements, copy, and using a button versus listing the actual phone number. You should always be testing to determine which tactics help increase conversions. And the same suggestions apply for your landing pages. There are many tools out there, which you probably already use, that can seamlessly integrate with call attribution technology to help you analyze your call conversions from your marketing campaigns.

Now that you understand why calls are important and how they will play a role within your email marketing, the next piece of the puzzle is making sure you get proper attribution for every call conversion generated by your email marketing. You can dive deeper into how call attribution can help you gain the complete picture of your overall email marketing success by checking out The Digital Marketer’s Guide to Call Attribution.

“Wax on, wax off Daniel San.”

If you were an 80’s kid – like me – you’ve probably seen the 1984 movie called “The Karate Kid” starring Ralph Macchio and the late Pat Morita.

It inspired a following because of the movie’s timelessness. The theme and lessons this movie brings clearly resonate to this day.

Remember the “wax on / wax off” scene?

Daniel – played by Ralph Macchio – asked Mr. Miyagi (Morita) to teach him Karate.

Daniel’s excitement quickly wore off when instead of learning some cool Karate moves, Mr. Miyagi assigned him to house chores.

But when the actual lessons began, Daniel soon found out Karate was easy to learn. He discovered the movements he was doing all along were actual Karate drills.

The Karate Kid taught me a valuable lesson: even the basic stuff can make a difference if we practice them consistently.

But what does an 80’s movie has to do with blogging and marketing?

Most businesses today are much more committed to their social media presence – which is the right step in today’s setting. But I believe there’s still a place for blogging; which, along with email marketing, should be the cornerstone of your inbound marketing strategies.

Blogging has been around since the 90’s. Some find it “old school”. It’s not hip (Facebook 360 is cooler). Some say it’s boring; Periscope is better. It’s not as sexy or buzzworthy as social media marketing.

But it does serve a purpose for you and your customers.

In today’s article, I’ll talk about 5 reasons why blogging is important to marketing. Plus, I’ll give you a list of companies that used blogging as a way to improve their marketing strategy.

5 Reasons Why Having a Blog Can Transform Your Marketing

1. Blogging makes you market savvy – The more you blog, the better you understand the trends and issues affecting customers.You expose yourself to information which may lead to improving your products and services. Influencers in your niche will start to notice your company and will eventually reach out to you for business and networking opportunities.
2. Having a blog gives you a chance to build your own voice … letting your brand’s image stand out from the competition. Granted competitors have blogs of their own. But having a platform provides an opportunity to show your uniqueness and cater to your own audience. And as your business carves out it’s own identity, you start to build a following, which leads to higher sales conversion.
3. Blogging as a PR tool – Why spend hours struggling to get attention from journalists or editors when you can simply bring them to your site? If you have newsworthy content, getting the media’s attention is just a matter of time. In fact, a growing number of journalists and editors consult blogs to get story ideas. The key, of course, is to establish yourself as an expert in your industry. I’m not surprised when I hear about bloggers being invited to a webinar or conference. Not only were they able to promote his product, they get to build a pipeline by leveraging somebody else’s audience.
4. Increase marketing assets both online and offline – Repurposing a blog post is the best way to cast a wider net while using several outlets. For example, your marketing team can turn a blog post into a slideshow presentation and post it on Slideshare. Or, perhaps, convert it into an MP3 file and broadcast it on iTunes. One popular option is to convert blog posts into an email newsletter. Imagine not having to turn to your copywriter to pump out new content every single day. A single blog post could potentially lead to 6 or 10 content ideas distributed to several channels … all at once!
5. Blogging prepares you for bigger opportunities – Create a lead magnet by stringing together your most famous blog posts and turning them into an eBook or a whitepaper. Or, build a bigger list by converting those same blog posts into a short e-course or a full-blown online course. Not only it will drive qualified leads, online courses build credibility and authority – benefits you rarely get from cold calling or networking.

Now, let’s see how big name companies use blogs to market their business.

List of Companies That Use Blogging as a Marketing Tool

Work Shifting (Citrix) – A blog for professionals and employees who work remotely. Instead of focusing on their products, Citrix decided to put their audience’s needs in the forefront.

Marriott – If you want to learn about thought leadership and how to be an expert in your field, then corporate blogger Bill Marriott should be on your list. He writes his own posts and shares his views on sales, business, technology, media, the government and more.

GE Reports (General Electric) – Great storytelling, beautiful photography and diverse topics designed to capture your imagination and encourage curiosity. This company is more than just light bulbs. Do you want to put your product in a different light? Learn how GE expertly weaves their product in every story without being salesy.

Blog Southwest (Southwest Airlines) – Blog content doesn’t mean you have to write. There are ingenious ways to get your message across than just a wall of text. They mix and match their content – from articles and polls to videos and photos. The blog was created to build a strong relationship by showcasing stories from employees and customers.

If you’re gonna start all over again – with no customers, no influence and no resources – and you only have a laptop and an internet connection to start a business, what would you do to be where you are right now?

Find a problem and blog about it.

I hope you learned a lesson about the value of blogging in your marketing strategy. Platforms come and go (remember Friendster? MySpace?). The rules of the game frequently change to cater to business-interest (Facebook Zero, anyone?). And gambling on something you can’t control seems unwise (banner ads, I’m looking at you).

The only thing you can control is something you already own: your blog and your content. Why not begin from there and start bringing value to the marketplace?

Daniel learned the fundamentals of Karate and mastered it. In the end, he won the tournament and earned the respect he deserves.

Blogging will bring the same benefit to you.

I regularly get emails or messages from subscribers saying they enjoyed a recent post.

A great example is when I wrote a blog post about 19 tools to easily manage your inbound marketing (http://ashleyidesign.com/19-tools-to-easily-manage-your-inbound-marketing).

One of my subscribers even sent a “Thank You” note:

“Hey, Ashley. Hope you are doing well. Just wanted to drop you a quick note and thank you for this great article.”

I’ve also had requests to repost articles on the subscriber’s site.

For example, my blog was translated into Spanish and posted over here:

http://www.mediaycom.es/blog/por-que-el-dise%C3%B1o-web-de-siempre-ya-no-sirve

If you’re curious, here’s the original post: http://ashleyidesign.com/modern-web-design/

Do you want to see the same results?

Scissors are pretty nifty objects. They’ve been around since the time of ancient Egypt and have remained an essential tool in nearly every office and home. They’re really good at cutting things.

But when you want to hang framed artwork in your office or home, those nifty scissors leave something to be desired. You need a tool that’s designed to get a nail into the wall, not a tool designed to cut things.

According to a 2016 study by Content Marketing Institute, only 30% of B2B marketers say that their organizations are effective at content marketing.

Many of these B2B marketers are getting lots of “likes” and “shares.” People genuinely appreciate their content—it’s helpful, engaging, and interesting. But while engagement is important, it’s not what B2B marketers ultimately need. 85% of B2B marketers say their top goal is lead generation, and 84% say it’s sales. B2B marketers are tasked with delivering quality leads that the sales department can convert to paying customers.

So why is all this content that’s delivering engagement not delivering leads or sales?

The logic of providing free, helpful content in order to generate leads and sales relies heavily on the principle of reciprocity: if I do something nice for you, you’ll be motivated (and feel obligated) to do something nice for me (like agree to a conversation with a sales rep). But according to psychologists, reciprocity has an expiration date. The more time that passes, the weaker the draw to reciprocate becomes. So when a prospect downloads your content, files it in his or her “to read” folder, then finally sits down two weeks later to read it, reciprocity really isn’t in play.

We know the problem isn’t content quality or a poor promotion strategy, because many marketers are seeing excellent engagement metrics. The problem is the content of the content—it doesn’t motivate prospects to take action on the next step in the funnel.

To move prospects to action, your content needs these three elements:

1. Connection to a personal pain or gain
2. A reason to act now
3. A clear call-to-action that guides prospects to the next stage of the funnel

Let’s dive into each of these and look at how to put them into practice.

1. Connection to a Personal Pain or Gain

Research by CEB shows that “personal value is twice as powerful as business value in achieving a broad range of commercial objectives (including awareness, consideration, purchase intent, willingness to pay a premium, loyalty, willingness to recommend).”

The business value has to be there—you absolutely have to meet the business need or you won’t even make it to the consideration set. But let’s face it: unless you’re in a very niche industry or offer something truly revolutionary, most providers (your competitors) meet the business need.

Personal value is where B2B buyers look when trying to decide between several good options. Buyers want to know:

• Which provider will be the easiest to work with?
• Which service will save me the most time?
• Which product is the least risky?
• Which decision will get the nod of my boss?
• Etc.

Action step: Create a list of each job title/role involved in the decision-making process. What personal value is each of these people looking for? You’ll probably need to do some research to uncover the answer. Once you know, start talking about the personal value you offer alongside the business value you provide. Customize your content to speak specifically to each decision-making persona.

2. A Reason to Act Now

People are wired to avoid loss. They fear change because it involves risk—a potential for loss. And that’s what a buying decision is: change, risk, a potential for loss. The default for prospects who read your content is to appreciate what they’ve learned. . . and change nothing.

Unless part of what they’re learning is that it’s riskier to keep the status quo than it is to move forward with the buying decision. When you clearly show prospects why their status quo is such a problem, outlining the costs and risks in concrete terms, you’re giving them a reason to act now.

Action step: Think through all the pains and problems associated with your prospects’ status quo. How much money are they losing each month they put off the decision? How much time are they wasting? What risks are they taking by doing nothing?

3. A Clear Call-to-Action

People are busy. Most of your prospects aren’t going to take time to figure out what the next step is after reading a piece of your content. Maybe they’ll call you—but probably not, unless you invite them to and make it easy for them to get in contact.

You know this, but it’s easy to forget in the mad dash to create more content: the more specific and clear a call-to-action is, the more effective it will be. Tell prospects exactly what they’ll get when they click that CTA button, and make the value crystal-clear.

When you’re crafting your lead-nurturing emails for prospects who have downloaded content but aren’t yet ready for a sales call, use your marketing funnel as a guide. A top-of-the-funnel eBook offer could follow up with an ROI calculator offer or a case study offer. Middle-of-the-funnel offers could follow up with a free demo offer or a brainstorming session offer. Each “next step” should not only be clear, but should also guide prospects down the funnel toward that sales conversation.

Action step: Map out your marketing funnel and be sure that each piece of content fits within it. Next, check to see if each piece of content includes a clear call-to-action that leads prospects to the next step in the funnel.

Just like the fantastic pair of scissors that’s designed for one task but not another, engaging content is great for getting comments, likes and shares—but it’s not enough to generate the types of leads you’re looking for. Try incorporating these three elements into your content and watch it transform into a tool that gets the results you want.

YouTube is designed with a number of helpful features added in that can optimize the effectiveness of your videos, with the end results being more views, subscribers and conversions. YouTube is also packed with a lot of little known features that can boost the results of your marketing efforts, making your experience on the site more user friendly and enjoyable. Following are a few little known YouTube hacks, features and tips you definitely need to know about.

Create Written Transcript
Editing or uploading a transcript in YouTube will help your video show up in search and get noticed. Both Google (YouTube’s parent company) and YouTube look at several factors when they rank videos in order to identify what the video is about. The transcript you use is one of their determining factors. YouTube automatically produces a written transcript for videos posted on the site, but you can modify the transcripts to make them more search friendly. Adding your SEO transcript to the description area of your video will also boost your rankings. This is a very important feature that you really should be taking advantage of.

Royalty Free Sound Effects
YouTube has a library of royalty free, high quality, sound effects and audio tracks that you can download and add to your videos. The video site makes it easy to add great music or sound effects to both your YouTube videos and other videos.

The YouTube – Google Trend Connection
You may already be using Google Trends to look up the popularity of certain search terms over time. Most online marketers do in order to make better keyword choices. What some don’t realize is that you can do the same with YouTube, determining the popularity of its search queries.

Create Clickable, Call to Action Video Links
YouTube makes it possible for your audience to not just watch your videos, but to engage with them as well. On YouTube, you can add annotations (YouTube’s name for clickable links) to your videos. Annotations act as call to action buttons that you can use to link visitors anywhere you want them to go, encouraging them to take action. It’s an easy way to entice people to engage and interact, taking them to an informational page about your company, a product squeeze page, etc.

Create Custom YouTube URLs
You can create an easy to remember custom URL, aka vanity URL, for your videos on YouTube. To create a link, however, you need to be on the site at least 30 days, have a minimum of 100 subscribers, have uploaded a channel icon photo and channel art.

Create Photo Slideshows

Have you ever wanted to create a slideshow for a special corporate event, team party, or even to showcase a new product without having to learn a cumbersome software program? Well YouTube makes it possible to create professional-looking photo slideshows and even set them to music. You’ll be able to upload as many photos (and videos) as you wish, and select from countless movie styles, effects and transitions, making it easy to create a professional-looking slideshow.

If you’re not already using YouTube for your business, it’s time to start. All of the YouTube tips listed above can help you succeed in your YouTube marketing campaigns. Also, be sure to build and maintain good tracking and analytic records which will help you make informed, data-driven decisions as you move forward.

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