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I met Mark Roberge two years ago and immediately liked him. He’s smart, fun, engaging and passionate and opinionated about how to drive sales. And as the person (SVP of Worldwide Sales) who helped increase HubSpot’s sales by 6000% to $100 million and the company to 450 employees, I’d say he knows a thing or two about growing a business and leading a thriving sales organization.

I interviewed Mark back in February just as his outstanding new book, The Sales Acceleration Formula: Using Data, Technology, and Inbound Selling to go from $0 to $100 Million, was hitting the market. It’s become a highly-acclaimed bestseller and garnered a bevy of strong reviews on Amazon. I intended to get this post up for the release, but life got in the way. And as I watched The Sales Acceleration Formula rocket up the Amazon rankings (for good reason), it gave me a great excuse to put off this post as the book and Mark clearly didn’t need any extra help

Mark’s undergraduate degree is in engineering and he earned an MBA from the Sloan School of Management at MIT. His bent and brains come through loud and clear when talking to him or reading the book. The fact the he and I are so different in our approach and perspectives is part of the reason I find his writing so valuable and strongly recommend that you read this book.

I won’t tell you Mark’s and HubSpot’s story; it’s worth reading for yourself. But let me share just a few of his responses from our conversation about the book:

Why this book? Mark was thrown into a sales leadership role and saw the opportunity to bring an engineer’s mindset to sales and sales management. He’s convinced that sales is much more science than it is art. The internet has changed everything — empowering customers in ways unimaginable just a decade ago — requiring a completely new way of thinking. Buyers expect sellers to deploy a low/limited-friction sales approach. And younger salespeople and inside sales teams require a very different type of sales leadership.

Sales Talent/Hiring: Mark makes the case that the #1 job of the sales leader is deciding who to bring on your team. He shared the frustrating experience of hiring sales rock stars from other companies that did not excel at HubSpot. He stresses the importance of “context” when defining talent requirements. What works in other organizations may not work in yours. He found (surprisingly) that certain characteristics/”strengths” they initially sought (aggressiveness and objection handling) actually turned out to be negatives.

Heart Engagement: I pushed Mark hard about heart engagement because I was concerned how his highly analytical, engineering and process-driven approach to sales leadership would affect the morale and passion of the sales team. He understood where I was coming from and quickly allayed my fears. Mark is very conscious of sales leaders not feeling like heavy-handed “Big Brother” micromanaging every move. In fact, I was highly encouraged that he was so strong about leading with goals and results to avoid making reps feel micromanaged. It warmed my heart to hear him reiterate that the key is managing to results! He’s also a big proponent of sales managers getting to know their people on a more intimate level so they can make a better connection between reps’ personal and business goals.

Advice for CEOs/Entrepreneurs: I loved Mark’s response when I asked what advice he had for CEOs and entrepreneurs. Without even pausing he shared his wish that they’d come to appreciate that sales excellence is just as important and product excellence. Hear me shout a hearty “Amen” to that exhortation.

Listen, if you scan my posts, you’ll notice I don’t recommend too many books to you. But when a brilliant guy shares the story of how he and his company drove ridiculous sales increases, and as a bonus he provides a very different, fresh perspective on sales leadership, it’s worth grabbing a copy.

Lucky for email marketers, growing your email list has never been easier – or more fun.

Now I don’t have to tell you that marketing quizzes have been flooding your social newsfeeds. Whether it’s Grandma sharing which Leonardo DiCaprio character is her soulmate (obviously Jack Dawson), or your colleague posting about his Marketing Superpower, there’s a quiz for everything.

But beyond the lighthearted quiz lies a big opportunity to collect new email subscribers, learn about your audience, convey a more personable side of your brand and get all the social shares. Talk about a package deal, right?

And when you sync Interact – a platform that allows you to create and share beautiful, engaging quizzes – with your AWeber account, your new email addresses will be directed right into your email list.

In the video below, you’ll see how easy it is to create a quiz with Interact and send your new subscribers compelling emails.

Ready to start creating quizzes?

Check out Interact’s pricing page to find the right plan for your business needs. Then, connect Interact with your AWeber account to get started today!

The post Create Fun Quizzes and Grow Your Email List with Interact + AWeber appeared first on Email Marketing Tips.

Lionel Messi didn’t become the FIFA World Player of the Year four times by kicking a ball around blindly. He had guidance. There’s no doubt that the world player had talent. He originally caught the eye of FC Barcelona as a 13 year-old by sending a video of himself juggling a tennis ball (113 times in a row) and an orange (120 times in a row).

Nice moves, Messi.

To groom top performing sales folks, you’ll need to take risks on young reps who show a similar kind of raw talent. But to hone that talent and turn it into sales expertise, coaching is required.

How do you coach brand new sales reps to bring out their maximum potential? Follow these four steps. 

1) Understand Their Individual Motivation

Contrary to popular belief, many young reps aren't solely motivated by commission checks. Maybe it’s the generation, but most young reps we hire have something else that keeps them going.

For example, Messi liked sweets. Here's an account of Messi's motivating sweet tooth from the New York Times:

“One of his early youth coaches in Rosario, a man named Carlos Marconi, discovered that Messi enjoyed alfajores, a kind of chocolate cookie. According to an TV interview with Marconi, they struck a deal: a cookie for each goal. The trouble was that Messi routinely scored four or five goals a game for his club, and so, to motivate him, Marconi had to make it harder. To push him, Marconi announced a new regime: two alfajores for every goal Messi scored with his head. The next game, Messi dribbled through the entire opposing team, including the goalkeeper, then stopped at the goal line to flick the ball up into the air with his foot so that he could head it into the empty net. When he found Marconi’s eye in the stands, Messi smiled and held up two fingers.”

To find your new sales rep's “chocolate cookie,” you need to first earn the right. Invest in young reps personally, so that they feel comfortable opening up to you.

Once you build some rapport, here are a few tactics that can help you tailor sales plans for each individual:

• Vision statements: I first saw a vision statement in college as a soccer player, when our head coach explained their importance during the first week of each season. Subsequently, my first sales coach did the same thing. Not a coincidence. We’ve incorporated vision statements into our sales process at Lesson.ly and have seen the dividends. 
• Personality tests: We like the Predictive Index, and while it’s not a tarot card, it helps give managers insight into each rep. Other tests to consider are DISC and Strengths Finder.
• Unstructured and unscheduled meetings: Meet with reps on their turf. Whether they like to have a beer, go for a run, take a walk, or sip coffee, simply ask them how things are going and what gets them up in the morning in an unstructured, unscheduled forum.

2) Establish a Training Cadence Based on Feedback and Observation

Once you understand your new rep's motivation, it’s best to set up a cadence for coaching and training. Here’s what we’ve found is a great recipe:

1. Weekly, 30-minute one-on-ones with managers: Spend a third of the meeting on your rep's agenda, a third on reviewing the past week, and a third on looking ahead.
2. Weekly team training lesson: Cover a topic that often comes up in one-on-ones. It could be about competitors, pricing, objection handling, or process. Create a short and sweet assignment of sorts that reps can complete on their own time.
3. Bi-weekly observation or practice session: Once every two weeks, managers should get in the weeds. Instead of telling people what to do, practice it with them, or better yet, participate with them. Go to meetings or make calls alongside your reps, and provide tips along the way.
4. Monthly vision statement review: We prefer to occasionally review the vision statement with someone new on the team, or to revisit for accountability purposes.

With this structure in place, young reps will feel they're being invested in and have every opportunity to ask questions, seek guidance, and feel fulfilled as they grow.

3) Manage Confidence

We onboard bright, decorated young folks who’ve had a lot of success in the past. As you manage young reps, your biggest challenge and opportunity will be to manage their confidence. Especially when things don’t go their way (missed goals, rejection, etc.).

You should match your confidence coaching plan to your culture, but we find that a few things help: 

• Framing: When we talk about competitors, we focus on our strengths first, not theirs. When we review metrics we focus on the good first, then the areas of improvement. 
• Make it fun: When we win a deal against a competitor we notch a baseball bat; when we schedule a demo, we write it on the chalkboard; when someone leaves a great voicemail, we give them a high five. 
• Controllables and 1% improvements: Nothing kills confidence like a missed goal. While goals are important, we focus more on controllables (calls, prospects added into the pipeline, demos completed) and convey that we know things won’t change overnight. Instead, we keep the focus on marginal gains that add up (1% at a time).

4) Teach the Hard Stuff through Repetition and Questions

As you well know, sales isn't easy. Young reps who aren't used to scraping their knees need some guidance on how to handle tough situations. 

Here are some examples of tough sales situations and how to coach proper reactions:

• Letting a deal go: Make sure your reps know the difference between persistence and knowing when to let go. Never let your reps give up in the pursuit of prospecting. The more they do, they better they will be at qualifying. Do teach your reps to let go of a prospect who truly isn’t a fit for the product. There’s a fine line between persistence and pushiness. Teach it. 
• Saying no: With a clearly defined ideal client profile, you should be able to coach young reps on when to say no. List out the common questions that tend to be showstoppers or red flags, and coach reps on when and why to say no. We find that being honest, in the end, is appreciated and ultimately wins us more deals.
• Understanding decision makers and influencers: Young reps are especially prone to happy ears. For example: “I just did a demo with Company X, and they loved it! I think we’ll have them on board next week.” As a sales manager, you should temper their expectations and help them identify and engage the decision maker. Ask: What's the next step? Is there a compelling event driving them to a decision next week? Who -- outside of your contact -- will be involved in the decision? This teaches young reps to find the answers to these questions with their prospects before you even ask them.

If you’re a sales manager and you heed this advice, share your results! What little things do you do to keep your team motivated? Do have more concise coaching methods? If you’re a young rep reading this, tell me about your coach, and how they’ve helped you. 

This June, Uber lost an important lawsuit over whether their drivers were independent contractors or employees of Uber. Uber argues their app is merely a platform through which drivers and passengers connect, but some disagree, saying the company acts like an employer does.

What’s the difference?

The IRS says “an individual is an independent contractor if the payer has the right to control or direct only the result of the work and not what will be done and how it will be done.”

On the other hand, they define a common-law employee as “anyone who performs services for you if you can control what will be done and how it will be done.”

The crucial difference is whether the employer can control how the work is done, which the plaintiff argued Uber is able to do with its drivers with their background checks, approval rating standards, and pricing structure.

Why does it matter?

Because drivers are independent contractors, they’re responsible for costs such as gas and repairs. They also don’t receive the benefits common-law employees enjoy, such as job security, benefits, or reliable pay.

“Companies like Uber and its rival Lyft , and Instacart , a grocery delivery service, have long faced questions about whether they are creating the right kind of employment opportunities for both the economy and for workers,” writes Mike Isaac and Natasha Singer for the New York Times .

The ruling isn’t binding; it was made by the California Labor Commissioner’s Office, and it only applies to the plaintiff, Barbara Ann Berwick. But it’s the biggest battle Uber has lost, and it could spark many more lawsuits nationwide over whether Uber should be reclassifying their drivers.

The “sharing economy”

Uber’s rapid growth has been at the forefront of today’s new “sharing economy,” an economy in which a wide range of services can be accessed by downloading an app and clicking a button. Today, consumers can access dry cleaners, doctors, florists, groceries, and more at the tips of their fingers. UK employees can have beer delivered to their office through DeskBeers. Peerby helps people borrow things from their neighbors.

The “sharing economy” has also been called the “peer economy,” “collaborative consumption,” and the “on-demand economy,” and each term has its own nuances. But every company in the new sharing economy connects consumers with the services or goods they need – no middleman required.

The power of Uber

These businesses have multiplied exponentially in cities like San Francisco, Los Angeles, and New York, but Uber has been by far the most successful. Since launching in 2010, Uber has expanded to more than 200 cities worldwide, and they have estimated that 25,000 New Yorkers take their first Uber ride every week.

Uber has been able to sustain this rapid growth primarily because their costs and risk are low: as a technology platform and not an employer, they avoid the labor laws and costs most companies have to grapple with. They aren’t liable for a driver’s individual actions because the driver is a contractor, not an Uber employee.

What this could mean for employment

Uber’s growth over the past five years, as well as the success of other sharing and on-demand services, reveals a massive base of consumers who want services at their own convenience and accessed with ease. Some have theorized that this growth also mirrors a growing base of workers who also want the freedom and independence that working for a company like Uber or Instacart offers. Indeed, many Uber drivers are fervently supportive of the company and their treatment of drivers. Consulting firm MBO Partners estimates there were 2.7 million people participating in the on-demand economy in 2014.

But not every worker driving a Lyft or delivering laundry is doing so because they love the independence: as of this May, 6.7 million people are employed part-time involuntarily, which means they would prefer to work full-time but either can’t find a fitting job or had their hours cut.

Sharing companies hail these workers as the future of work, but what will that future look like? MBO Partners state 44% of the on-demand workers are between the ages of 21 and 33, meaning many of them likely aren’t supporting families, mortgages, and heavier healthcare bills… yet. The study also finds workers participating in the on-demand economy tend to earn less than other independent workers, even after adjusting for age and experience.

It’s too soon to know the implications of the California Labor Commission’s decision against Uber. But the future of the sharing economy could hang in the balance, and with it what the future of our workforce could look like.

Retailers are racing to catch up to the wildly popular Lululemon.

As athleisure, the trend of wearing athletic clothing as casualwear, becomes more popular, companies such as Nike, Under Armour, and Victoria's Secret are trying to cash in on the trend. 

But Lululemon has an incredibly loyal customer base, and keeps customers coming back through offering events like free yoga classes and running clubs. 

This strategy creates what retail expert and author Robin Lewis refers to as "addictive experiences," on his blog, The Robin Report.

"They are addictive," Lewis claims, "because each time customers co-create the experience with the brand, they are shaping it to their mood of the moment." This gives customers "such a rush" they want to come back over and over again, according to Lewis.

Lululemon is also compelling to customers because it stocks very few of each item and updates selections often, meaning shoppers never know what they'll find.

This tactic is also effective because some customers might impulsively buy clothes out of fear they will sell out, helping Lululemon sell most of its clothing at full price.

"So, not only does the co-created experience entice them to keep coming back, more often and more quickly for their fix, they stay longer and buy more," Lewis writes. "Thus it increases the value of the store and everything in it."

"[They] had a particular business model...the community, involvement, the way they motivate people in the store." Erich Joachimsthaler, CEO and founder of Vivaldi Partners, told Business Insider. Joachimsthaler highlighted the importance of "differentiating" one's brand — a category in which Lululemon has proven successful.

Another trait helping Lululemon stay strong is that its product is solid — further, Lululemon essentially built the athleisure category.

"[Lululemon] provided a good quality product ... [they] basically created the category," Joachimsthaler said.  

The brand has distinguished itself by selling high quality products. Some may scoff at the high pricetag for gym clothes, but they might be worth it.

"Lululemon...had discovered earlier [a] better product and better product quality," Joachimsthaler said. "Companies have avoided [improving the quality of athletic wear] for many, many years." 

These strategies will help Lululemon stay on top — especially as competition emerges.

Now, everyone else is trying to jump on what Lululemon discovered.

Under Armour has been an obvious competitor for sometime with its female-friendly ad campaigns starring Misty Copeland. Dick's Sporting Goods launched a label to compete with Lululemon. Levi's, who won't budge or sell anything but jeans, has tried to compete by selling more "comfortable" jeans.

Victoria's Secret has its highly profitable Sport line. And recently, Abercrombie announced it would be extending its athleisure offerings.

But quite simply, there's not enough room in the market for everyone.

Erich Joachimsthaler, CEO and founder of Vivaldi Partners, warned Business Insider that "six months from now" there will be an "extremely crowded market — it's already now."

But as more competition emerges, only a few companies are actually valid competitors to Lululemon.

"I think the biggest ones — the biggest company to watch out for, in my opinion, are the [athleisure] brands that come out from the big [companies] — Adidas and Nike and Under Armor, for example," Joachimsthaler said to Business Insider.

He thinks Under Armor is particularly strong competitor, because like Lululemon, the brand appeals to women's empowerment. "Under Armor has a most incredible positioning with the Misty Copeland [ad] — 'I will what I want.'"

"At a scale, it's those companies that are going to make it difficult for Lululemon," he said.

Further, while athletic apparel copmanies certainly target teens, athletes, and young women, Joachimsthaler said Luluemon is about more than just a customer — it's a "mindset."

"There's a bit of this empowerment — that mindset of being able to crack through the ceiling, that you can do it, and...that's to me, the Lululemon position."

SEE ALSO: Abercrombie is trying to compete with Nike, Under Armour, and Lululemon

Join the conversation about this story »

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What do you call someone who works in Sales Operations? Seriously, that’s not a setup for a bad joke — what’s the broad term for Sales Ops pros? One company has “operations analysts,” while another employs “directors of Sales Ops,” and a third prefers “managers of global sales operations.” Which one gets to the heart of what Sales Operations actually is?

The wide range of titles is indicative of the fact that no one is really sure. Everyone is still figuring out what the right role is for Sales Ops, and because of this state of the world, Sales Ops means something a little bit different from company to company.

For some, Sales Ops exists solely to provide tactical support to the sales team. For others, Sales Ops assumes a more strategic role as well, and has an executive voice that molds sales processes and strategy. Regardless of these variations, the ultimate goal of every Sales Operations team is consistent: their job is to maximize the efficiency of revenue generation.

There is a certain type of person who excels at accomplishing that goal: the Sales Ops All Star. These All Stars are all:

• Analytical: Sales Operations is inherently a numbers-driven specialty. Regardless of how the role differs at a high level from company to company, every Sales Ops pro must be able to see patterns in data and run tests to figure out how the sales team can work more efficiently.

• Organized: The job of Sales Operations is, in many ways, the task of creating order out of chaos. Their weapon of choice in that endeavor is process — they use the structure that a concrete, measurable sales process provides to channel and streamline the activities of the sales team.Those who excel in the field have experience setting guidelines, managing activity (both their own and other people’s), and creating and enforcing set processes.

• Persuasive: Sales Ops is often tasked with getting people to do things that they aren’t enthusiastic about (getting reps to use a CRM properly is a prime example). Because of this, Sales Ops All Stars are also good salespeople. Obviously, they’re not out prospecting and closing deals, but they know how to gather support for projects, create momentum to complete them, and then communicate value and ensure that they stay in place after they’ve been implemented.

• Diplomatic: A big part of the Sales Operations job is to drive momentum for projects that involve different departments, and develop alignment across teams. The role is becoming increasingly strategic, and more and more companies leverage Sales Ops as an independent unit that is not directly tied to the goals or leadership of other departments.Sales Ops All Stars are the people who know how to navigate conflicting interests (such as the classic clash of sales and marketing attribution), identify the most pragmatic solution (with data), and implement a solution that improves the company’s ability to generate revenue without alienating anyone.

• Technical: One of the major drivers behind the rise of Sales Ops is advancements in sales and marketing technology widely available to businesses. For some companies, Sales Operations exists purely to act as an administrative group for sales tools.

Regardless of how much of your day-to-day work is spent managing and improving sales tools, you will be called upon to evaluate, implement, and troubleshoot various technologies at some point.

Who Has These 5 Traits?

Now that you know the 5 traits that are common among Sales Ops All Stars, the natural follow up question is where do these people come from? The short answer is all over the place — as the field has evolved, it’s grown to encompass some responsibilities that stretch across finance, marketing, and sales.

That means there’s no set career path for Sales Operations — professionals with a wide variety of experience can become All Star Sales Ops pros. A few examples are:

• Very technical, process-driven sales reps
• Customer support reps
• Marketing operations/Marketing analysts
• Financial analysts

The 5 traits of Sales Ops All-Stars are much more important for success in the field than any specific role is. So, if you have all five traits and are looking for a switch into a challenging, in-demand field that’s on course to become even more crucial to businesses in the future, consider looking into Sales Ops positions.

Optimize Ecommerce Websites for Subsets of Visitors

Ecommerce websites can increase conversion rates and sales by using A/B testing to optimize sites for subsets of visitors. A/B testing typically determines what the majority prefers. Breaking down customers into subsets allows shops to determine preferences among smaller groups of shoppers. By targeting multiple subsets with different versions of a site, online shops can approximate the preferences of their entire customer base better than they could by only targeting the ‘average’ shopper.

We will begin with a general discussion of A/B testing, its limitations, and the connection between A/B testing and personalization. Then we will consider how to segment site visitors, and will conclude by discussing methods of site personalization that we can employ based on the results of our targeted A/B testing.

What is A/B testing?

 In ecommerce, A/B testing is a method for measuring clicks and conversion rates on two versions of a website in parallel to see which performs better in the real world. A/B testing should examine one specific website element at a time – for example, the color or text of a button.

To perform an A/B test it is necessary to segment your audience into two groups. For example, an eshop might show some customers (Group A) a button that says “Buy Now!” while showing all other customers (Group B) a button that says “Add to Cart.” Over some period of time, data is collected about how many people click on the buttons and how many of those who click complete a purchase.

With this information in hand, an eshop can make an informed decision about which button has a higher conversion rate. In other words, it is possible to quantify the impact of seemingly small tweaks to an eshop’s site that can increase sales and boost revenue.

The result of A/B testing is personalization. Personalizing an ecommerce website means tailoring it to the needs, interests, and aesthetic tastes of individual shoppers or groups of shoppers. A/B testing tells us what our customer’s needs, interests, and tastes are based on actual interactions with our A/B test conditions.

Limitations of Basic A/B Testing

 A/B testing is a must for any ecommerce site, though it does have two drawbacks:

1. ‘standard’ A/B testing reveals what the majority prefers
2. and A/B testing is not fully automated.

Tailoring your website for the majority of online shoppers is likely to increase sales, but there are many potential customers who don’t respond as the majority do. What the majority prefers, from a statistical perspective, may still only please just over 50% of all site visitors. Running A/B tests on subsets of site visitors allows websites to optimize a number of different site variations that have high conversion rates among distinct subsets of visitors. By optimizing for smaller groups, eshops can meet the needs of a greater number of their potential customers.

The more difficult challenge of A/B testing is that it is not fully automated. At its core, A/B testing is a scientific ‘test’ in the sense that we need to form a hypothesis and run an experiment to test that hypothesis under controlled conditions. Establishing and testing hypotheses requires skilled employees behind the scenes. While data can be collected automatically once testing has begun, the segmentation of visitors and formation of well-informed hypotheses require man-hours and careful consideration.

Ecommerce is Not Bound by the Brick-and-Mortar Model

In brick-and-mortar stores a shop’s layout, appearance, sounds, and smells are necessarily the same for all shoppers who walk through the door. Ecommerce today still largely follows this model, but it doesn’t have to – nor should it!

Think about the difference between brick-and-mortar stores and online commerce as a jump from a 2D to a 3D world. In Edwin Abbott’s 1884 novel Flatland the main character, a Square, is unable to conceive of height, depth, or the concept of something being “above.” Only when the Square is taken out of his native two-dimensional plane does he recognize that there is another aspect of the world that he could not previously comprehend. There is, in short, a THIRD dimension.

The web adds this purported “third dimension” to the shopping experience. With ecommerce, we have the opportunity to focus on each customer individually. This is the main advantage of ecommerce over traditional brick-and-mortar stores.

Let’s use Dave as an example. Dave is a business executive and a regular customer of Best Men’s Clothing. He frequently purchases suits and formalwear. For Dave, it may be best to direct him to a version of the Best Men’s Clothing website that just focuses on business and formal attire. After all, what’s the point of having a catalogue structure that links to orange socks and ripped jeans for a business executive who only ever browses suits and ties?

Modern web technologies allow for the catalogue structure, landing page layout, and even colors of an online store to change for each individual customer. This is something that physical retailers can never achieve. Ecommerce sites must take advantage of this incredible opportunity! 

Splitting Website Visitors into Subsets Offers More Effective Optimization

Optimizing a website for subsets of site visitors means having different versions of a website available simultaneously. The particular version of a site that is shown to a visitor is determined based on factors such as location, gender, age, or any other known data that may be taken into account.

In 2015 we no longer need to design just one version of a website that converts the majority of visitors. Nor should we rely on just one version. If a 19-year old woman goes to an online apparel shop, there’s a very high likelihood that she only wants to see women’s clothing. Wouldn’t it be better to show her only what she’s looking for, and not include any men’s products on the landing page she arrives on?

Let’s look at a hypothetical scenario that relates back to our button color example:

Based on the hypothetical data above, we can see that showing a green button to all site visitors offers a higher conversion rate than showing a blue button to everyone. Segmenting reveals, however, that showing a blue button to 12 to 30-year olds results in a higher conversion rate among customers within these age ranges.

Optimizing for subsets means that overall clicks, conversions, and sales will be boosted even if website traffic is constant.

Talking about the power of segmentation is well and good, but it’s difficult to determine how to segment website visitors in practice. Let’s examine some ways to segment your customers so that you can begin personalizing your site.

Visitor Segmentation: What Subsets Should Eshops Consider?

 There are many ways to group customers when running advanced A/B testing. Let’s look at some groupings that others have suggested:

Optimizely suggests seven categories to split visitors into:

1. logged-in visitors vs. guests (rank of website visitors)
2. last completed order (within last month, longer than one month ago, etc.)
3. top purchasers (high cart value)
4. location
5. source type (where they linked to the website from)
6. device type (iOS, Android, Mac/PC, etc.)
7. personalized data (gender, income, style, age, etc.)

Retail TouchPoints suggests “5 Persona-Based Segments” that fit shoppers into different “user archetypes.” Here are the five different types of shoppers according to Retail TouchPoints:

1. product-focused shoppers
2. browsers (not seriously looking to make a purchase)
3. researchers
4. bargain hunters
5. one-time shoppers (not return customers)

Some other potential categories to consider are:

• income ranges (if data is available)
• those who have children/ are married/ are single
• luxury buyers
• car owners
• and many more!

Keep in mind that these categories can be abstract.

Linda Bustos, writing on Get Elastic’s website, suggests that customers can even “self-segregate,” and that it’s not necessarily bad to ask them to do so.

Note: The drawback to having customers self-segregate is that customers don’t always know or accurately describe themselves and their preferences. Having customers self-segregate as “subscribers” or “non-subscribers” when visiting a mobile phone carrier’s website will likely work just fine. Asking them to self-segregate according to more subjective markers such as style preferences (“classic,” “modern,” “edgy”) may prove less effective.

The subsets of shoppers that you consider will ultimately depend on what you are testing and on the particularities of your ecommerce clientele. For example, age groupings might not be very helpful if you are selling academic books and 90% of your customers fall into a narrow age range. In this case segmenting shoppers by college majors or academic disciplines may be more instructive. Considering academic disciplines, however, is likely not very relevant for most online shops.

Once you have determined relevant subsets and conducted targeted A/B testing it is time to put your results to use on your website. There are various ways that ecommerce sites can personalize. Let’s take a look at some of them.

Types of Personalization in Ecommerce

Website personalization relies on data. Sometimes this data is explicitly given by customers, and sometimes this data is automatically generated. Data that is automatically generated can come from several sources, including:

• general statistics,
• social media,
• and recommendation engines.

Optimizely, for example, uses statistics to get an overall picture of what users prefer without focusing on individuals or groups. Google, on the other hand, focuses on individual users’ profiles when offering curated search results. Facebook generates Feeds that are unique for each and every user, and that can be further tailored with direct user input (i.e. by telling Facebook to hide a post or block shares from a specific source).

Collecting data is great, but it’s only the first step. Next we need to interpret our data and use it to profit our business. There are plenty of ways to use data to make a website unique for everyone and profitable at the same time.

Ecommerce personalization can take many different forms. Product recommendation blocks, such as those that Softcube offers, can highlight products that customers are most likely to be interested in purchasing. Catalog reduction – offering a slimmed-down list of items that is easier to peruse – can make browsing an eshop simpler, and ensure that products shown are more relevant. Website elements can be changed in terms of color or even text. An entire page can update based on the time of day or the gender of the website visitor.

Here are just some of the potential personalization solutions that we can realize with existing technologies:

• the structure of product catalogs can be re-configured for different customers;
• positioning of web elements can be altered;
• product descriptions can be changed based on a customer’s age:
  • for example, less technical product descriptions can be offered for elderly customers who are browsing computers and cell phones;
• websites can offer weather-sensitive recommendations and promotions based on a user’s location data;
• and restaurant websites can change dynamically based on the time of day.

Conclusion: Optimize for Subsets, Offer a Better Experience for All!

 Focusing on subsets of visitors leads to better website optimization and greater convenience for everyone. With targeted website optimization your ecommerce site can:

• be more personal,
• achieve a higher conversion rate,
• make more sales,
• and be more appealing to your customers!

Optimizing for small subsets of visitors can yield remarkable results, though is admittedly more difficult than optimizing for the majority. Go the extra mile. Break free from the brick-and-mortar mindset and embrace the amazing possibilities of modern ecommerce personalization!

There's a debate raging about whether we're in a technology bubble at the moment, with sky-high valuations for businesses like Uber and Airbnb.

Are investors overpaying for businesses that aren't really worth it?

I asked a top European venture capitalist (VC) the question this week and he admitted to me, on the condition of anonymity, that the funding market right now is completely nuts.

Money is as cheap as it's ever been and his firm is "making hay while the sun shines", raising new money for as many of the companies it has invested in as possible. This VC has worked in the US and Europe, and done deals with fintech firms and other business-to-business startups, mainly.

He told me an anecdote that sums up pretty well just how mad things are right now.

A company he invested in was out to raise more money. Seven investors were at the table. Four made formal investment offers, each bidding up the other one.

Then, out of nowhere, an eighth investor came to the table and doubled the highest bid.

In other words, an investor turned up offering the same amount of cash, but saying the deal would double the value of the company. Let's say startup "X" was worth $100 million — now, all of a sudden, it's got a $200 million price tag. While the previous bidders had said "I'll give you £10 million for 10% of the company," valuing it at £100 million, the eighth bidder came in and said. "I'll give you £10 million for 5%, valuing it at £200 million." (Those numbers are hypotheticals, just to illustrate the point.)

The VC didn't say anything about the fundamentals of the business or what industry it's in. But any market where participants can have such a huge disparity in valuations is a warped one. It's a market that favours startups.

The VC blames all this on the flood of hedge fund and foreign billionaire money coming into tech, skewing the numbers. These investors aren't so hot on the mechanics of tech venture capital — they simply see it as a gravy train worth hitching their wagons to.

The tech worlds is one of the few places where people can find returns right now — interest rates globally are at record lows and stock markets aren't up to much.

But while the VC admits valuations are going crazy, he doesn't think we're in a bubble. 

So many industries are undergoing fundamental changes because of technology right now — from the taxi industry to finance. And, says the VC, whoever gets it right in each field will be huge. I've heard this argument before, from Gerald Brady, head of relationship banking at Silicon Valley Bank in the UK.

That's why unsophisticated money is flooding into tech right now, because they can see the opportunity and don't want to miss out before it's too late. As a result, money is easy and cheap to raise for tech companies.

Join the conversation about this story »

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“Don, should we run this Heinz campaign on Instagram or Pinterest?”

Okay, so it’s difficult to imagine the politically incorrect chain-smokers of Madison Avenue getting to grips with social media but marketers embracing and innovating on social are, in one peculiar respect at least, the modern day Mad Men.

Dripping with creative ingenuity and iconoclastic charisma, Don Draper and his sharply-dressed team win advertising accounts because they have a one-up on the competition. That one-up is being able to see beyond the obvious associations between brand-product-audience by devising psychologically intuitive creative that strikes at the very heart of the human condition.

“Advertising is based on one thing: happiness,” pronounces Draper in the show’s first episode. “And you know what happiness is? Happiness is the smell of a new car. It’s freedom from fear. It’s a billboard on the side of the road that screams reassurance that whatever you are doing is okay.”

In the burgeoning, rather straight-laced 1960s ad-world that Mad Men is set within, this extra sense for recognising and exploiting human desire gives Draper’s agency a big advantage over the competition (although alcoholism, messy personal lives and murky pasts often conspire to squander it – it would be one hell of a boring show if they won every account).

But today, the kind of super-human creativity personified in Don Draper’s character is a baseline requirement of anyone going after an advertising account. Ingenuity has been normalised.

Today, the only way to get the kind of one-up on your competition that Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce enjoyed is by positioning your agency as experts at leveraging everybody’s favourite new bracket of marketing channels: social media.

And that’s because the modern day ‘dons’ of social media are able to exploit an element of audience communication that Draper et.al could only dream of: conversation.

In 2015, consumers want and expect to be heard. Traditional advertising doesn’t allow for the kind of two-way relationship this paradigm demands because it is based on the premise of broadcast, which limits advertisers to garnering attention only by talking to the consumer.

With social, consumers and advertisers can engage and share in a compelling, interactive and authentic conversation that opens up the possibility of exponential bi-directionality. Social is digital word-of-mouth at scale – and one thing every advertising professional knows is that consumers trust word-of-mouth above all other marketing media.

This is why everyone in the marketing sphere has spent the last five years scrambling to get on the social gravy train; a trend that is without doubt set to continue. Digital ad spend is expected to reach $61 billion in 2017 and social media will claim a huge slice of that pie. When we consider that social ads perform 58 percent better than old-fashioned ad exchanges, it’s easy to see why.

As Brewster Stanislaw writes, social is particularly effective for two reasons:

“First, brands can leverage existing organic content to create sponsored native ads. And, second, they can create and distribute content that mimics what has worked organically.”

But how do you differentiate yourself from all the other agencies flogging social campaigns?

By devising social strategy that actually works. Zillions of agencies and brands still bafflingly adopt the broadcast mentality of old when marketing on social platforms, so there’s lots of space for you to differentiate and show the value of quality.

The key? When pitching mar-comms, you have to make brands see themselves as publishers, rather than advertisers. Get them to realise that they have to create content optimised for conversation, rather than the kind of broadcast-optimised content that Draper had such mastery of.

And if Don Draper were real, even he’d agree.

Elephant and hummingbird by Fritz Ahlefeldt-Laurvig

Modern marketers work in world of constant change:

• Customers expect the brands they’re passionate about to respond rapidly to their needs.
• New competitors come into (and drop out of) the market on a regular basis.
• Global trends impact local business plans.
• Things we haven’t even thought of right now will crop up and completely disrupt our current marketing paradigm.

So if your marketing department has to stop to create an in depth, year-long marketing plan, you’ll most likely be wasting hours, days, and maybe even weeks to come up with a document that could be rendered useless by the events of a single hour.

Instead, you could devote a single day to drafting its speedier cousin, the agile marketing plan.

Marketing Plan Evolution: From Elephant to Hummingbird

Historically, marketing plans have been massive, elephantine documents, sometimes running to dozens and dozens of pages and taking hundreds of hours to complete. The marketing department has to research, write, and edit the document, and then interested parties from other departments have to sign off.

Both halves of this equation can take weeks, if not longer, because the final document will form the guiding principles (and budget) of Marketing (capital “M”) for a year or more.

Consider how many opportunities may have flown past while such a behemoth plan was under construction.

But whatever the drawbacks of traditional marketing plans, the fact remains that marketers need something to guide their efforts. Marketing plans are an easily recognizable document for upper management to review, and they generally remain the go-to option in most organizations.

Enter the hummingbird, also known as an agile marketing plan.

Compared to the plodding, methodical marketing plans that span a year’s worth of efforts, agile marketing plans really are like hummingbirds. They are lean, pared down, super speedy iterations that can empower marketing departments to create strategies that will actively respond to changing market forces, emerging markets, and evolving customer needs.

That may sound good, but how do the two plans really compare?

Traditional vs. Agile Marketing Plans

In the past marketing plans have been designed to guide the efforts of a marketing department over at least a few quarters, if not longer. They involve big goals, big bets, and big investments of both time and money, none of which is likely to make their creators open to changing them easily.

General wisdom recommends drafting a new plan yearly and including some ideas for the very long term (3-5 years).

A traditional marketing plan is a static document, and it’s usually written as if the marketing department will be static too.

Agile marketing plans, on the other hand, are designed to be adaptive.

The length of time each one covers varies from organization to organization, but typically they should be re-evaluated every 6-8 weeks.

On agile software development teams this timebox is often called a “Release,” and the planning process known as “Release Planning.” A software release would be just that: a piece of software (or a new feature or upgrade) that could be released to customers.

For marketers, it’s more like a Campaign, and what we would do in the planning process might be better described as Campaign Planning.

In agile marketing, the focus is on creating a living model that interacts with customers and the market to bring back actionable, measurable data in the short term. Its success or failure can be evaluated in a few weeks, not after a year. Software releases can include several iterations, sometimes known as sprints, and so can marketing campaigns.

If new competitors arise, the next release/campaign can include strategies to address them. If new software is released that could streamline current strategies, it can be tested right away as part of a holistic approach instead of trying to wedge it into an already full marketing plan.

Here’s a general comparison of the two types of marketing plans:

Typical Marketing Plan Template

There isn’t a single marketing plan template that all marketers use, but as a whole they include most of the following elements:

• Executive Summary: A high-level overview of the entire document. Usually as far as most readers will get.
• Customer Analysis: Who are the target customers? What do they love/need/hate? Demographic data, and sometimes market segmentation, are often presented here.
• Unique Selling Proposition and/or Product Strategy: Details on why this company/product/service is the best in its space, and why customers should choose it.
• Target Market Analysis: May include details on current and projected market share, as well as competitors.
• Marketing Strategies: Usually the meat of the document, and often broken down into lots of subcategories, like:
  • Product Strategies
  • Marketing Materials
  • Conversion Strategy
  • Promotions Strategy
  • Online Marketing Strategy
  • Advertising and Promotions Strategy
  • Distribution Strategy
  • Pricing Strategy

Overwhelmed yet? Me too.

• Forecasts or Projections: Here’s where things tend to get sticky. The document tries to predict how the market will look in the future, and how the above strategies will be able to impact it. So it may include things like current conversion rates on the company website vs. where the marketing department hopes they will be in six months after a certain number of strategies are in place. Or it might predict how the customer retention rate will change after a new email campaign is completed.

Agile Marketing Model, Not Plan

Like traditional plans there isn’t a set format or template, but a Campaign plan for an agile team might include the following items.

• Offer: Includes the solution being offered and unique value proposition for the product/company/service that this Campaign is focusing on.
• Go-To Market: What channels or partners will be used for distribution and customer interaction?
• Customer: Like traditional marketing plans, this section includes information about the customer, often in the form of personas and/or customer segments.
• Money & Measurements: Here’s where the primary difference from the traditional marketing plan template comes in. Agile marketing plans are all about testable hypotheses, and in order for something to be testable it has to be measurable. Each plan incorporates small goals or targets that can be tracked and measured in the allotted time frame, with either success or failure determined by the selected metric(s). The team can then build on either success or failure when crafting future iterations.

What is Success? Predictions vs. Measurements

One thing we should focus on from the above comparison is the final piece of each plan’s template: forecasts or projections in the traditional plan, versus money and measurement in the agile version.

In my opinion, the focus on constant data flow is where the real value of an agile marketing plan lies.

An agile marketing plan has several small, testable hypotheses driving it, each of which has metrics at its core. You can begin crafting these hypotheses by asking some of the following questions, but they are just a starting point (taken from “Getting Started with Agile Marketing” by Jim Ewel).

• Where did you spend your marketing dollars over the last twelve months? If you were to start over constructing a marketing budget, how would you allocate the dollars? Which spends are leading to the greatest returns?
• Are there additional customer segments that you could target?
• Are there other potential revenue streams available to you?
• Which channels/partners are most effective? Would allocating expenditures differently among different channels have an impact?
• Which customer touch points are working well? Which aren’t? Where should we put more focus?

The success or failure of these theories is measured by key metrics, which you’ll select based on your own bottom line goals.

Dave McClure’s “Startup Metrics for Pirates” (so named for the acronym AARRR) offers some potential ideas for measurement:

• Acquisition: users come to the site from various channels
• Activation: users enjoy first visit: “happy” user experience
• Retention: users come back, visit site multiple times
• Referral: users like product enough to refer others
• Revenue: users conduct some monetization behavior

The last “R” is the one that really drives a business, but there are metrics throughout the funnel that can and should be tracked. Just make sure they are hard pieces of data and not soft metrics like “mind share.”

Measuring Success of Agile and Traditional Marketing Plans

An agile marketing campaign outlines the goals to achieve and the metrics that will be objectively tracked, evaluated, and acted upon. A traditional marketing plan, however, offers forecasts or projections.

Here in Colorado, forecasts for the next twelve hours are notoriously mistrusted. So if you tried to convince someone to invest their entire marketing budget for the year based on a forecast for three, six or nine months from now, it probably wouldn’t go over well.

Granted, weather forecasts and marketing forecasts are significantly different animals, but they aren’t both called “forecasts” for nothing. There is an inherent level of uncertainty in each one, an instability that traditional marketing plans just aren’t equipped to deal with.

The best, most well-informed, marketers in the world are not psychics. They can have their fingers on the pulse of their customers, and may seem to anticipate their needs with each email campaign, webinar, or white paper.

But even those outstanding folks couldn’t anticipate some of the most significant changes of the past 10 years, much less respond to them in a meaningful way, if they were shackled by a huge marketing plan that was designed to meet forecasted goals set up to operate in a world without change.

When the next big (or small, or medium) marketing obstacle shows up, would you rather be struggling to turn an elephant, or bobbing and weaving on a hummingbird?

This post originally appeared on MarketerGizmo.com. It is reprinted with permission. 

If you’re an entrepreneur, learning the art of sales is absolutely essential to your success. Without this skill, you won’t be able to grow your business.

Trying to build a successful enterprise without knowing how to persuade is like trying to drive all the way across the United States on one tank of gas. Your organization is a machine and people are the parts that move it forward.

Think about it. Your customers are people. Your employees are people. Investors are people. Vendors are people.

Are you noticing a theme here? Of course you are. In order to grow your business, you need to be able to get these people to do the things you want them to do.

However, you can’t do it if you don’t have any influence. This is where the art of sales comes in. Sales is convincing other people to take an action that you want them to take.

For many entrepreneurs, this poses a problem. Why?

Because they don’t know the first thing about selling.

It’s a common predicament. When you’re in a situation where you have to influence another person, you might feel nervous or uncertain.

You might be afraid of being rejected. Perhaps you lack confidence because you don’t have a background in sales.

Maybe you think that sales is sleazy. The word “sales” can conjure the all-too-familiar image of the used- car salesman who sells you a lemon in order to make more money.

Or perhaps you believe the myth that sales is a skill that is inborn. One is just “born with it.”

This isn’t true.

Sales is a skill that must be learned, honed, and mastered over time. Any of the preceding false beliefs about sales can easily make any non-salesy entrepreneurs tremble.

Skill at persuasion is something that you will need in all aspects of your business. Sales is a skill that is important for the following things:

• Selling more product. (duh)
• Branding your company.
• Convincing investors to give you funding.
• Motivating your employees to perform.
• Negotiating better terms with vendors.

Here’s the good news!

The prospect of learning how to influence doesn’t have to be daunting. If you dedicate yourself to learning the necessary skills, you can become a master influencer.

Look at Steve Jobs. He didn’t become a master presenter overnight. He worked at it. He practiced and learned. In the end, he became known as one of the most gifted presenters in the business world.

If you are willing to work hard at it, you can earn more deals, get more funding, and motivate your team to buy into your vision. This post will give you some tips that will guide you on your journey to becoming a better influencer.

Praise is Priceless

Carl H. Buehner said:

“People may forget what you said — but they will never forget how you made them feel.”

This statement is absolutely true. People in this day and age are constantly bombarded by new information. Everywhere we go we are given messages that we are supposed to digest. There’s no way we could possibly retain all of the information we are exposed to on a daily basis.

However, if someone sends a message that makes us feel something, we remember it. We will associate the giver of the message with the emotion they made us feel. This is one reason praise is important.

The great thing about praise is that it’s easy. Every prospect that you deal with will have something praiseworthy that you can capitalize on.

If they have a great idea, tell them how brilliant you think it is. If they seem to know a lot about the subject you’re speaking about, compliment them on the fact that they obviously did their homework.

Here is one caveat: you have to be sincere. Don’t try to woo your customer with insincere flattery. They will know what you are doing and you will lose all credibility. If you can’t find something to praise, don’t make it up.

When you give a sincere compliment, it will make your prospect feel good about the interaction. If you want to have influence, you need to make sure that those you would influence have positive feelings towards you.

Gratitude is Great!

The benefits of gratitude are astounding. In the world of persuasion, it’s an indispensable ally. People who have a grateful attitude enjoy more social capital than those who are not grateful.

When you embrace gratitude and make it a part of your everyday life, you will find it easier to influence others. There are two key ways a non-salesy entrepreneur can use gratitude to help them influence others.

Here they are:

• Have a grateful attitude. A grateful attitude makes you happier and more pleasant to be around. This increases the chances that you will convince your prospect to take the desired action.
• Express gratitude. Expressing gratitude makes people feel appreciated and acknowledged. This will make them more open to hearing and accepting what you have to say.

Find ways to show gratitude to your prospects. There are probably several things you can thank them for in order to show them that they are special to you.

You can thank them for the time they’re giving you to talk about your offer. If you’re dealing with an existing customer, you can thank them for being a loyal customer. These are just two examples of things you can express gratitude for.

Give a Little to Get a Lot

In his book “Influence: Science and Practice,” Robert Cialdini names reciprocity as one of his six principles of persuasion. When you do something for someone else, they are more likely to return the favor.

This can help your efforts at influence in several different ways. These can include:

• Offering a helpful piece of content for free on your website.
• Giving your prospect a key piece of advice that helps her grow her business.
• Rewarding your team’s hard work by buying them lunch.
• Paying compliments and expressing gratitude (sound familiar?).

You will always have something to give that can help another person. Do them a favor, and they will be more likely to allow you to influence them.

Save Them From Losing Something

Nobody wants to lose. When confronted with loss, we are more likely to act in a way that prevents us from losing something.

Loss aversion is an incredibly powerful force in the world of influence.

Instead of only highlighting the gains your prospect will have if they do what you are asking, emphasize what they will lose if they don’t. When a sales pitch is given in a way that talks about potential loss, it becomes more effective.

Prepare to Influence

Don’t just jump right in and try to persuade your audience to do what you want. You need to be prepared before the interaction.

Instead, take the time to figure out the best way to proceed. Ask yourself some key questions:

• How will my proposal benefit my prospect?
• What potential objections will they have?
• Are they capable of doing what I’m going to ask of them?
• What is their ultimate desire? How does my proposal make it easier for them to achieve it?

When you can formulate good answers to these questions, you’re ready to influence.

Make Them Feel Part of Something Bigger Than Themselves

Yes, it’s true that people tend to focus on themselves, but they also like the idea of being a part of something bigger than themselves. Whether it’s a cause, an organization, or an elite group, people want to feel a sense of belonging.

Find a way to frame your request in a way that takes into account the bigger picture. Get your prospect to focus on a larger purpose or mission. If you can do this in a way that appeals to a sense of purpose, they will be more likely to agree to your request.

Create Evangelists to Sell for You (Hint: your customers are your best candidates)

Instead of taking on the burden of influencing all on your own, enlist others to do it for you. Find others who are passionate about what you’re passionate about, and they will do much of the persuading for you.

Whether it’s selling more product, getting investors to invest, or convincing your team to follow you, the chances of success becomes greater when you get people on your side to advocate for your cause. If you play your cards right, your customer can become your best lead generators.

Start Selling Before You Start Selling

Do you have an important meeting with decision makers? Will you be expected to put forth a compelling case to get them to do something you want? Sell them on the idea before the meeting.

It’s very likely that you will know who is going to be attending the meeting beforehand. Why not spend some time with them beforehand to test the waters? Find out what they think about what you’re proposing. See if they have any initial objections.

If you ask the right questions, you will know exactly what to address in your presentation. Here are some good questions to ask:

• “What do you like about my idea so far?”
• “What don’t you like about my idea?”
• “What part of my idea would you like to know more about?”

Of course, you must put these questions in your own words. If you can get them to answer these questions, you’re golden. You’ll know exactly how to frame your presentation and what important points to touch on.

Get Pissed! The Persuasive Power of Anger

When I was younger, I’d often see commercials for the Law Offices of Larry H. Parker. It’s a prominent law firm in Southern California that deals with personal injury cases.

What always struck me about his commercials was that Larry H. Parker always seemed so angry when he would use his 30 seconds to tell you why you should use his firm if you had been injured. As a matter of fact, he even addressed it in one of his commercials!

In general, showing emotion makes you more relatable and more attractive. Anger should probably be used sparingly, but when it is used, it can be powerful.

Whenever you’re selling or marketing an idea or product, create a villain. Create someone to be angry at. Use this anger to galvanize your prospects and get them on your side. If you can portray yourself as the hero who will “fight for them,” you will gain their trust.

Widen Your Persuasion Toolkit

One of the worst things you can do is limit yourself to only one method of persuasion. In the world of influence, you can’t afford to be a one-trick pony.

Influence is not a one-size-fits all endeavor. Sometimes, the hard sell is the right approach. At other times, it makes more sense to let the prospect convince themselves.

The key is being proficient at several different types of persuasion. Additionally, you must be able to read your prospect well enough to know what method is the most likely to get them to act.

Having a wider toolkit also comes in handy if the prospect rejects your initial attempt. If this happens, you can take a different approach. You’re more likely to get results this way.

Forget Logic. Make ‘Em Feel Something!

Don’t worry, I’m not saying that logic isn’t important. While you have to give your prospect a rational reason to take action, it’s their heart that is going to push them over the edge.

You need to connect with your prospect on an emotional level and engage with them. When attempting to move others, you must target the correct emotion.

Is it more appropriate to tap into the prospect’s fears? Talk about what they could potentially lose. What about altruism? Maybe you could discuss how what you’re proposing will help the greater good. In some cases, sadness works best.

People decide on a course of action by using logic, but it’s emotion that gets them to move. Remember this, and you will be a great influencer.

Expertise + Relationships = Credibility

It’s a no-brainer that credibility is important if you want to get people to act. Your audience has to know that you know what you’re talking about.

What isn’t commonly known is that credibility doesn’t just come from experience and education. It also comes from trust.

People will respect your level of expertise if you have shown that you know how to get results. It’s also important to demonstrate that you have the knowledge necessary to help them.

However, this is not enough. You must also show that you are genuinely concerned about your audience’s needs. They need to know that they can trust you to pursue their best interests, not just yours. Both of these factors need to be demonstrated consistently if you are going to persuade people to take action.

Let Them Convince Themselves

The most effective way to get another person to take action is to get them to come to this conclusion themselves. This approach can sometimes take longer, but in the end, you will have someone who is completely sold on your idea.

The best way to do this is to engage in meaningful conversations where you do little talking and a lot of listening. It’s important to make sure you ask the right questions.

This helps you develop a greater understanding of where the other person is coming from. Additionally, this can give them the “nudge” they need to figure out why your proposal is worth agreeing to.

Position Yourself Effectively

The way you position yourself to your prospect is the way they will frame the rest of your interaction. While this is well-known in the world of sales, people tend to overlook this when it comes to selling ideas and other types of non-sales selling.

Positioning typically occurs at the beginning of the interaction, but it should also be emphasized throughout the conversation. Here are three components of effective positioning

• Your positioning statement: Who are you?
• The benefit you bring: Why do you matter?
• How it impacts the customer: What will be the result for the prospect?

Focus on the outcomes. What happens when customers do business with you? Here’s an example:

Marvin owns an IT consulting business. When he’s telling his prospects about his firm, he shouldn’t just talk about the fact that they help customers optimize their IT systems. Sure it sounds good, but the prospect doesn’t care about that as much as you would think.

Marvin would be better served by talking about the fact that his firm can ensure that the prospect’s business will run more smoothly and efficiently than it had before. His firm can make the prospect’s employees more efficient by making sure their systems are up to par.

These are the things prospective customers want to know about. Focus on the outcomes, and you will win more often.

Get Them To See The Benefit

Use visualization. If you’re in a situation where you can use pictures, make sure you use them. Our brains are wired to consume content that is more visual.

It’s easier for people to digest a presentation that is predominantly made up of images. While textual content is still important, we can recall pictures much easier.

Whenever you’re explaining why your suggestion should be taken, try to get your prospect to “see” the result. If you are unable to use actual pictures, paint a picture with your mind. Be descriptive. Tell them what it will look like when they do what you are asking.

Ask For It

When you’re attempting to persuade, don’t get so caught up in the interaction that you forget the most important part: getting to what you want. You can’t expect your prospects to just hear your pitch and then immediately buy what you’re selling.

You have to ask them for the sale. It doesn’t have to be complicated. Here’s the steps you should take before actually asking for the sale:

• Anticipate and preemptively address any objections.
• After your pitch ask if the customer has any questions about what you’ve discussed. This will give the prospect a chance to voice any unanticipated objections.
• When there’s no more questions, go ahead and ask for what you want.

Not too hard, right? Remembering to call the prospect to action will get you to the next stage of the sales process.

Use Social Labeling – Tell Them Who They Are

This is a great technique to use in any attempt to influence. Labeling simply involves making an observation about the prospect that is favorable to your position and expressing this observation.

Here’s some examples:

If you’re trying to motivate an employee to take on a task that they are afraid of, you can remind them of how hardworking and resourceful they are. If you are negotiating for better terms with a vendor, you can emphasize the fact that their organization is known for being a company that is fair to its customers.

Labeling is very similar to giving praise, but it’s different because of the fact that you’re giving the prospect a label that helps you get to “yes.” Like praise, social labeling should be done ethically. Make sure you’re being 100% sincere when you use this tactic. Again, your prospect will know if you don’t mean what you’re saying.

Get Into Their Heads – Understanding Your Prospect

One of the most important aspects of the sales process is understanding the people you’re trying to influence. If you don’t know what your prospect’s needs, goals, and worries are, it will be harder to provide an effective solution. You will have no idea how your product, service, or idea can benefit your prospect.

When it comes time to make your pitch, you will be shooting in the dark. Ask good, open-ended questions in order to get as much information as possible. Open-ended questions get the prospect to talk more, which means you will learn more about them. The better you know your prospect, the easier it will be to solve their problems.

Additionally, the more your prospect talks, the more they will trust you. When you take the time to ask questions about the prospect, they will see that you actually care about their needs, not just what you’re trying to sell them.

Give Them Permission to Say No

Want to know one of the most persuasive sales techniques you can use? Tell your prospect that they can say no. Acknowledge that they are free to decline your offer.

That’s right.

Reminding the customer that they have the freedom to make their own choice actually makes them more likely accept what you’re offering. This is called the “but you are free to choose (BYAF)” technique.

In numerous studies, researchers found that using this technique nearly doubled the chances of a prospect saying “yes.” Reaffirming the prospect’s freedom to choose makes them feel less pressure. They don’t feel as if the influencer is trying to make them feel obligated to accept the offer. This makes them more comfortable with making the decision to buy from you.

Smile!

Want an easy way to instantly boost your persuasiveness? Flash those pearly whites. Not only does smiling put you in a better mood, it also enhances your efforts at influence.

When you smile, it has an effect on the people around you. It’s been shown that smiling can make others trust you. In one study, researchers found that a genuine smile increased people’s willingness to trust by 10%.

Remember, people buy from those that they know, like and trust. Smiling makes you more relatable and trustworthy to your prospects, which will improve the chances that they will buy from you.

Find Your Purpose

Before, all a successful company had to do was provide better and cheaper products and services to the consumer. They also had to market and sell their product more effectively. Obviously, this isn’t easy.

But it’s not enough. Not anymore.

Now, you need something more than a great product at a great price. Your brand needs a purpose.

With the internet, people are able to communicate more often with their favorite brands. Additionally, they can easily find information on these companies. If they want to know more about a company, it’s as easy as a click of the mouse.

Because of this, your brand needs to be able to relate to your audience. This means you need to have a purpose that resonates with the people you intend to market to. Instead of focusing primarily on your unique selling proposition, you need to focus on your unique brand perspective.

What does your brand stand for? What difference is it trying to make in the world? What problems does it want to solve?

When you know what your brand’s purpose is, you will be able to show the “human” side of your brand. This is something consumers can relate to. It will allow you to better connect to them. If you want to stand out, find something to stand for.

Conclusion

For entrepreneurs who don’t have much sales experience, selling can be intimidating. Learning how to move others to action isn’t easy.

However, it’s important to remember that selling is a skill that can be learned, not an inborn trait that only certain people possess. There are many techniques that you can master over time. If you’re willing to put the time and energy into learning these techniques, you will become a master influencer.

Warren Buffett is generally regarded as something of a demi-god in investing circles. Most of the praise comes for his stock picking abilities though, rather than for his ability to select good managers at good companies and give them the freedom to run those firms well. That acumen is a critical component of Berkshire’s success, as one of Buffett’s portfolio companies recently demonstrated.

Nevada utility company NV Energy is ideally positioned to benefit from solar power. Nevada is one of those states with a lot of sun, a lot of land, and not many people. The Nevada wilderness is a great place to economically develop large scale solar projects. The cheap cost of land, abundant sunshine, and lack of serious environmental obstacles are all a boon for NV Energy – so much so that the firm just signed a deal to buy solar power at an unbelievably cheap rate of less than 4 cent per kWh.

The deal was made possible by a more streamlined and efficient regulatory process, and in many respects it shows just how far neighboring California has deteriorated from an ease-of-business standpoint. The same project that NV Energy will now patronize in Nevada, could have been built in California, were it not for a series of perplexing road blocks to solar power in the Mojave Desert that apparently even have some environmentalists confused.

Overall NV Energy’s deal is heralding a new day in solar power. As industrial scale solar continues to become more and more efficient, the power source will likely become a bigger and bigger contributor to the overall needs of the U.S. energy grid. At $0.03-$0.04 per kilowatt hour, NV Energy’s solar generation cost is competitive with any other source of power on the market today. Forget about the environment here, the deal makes sense from a purely business point of view. This was a great move on the part of Buffet’s lieutenants.

But in addition to the profit value of generating power at this price point, the deal has another big benefit for NV Energy; it can be used to start squashing the complaints about NV Energy’s roof top solar program. The basic idea with roof top solar is that a solar panel is put on a person’s roof and then connected to the energy grid so that the individual has power when the sun is not shining. Under the policy of net metering, the utility company is forced to buy excess solar energy generated at a set price.

NV Energy has come under attack for being slow to let customers hook their solar panels to the grid. The company is obligated to buy power from customers at $0.06 per kWh. This new deal should let the company cut that price over time. NV Energy will now be able to point to this project and ask state regulators the natural question of why it should be forced to favor rooftop solar over large-scale solar. That disparity will likely be difficult for regulators to defend.

In addition, the new project should also help NV with another issue related to rooftop solar. Rooftop solar companies and residents have been complaining that NV Energy is looking at charging a grid connection fee to residents regardless of energy usage. SolarCity and others may not like the idea, but economically the principle is sound.

NV Energy and other power companies provide utility lines and essentially a form of insurance to homeowners (if your power goes out you can draw from the grid). They have to be paid for this service even when the insurance is not used, otherwise they won’t supply it. With so much additional environmentally-friendly solar power on the books, NV should have an easier time asking regulators to allow such fees in the future on an economic basis without consideration of the irrelevant environmental issues.

Of course, all of these actions by NV Energy could have an unexpected beneficiary: Tesla, through its PowerWall system. That is an issue for another time though.

Join the conversation about this story »

This post originally appeared on HubSpot's Marketing blog. For more content like this, subscribe to Marketing.

In 1951, there was a 21-year-old man who had trouble with public speaking. In fact, the thought of speaking in front of a group of people was so off-putting that it'd often make him physically sick.

Determined to improve his speaking ability, he ended up taking the Dale Carnegie training program -- an educational course aimed at helping individuals improve their communication skills and better influence outcomes. And since then, he can't stop talking.

That 21-year-old man was Warren Buffett.

But Buffet was just one of many highly successful leaders that came out of the Dale Carnegie program -- Chuck Norris, Mary Kay Ash, and Lyndon B. Johnson are also graduates of the training.

With that said, there's no denying the value of the principles put forward by Dale Carnegie in his course and book How to Win Friends and Influence People. To help you gain a better understanding of that value, we've detailed nine of the training's most timeless leadership lessons in the SlideShare below.

Every morning when I open up Chrome I am greeted with a scenic view of some beautiful location in the world and the question “What is your main focus today?” There is actually a place to add in ONE goal, objective or main task for the day.

Yes, this is an app called Momentum and it’s a personal dashboard designed to eliminate distraction and provide inspiration, focus, and productivity. It does just that. Each time I open up a new tab in Chrome I am immediately reminded of my original focus for the day. I need that reminder as I juggle meetings, a lineup of prescheduled calls, text reminders and gentle nudgings from my family.

This morning the quote that popped up gave me particular pause:

“Progress is impossible without change, and those who cannot change their minds cannot change anything.” —George Bernard Shaw

Why? I work with salespeople filled with the best of intentions, reasonable goals and unlimited opportunities who are stuck in the mire of those good intentions but not able to meet those quotas. At best, they find a new position that will carry them for a while and at worst they suffer through for years.

We can’t do the same thing over and over and expect different results. Yet we tend to languish in this place.

Professionally, I consider myself a sales professional before trainer, coach, and consultant. Selling as a profession is not highly regarded but I have always begged to differ. Great salespeople are focused, have an unflappable and non-negotiable work ethic and are skilled in psychology, emotional intelligence, diplomacy, negotiation, thoughtfulness, communication, listening, and technology. They are continual learners and insatiably curious. Someone with those skills will be a rock star.

Many of those skills are either innate or have been taught in orientation and through professional development. Today, it’s the technology skill that holds people back. Salespeople must be schooled in “technology.” Stop using the the excuse “I didn’t grow up with this stuff.” That riles me faster than my daughters asking me “What’s for dinner?” No kidding. But it’s not a write off. There’s no technology amnesty.

In order to sustain or further your career, understanding what buttons to push, which programs to use, how various devices perform, what the “cloud” is, are important.

Last week I was training more than twenty former and current CEOs who now run their own businesses. There was one or two under 45 the others mostly over 55. They were rock stars. I knew there were about 100 things they would rather have been doing that morning but they were there, invested, ready to learn; and they did. They asked questions, they pushed back, they invented ways to make it work for them. But mostly, like Momentum’s tweetable quote from this morning said, they changed their minds. They realized they needed to do something different to build their practices.

They had been trained to dial for dollars and while it worked years ago it just doesn’t work to the same degree today. There are too many distractions (devices), too many meetings (no one is sitting waiting to pick up your call), too many gatekeepers (live person and voice mail). Today it’s about understanding how to use Google, LinkedIn, Twitter, CRM platforms, and leveraging your industry knowledge and network to grow your business. This is relevant for an emerging young professional, a small business owner or a seasoned regional sales VP who still manages a territory.

5 Tips To Learn The Thing Called “Tech”

1. Understand which online tools will help you grow your business (know the why and how).
2. Spend an evening or part of your weekend taking a class on Lynda.com (you should also be able to access through LinkedIn), Skillshare, or any other of the other online course platforms.
3. Hire a student or ask your kids to show you the tools they use for work (Google Drive, Evernote, Prismatic, Salesforce, LinkedIn).
4. Ask your company about their professional development options.
5. Ultimately, you are in charge of your own professional development and it’s easier today than ever through books, podcasts* (*currently, my preferred option, see some of my favorites below), online learning platforms, seminars, conferences and training and coaching engagements.

Don’t try to learn them all at once or even download them all at once. Pick one, learn it and decide if it works. I am beginning to realize that too many of these apps and tools slow us down, we’re suddenly managing our apps. I’m leaning on choosing a handful that play together and using them more often. There is a balance, no doubt.

As a sales professional, don’t forget that your main focus each day is to further your selling efforts. Your prospect and client nurturing should be the majority of what you do each day; not what you weave in between administrative and production tasks. I know it’s not easy but you didn’t sign up for easy, did you?

*My current favorite podcasts include:

• Daily Boost
• Art of Value
• EntreLeadership
• Read to Lead
• Marketing Smarts
• The Sophisticated Marketers Podcast
• Creative Training Techniques
• This is Your Life (I prefer the older episodes)
• Smart Passive Income
• On Being (a favorite)
• Good Life Project (a favorite)
• Blogging Your Passion

Podcasts are really the radio stations of the early 21st century; talk radio, if you will. I guarantee that you will learn more than you could have imagined. Our learning, just like our networks, strengthen our professional currency. It’s less about what we like and more about what we need to acknowledge and invest in to move forward.

I have now completed my main focus for the day; this blog.

As a consumer in today’s fluctuating buyer landscape, you’re presented with more information than ever before. You know what you want, and you don’t think twice when rejecting a sale that’s perceived as different from your pre-defined needs. And as your buying power continues to escalate, sales reps, on the other hand, are finding themselves in lesser welcoming territory – or one of seemingly endless disconnect. Thus, in order to sell effectively, sales reps must find new ways to connect with buyers. They must adopt and maintain a different selling strategy – but how?

Let’s think about this…What would make you stop and listen? What if the sales pitch was aligned, truly aligned, and in lockstep with your buying process? By serving up the most compelling selling assets, sales teams are better prepared to begin building the blocks of what becomes a trusting relationship. Having that alignment, as well as timely and relevant content available at their fingertips, sellers can stay one step ahead of the buyer. However, it’s important to note that this can only be achieved if all content assets are up-to-date and compelling. Unfortunately, according to our recent Content Automation Trends report, over 75% of survey respondents say their frequency of reviewing and updating sales content is only somewhat, not very or not at all sufficient.

Moreover, 49% of survey respondents cite that their data and content in sales assets is only somewhat accurate, while nearly the same percentage of respondents (48%) say content is reviewed and updated on an as-needed basis. This incongruity calls into question the reliability of selling content. Is anyone ever notified of a content update? In addition, and even more troublesome, is that content updates are often not targeting unique buyers, let alone are set up to be easily personalized. So while you should always personalize your selling content, doing so is only worthwhile when you’re personalizing appropriately, to each particular buyer, in each particular selling situation.

Interested in learning more about what other companies are doing to optimize their selling techniques and processes? Hint: there’s more to content than you think. Take a read here.

Inbound marketing is an effective way to grow website traffic and increase your lead generation efforts. One of the many reasons this kind of marketing is effective today is because it is heavily data-driven. Whether you’re piecing out how to write a blog headline or figuring out your response rate for social media engagement, numbers are always available to guide your decision-making and provide context for why you do what you do.

Email marketing — the process of keeping touch, educating and converting leads through email campaigns — is no exception. Email marketing statistics exist to help you write the most effective email from top to bottom, and they are always changing because new data is always available. So if you haven’t been up on the most updated information in email marketing since 2012 or 2013, here are the latest statistics available:

Statistics For Using Email Marketing

The first batch of email marketing statistics come from Salesforce Marketing Cloud’s 2015 State of Marketing Report. Combined, these statistics continue to make a convincing case for using email marketing.

• Email is nearly 40 times better than Facebook and Twitter at acquiring customers. (McKinsey & Company)
• 73 percent of marketers think email marketing is core to their business.
• Marketers who think that email is a critical enabler of products and services has risen 18 percent since 2014 (from 42 percent to 60 percent).
• 20 percent of marketers say their business’ primary revenue source is directly linked to email operations.
• 43 percent of businesses have email teams of 2-3 people.
• 74 percent of marketers believe email produces or will produce ROI in the future.
• Click-through rates (47 percent), conversion rates (43 percent), and click-to-open rates (38 percent) are the top metrics used to monitor email marketing achievement.
• Nearly two-thirds of companies would like to improve their personalization (64 percent), marketing automation (64 percent), and segmentation (62 percent). (EConsultancy)
• 59 percent of marketers plan to increase their email marketing budgets in 2015.

Statistics For Writing Email Marketing Emails

Knowing email marketing is effective is one thing. Using it effectively is another thing entirely. Here’s a look at writing email marketing emails from the perspective of the Salesforce Marketing Cloud’s marketing report:

• Email content and design (79 percent), campaign management (74 percent), and contact management (74 percent) rank as the three most critical aspects of an email.
• Marketers rank the 3 most effective aspects of an email as email content and design (66 percent), templates (59 percent), and quality control (58 percent).
• MailChimp reports straightforward, non-salesy email headlines outperform their opposites time after time.
• MailChimp also reports that short, descriptive headlines (under 50 characters) perform best overall and that list quality and list frequency can also play a major role in email marketing list performance.
• Salesforce finds that a one-column layout works best in both aware and responsive design.
• Finally, according to HubSpot, there’s no perfect formula for email length. It will vary according to your audience, the purpose of the email, and the kind of email it is.

Statistics For Sending Email Marketing Emails

Sending email marketing emails is another data-rich endeavor because email marketing clients have the capability to track and compare everything from send times to open rates. Here’s a look at useful statistics for planning the launch of your campaign:

• Newsletters (66 percent), promotional content (54 percent), and welcome series emails (42 percent) rank as the top three uses of emails.
• Mobile opt-ins (76 percent), birthday emails (75 percent), and transactional emails (74 percent), on the other hand, rank as the most effective emails.
• MailChimp data indicates that no single weekday is best for response and open rates. It also reveals that email opens peak between 9 AM and 12 PM and slowly decline over the rest of the day and evening.
• Find out more about open, click-through, and bounce rates according to your specific industry and company size by reading MailChimp’s 2015 Email Marketing Benchmark Report.

Statistics For Reading Email Marketing Emails

Email marketing works because of the incredible numbers associated with customers that use email daily. Here’s a deeper look at how people read email marketing emails:

• 72 percent of US online adults send or receive personal emails via smartphone at least weekly (Forrester).
• In a May 2013 survey of US Internet users showed that respondents spend more time per week with email than any other digital activity.
• According to Salesforce, 1/3 of marketers say their subscribers read emails on mobile devices at least 50 percent of the time.
• For Gmail users, the iPhone’s built-in mail program is the #1 email client for 34 percent of all Gmail opens (Litmus).
• 48 percent of emails are opened on mobile devices. Only 11 percent of emails are optimized for mobile. 69 percent of mobile users delete emails that aren’t optimised for mobile. 64 percent of decision-makers read their email via mobile devices.
• 64 percent of people say they open an e-mail because of the subject line (Mark the Marketer via Workflow Max).
• 76 percent of email opens occur in the first two days after an email is sent and the open rates of those emails are lower on weekends than on weekdays.

• 72 percent of B2B buyers are very likely to share useful content via email.

• Desktop and smartphone email opens happen most often between 10am and 4pm—during the typical workday (Harland Clarke).

Inspired to get to work on your next campaign? You should be. Email marketing is a cornerstone practice of successful inbound marketing. Now that you’re all caught up on the most recent email marketing statistics, you’re prepared to design even more effective email launches.

We are happy to announce an official Close.io Leftronic integration. Leftronic makes it easy to build a customized dashboard that displays your critical sales metrics visualized exactly the way you want. 

Keeping an eye on the success of your sales team is critical in determining what's working and what's not. All you'll need is your Close.io login credentials to retrieve and manipulate data in the following categories:

• Lead Status
• Lead Status Transitions
• Activity Report
• Opportunity Status
• Opportunity Status Transitions
• Sent Email Report
• ...and lots more!

With Leftronic, you can extract your sales metrics from Close.io through a drag-&-drop interface and create a custom data dashboard without any coding.

Monitor your crucial sales, marketing, financial, and social media KPIs in one place.

In addition, you’ll be able to combine Close.io data with feeds from social media and usage info from web analytics platforms to get a more complete picture of how potential customers are moving through your funnel. Pull in customer service data and gain insight over the entire customer lifetime so you can improve retention and identify up-sell opportunities.

Combine widgets from Close.io with other third-party services like UserVoice to track the performance of your help desk team as well as sales agents, or retrieve Basecamp metrics to effectively monitor task performance. Add in SendGrid or MailChimp data to keep an eye on the effectiveness of your marketing tactics and you'll be able to seamlessly track leads from marketing and sales. See a full list of Leftronic's integrated service partners here: https://www.leftronic.com/services/.

You can control what data to highlight and share throughout your organization -- send scheduled dashboard snapshots as your team meets milestones or give colleagues access to view your dashboards with a secure, password-protected link. 

Click here to get started with your 14-day free Leftronic trial now!

All of our integrations are made possible via our API – feel free to build your own and let us know!

For the last 13 years I would argue that every single campaign we’ve run is different than the rest, very few are exactly alike. While there may be many similarities, we’re always faced with some kind of unique challenge. Believe me, the differences are something we’re passionate about taking on with everyone of our clients…otherwise, we would have run for the hills long ago.

We could be calling on the same product that we have in the past, with similar messaging and end up seeing an entirely different result. I understand it makes sense to go back to the well on the things that have worked for you in the past but prospecting isn’t as simple of a process as most sales reps assume it is.

There are obviously many factors that play into our lack of success that we have to pay attention to.

Here are 7 of the most common areas that we’ve found that can play a major role in your inside sales team’s success with any campaign:

Your List. If I’ve said it once, I’ve said it 1000 times. I would scream it from the mountaintops if I could. Your reps need to work with a good quality list containing accurate contact information. There is no worse time suck for your reps if they are calling into a prospect that doesn’t exist.

Your Target Title Focus. Exclusively focusing your time into one specific title at each company has proven to be an ineffective use of my reps time. Everyone only wants to spend their time talking to that home run title. Let’s be real, how often do they pick up their phone? That C-level title might have a few other things going on in their day…outside of waiting by their phone for you to call of course. Consider getting a minimum of 3 other titles into the prospecting rotation that would be involved in the decision. This always helps to accelerate the speed at which we get to a yes or a no.

Your Vertical/Industry Focus. The broader you are in your vertical focus the better. Similar to titles you call on; think about a minimum of 3 verticals to hit during any campaign.

Your Collateral. 18 page case studies are wonderful, but isn’t necessarily a great prospecting tool. Simplicity is necessary as your ramp up your calling efforts. Voicemails and emails should be brief and to the point and any collateral sent should be minimal. You could send at most, a 2 page fact sheets that sum up what you do quickly unless you have uncovered a specific challenge that you can address with content.

Your Outside Reps’ Motivation. This is a tough one. There is nothing worse than an outside rep that has no appreciation of the work that goes into generating a lead from cold calling. If that’s the case, they probably have never had to do a cold dial in their life. It’s important to have a mutual definition of what a lead is and a process to follow up on all leads developed so that the self entitled reps can be held accountable.

Your Inside Rep’s Time Management. If your reps are not building time into their day for pre-call planning they will make ineffective and inefficient dials. Come up with call plan for them to follow. Make a point to have them focus on getting 15 dials in before 10 a.m. This helps them get their day started quickly and sets the tone for the rest of the day.

Your Lack Of A Clean Process. Do you have any idea what happens to the leads when you pass them over to outside sales? Most of us do a post campaign analysis but that is generally too late. Come up with a closed loop feedback process to make sure the leads have been transitioned properly to the outside rep and they are doing the necessary follow up. It always helps to loop their boss in when you’re requesting feedback on the leads as well.

Now that we’re in the dog days of summer it can be an easy excuse for us to use that as a reason why our inside sales team is struggling. It’s a lousy excuse if you ask me since we all knew July and August were coming, right? Try focusing on improving the 7 areas above and maybe you can see that team performance turn around.

What other advice would you offer to increase your summer sales campaign success?

I think it’s time we sat down and had a serious conversation about using Twitter and LinkedIn for business purposes. It’s no mystery that both of these services are great marketing tools for business owners – good for networking, good for sharing ideas, good for customer service, good for promotion. But, what separates those who are good at using these two key marketing services from those who use them poorly? Let’s jump right in.

Give more. Expect less.

Hopefully, this woman is following social media best practices!

They say that patience is a virtue – and so it is when it comes to social media marketing. The ability to use Twitter and LinkedIn for marketing, especially organically – meaning without paid advertising – doesn’t just come overnight. The reason for this is simple – it takes time to build a network, and it takes time to build trust and credibility. Because business owners can be impatient, this often leads to trying to take shortcuts and bending the rules. More often than not, this winds up backfiring on the business owner or the brand – either because the account winds up suspended, the engagement drops or the account loses credibility.

Let’s explore what people who are good at using Twitter and LinkedIn to promote their business are doing, what they’re not doing and why giving more while expecting less is a good thing.

On to the habits, then…

Automatic Direct Messages on Twitter

• What pros don’t do – successful Twitter users do not use an application to generate generic form direct messages which are automatically sent to every single person who follows them
• What pros do –  people who “get” Twitter (I have a short, growing, aptly-named list) take the time to actually look at the profile of someone who follows them, and if there is mutual interest, they reach out with a personal note
• Why some people do it – it’s fast and easy, and if you spam enough people one of them might click on the link you send them – this is more or less the equivalent of email spam
• Why it’s best not to – when you send an automatic message, even if it has a custom field for the follower’s name in it, it always comes across generic and desperate. When I see an automatic direct message with a link or a “via crowdfire” I usually just ignore it, as do most other people I know. This is more or less the same thing as someone greeting you on the elevator, and you then asking them if they want to buy your book. It’s not going to work 99% of the time.

What do all of these random Twitter direct messages have in common? They have zero value, to me.

Purchase Fake Followers on Twitter

• What pros don’t do – a lot of the intelligent users on Twitter have a large following, but they didn’t pay for it – not for fake followers, anyway
• What pros do –  people who understand the dynamics of building a following know it’s the long game, and there isn’t a great way to beat it, without maybe spending advertising dollars – which arguably still gets lower quality followers. Pros interact with people, directly, post interesting content, at the right time, using the right hashtags
• Why some people do it – could be a couple of reasons for this: 1. social proof, more followers = successful business, right? 2. some people just want to feel like they have a big following, like the pros
• Why it’s best not to – fake followers can, and most likely will, destroy your engagement rate on Twitter, so anyone looking at your feed would know, immediately, that something is up. Also, with free tools like TwitterAudit, it’s easier than ever to see if someone is full of it or not. Buying fake followers is a total waste of money, and at worst can get your account suspended.

You cannot get away with fake followers on Twitter.

Post Image Macros, Memes, Quotes, Random Photos on LinkedIn

• What pros don’t do – you won’t see some of the more seasoned LinkedIn users posting sarcastic Willy Wonka image macros, or pictures of their kids playing badminton, or “inspirational” quotes which everyone knows by heart – on obscure starry night background images
• What pros do – some of the best content I see on LinkedIn often comes from the same small group of people – people who take the time to either create great original content, or share niche stuff which I otherwise wouldn’t find – most likely. This makes me more likely to support them, like their posts and comment on them, because the content is actually… engaging!
• Why some people do it – one can only assume Facebook is blocked in these people’s offices. Some probably do it because it generates engagement, like it does on Facebook.
• Why it’s best not to – guess what? Posting irrelevant content makes you appear much less professional – because you’re scraping the bottom of the barrel to get people’s attention, instead of posting good, useful, professional content.

Yes, roses are great, and the best place for them, on the internet, is on Facebook, Pinterest and Instagram. This is not an example of valuable content for LinkedIn.

View Your LinkedIn Profile Every Day, Sometimes Several Times

• What pros don’t do – experienced (sales) professionals on LinkedIn won’t spam visits to my page every day, just to get on my radar. They understand that I am a person, and not a robot or a number on a page – the best salespeople on LinkedIn get to know me before reaching out.
• What pros do –  I was very impressed recently with a sales rep from BrightTALK who looked at my LinkedIn and saw I do webinars, then found my Twitter, read through my post history and connected with me on a topic I was passionate about. She then followed up with me via email about our discussion and asked if I wanted to talk about their product. I was impressed – this pitch was personal, the rep knew my passion and engaged me in a discussion before pitching me on their product. Even though I didn’t wind up moving forward, we stayed connected and this is someone I would definitely reach out to when the need arises, and would recommend to others. Do this.
• Why some people do it – again, it’s a fast and lazy effort to “ping” (or “poke”, in Facebook terms) someone, which sends you a notification that someone looked at your profile. It’s also a way to see if you will click back on their profile, which 1. shows that you are active on LinkedIn and 2. may indicate interest in the product or service this person is selling – giving them leverage to reach out to you again.
• Why it’s best not to – this approach is one which is easily seen through, and indicates a very generic approach to reaching someone. It takes more work, but doing some research on the person you want to pitch goes a long way in making a sale, or at least generating a lead.

Send Unsolicited InMail on LinkedIn

• What pros don’t do – looking back, I often find that the people who post the best content on LinkedIn are also those who did not spam email me either before or right after connecting with me – maybe there’s a pattern there.
• What pros do – as mentioned above, a professional will do research before reaching out, and figure out if you’re interested in what they’re offering before sending you a personal message, in the best case one that doesn’t include a pitch at all!
• Why some people do it – again, it’s a volume game. Much like unsolicited, spam email, if you send it to enough people, one or two will maybe click. When you’re more focused on hitting numbers, instead of building real relationships with potential clients, quality sometimes takes a backseat.
• Why it’s best not to – when I get emails like this, especially if I just connected with the person sending me said unsolicited email, I typically delete it and promptly remove the offender from my connections – I unsubscribe. LinkedIn is an awesome place to build business connections, but it’s a social network, so it’s best to use it socially, by starting a friendly conversation instead of showing your product or service down someone’s throat.

Post Ads as LinkedIn Blog Posts

• What pros don’t do – good content marketers know the value of a well thought-through, quality-crafted blog post – it’s a way to show expertise, and build credibility. A professional content marketer would not risk losing reputation by posting an ad, posing as content, on LinkedIn’s blogging platform.
• What pros do – the best content marketers on LinkedIn take the time to not only build an appropriate audience, but also to create engaging content which they think their audience will find genuinely useful.
• Why some people do it – blog posts on LinkedIn have a longer shelf-life than the typical newsfeed update, they allow the use of nice imagery and more room to get the point across.
• Why it’s best not to – posting something like the example here will instantly lower your clout as a professional marketer, and will, without a doubt, lower your engagement rate – decreasing your long-term return on investment (ROI).

This is most likely not how LinkedIn intended for their blogging platform to be used.

Why Aren’t We Talking about Facebook?

Simply put, Facebook has been good at making it hard to go wrong on their platform, by limiting the amount of organic outreach a brand has to “personal” profiles – this severely limits the ability to be annoying.

Twitter and LinkedIn give brands, business owners and marketers much more freedom, which is awesome, because it allows us to achieve greater ROI and make connections which sometimes outlast our time at a given job or business. Social networking is, after all, meant to encourage organic collaboration between people, in the digital space.

The Takeaway

So, now that you’re an expert on what to do and what not to do on LinkedIn and Twitter, how do you actually start creating content which is engaging? I would greatly encourage you to read the following two books, both of which are fairly recent, on not only how to write good content, but also how to be a good marketer!

Ann Handley – Everybody Writes
Chris Brogan – Trust Agents

Here, Ann Handley extrapolates on one of the key points, in her book Everybody Writes, on why – even though less than optimal marketing methods may see some success – they don’t stack up when it comes to long-term ROI.

Sales and marketing, at their best, are built on relationships. The more genuine the relationship, the more long-term return on investment you will achieve.

@kirill_kniazev Trust is the point for me. It’s the one that delivers long-term gains.

— Ann Handley (@MarketingProfs) July 28, 2015

So, which social media platform is the right one for my business? Juntae DeLane provides some great statistics in his post on the subject. Ultimately, the best way to figure out which platform works best is to, as always, test! But, knowing some shortcuts on where to get started testing never hurt anyone.

You’ve made it all the way through the post. Are you ready for my pitch? I don’t really have one, but if social media marketing is something you’re interested in learning more about, for your business, sign up for our totally free 30-minute educational webinar, on the topic, on August 27th! The webinar is part of a series of educational webinars, sponsored by SmartReach Digital.

Making the wrong sales hiring decision has an enormous negative impact on a business’ finances. Often overlooked, but closely related, is the larger impact it has on a sales team’s morale.

The cost of a bad hire

SAP recently rounded up a series of statistics on the impact of a bad hire. Citing research from Mindflash and CareerBuilder, the articles show that 41% of survey respondents reported a bad hire cost them $25,000, while 25% said a bad hire in the previous year cost them $50,000.

Breaking down costs even further, Mariah Deleon, vice president of people at Glassdoor, notes in a recent Entrepreneur article that a bad hire costs employers dearly when it comes to productivity. Deleon shares a statistic from Robert Half International that shows 11% of companies reported a bad hire resulted in fewer sales.

Quantifying the cost of a bad hire in terms of time, the Robert Half study revealed that supervisors spend 17% of their time managing poorly performing employees.

In one of our previous articles, What is The Cost of a Bad Sales Hire, we calculated that a bad sales hire costs the typical sales department upwards of $690,000. Read the article to find out how we calculated this loss and you’ll get a better idea of the value of a good sales person and just how much a bad hire can detract from your year.

Measuring the cost of a bad hire in terms of time and money is one thing – but the ramifications of the bad hire extend much further…..the dark cloud that a bad employee brings into the office can impact the mood of the whole sales team. Deleon refers to the Robert Half study to note that 95% of financial executives surveyed “said that making a bad hire at least somewhat effects the morale of the team, and 35 percent said a poor hire greatly influences employee morale.”

Poor morale is an especially damaging drain on a sales team. This article from Soma Metrics, which closely aligns with our experience at Peak, provides a list of the top five morale busters, and it’s easy to see how a bad hire can creep into each aspect of your sales team and begin eroding team spirit – from a new sales manager who hosts horrible meetings, a top morale buster according to Soma, to a prima donna who arrives with the wrong set of expectations.

SAP points out that an underperforming employee places a burden on the remainder of the team, creating a situation where “good workers end up getting saddled with additional workload [which] eventually wears down the team spirit as the group is overburdened carrying a non-contributing member.” Underperforming sales team members are burning more than time – they’re also churning through good leads, converting far fewer than they should, and alienating potential customers. If other sales team members are burdened with trying to compensate for their underperforming team member, you’re creating even more potential loss.

Losing time and money is a bad situation, but gaining a cadre of now-unhappy sales team members is even worse. It’s natural to want to foster a bad hire into a better performer, and while there is such a thing as a rocky start, sometimes you just have to admit that the hire wasn’t a good one.

“Hire slowly, fire fast”

How to handle a bad decision

There are red flags to look for in a bad hire both in terms of results and attitude. Consistent inability to hunt and close new business, inconsistent use of your CRM, not giving the required hours or activity levels, poor planning, tardiness, no sense of urgency, not optimistic, lacking resilience after losing deals, interaction issues with other staff, and failure to embrace the sales strategy despite undergoing standardized training, all signal that a hire doesn’t belong on your sales team. Within 3 months you should know you hired the wrong person, and it’s important to remove them from your team before all of these bad qualities start taking a toll on other team members.

Fast action is warranted when you consider the ripple effect a bad employee can have on your sales team as well as your customer and vendor relationships. Consider indirect costs incurred by lost sales, or compensating for errors the employee made. In the worst-case scenario, there could be litigation costs initiated by the employee or by customers or vendors who interacted with the employee. As these problems multiply, the entire team – including management – feels the impact.

Making a better hire the next time

A structured and rigorous interview and assessment process mitigates hiring risk. A consistent hiring process for each and every candidate offers an “apples to apples” comparison, and allows you to determine with the highest degree of certitude who the best hire. Multiple interviews involving all stakeholders in the hiring decision, combined with third-party psychometric and behavorial testing, and extensive background research should be used for each candidate.

Careful planning, strategic thinking, and adopting a disciplined sales hiring process can help you make better decisions in the long run and avoid the pitfalls that a bad sales hire can have on your team’s morale.

For more comprehensive insights on how to make the right sales hiring decision for your organization, get instant access to our eBook “Make the Right Sales Hire Every Time.”

The post Poor Hiring: The Impact on Sales Team Morale appeared first on Peak Sales Recruiting.

Lead qualification is one of the primary jobs for B2B marketers, and a great deal of time and money is spent on this step of the sales cycle. Now that I’ve stated the obvious, I see both good and bad lead qualification processes in the market. As an information junkie, I sign up for many webinars and download white papers on topics of interest, and subsequently am called by the sponsoring company to qualify me.

While there have certainly been improvements in the lead qualification process over the last 10 or so years, I still am surprised when I’m a victim of a poor qualification process by companies who should know better. Which leads me to 5 Do’s and Don’ts of B2B lead qualification.

1. Do: know who you’re qualifying

Only on about 2 out of 10 lead qualification calls I receive does the caller know anything about my company. Yes, they know the company name, but have no idea of what we do. They immediately launch into their script that focuses on what they want to know for qualification vs. first understanding who we are and what we do. As a result, my responses are rather curt (sorry callers) as I feel this is a waste of time.

Here’s why this matters and certainly is critical when calling senior level executives. It is well accepted that senior executives expect that you will have done some research on their company that includes, but is not limited to, visiting their website. The more you demonstrate your knowledge about their company and industry, the more you will open them up to answer the qualification questions. If this is true for senior level executives, it will also work for others in the decision tree as well.

Do your homework first!

2. Do: follow-up promptly

There is no question that a speedy follow-up converts more inquiries to leads and sales. We all tend to have short- term memories, and there is likely to be a vague memory of a webinar a week or more after attendance. On the other hand, if a follow-up call is made instantly after the webinar, the individual likely will not have digested the information sufficiently to answer the qualification questions, and/or the webinar sponsor may come across as too desperate for sales, and a bit creepy if the call is made too quickly.

A good practice is to send an email within an hour after the webinar that predicates a call within the next day, and even providing the name of the caller if possible. This gives you a chance to deepen the follow-up by providing the presentation slides or attaching some additional relevant content. It also allows time for the research recommended in #1 above.

Follow-up fast, but don’t be creepy.

3. Don’t: spin your wheels

Most companies have a good idea of who their best market segments are either due to customer profiling and/or input from product and market managers. The first level targeting matrix is industry code (SIC or NAICS) and company size. This matrix is frequently called the “sweet spots” for marketing. Yet, many lead qualification efforts do not first distinguish best prospects from others, and spin their wheels on non-likely prospects.

Telemarketing is an expensive touch, and should be focused on those individuals who fit the best prospect profile – another reason to do up front research. Before launching a telemarketing lead qualification process, separate the best prospects from others. To separate a small number of prospects, a look-up process, and/or website visit should tell you if the company meets the best prospect criteria. If the number of responses or inquiries is large, then a data enhancement and profiling step should be done first. This is particularly true when returning from trade shows with a large number of booth visitors.

For other prospects that do not fall into any sweet spot, an email follow-up is sufficient assuming it contains an offer for response that might help in further qualifying them for a telemarketing call.

Do prevent spinning your wheels by profiling.

4. Do: progressively qualify

One of the failures of BANT (yes I was at IBM) was attempting to answer the four qualification criteria during the first contact. As a result, many potential leads were lost due to the inability or the individual to answer the Budget, Authority, Need and Timing questions. Frequently, the individual just didn’t know these answers and were then scored “not qualified.” We certainly have progressed from those days, or at least I think we have, until I get a call that does exactly this.

If you are using BANT or a variation of this lead scoring model, don’t attempt to determine the answers to these questions too quickly. In fact, any of the qualifying criteria might take a period of time before an accurate answer can be given by the individual.

For example, several years ago I was involved in a lead generation and qualification program for a client where it took 22 months for the lead to finally say the timing was right. Obviously, this was a long lead nurturing process, but within a month of all the criteria being scored (“timing” was the last one to fall into place), the software sale was made to the tune of over $150,000. Well worth the wait!

Do be patient and qualify over time.

5. Don’t ditch old lead lists

It’s only natural for marketers to strive to generate new leads by launching campaigns, attending trade shows, etc. But at best, only 10% of qualified leads convert to sales and thus 90% or more do not. In addition to buying from a competitor, other reasons exist for lack of sales conversion, and the big one is postponement of the decision and/or no decision. If the sales staff hears that the timing is “down the road,” or some other reason for a “no decision,” they will likely move on and drop the lead. Some studies have shown that as much as 30-50% of leads do not convert for these reasons.

Most companies do not have a process for passing back the lead if it does not convert to a sale. Therefore, there are many leads that have been generated and qualified, but not converted. On the premise that “where there was once smoke there still might be fire,” these “old” qualified lead lists will generally outperform newly generated lead lists. The only thing that is required is a “pass-back” system to compile leads that did not convert. In most cases, these leads never come back to marketing. If you institute this process, be sure to validate that the individual still is in their position or find out who has replaced them. In B2B, interest in a product or service is almost always institutional and not personal.

Do re-market to old lead lists.

Wrap-Up

Lead generation and qualification is a BIG topic and I’m sure there are more than five do’s and don’ts. Try one or all five and your prospect-to-qualified lead-to-sale process and result will improve.

The first requirement for being competitive is to know what others in your space are offering or plan to offer so you can judge the unique value proposition of your moves. This is just common sense. The second requirement is to anticipate response to your competitive moves so that they are not derailed by unexpected reactions. That’s just common sense, too.

The third requirement is to ask the question: Do we have common sense?

In my work in competitive intelligence I have met many managers and executives who made major decisions involving billions of dollars of commitments with only scant attention to the likely reaction of competitors, the effect of potential disruptors, new approaches offered by startups and the impact of long-term industry trends. Ironically, they spent considerable time deliberating potential customers’ reactions, even as they ignored the effect of other players’ moves and countermoves on these same customers. That is, until a crisis forced them to wake up.

In my experience, the competitive perspective is almost always the least important aspect in managerial decision-making. Internal operational issues including execution, budgets, and deadlines are paramount in a company’s deliberation, but what other players will do is hardly ever in focus. This “island mentality” is surprisingly prevalent among talented, seasoned managers.

The paradox is that companies spend millions acquiring competitive or market “intelligence” from armies of vendors and deploy the latest technology disseminating the information internally. Some estimate the market for market research alone at $20 billion annually. Specific competitor information is another $2 billion. On the other hand, management never questions the actual use of this information by employees in brand, product, R&D, marketing, business development, sales, purchasing or any other market-facing function. Instead, management implicitly assumes the information is being used, and used optimally. Leadership is happy to ask that proposals and presentations be backed by “data.”  Every middle manager is familiar with the requirement for a 130- slide deck of tables, graphs and charts in the appendix for presentations to top executives.

Yet no one asks: which of the information purchased at high cost from the outside army of research vendors and consultants was ignored, missed, discounted, filtered or simply not used correctly?

What Did Peter Drucker Really Say?

Peter Drucker is often quoted as coming up with the managerial bromide, “What gets measured gets managed.” Yet this does not actually represent his thoughts on measurement. Some have argued that he never actually said that at all; others have claimed that the quote has been mangled, and that in context, it was part of a larger lamentation that managers would only manage what was easy to measure, rather than what was important or useful. Regardless, it’s clear from Drucker’s writings that he worried that management often measures the wrong things, and believed that some critical aspects of management can’t actually be measured.

And the impact of competitive information on an organization’s decisions is one of those things that can hardly ever be measured. It is neither direct, nor unambiguous. Since impact can’t be measured and therefore results can’t be directly attributed to the competitive information, management resorts to measuring the wrong thing, exactly as Drucker feared. For example, in several companies I worked with, management measured output. How many reports did the analysts issue? How many research projects were completed within budget and on time? This is the equivalent of searching for your car keys under the street lamp simply because that’s where the light is.

The failure to measure the impact of competitive data leads to an interesting dilemma for companies: even when it’s obvious that the company has missed an opportunity or been blindsided by a threat because they failed to consider competitive data, managers are at a loss how to improve the situation.

Improving decision quality – measured as the extent to which decision makers use all available competitive information- requires focus on usage rather than production of intelligence. This is a major mindset leap for most companies but if offers a way to improve decisions without directly measuring the elusive impact. Just ensuring that managers look at and consider competitive perspective should in principle, improve decisions. How can companies achieve that?

A Simple Yet Powerful Suggestion

Improving competitive intelligence usage requires an “audit” of major decisions – at the product/service or functional level – before they are approved by management. This competitive intelligence sign-off is simple to institutionalize. It replaces the haphazard dissemination effort of mass of information (much of it may be just noise to the user) with systematic competitive perspective.

Would a manager submit to a “sign-off” voluntarily? Maybe. Over the years I have encountered many managers who wanted to stress-test their plans and thinking against third parties’ likely moves via war games. But war games are the more advanced step, and they are typically not systematically applied in an organization. A competitive “audit” or review is the more basic level. The potential cost saving or growth opportunities afforded by institutionalized competitive reviews of major initiatives and projects can be significant. A byproduct of these reviews would be better use of costly information sources, or rationalization of the cost of these sources.

That said, a company can’t force its managers to use information optimally. It can, however, ensure they at least consider it. In many areas of the corporation, mandatory reviews are routine- regulatory, legal, financial reviews are considered the norm. Ironically, competitive reviews are not, even though the cost of missing out on understanding the competitive environment can be enormous. Consider this admittedly extreme example. Financial institutions are known to spend billions on mandatory regulatory and legal reviews of their practices. How much do they spend on mandatory competition review? To judge by the measly performance of mega banks’ in the past two decades, compared with more locally focused smaller banks, not much (The Economist, March 5, 2015, “A world of pain: The giants of global finance are in trouble”).

Drucker did say, “Work implies not only that somebody is supposed to do the job, but also accountability.” If managers choose deliberately to ignore the competitive perspective, they should be held accountable. And it is only reasonable to ask top management to apply the same principle to itself: a systematic, mandatory, institutionalized strategic early warning review may keep major issues on the table.

Think about it this way: If competition reviews were mandatory at Sears, Motorola, Polaroid, AOL, Radio Shack and A&P, to name a few, would they have failed to change with the times? We would never know. Common sense suggests a company shouldn’t wish to find out.

Employers, you’re looking for a variety of skills when reviewing a resume or strategically positioning your team members. You already know that solid communication skills, the ability to research, and the flexibility to move between different roles are some of the most desired employee attributes, and that this list continues to grow year after year. However, research shows that it isn’t just about the words listed on a resume. In fact, 98 percent of surveyed employers said they look for mindset over skill set when searching for top talent. So, how can an employer possibly asses or screen something as instinctive as a positive mindset? Better yet, employers, how can you assist in actively cultivating the right mindset within your staff of skilled workers? Let’s dive in!

What the employee can do:

It’s true that the right mindset isn’t something that is easily developed, nor can it be taught. A mindset is the result of the worldview of an individual, and no two are exactly the same. As employees, you should be asking, “How can my skill set positively influence my mindset and vice versa?” You’ve spent years educating yourselves on how to complete tasks. The skills you’ve learned will help you accomplish your daily objectives, but now is your chance to push beyond meeting expectations, and instead, I encourage you to strive to exceed them.

Knowing your strengths is a great way to give yourself confidence, but analyzing where you can improve will put you in the necessary frame of mind to achieve both personal and professional growth. Think of your mindset as a voice—then listen and act on what it is telling you. When you combine your skills with the right mindset, you should hear something like, “I might not have this skill now, but I know I can learn.” Practice maintaining a consistently positive voice that drives your actions moving forward, and look for opportunities to learn new skills.

How the employer can help:

Now, let’s switch gears so we can figure out how to keep building upon a strong, positive mindset. Employers, you’ve done your part to find and hire the perfect candidate. You’ve asked the proper questions that test each of the attributes listed on an applicant’s resume and found the individual to be the right fit for the role. Yet you should understand that those skills will only get an employee so far. It’s time to start focusing on assessing the right mindset within talented employees, too. How do you do that? Well, one way to analyze the mindset of the person you’re interviewing is by figuring out what motivates them. Is it control? Security? Inclusion? Make sure their answer aligns with your business’ values.

As business owners, you are driven by the prospect of success and the passion to meet organizational objectives. Conveying that type of attitude to your team will boost their productivity because they will take that positive energy and use it as encouragement to excel in their specific roles. One way to affect a positive mindset within your team is to encourage innovation. Set aside time on a regular basis for “play” where your staff can come together for creative collaboration. You can also cultivate the right kind of mindset by supporting your employees through cross-training initiatives aimed at expanding their abilities. This shows your team that you’re just as excited about skill refinement as they are. It motivates everyone to grow, thus strengthening their mindset and yours.

When it comes to the skill set and mindset of a workforce, it isn’t about having one or the other. Working toward meaningful growth in each area will result in increased productivity and enhanced employee satisfaction. It is the employee’s responsibility to develop a mindset that will deliver value to the organization. Conversely, employers must foster a positive work environment conducive to individual and collective employee success. A workforce with the right collective skill set and mindset can make all the difference in today’s competitive business climate.

Say you are competing in a fast-growing industry. How much do you care about profits versus market share?

It’s a common rule of thumb that businesses should go for market share in fast-growing in­dustries. It’s conventional wisdom, though, not a law of physics; you don’t have to go for share.

Whether to pursue profits or share is one of the questions posed in an ongoing tournament I conduct that uses computer simulation to test strategic decision-making among executives, students, and other management enthusiasts.  Over 700 people have entered pricing strategies in the tournament.

A good strategy decision gets you what you want, so the tournament asks entrants what they want. That’s where the profits-versus-share question comes in: allocate 100 points between profits and market share as your goal. On average, those 700+ people allocated 55 of their preference points to market share and 45 to profits in the tournament’s “fast growth” industry. That means they clearly, though not unanimously, intended their strategies to gain market share. In the tournament industries with much slower growth, people put markedly more emphasis on profits. That’s just as conventional wisdom would advise.

And yet in over 173 million tournament simulations – every unique combination of the 700+ strategies for the three competitors in the fast-growth industry – the quest for market share led to price wars 90% of the time, subtracting value from the industry. In other words, following the “rule” produced results worse than if the participants had taken naps and done nothing at all.

It’s hardly surprising that tournament strategists would compete ruinously on price, since price was the only lever they could pull. But that’s not the point. The point is that they cut price because they obeyed the common-practice rule of going for market share in fast-growing indus­tries. They made different decisions in the other tournament industries, where growth was slow or negative.

Here’s a law-of-physics rule: there is only, always, exactly 100% market share in any market. That’s why, despite the vigorous price-warring, tournament strategists gained little or no share. (No one gets ahead when everyone moves in the same direction.) What they got, 90% of the time, was mutually assured destruction. The only way to win a price war is to be the only one fighting, and that’s not much of a war.

Knowing that, and knowing that your competitors know that, would you change your preference for profits or market share? Would you challenge the go-for-share rule?

Perhaps you would, perhaps you wouldn’t. Cogent arguments can be made either way. But I hope you now see go-for-share less as a hard-and-fast rule and more as an assumption to be assessed thoughtfully and critically.

Here’s another rule: we must keep our strategy secret from competitors.

When I conduct business war games for companies and when I run other games in workshops on strategic thinking, groups always hide their thinking and strategies from the other groups. I don’t tell them to do that. Real-life collusion is illegal and it’s explicitly forbidden in those games, but nothing (as in real life) prevents groups from signaling or taking action visible to other groups. I’m not saying that they should or shouldn’t do those things. I’m saying that by reflexively hiding they obey a rule that isn’t there. They treat a common practice as an immutable law, and they hold themselves back because they limit their options.

Fortunes are made by noticing such practices and challenging the assumptions behind them. Companies are lost by hardening common practices into shackles.

Fortunately, breaking rules is free. All you need is curiosity, attentiveness, and the courage to challenge conventional wisdom.

• Switch mindsets and mentally place yourself outside your company as a dispassionate analyst. Observe the company’s people. What rules are they following?
• When you hear advice containing “obviously”, ask the speaker whether that advice is based on evidence. Is the speaker obeying a law of physics or coasting with common prac­tice?
• Think of famous rule-breakers. What would they say to your company?
• Extra credit: apply all of the above to yourself.

Author’s note: You can enter the Top Pricer Tournament. It’s free and confidential, and you’ll get a report on your strategies’ performance. Please write to TopPricer@decisiontournaments.com.

It just may be the dirtiest little secret in professional sales: that subject matter expertise is the key to sales success. Yes, you have to have it, but whether a buyer hires you depends on much more. In this article Charles H. Green explores what goes through buyers' minds during the decision process.

Let's admit it: We all like talking about ourselves. No need to feel bad. You have good reason.

A 2012 Harvard University study found that the same portions of the brain that are activated by sex, drugs, money, and food are engaged when we talk about ourselves. 

The brand equivalent to a burst of dopamine is the quick sales leads that come when you create content that pushes your product.

Read more...

The imminent demise of the sales person has been predicted for some time. And, as Mark Twain once wrote: “The report of my death was an exaggeration.”

U.S. companies spend almost $1T on sales people every year. That is about 3x the spend on consumer advertising; 20x the spend for online media; and probably 100x the spend on social media.

While it’s true that the size of the sales force in some industries has shrunk, the overall number has stayed about the same. The profession of sales, practiced appropriately, is here to stay. It’s about helping the right customer buy right.

While some of that process can be done effectively online, much can’t. And while online may be more efficient, it’s often not effective. I find buying from Amazon.com beyond easy, but shopping with them is hard.

If sales people are here to stay (at least for the foreseeable future), what appropriate investments are you making to assure your people truly can help the right customers buy right … in today’s environment?

Car dealers seem stuck in the 1950s. Some retail stores likewise. Many B2B sales people simply collect business cards to appear busy. Marketers create elaborate lead-scoring systems to prove the value of the leads provided and thus the worth of those marketers.

Helping the right customers buy is the job of your revenue production system. Do you have properly trained and focused people in your system to produce the revenue you need, want, and demand?

Mitch