It’s been an incredible year! I hope you feel that way, too.

Recently, I spent time with two particular clients who would agree with that sentiment.  These two companies could not be more different. One is a large global organization that I’m precluded from discussing publicly (but what I will offer is that I’m glad these brilliant, passionate people are on our side). The other client is a small, entrepreneurial SaaS (software-as-a-service) company with a strong offering and gifted and engaged salespeople and executives. I worked with both of these companies for the entirety of 2014, and while one may look nothing like the other, they have one wonderful thing in common:  They both had a phenomenal year developing new business!

Along with all the great things that accompany sales success, one benefit, in particular, was patently obvious in both organizations the past few months: These sales/business development teams were reaping major benefits by selling with an abundance mentality. 

For the past decade or so I’ve heard various pundits, speakers and executives preach about the importance of living and leading with an “abundance mentality.” They would contrast the abundance mentality with its ugly sidekick – a “scarcity mentality.” This year, two of my favorite professional resources, Alan Weiss and Michael Hyatt (both of whom have been influential in building my business), spoke often about this concept, strongly exhorting their followers to operate from a perspective of abundance versus one of scarcity. I won’t quote them here; you can find their content if you’d like. But adding my own editorial perspective, I can say that many times this year I intentionally chose to operate and make decisions believing I was in a position of strength and abundance, and haven’t regretted it once.

So, as I trained, coached and observed both of these clients over the past few months, I not only took pleasure in the significant sales success they’ve experienced, but am thrilled to see how this success is positively affecting their approach to selling! They truly are now operating from a perspective of abundance and it’s increasing their effectiveness even more! It’s as if they are caught up in a positive cycle of abundance that is reproducing itself. 

Here are 5 specific benefits you can reap from selling with an abundance versus a scarcity mentality.

You can be…

1. More strategic and more selective when choosing business (target clients) to pursue. When deals are flowing and your pipeline is swollen, you’re in the envious position of being able to be picky about which business to attack.
2. More confident in your prospecting. It sure is easier approaching prospective clients when you know, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that your solution is delivering tremendous value to other similar customers. You benefit from the ability to see yourself as the expert and problem-solver and your potential customer as someone who likely could use your help. That’s a winning mentality for sure. It sure is fun (and effective) when you can approach a buyer believing that they’d be silly not to talk with you further because you have proof (case studies and testimonials) from your other client success stories.
3. More bold in your challenging and probing. When you’re seeing yourself and company as true experts and consultants in the space, and you know you don’t need a particular prospect’s business, you are much more willing to ask bold, provocative questions and much less concerned with being liked or offending someone. Frankly, we should always approach customers with that mindset; it’s just harder to do when you’re scared.
4. More strict in your qualifying and owning your sales process. When we’re really hungry, we are more likely to chase anything. And even when the opportunity isn’t that attractive or the prospect has created an unfair game, we choose to play anyway when operating from a scarcity mentality. But with an abundance mentality, we are much faster to tell the prospect that we don’t want to play the game under their disadvantageous rules, so we speak up, share our own rules of engagement and stick to our guns. Sounds a lot like the book Let’s Get Real or Let’s Not Play.(Thanks to Mahan Khalsa for one of my all-time favorite books on sales).
5. More willing to charge a premium price. Can’t forget this one, can we? So often it’s the salesperson who makes the deal about price — and then blames it on the customer. Friends, this takes us back to Econ 101. There is ZERO reason to discount the price, or to even let your mind or the customer go one step down that path when selling from a position of abundance. Supply and demand. Clearly, there are lots and lots of people receiving great value from what you sell. Just look at your results and your pipeline of future opportunities. Accept that fact and be confident charging your full price for the value you and your company are delivering.

My challenge to you as we wind down this year and plan to attack the next is to adopt an abundance mentality in your personal approach to selling. Is it easy? Well, if you’re coming off a record year and have a fat bank account it is. But even if that is not your situation, when you read all these benefits that accrue to those who sell with this mentality, doesn’t it make you want to sell with an abundance mindset anyway? I hope it does. Because those five characteristics of abundance sellers listed above are best practices. Be strategic when targeting, confident in your prospecting, bold in probing, true to your sales process and proud of your pricing. If you do these things well, soon you will be selling from a position of abundance!

Wishing you many blessings, the happiest of holidays, a very Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah and the most prosperous and abundant year ahead!

According to a recent McKinsey Global Institute report, sellers spend only 39% of their time carrying out role specific tasks, eg. selling. Other activities, such as reading and answering emails, searching for information and internal collaboration are pulling them away and whilst email is a valuable communications tool it can also slow progress towards closing a sale.  Sales people and managers can start by assessing how much time they are giving to direct communication and restructure their day to focus at least 60% of it on selling.

Understand what is trending in your market, who are the market leaders and who are the analysts and commentators that your customers will be listening to. Profile your market and your buyers. Take a few notes and get a grasp on the companies, themes, key words, search terms and hashtags that will provide you with a daily digital picture.

The 7 things to research:

1. Your industry and the market you are targeting
2. Your customers’ businesses. How they make money, keep costs under control and differentiate themselves
3. The market problems and opportunities faced by your customers
4. Your own understanding of your solution and why it matters to your territory and your customers
5. What would be the results of solving the problems or exploiting the opportunities for your customers
6. Insights that you can personally offer about the problems and opportunities
7. What are the metrics that matter to your customers and what impact can you have?

You now have a good understanding of your buyer, the company that employs them and their role. Connected buyers rarely decide alone so you will have identified multiple roles within your customers’ businesses.

Now make a note on what you know about your buyer:

• What about your evolving market, product or service will make them rethink their status quo
• What kind of information and news will they prefer? Whitepapers, blog posts, infographics, editorial
• How do they find this information?
• What search engine keywords will they use?
• What are their preferred social platforms
• What potential editorial and social signals will they generate when they are buying
• How can I monitor these resources in a time effective manner

You now have a great starting point. As a social seller you will discover valuable insights each and every day that will be of value to your customers and therefore increase your value.

Author: Ellen Gomes

Marketers have seen a ton of change in 2014, the era of engagement marketing has started to take shape and change how marketers approach buyers. We’re much more cognizant of the changing buyer — who wants to be engaged with relevant, personal messages, wherever they are — and we’ve started to shape our marketing accordingly.

Marketers preparing for the new year know there is even more change on the horizon. So, what do marketers need to know to prepare for the year ahead?

To answer this question, we caught up with Marketo’s internal thought leaders to hear about the changes they anticipate in the coming year and how they think marketers can prepare. We covered almost every area of marketing, from a birds-eye view of the organization, down to changes in social media and marketing operations. Our Marketing Predictions slide deck has something for everyone.

Our thought leaders think 2015 is the year of the marketer! The year where sales is no longer on the frontlines of the buyer  journey. Instead, the marketer will drive the relationship. So check out our predictions about shaping your marketing team with strategic hires, multi-channel methodologies, becoming more data-driven and more. 

 

Download the Marketing Predictions slide deck and jumpstart your 2015 preparations:

 

 

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Prepare for 2015 with Marketo’s Marketing Predictions was posted at Marketo Marketing Blog - Best Practices and Thought Leadership. | http://blog.marketo.com

2014 saw the rise of “influencer marketing.” The term and strategy behind it flooded blogs and social media; over 700 articles used the term through November 2014, according to a BuzzSumo search.

I, like many, began the year with influencer marketing as a focus. As the newly minted community manager for Kapost, my job not only entailed leading social media growth, but involving marketing influencers in that growth. The thought was to engage and build relationships with this group of individuals on a regular basis, understanding their potential to steer a wider audience to our content and product.

I even devised a “funnel” to track engagements and the results of those engagements. This made me accountable for driving a certain number of actions each month. The idea was to involve more influencers in more overall actions each month, but also lead them toward eventual advocacy of our product, without necessarily needing regular prompting from me.

Now, there’s nothing wrong with attempting to bring some measurement into my actions. We do, after all, live in an era of marketing where data and accountability are increasingly important. The ability to grade or score marketing’s efforts is even a big selling point of the Kapost platform.

But at some point, I realized it was becoming difficult to keep the various metrics and goals up. I had focused on building and maintaining relationships with these people, and doing so meant give and take—not just take. I couldn’t maintain a regular cadence of asking them to be involved with our content, and we couldn’t rely on a regular “boost” in traffic when they did.

I grew disillusioned with the idea of influencer marketing. Noticing a general decline in my own engagement with influencers, I surmised that maybe these influencers were burning out. And I was burning out, too.

My original list of influencers had been pruned down to a small group, and I was tired of reaching out with the same asks. The more I saw them quoted in content or sharing cool infographics, the less I wanted to ask them for quotes or shares.

It became increasingly burdensome to keep our conversations fresh, relevant, and active.

I resorted to turning people into GIFs. Awesome GIFs sure, but, you know, kind of a strange way to stay fresh in someone’s mind.

Once it became “a thing” to regularly include influencers in marketing efforts, I thought they must suffer from an overwhelming number of asks. At some point the whole thing would collapse, right? I was sure of it.

So I asked.

I contacted a small group with a simple question: Are influencers tired of influencer marketing?

I wanted to understand the group’s opinion, purely for my own benefit. Here’s what I expected: to be told that I was silly for asking, or to receive rants about the numbers of requests coming in, and how it’s ruining marketing or something.

To my surprise, I received a mix of those responses, accompanied by a series of candid, detailed, and delightful exchanges. I had been in regular contact with these people all year, but never had such fluid interactions with all of them, all at once. I decided (with permission) to share some takeaways from the dialogues here, including some cool hand drawn sketches of these folks by our talented designer Matt Gainan, because, well, that’s fun.

Really, we just want to see Ann Handley featured in every visual format.

And yes. I’m fully aware of the irony of asking influencers to contribute to a piece that questions whether we should keep asking them to contribute to pieces. Moving on.

The Lessons

Influencer Marketing Is Awful…

“I rarely see [influencer marketing] done well,” says C.C. Chapman, Founder of Never Enough Days, co-author of the widely-praised Content Rules, and all-around nice guy.

“Companies need to realize that the influencers they want are busy people and thus their time is valuable. If they are going to give up any time to attend an event, create content on behalf of the brand, or be expected to do anything really they need to be compensated in some way or another.”

C.C.’s co-author Ann Handley is likewise tired of organizations and individuals doing it wrong.

“Too many think in terms of transactions, not relationships. Too many focus on what the influencer can do for them, rather than how they can help the influencer. Too many make presumptive requests with little upside for the person they’re asking. Too many have ridiculously high expectations or (sometimes) ridiculously vague expectations.”

Ardath Albee, B2B Marketing Strategist and the CEO of Marketing Interactions, Inc. shares with me a far-too-common example of a company continuously emailing her asking to not only share about their research and reports, but to blog about them.

“They’ve never once promoted my stuff and they don’t follow me on Twitter. It’s a bit insulting that they only care about reaching my audience, not building a relationship with me.”

David Meerman Scott, best-selling marketing, PR, and sales author and speaker, says a good number of the requests he receives are done the wrong way. “Quite a few are outright liars. They say they ‘read my blog’ or ‘love my work’ but the nature of the request clearly indicates they found me from some list and are emailing a lot of people.”

“With an increase in influence there’s been an increase in asks. That means more people who have no training in influencer engagement are latching on to the latest marketing trend ‘influencer marketing’ and trying to fast track their way through it,” says Lee Odden, CEO of TopRank Marketing and one of the leading voices on influencer marketing.

Man, that all sounds pretty terrible right?

…When It’s Done Wrong.

Sure, dealing with a constant stream poorly planned or tactless requests seems like a perfect recipe for burnout. However, while many or even most requests aren’t done well, many are, which restores a little faith in the practice.

Plus, who doesn’t want to be asked to be included in content?

“It’s hard to say no when people want to make you out to be important,” says Jason Falls, Senior Vice President of Digital Strategy at Elasticity. “They get annoying sometimes. But it’s people asking you to appear smart in front of their audiences. It’s a big ego kick and a soft lead gen opportunity. You’d be dumb to say no to most of it.”

“I’m genuinely and continually honored that people would look to my opinion as somehow ‘influential’,” Robert Rose, Chief Strategy Officer for Content Marketing Institute tells me, adding, “Honestly… (and I really mean this) any ‘influencer’ who complains about it should just shut up.”

Jay Baer, President of Convince and Convert and widely recognized content marketing and social media consultant and speaker, further echoes that thought. “I’m not sick of being asked to participate, because that’s really a #FirstWorldProblem, you know? It’s kind of tough to keep a straight face when you utter the words, ‘my life sucks because too many people want to know what I think.’”

This validation of influencer marketing doesn’t mean we should continue to flood these people’s inboxes. Just because they’re generally happy to be asked, doesn’t mean every opportunity is right for them.

Lee Odden notes, “With scarcity of time, many influencers are being more selective about what they say yes to. They make these choices not just for efficiency but also to ensure quality of association. Factors like how well known the brand is, the quality of the project, and compensation all factor into decisions about participation in an influencer marketing program.”

Remember Relationships

Successful influencer engagement centers upon a pretty simple principle: focus on two-way relationships.

Ginny Torok, Social Media Strategist at influencer management platform Traackr, puts it this way in her blog post, “Stop Overthinking Influencer Engagement“:

“What we sometimes forget is on the other side of every social media profile is a human being. Start more conversations for conversation-sake. Maybe initial conversations don’t directly benefit your marketing strategy, but they let the human on the other end know you’re interested in them.”

Pierre-Loïc Assayag, Founder and CEO of Traackr, adds, “When activating an influencer, ask yourself how you’re helping them accomplish their own goal. If you don’t know, find out; if your ask helps them, you’re gold; if it doesn’t, you should probably think hard before engaging them.”

Mike Fraietta, Senior Social Business Strategist at Social Edge Consulting, puts it this way: “You can’t find a list of influencers, reach out, and check them off as boxes and expect them to engage with your company or product. Like any relationship, it takes time and real interaction for someone to become comfortable and trusting of you or your brand.”

Successful influencer outreach takes time and effort, but it shouldn’t be viewed through a pure “task-oriented” lens. As many pointed out here, you’re building real relationships which can—and should—be fun and exciting.

Redefine “Influencers”

The most interesting part of my conversations with influencers, and also the most commonly discussed, centered upon who should really be the focus of “influencer marketing.” Often, marketers key in on people who have a large “reach,” with the idea that those with the largest followings on social media, for example, will have the largest impact for their brand.

Nearly everyone I spoke with suggested that ranking by a follower count isn’t the way to go about it.

“Those looking to employ influencer marketing should choose wisely and also broaden their universe and help new influencers emerge,” says Robert Rose. This idea is the cornerstone of what Lee Odden preaches when working with clients on influencer marketing. “Work with an influencer, they’re friends for a day. Help someone become influential, they’re a friend for life.”

Newscred’s Head of Strategy Michael Brenner had an interesting take, pointing out that much of the dialogue about influencer marketing overwhelming the influencers was probably more of an issue in the content marketing space. “As content marketers, we’re all creating more content than the average marketer in another industry, such as, say, steal beam manufacturing marketers. In many of their industries, the influencers are still relatively unknown and thrilled by any attention they get by brands.”

Jesse Noyes, Sr. Director of Content Marketing at Kapost, looks at influencers in terms of what real impact they may have on driving business for your brand. “You have to think about who you reach out to, whether they are truly influential to your potential buyers and look for unexplored opportunities.”

Lee Odden echoes that sentiment. “Think about what you want the influencer to do, how will their involvement help your company reach a particular business goal? What will an ongoing relationship with influencers mean to your marketing and reputation?”

That final lesson resonates most for the coming year.

Maybe the well-known group of marketing influencers will begin to hit a wall based on the sheer quantity of requests coming their way, but that doesn’t mean influencer marketing as a whole will hit that wall, particularly not if we look deeper at who can be impactful for our brands.

“It’s a virtuous cycle”, says Brenner. “Brands identify those who are influential. That strokes the egos of the influencers while also helping to perpetuate their influence by building their personal brands. Those influencers are then more open to contributing or authentically helping the brand. And the cycle repeats.”

Who is responsible for qualifying inbound marketing leads and identifying new, short-term sales opportunties for senior sales executives in your company? Whether they’re Sales Development Representatives (SDRs), Market Development Representatives (MDRs), or simply inside sales, their role is a critical and strategic part of an efficient, scalable sales process.

Whether you’re launching a new SDR effort for your company, or seeking to improve its effectiveness and success in the New Year, here are five steps to get you off on the right track.

1. Do the math.

Although successful SDR teams are far more than pure appointment setters, understanding how to manage them does start with knowing what the math will look like. How many qualified appointments do you need each month, and how much effort will it take to get them? And further, what will it cost you to get them?

Whether your SDRs are responding to marketing leads or cold calling (or a mix of both) a simple mathematical model can help you not only understand your starting point, but demonstrate where exactly to focus to improve your metrics and economics moving forward.

This simple appointment-setting model can get you started and be modified as needed.

2. Build a process.

Assuming you have sales stages to begin with, which will your SDRs be responsible for? When they receive marketing leads, how quickly do they call? How often? And when do they give up and work other leads instead?

Your SDR team will need guidance for how to manage their day. They’ll need a lead disposition process, including voicemail scripts and email templates for their follow-up. And they’ll need all of this enabled and embedded in your CRM system. Build them a process and give them tools to succeed.

3. Hire reps with experience or a sales and marketing background.

I’ve seen far too many sales teams hire their SDRs with zero sales experience or knowledge previously. And although every sales rep starts somewhere, you don’t want an entire team of newbies. Look for those who have some experience, who can quickly execute your process, but who are motivated to move into a more senior position down the road.

4. Focus on needs discovery.

Although most SDRs are less experienced sales professionals, they absolutely need to have business conversations with their prospects. In fact, it’s far more important that SDRs can have needs-based, business objective-oriented conversations than it is that they understand the details of your product!

True qualification of prospects is based on their objectives, not your product. If they have a problem your product or service can address and solve, that often is enough to generate interest and a next step.

5. Daily observation, role-playing, training, and best practice sharing.

Although you may have given your SDRs the initial tools, processes and training they need, that’s not enough. Just like any sales team, they need constant feeding. Observe their calls and help make them better. Give them time to practice with each other to improve their skills & confidence.

What are your best B2B sales tips for building a sales development team?

Marketing and Sales have a lot in common. Both are very important points of interest for generating revenue in your business, and they both are to be covered within the marketing plan subset of your overall business plan. Truthfully, it’d be hard to imagine your business operating without a marketing or sales division in place; they are both absolutely essential. But which one comes first when establishing your business; marketing or sales?

The short answer is marketing; establishing a business without marketing infrastructure is akin to building a house without a foundation. When first beginning, a marketing plan should be concise, only covering one year. This will allow you to accommodate for things changing such as team dynamics and the market structure; you can worry about a two to four year plan later on down the road. Your plan should be made with the insight of all of your team-members; getting feedback from all parts of your company will better provide an all-encompassing strategy, improving your likelihood for success.

He goes on to say that without a marketing plan, you won’t be able to build your brand as effectively as you could. Once you have a marketing strategy set up only then can you begin to focus on sales. But you need sales to survive right? That may be true, but good marketing creates awareness of your firm on a broad scale, allowing you to grow exponentially in the future. Small businesses may be able to survive by word of mouth but they’ll never grow to their true potential. By creating a solid marketing plan you are being proactive in managing your company. Upon creating the marketing plan you then utilize your sales division reactively to achieve the results you desire. A sales team will utilize the company’s marketing philosophy to drive sales numbers up. For example, marketing plan’s often will include situation analyses discussing the company’s strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats (SWOT analysis). Armed with this information, salesmen for your company will be better suited to sell the product or service in ways that will highlight your company’s unique strengths while circumventing your weaknesses. Furthermore by knowing what your target audience is, salesmen can refine their focus on likely customers instead of wasting their efforts on empty leads. Marketing also establishes goals for your firm (for example, to increase clients by 15% in the next 3 months) which holds your sales force accountable in the long-term and encourages success.

To conclude, marketing and sales should never be an afterthought. They will always be essential parts of any business and they should be used jointly to expand your enterprise. That being said, they do indeed offer very different purposes. Marketing is about information gathering and perpetuation; in a marketing plan you intend to learn about your market and your customer, while finding ways to target them and to inform them about your brand. Sales on the other hand uses that information as a means to an end, to sell more products and to increase profitability for your company. Whichever way you look at it, both should be a high priority for your company. However, without a marketing strategy, your sales will inevitably suffer and your company could fail before your dreams come to fruition.

As technology grows increasingly important to marketers, the marketing operations function is developing rapidly within organizations. A relatively new role in the marketing world, this function is becoming essential as marketing teams adopt more tools and technologies.

No one understands this better than Tom Kahana, Senior Director of Marketing Operations at Limelight Networks. He leads a marketing operations team of six and is responsible for all marketing technology tools, lead and campaign management and reporting/analytics.

We spoke with Tom, who offered his advice on maximizing your marketing programs with marketing technologies.

1. Track everything

Track everything — not just how many leads or clicks you generate, but also which source or channel is responsible for delivering them. In order to design more efficient and effective campaigns, Tom’s team determines which persona is viewing which content in which format.

“We’re all about tracking the successes and failures that we have and getting that information in the hands of our demand gen people,” said Tom. And “our content people want to know what content is being consumed so they can see what’s working and what’s not.”

2. Experiment with different content types and qualities

“Everyone has a different appetite, and they want to consume content in a different format at a different time,” explained Tom, noting the difference between someone reading a white paper versus watching a webinar. In terms of content, the Limelight team uses a variety of formats and channels, producing reports, videos, and webinars (just to name a few) and utilizing social media.

“We’ve produced a lot of content in many different channels and avenues — social media, blog, videos,” he said. “It’s another opportunity for someone to not just learn about Limelight Networks, but to learn about the industry and the things they should know when putting together their own content delivery strategy.”

As a global company, localizing content and extending content distribution is key. Limelight runs separate webinars based on region, which has proven successful: from their webinar programs alone, Tom and his team increased pipeline contribution by 101 percent.

3. Team up with key stakeholders

Marketing operations teams have a variety of stakeholders. Specifically, Tom’s team works closely with Limelight’s sales and sales operations teams to identify which campaigns are most effective and to initiate conversations with the most relevant prospects.

“We work hard to understand [our sales team’s] struggles and areas where we can help and provide support,” said Tom. “We’ve got the data we need from them to be able to make strong, strategic decisions around who we should be attacking and which campaigns are working.”

In their 2012 study End of Solution Sales, the Corporate Executive Board (CEB) revealed that 57 percent of a typical B2B purchase decision is made before a customer even talks to a supplier. This study in conjunction with Google, provided insights into the buying habits and patterns of B2B buyers and also served to confirm the tectonic shift that is impacting marketing and sales professionals today.

While the shift in buying process now seems commonplace for the buyer, B2B marketing and sales professionals in most cases are still adjusting to this new world buying order. CEB states the following as part of the study:

“The hardest thing about B2B selling today is that customers don’t need you the way they used to. In recent decades, customers have become adept at discovering customers’ needs and selling them ‘solutions’ – generally complex combinations of products and services. This worked because customers did not know how to solve their own problems, even though they had a good understanding of what their problems were. But now, owing to increasingly sophisticated procurement teams with troves of data, companies can readily define solutions themselves.”

While there is some adapting that is occurring due to customers not needing sales reps the “way they used to,” there is a similar adjustment for marketing as they now live in the 57 percent.

The problem is this – in response to needing to live in the 57 percent many marketers are developing content that attempts to define solutions for their customers. In their 2014 B2B Content Preferences Study, DemandGen Report findings show that 68 percent of B2B buyers advise B2B content marketers to “curb the sales messaging” and 64 percent advise “Focus less on product specifications and more on value.” This should come as no surprise as the CEB quote from 2012 clearly states that customers are quite able to do define solutions for themselves.

Given that buyers need less solutions content and more value content, this should have a monumental impact on the content strategy of B2B organizations. Throw out the excuses that I hear so often of “but sales is wanting . . .”. It does not matter what sales wants, it matters what buyers are demanding.

As we head into 2015 and final strategies are being developed and budgets finalized, it is incumbent upon marketers to understand that not all content is created the same. It is now our job to develop content that Engages and Nurtures throughout that 57 percent and once they do engage with sales, enable and train them on Conversion content.

This requires more than just pumping out content to fill various channels which 57 percent of marketers do “all the time” according to Forrester. This requires an understanding of the buyer, their buying path and content consumption patterns. It requires work to get this done, but this is the world in which B2B marketing now lives, welcome to the new world!

If you’re like me, your holiday wish list doesn’t involve fur coats, yachts or a deed to a platinum mine. What I really want is to find new ways to better understand my buyers and create content that they will actually find value in reading.

The thing is, we struggle with the same things our clients struggle with – creating content that buyers actually read and that makes an impact on the bottom line. We all know how important it is to know your buyer, but if the content is not geared toward that buyer, it will never be seen. However, knowing your buyer is not enough.

According to a recent survey conducted by ITSMA, more than 40% of B2B marketers are now using buyer personas as part of their strategy, but only 15% considered their persona marketers very effective. The reason? There is a huge disconnect between the personas and the content created.

What we see time and time again are huge investments on persona projects (both in time and money) that become meaningless because no one takes the time to bridge the gaps between the buyer, the messaging and the content.

Here are 4 ways that will help you connect buyer personas to better content:

1. Take the time to get to know your buyer. Whether it’s through a full-out persona project or a combination of internal and external research. Yes, it can be as simple at that!
2. Take the time to write key messaging that fits what you learned about your potential buyers.
3. When you’re planning your nurture content, do a sanity check and make sure those key messages are woven throughout ALL of the content you create.
4. Don’t forget your older content. Go back to existing content and verify those messages are there. If they are not, do a refresh with the key messaging. You’ll not only have a whole new wave of content to work with, but it will be content that is actually downloaded and read.

For some more insight on personas and messaging, check out our upcoming webinar Connecting Buyer Personas To Better Content on January 22, 2015 at 1:00 EST.

Every week, I have conversations with small business owners about how to use social media for their businesses. Many of those conversations have a similar theme and that revolves around what to post.

Maybe some of these sound familiar?

SMB Owner: “We started a FB page but it’s not doing anything for us.”

Me: “You haven’t posted in six months. Of course it’s not doing anything for you.”

SMB (Who happens to be a pet groomer): “I don’t know what to post.”

Me: “Why not post pictures of pets of coming in for grooming appointments? You could show before and after pictures. You could do short iphone videos of how to do certain types of doggie haircuts. You could show how you handle less cooperative pets.”

Pet Groomer: “That’s a good idea. Maybe I could do that.”

Me: “Of course you can.”

How about B2B?

Some B2B businesses are strangely convinced that social media won’t work for them. I’m not sure where this fallacy got started but I think it’s rooted in a fear and misunderstanding of the tools and medium—in fact, much the same way it is for a micro business like a mom-and-pop.

Let’s take a look.

B2B Audio-Visual Installation: “Social media doesn’t work for us.”

Me: “Hmmm….are you aware at least 76% of B2B buying decisions start online? People look for referrals and solution-based information online before they want to talk with a sales person. How do you get most of your sales?”

B2B: “Referrals.”

Me: “Do you think people look at your website before doing business with you?”

B2B: “Probably.”

Me: “So they ask for referrals, they look at your website and what else, do they think they also Google you or look for your business on social media channels?”

B2B (shrugs shoulders)

Me: “If you have good, educational info for prospects to download, they will. They’ll also check you out on LinkedIn and ask about you on other social media channels. In fact, one study says 59.9% of prospects look for you on social.”

B2B: “We do have some good White Papers and Case Studies but they’re buried on our site and we don’t think people see them.”

(To verify, I look at their Google Analytics and can see they get 200 visitors a month and virtually no one sees the case studies.” )

Me: “What if we put the case studies on individual pages and shared those URL’s on your LinkedIn Page to drive more traffic to them.? And, we added new Case Studies every month? You probably have a list of clients who would be happy to talk with you or me about their success with your product/service right?”

B2B: “Sure, we have lots of happy clients. That’s a good idea. We could do that.”

The reality is I have these types of conversations all the time. I brainstorm content ideas with my clients to help them realize the types of content they could be posting on social media channels and how they can use it to present themselves as the authoritative solution to the problems they solve. Better yet, how can they use the opportunity social presents to grow their business?

The dog groomer will do well to figure out how to use Facebook to be more visible. If the B2B audio visual installation business wants to reach more decision makers, they’ll do well to develop a strategy about posting useful content on their LinkedIn Page, Twitter and YouTube.

No matter your business achieving social media success is about developing a strategy and the type of content that will work for your business.

Some of that content you can outsource but not all. In most cases, you can get help developing a strategy and tactical plan from an outside consultant, yet, you’ll still need to create content in house and a social media consultant will help you create a plan for the right type. Without the right type of content to connect with your visitors and ultimately, drive traffic back to your site, you won’t increase your sales.

Isn’t it time you got a handle on what social media marketing can do for you?

Jen grew up with her bag packed, always ready for the next adventure. These days she spends most of her time writing web content for clients across a variety of industries including travel and training on SEO and social media. Download your copy of 21 Days to a Rockin’ Social Media presence at www.jenphillipsapril.com

Does your LinkedIn profile read like a standard resume?

• Title – Check
• Several bullets detailing what you’ve done – Check
• A listing of every employer you’ve ever worked for – Check

Although that format may be great if you are looking for a job, it will NOT attract business prospects to you. So how can you optimize your LinkedIn profile to get the attention of your ideal prospects?

This infographic from HubSpot explains how to design a killer profile that will get you noticed.

LinkedIn Profile Optimization

Key Takeaways

• Your headline should include your value proposition: who do you help and how do you help them.
• Your profile picture must be current, professional and friendly.
• Include all relevant contact information so you are easy to reach.
• Customize your URL.
• Build your network with quality connections.
• Include a 3 paragraph summary. Make sure there is a call to action in the final paragraph. Also include eye catching visual content in your summary.
• In your experience section, focus on results you helped your clients achieve.
• Don’t leave out relevant Honors & Awards, Publications (you do blog, right?), and Education, including certifications.
• Join Groups that your prospects care about.
• Ask for Recommendations, especially from your clients.

Need to take your LinkedIn Marketing to the next level? Our free guide on leveraging LinkedIn can help you get started. Just click here to download it.

If you ask any CEO you are most likely to hear he or she is committed to building a customer centric culture. It is very common to find customers first’ in a company mission statement. You will hear customer service is a priority.

But is it?

If you are a customer experience professional, you probably have been frustrated trying to get the company moving on a customer centricity initiative, or to prioritize activities or programs that prioritize customer experience over other initiatives.

Yes everyone might get the customer satisfaction report and might not like the NPS score – but is the organization really committed to making the changes necessary to prioritize customer experience?

Is Your Company Serious about Customer Experience?
There is a very simple test: is customer service a cost center or a diver of business value? you can tell simply by looking at the metrics. If it is a cost center, it will measure things that need to be reduced or eliminated: time on a call, calls per day, etc.

For customer-centric companies every interaction with a customer is an opportunity to further the relationship. An opportunity that is appreciated and valued – not one that should be reduced or eliminated. These companies not only track NPS per call, but probably tie the bonus of a customer service agent to customer satisfaction. At Zappos long customer calls are celebrated and bragged about.

It’s a matter of strategy
This is a very important point to understand: customer experience and customer service is not for every company – even though most will claim it is.

We all hear the statistics of how customer service drives loyalty and profitability and you have probably also read stats about companies that treat customers poorly are ultimately doomed. The truth is that these statements are only true when customer service is an essential part of the company’s overall strategy.

There are three basic business strategies. A successful company can only pursue one: lead with product leadership (think Apple or Microsoft) through investments in R&D, lead with lower price (think WalMart or McDonald’s) through investments in operational efficiencies and standardization, or lead with customer intimacy (think Nordstrom or Ritz Carlton) through customer service and customization.

For example, DirecTV is awarded as the worst company in America. And yet it is very successful and very profitable. For Rackspace on the other hand, customer service (“fanatical support” they call it) is the fundamental differentiator and competitive strategy – the primary source of business value.

At DirecTV there is probably a (very frustrated) customer experience team. At Rackspace, fanatical support is the job description and the top priority for everyone.

If your customer experience efforts are not finding traction, you may be at the wrong company.

When I can find the time to do so, I love to plan ahead.

I’ll write out tomorrow’s to-do list. I’ll add ideas to our content calendar. And I’ll schedule the next day’s social media updates—or even the next week’s, if I’m feeling ambitious. Maybe some day I’ll get to the point of scheduling a month or even a year ahead!

Scheduling part of your social media content in advance is well worth it.

And I’ll be happy to share with you some strategies, tips, and tools that can help you get organized and get ahead with your social media sharing.

5 benefits to mapping out your social media content

Social media content feels quite in-the-moment and real-time when you consider the short lifecycle of updates and the rapid way that information moves across Twitter, Facebook, and others.

A solid social media schedule leaves room for real-time updates.

Planning content on social media still allows for flexibility to the schedule and provides opportunities to slip in real-time engagement.

The Sprout Social blog has a good reminder on the balance here.

For every quick-witted, real-time tweet, there are hundreds more tweets that take hours of planning and a lot of creative power to make, especially when a single tweet can help drive an entire strategy.

The Marketo blog also has some keen insights here as well. They mention five benefits for creating a social media content calendar and planning social content ahead of time.

1. It helps you maintain a consistent cadence.
2. You can map time-sensitive content ahead of time.
3. You’ll take your social marketing out of a silo.
4. It serves as a system of record.
5. It enforces the “411 Rule.”

Here’s a bit more on each of these benefits.

Consistent cadence. There’s a lot to be said for consistency on social media. In terms of publishing frequency, consistency can help your audience learn when to expect new content from you, and keeping a consistent schedule makes sure you maximize engagement without hitting any lulls or stretches without updates.

Time-sensitive content. Events, holidays, product launches, contests—many of these time-sensitive events can be planned ahead of time and placed on a calendar.

No more silo. When social media happens in real-time, it gets created and published in moments. Planning ahead allows others to become involved in the process, involving a whole team rather than a narrow silo of one or two social media managers.

System of record. Keeping a calendar gives you something to refer to later. You can track back on the updates you posted, and you can review your posting cadence and rhythm from one period to the next.

The 411 Rule. This rule refers to a ratio of sharing on social media—4 educational and entertaining posts for every 1 “soft promotion” and every 1 “hard promotion.” I’ll get into some additional ratios next.

The elements of a successful social media content plan

1. The best content rules and ratios for sharing on social media

One of the foundations of a social media content plan is figuring out the ideal ratio for the content that you’ll share. For any given slice of updates—say, your past 10 Facebook posts—what is the balance of content shared from your blog and from the blogs of others? How many product pitches do you make?

Here are some popular ratios that have been tried and tested on social. Feel free to test these and discover a ratio that is right for you, even if it doesn’t follow exactly with these. For instance, with our Buffer shares, we’ve flipped many of these ratios; our social media updates are 90 percent our own content and 10 percent from others.

4-1-1

Popularized by Andrew Davis of Tippingpoint Labs and Joe Pulizzi of Content Marketing Institute, the 4-1-1 looks like this in practice:

• 4 pieces of relevant, original content from others
• 1 retweet for every 1 self-serving update

Marketo, mentioned above, uses a variation of the 411 method on its social channels. Here’s a sample of a Monday-Tuesday schedule of theirs for Facebook.

5-3-2

Introduced by TA McCann from Gist.com, here’s how the 5-3-2 rule breaks down:

• 5 should be content from others
• 3 should be content from you
• 2 should be personal status updates

555+

Via Shai Coggins of Vervely

• 5 updates about you and your content
• 5 updates about others
• 5 responses/replies
• + miscellaneous posts that add value like #FollowFriday or user-generated content

Golden Ratio – 30/60/10

Via Rallyverse:

• 30 percent owned
• 60 percent curated
• 10 percent promotional

Rule of Thirds

Via a Hootsuite blog post by Sam Milbrath:

• 1/3 of your updates are about you and your content
• 1/3 of your updates are for sharing content from others and surfacing ideas
• 1/3 of your updates are based on personal interactions that build your brand

Bonus method: Thinking about the types of updates you post

The above ratios deal with the content itself. But what about the post type? Buffer’s founder Joel came up with a neat balance of the types of updates that he shares to Twitter—links, quotes, retweets, images, and plain text updates.

His system works like this:

1. Start with the basic five types of updates we all post: Links, images, quotes, reshares, plain-text updates
2. Choose a “staple” update, a single type that will make up the majority of your shares
3. Create a 4:1 ratio of sharing: for every four “staple” updates, publish one different type for variety

The ideal frequency to post to social media

Once you have the general framework for the content you’ll plan, the next step is to figure out the ideal frequency for your posts. Your schedule figures to be unique based on your specific audience. That being said, there’s been some neat research on frequency that might give you a place to start.

We collected a number of studies on the best frequency for the top social media sites. Here’s what we found:

• Post to Twitter at least 5x a day. If you can swing up to 20 posts, you might be even better off.
• Post to Facebook up to 2x a day.
• Post to LinkedIn 1x per day.

A helpful post by Constant Contact added the following suggestions for Pinterest and Google+

• Post to Google+ up to 2x per day.
• Post to Pinterest up to 2x per day.

And an ideal Instagram schedule, according to Forbes, looks like this:

• Post to Instagram 1.5x per day

The CoSchedule blog put together a graphic of how their social media frequency might look. They’ve scheduled specific windows of times for some of their updates to publish to their social channels, and they supplement these specific posting times with a handful of Buffer posts that get added to the queue.

Plan ahead for events and launches

What events do you have planned for the coming year?

Which launches might you be aiming for? (You’re likely to add a few to this list, too, as the year goes on.)

What type of tentpole content did well for you last year that you might want to reproduce at a similar time this year?

Anything that you think might be penciled in for a future date in the coming year, this info can go on your social media calendar. Doing so lets you develop the content and strategy for these big moments ahead of time and to get others involved in the process, too.

Here’re just a few calendar events to consider:

• New product releases
• Conferences
• Annual events & meetups
• Holidays
• Major cultural events – the Super Bowl, the Oscars, etc.
• Recurring content – end-of-year lists, mid-year lists, seasonal strategies, etc.

Decide how much you’ll curate

Another element of the calendar could be your curation. If you like to share the best content from others, you’re likely to want to add some space in your calendar for queueing content from others.

Generally speaking, curation happens in the moment. You share content from other blogs and websites that has been posted recently. In these cases, you can leave some schedule slots open to fill in with curated content the day of.

There are some cases and instances where it works to share great stuff from a blog’s archives or new-to-you content that you just came across. In fact, this might help break up the short lifecycle of social media content and help us all revisit the content that’s worth a second read.

7 tools for organizing and implementing a social media calendar

With a good plan in place, the next step is organizing and implementing. Here’s where you get to have fun with some useful online tools.

1. Buffer – Simple-to-use, great for scheduling social media posts in advance
2. Google spreadsheets – Powerful and scalable way to organize and track content
3. Google calendar – Daily, weekly, and monthly views of a content plan (with color-coded organization options)
4. Basecamp – Project management tool that can be repurposed for social media
5. Trello – Add content to boards and cards, and drag-and-drop to reorder and organize
6. Wunderlist – To-do list app
7. Todoist – To-do list app

Social media content plans—daily, weekly, monthly, yearly

A daily social media content plan

Work one day ahead.

• What events and launches are planned for tomorrow?
• How much content do you need to plan and schedule?
• How does your sharing ratio fit with a day’s worth of content?

With a daily social media content plan, you can schedule the bulk of your content the day before, placing promotional posts of your existing content and adding curated content that appeared that day.

If you share six times to Twitter, you can schedule the six posts for tomorrow. If you use the 4-1-1 method for sharing, you make four of your six updates be content from others with a single post each for soft promotion (a blogpost of yours) and hard promotion (a CTA for your product).

A weekly social media content plan

Work one week ahead.

• What events and launches are planned for this week?
• Which new blogposts are scheduled to publish?
• How much new content do you need to find ahead of time?
• Which images could you create in advance?

Choose a day of the week to plan everything out for the following seven days. We shared some fun tips on how to accomplish the scheduling element of this—including some useful tools like bulk uploading to Buffer.

Planning a week ahead, you can fill in many of the slots in your schedule that will hold posts from your archives—the reshared content that you’ve posted before. New content and curated content can join the schedule as the week progresses.

A monthly social media content plan

Look one month ahead.

• What events and launches are planned for this month?
• What are your goals and plans for content this month?
• Which content can you schedule in advance, and what will you need to reserve space for?
• What experiments might you be running?

One month ahead, you may still be able to fill some of your slots with content from your archives. Beyond that, you’ll likely be charting your strategy instead of hand-writing individual updates.

Your monthly calendar can include your sharing ratio and content types. You can plan your social media experiments and tests. You can look ahead to launches and holidays and plan accordingly.

A yearly social media content plan

Look a full year ahead.

• What events and launches are planned for the year?
• What sharing ratio will you start out with?
• What will be your daily frequency to start?
• Which tentpole content do you hope to publish?

Jot down the major events happening over the next 12 months, integrate the social media plan with a blog editorial calendar, and settle on a sharing ratio that feels best to you. You can always come back throughout the year and change and tweak anything you’d like—when planning a year in advance, it’s hard to tell exactly what will be happening three or six or 12 months from now.

Over to you

What methods have you used for planning your social media content in advance?

I hope you can take away some useful tips and strategies here. We’re currently experimenting with some week-ahead planning for our social media content, and we’re learning tons along the way! If you’ve got any tips to share or questions to ask, feel free to leave a comment here!

Image sources: Iconfinder, Blurgrounds, Startup Stock Photos, CoSchedule

As an executive assistant, your job is to help the executive do her job better. But as an employee, this is only one aspect of your job. You’re doing lots of other things that aren’t necessarily in service of your boss. I spoke with Melba Duncan, president of The Duncan Group, a retained search and consulting firm specializing in senior management support resources, and author of The New Executive Assistant, to learn what it takes to be a successful executive assistant – and what other employees can learn from these masters of managing up. Here’s an edited version of our conversation:

What does someone who spends all of his time managing up have to teach someone who spends only some time thinking about managing up?

Managing up lands on everyone’s desk depending on your level of ambition and your willingness to expand within your role. You have to learn how to anticipate and read the moment. Executive assistants know what the executive has to do every single day, what must be completed, what’s the goal, what are the deadlines. They are willing to respect someone else’s point of view and work within that parameter. Assistants who are terrific at what they do are very, very collaborative. They understand the business that they’re in and the motivation of the executive. And they learn this from always communicating with the executive.

What sets executive assistants apart from employees or team members trying to manage up? Is it that assistants are managing someone else’s life and employees aren’t really doing that?

That’s right. And in most instances non-assistant employees are not expected to. As an assistant, you know that you are managing the life of someone else, and you are there to make a difference.. Your role is to put out fires, fill the gaps, anticipate the executive’s needs, and exercise judgment based on those needs. You are a business partner, you understand the politics of a situation, and you understand how business functions, as a whole. You’re expected to know exactly what your boss is thinking and why. This individual presents a window to the executive’s office. Executive assistants are in a strategic support role but they also play a strategic management role.

If you have not reached that level of business relationship, it’s a little different. It doesn’t mean you shouldn’t exercise the same ideas and the same intellect. It just means that the experience is perhaps more task-driven than relationship-driven.

How can the rest of us create similar partnerships with our bosses?

By focusing on their contributions and taking responsibility for results. They have to constantly demonstrate that they are indispensable, and demonstrate their relevance to the work. Employees need to be able to apply diplomacy and good judgment in responding to all circumstances, predictable and unpredictable, as they occur. You must know what your boss’s job is and how it supports the needs of the organization, so you’ll be able to assist when you can and reduce stress and setbacks.

What are the top skills that make an executive assistant successful? And do those apply to other employees?

The very best executive assistants use their intuition, judgment, business knowledge, motivational techniques, and personal leadership to become an integral element of the executive’s professional and personal life. They adapt their technological skills to create and manage time-saving solutions. They want to be constantly improving. They have to be reliable and have self-discipline. These skills apply to those who choose to pursue challenging careers at all levels.

You and Your Team

The main principle that drives the talented assistant is a commitment to continuously improve. Assistants think, act, and work with others to minimize crises, make decisions, and save executives time. This attitude and skill set applies to all employees. Employees should work together for the overall success of the group. If they really want to emulate the executive assistant, they will come early and stay late, pick up another’s slack for the benefit of the group, turn goals into an action plan, and then confirm and execute. They will state what they’re going to do and meet those expectations; they will avoid shortcuts, tell the truth, and have the courage to tell executives what they think.

If a person is trying to make the boss’s job a little easier, should she act the role of the assistant? Could that backfire or would it help an employee who is trying to manage up?

I think it can help employees. But you have to have good judgment and discretion. If you have an idea and you want to share it with your boss, make sure your timing is on point. It’s up to the employee to step up, because you can’t expect someone who is managing a team or a project to know each person’s level of competency. I say this all the time. Step into the space you want to be in. You have to tell people what you do well, whether it’s within your role or outside of it. If you see you have a talent for writing, then draft an email saying, “I can answer this email on your behalf.” Observe how your boss responds. You’ve just educated that person that you have a writing skill.

You said in your HBR article that executive assistants have to step out of their comfort zone and that executives have to be willing to delegate. Is gaining trust a challenge?

Yes, executives have to be willing to delegate, but executives don’t know what you know. So it lands on the desk of the assistant to educate that executive about what he or she is capable of managing. Your role is to reduce or manage some of the executive’s functions, in order to give that person more time.

There are some executives who will not let go. This is their nature. That gives the executive assistant a little more of a challenge. You just have to be more delicate. Maybe you say, “I just handled that call; I knew the answer you wanted to give because we discussed it. I hope that’s OK.” You educate that person in how you can respond under pressure. Some executives need complete trust before they will let go. So you have to convince them that it’s OK.

Are the boundaries different for other employees and their bosses? An assistant would be expected to pick up the phone at 10 p.m., but what about another employee?

Part of being an executive assistant or a business partner is that you are aware of everything that’s happening all the time, even if it’s three o’clock in the morning. I do believe in today’s world that shutting down and not being available is not acceptable. I would like to think that employees who really want to be successful will remain flexible and available.

I understand about work/life balance. I call it work/life integration. You have to know what you need, and then you have to communicate that. For example, if you need personal time on Sunday mornings, then you need to make the executive aware that you won’t be as accessible on Sunday mornings. Or you need to get someone to cover for you. Taking care of yourself is essential. You come first.

Do you think in general women are better at managing up than men?

I don’t believe that’s true at all. I think it’s the person. I think it’s what motivates somebody to want to help someone else.

You also wrote in your piece that finding out about the temperament of an executive prior to accepting a position is very important, as well as stating clearly while you’re interviewing how you expect to be treated. Is that particularly true for executive assistants because of the relationship?

I think it’s broader. It’s important for everyone to know who they’re going to be reporting to, what is that person’s management style, and what is the culture of the organization. The assistant, and the employer, have the right to ask about that in the interview: e.g., “When someone disappoints you, how do you let that person know? What’s your style?” I think everybody should ask that question.

Personal assistants are known for doing whatever executives ask but they have to push back on some things. How do you say “no” to requests from your boss?

It’s important to know how to say “no” when you can’t do what is being asked, or when you may have a better solution or idea. Listen to the request, and indicate that you understand what is important to the executive. Think about whether you are willing to compromise. Show respect for your boss’s point of view, and then clearly state why you can’t fulfill his/her request. Maybe it’s about priority management, or the request crosses your personal boundaries. Saying “no” respectfully becomes your competitive advantage, because it shows your social intelligence, intuition, and regard for others. But stay firm once you’ve made a decision.

You said that having an executive assistant can drastically improve the productivity of an executive and of the organization as a whole. If more employees start managing up, would that produce similar positive results?

I think that it would. There are many assistants, and many individuals, in companies who don’t realize how important they are to that company. Every time you expand in a role, you add more value to yourself, to the management, and to the company. But it’s up to you to ask for more responsibility.

The Internet may be a big, whirling, fragmenting place—but it actually seems like most people’s best-of lists, when asked to name their favourite things in pop culture and arts, end up looking the same at the end of the year. So the Maclean’s newsroom is taking an axe to the monoculture, selecting the albums, books, movies, TV shows, theatre and artwork that our writers loved—but flew, tragically, under the radar. And we’d love to hear, too, about the stuff you loved that people just aren’t talking enough about. Join us at the hashtag #youmayhavemissed14.

Anne Kingston

It’s not that Jenny Offill’s Dept. of Speculation didn’t get reviewed, or that many of those reviews weren’t raves. But somehow this slim book—technically a novel though its virtuosity transcends such narrow categorization—didn’t result in the ticker-tape parades or the sort of devotion accorded the NPR podcast Serial that it so richly deserved. Offill’s witty, profound, poignant rendering of marital breakdown and maternal love upends the often-denigrated “domestic” novel genre: it’s a tour de force, told via vignettes, apercus, koans and meditations that deftly reference Rilke, Darwin, Kafka, Keats, Russian cosmonauts and Zen masters without an ounce of pretension. It’s a stunning book, filled with hand-grenade truths. Once read, it asks to be returned to again and again, and to be give to people who care about reading and words—and the joy and transcendence they can bring.

John Geddes

Among the great pleasures of attending John Ruskin: Artist and Observer in Ottawa last winter and early spring, was watching the visitors move up so close to the paintings and drawings. At any moment you could look around and catch somebody leaning right in, absorbed in the fine detail of, say, a lyrical watercolour of the latticework of an old church in Venice, or somebody else nosing near enough to sniff a painted flower, or leaf, or feather, or stone. Ruskin is remembered as the great 19^th-century British critic of architecture and art. But this astonishing exhibition, jointly mounted by the National Gallery of Canada and the National Galleries of Scotland, showcased his superb draughtsmanship and, more importantly, revealed how Ruskin applied that skill to expressing his devotion to his subjects, from both the natural world and the old buildings he revered. Ruskin’s name doesn’t have the marquee value of an established first-tier artist, so the show was seen by far too few—although those who did won’t soon forget its revelatory impact.

Speaking of marquee value, Colm Feore is so well established among stage actors that his King Lear was perhaps the most predictable triumph of last summer’s Stratford Festival.  But who anticipated that Maev Beaty, a rising talent in Canadian theatre, would make one of Lear’s wicked daughters such an uncannily sympathetic figure? As Goneril, Beaty played up the exasperation of a daughter with her father’s dotage. You almost sided with her in early scenes, which made her later viciousness that much more unsettling.

Paul Wells

Two of the best albums this year were a reminder that challenging the audience isn’t the artist’s only option. Teaching put to audiences works too.

The great jazz record label Blue Note has gone from moribund to weird-but-intermittently-interesting since the veteran Detroit producer Don Was took the reins last year. The label produced one classic in 2014: Enjoy The View, by vibraphonist Bobby Hutcherson, who’s been recruiting odd mixes of backup instruments since the 1960s. This one has drummer Billy Hart, organist Joey de Francesco, and the surprise: saxophonist David Sanborn, here freed from R&B orthodoxy for a loose-limbed, brooding set that’s all telling gestures and strong tonalities. Each of the four players takes the presence of the other three as a licence to escape old habits.

Meanwhile, conductor Michael Tilson Thomas has built the San Francisco Symphony into a bastion of modernism and Mahler: Big serious music, either from the early 20th century or the early 21st. But there’s always been a streak of the showman in Thomas, and to mark his 20th anniversary with the orchestra he’s released Masterpieces in Miniature, a collection of unabashedly romantic short pieces from composers as diverse as Rachmaninoff, Schubert and Debussy. Nothing is longer than nine minutes. It’s all gorgeously tuneful. It’s the sort of recording that used to attract general audiences to symphonic music, and could again.

Adrian Lee

Are we veering toward peak cartoons for adults? It sure feels that way, with Adventure Time, Bojack Horseman, Adult Swim’s various offerings, Fox’s animation block, and the slew of revivals aimed squarely at tapping into Millennial nostalgia, from The Magic School Bus to Reboot to The Powerpuff Girls (come on—they’re not really making those for the kids).

Still, the almost painfully creepy Adult Swim cartoon Rick and Morty —from the combined pedigree of Adventure Time voice actor Justin Roiland and Community’s madman auteur Dan Harmon—feels essential. (Caveat: Technically, it premiered in 2013, but it largely unfolded this year.) The Back to the Future-esque story of a belching, repulsive, psychopath scientist and his imbecile grandson, it’s four steps past quirky and fully in the surreal, but so blindingly funny in parts that you’ll wonder what the big deal was with Too Many Cooks. The show is a bit of a tough nut to crack—it has innumerable gross-out qualities, including the almost aggressive weirdness of its animation style, the occasionally gag-worthy gags and some of its episodes’ dystopian warp-speed weirdness, which can be nauseating in its darker, deeper, more surreal dives—but if you catch up and cling on, especially when the episodes get a bit more comfortable and allow a little more breathing room, there’s a ton of reward. For me, its standout episode is Anatomy Park, one of its ah, simpler, ideas—Morty sent inside a homeless man’s body to save the amusement park built inside, all in what is ostensibly the series’s holiday episode—executed in such a way that only this show could have done.

As for music, I’ve already written in my top albums of 2014 list to sound the horn about the quiet brilliance of Isaiah Rashad’s Cilvia Demo EP, the Outkast-inflected, deeply assured record from the new 23-year-old signee to the label of rap’s crown prince, Kendrick Lamar. So instead, I’ll point you to the remarkable work of Canadian expat Cold Specks and her new album, Neuroplasticity. She takes everything that works from her debut revelation, I Predict a Graceful Expulsion—the muddy production, the haunting omens, and that voice, a piercing, golden thing—and lays those all upon a bed of lurching horns, dense guitars and dynamic drums, so the effect is less of an ethereal hymn that ripples like rain on puddles, and more a gospel swelling, launching triumphant typhoon waves. It’s a lovely, dense orchard of an album that deserves tilling.

Michael Barclay

How did a guitar teacher from Guelph, Ont., hook up with one of the world’s best Balkan brass bands? Normally, Adrian Raso splits his time between shredding with his rock band and unplugging with a Django Reinhardt-inspired jazz combo, but on The Devil’s Tale (Asphalt Tango) he goes toe to toe with Fanfare Ciocarlia, one of the fiercest brass sections you’ll ever hear, proving himself to be very much their equal.

I wrote about the Calgary band 36? in my earlier list of Canadian albums for Maclean’s, but I’d say the most underrated rock record from elsewhere this year was EMA’s The Future’s Void. Raised in South Dakota, now living in San Francisco, Erika Anderson started her career making avant-garde noise music; here, however, she flips between haunting and gorgeous pop songs with acoustic guitars and pianos (“When She Comes”) and snarling, synth-heavy art rock about technological dystopias—not in the future, but our selfie-obsesessed current climate, which is all the more interesting because Anderson is 27, not 72, and nothing about her album (or the fascinating multimedia web project she made to accompany it) suggests she fears technology itself, just the way it’s used to suck our souls dry (the subject of this essay). Everything about Anderson is fascinating, but it’s her voice that brings it all together. As I wrote on my full 2014 list, “Her howl is a glorious thing: not since PJ Harvey in her prime or the early days of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs’ Karen O has a female rock singer managed to snarl and scream while maintaining full control of her pitch. No tracks here sound particularly alike; this woman is not likely to run out of ideas in the near future.”

Also, to Paul Wells’s praise of Blue Note Records (see above): he fails to mention the utterly outstanding (non-jazz) album they released by Rosanne Cash in January 2014, The River and the Thread, which is hands down the finest singer/songwriter record I’ve heard in many years.

Colby Cosh

I sort of stay intentionally out of touch with popular culture, but I make an exception for the BBC. I’m a big fan of their comedy duo Mitchell & Webb, whose three-episode Ambassadors—which technically debuted in late 2013—was something of a departure, written and created by others for them to perform. I usually prefer M&W’s TV & radio sketch stuff to their Peep Show sitcom, so I am not predisposed to enjoy them so much within a proper story arc. But I’m also a sucker for Yes, Minister-type political-manners comedy. Ambassadors, featuring the pair as diplomats in a former Soviet republic, failed to make much mark: the middle episode, with Tom Hollander as a thinly disguised Duke of York, is particularly good.

I also enjoyed BBC One’s The Game, which is well-nigh a straight update of the BBC’s spy classic Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy in a Seventies collapsing-Britain setting. Tinker Tailor‘s “Circus” has become “the Fray” (with a switch from MI6 to MI5), and Alexander Knox’s crumbling, unhealthy supremo “Control” is now Brian Cox’s crumbling, unhealthy “Daddy.” But The Game is still to spot the Soviet mole before hell breaks loose. These miniseries make a good pair of bookends: they both express the particularly British thought that foreign policy may consist of the highest principles and the noblest duties, but must be implemented by ordinary, often quite weak and ridiculous humans.

Jaime J. Weinman

One of our best popular movie historians, Mark Harris’s Five Came Back tells a story of five great Hollywood directors who voluntarily put their careers on hold to make morale-boosting movies during the Second World War. He covers the frustrations that ensued when film culture met military bureaucracy, the dangers of filming the war as it happened, and how these men had changed by the time they returned. At a time when classic moviemakers are often forgotten and the Second World War often simplified, Harris reminds us of the complexities of both.

Patricia Treble

On first glance the topic—ancient Babylonian writings on flood story—didn’t seem all that appealing. Yet its deft interplay of mystery, archaeology, science and history proved so engrossing that I re-read the thick book during summer vacation. The Ark Before Noah is my favourite book of 2014.

In 1985, a man came to the British Museum with a cuneiform clay tablet from ancient Mesopotamia. Irving Finkel, one of the world’s top experts on the wedge-shaped writing, immediately recognized its opening lines: “Wall, wall! Reed wall, reed wall!” It was from a flood story, though one with a Babylonian hero, ark and animals, instead of the Biblical Noah. Finkel would have to wait another 24 years before the collector would let him launch a detailed examination of the tablet, which dates from around 1750 BCE, far older than the Genesis story. “Weeks later,” Finkel recounts, “I looked up, blinking in the sudden light.” The tablet’s 60 lines contained a detailed instruction manual on how to build an ark, as well as the most famous boarding rules for animals: “Draw out the boat that you will make / On a circular plan; Let her length and breadth be equal . . . / The wild animals from the steppe / Two by two the boat did [they enter].” Included were specific measurements—it would be about half the size of a soccer pitch—and materials; even the depth of bitumen used to seal the hull’s exterior was prescribed to be one-finger deep.

The tablet’s precise ark-construction guidelines are unique; other accounts are much vaguer in their orders. And, coincidentally, it wasn’t the first important flood-story discovery to occur at the museum. Biblical scholarship was upended when George Smith decoded the first ancient Babylonian flood narrative in 1872. Now it’s Irving Finkel’s turn to rewrite history. His passion for the long-dead Sumerian and Akkadian languages, and his love for the ancient civilization that created writing and literature—as well as beer and accounting—comes alive in a delightful, entertaining book that skilfully meanders through subjects, such as how the stories passed from Babylonian cuneiform to Biblical Hebrew and why the ark tablet demands a round boat. (It only had to stay afloat with its precious cargo, not travel.) It turns out the description fits that of a coracle, a round boat used for millennia on the waterways of what is now Iraq.

Brian Bethune

One of the Big Three literary prize shortlists included Michael Crummey and Sweetland in 2014, which is exactly two too few. Crummey is one of the finest Canadian novelists of his generation. Everything he has written has been good, most of it very good indeed, and Sweetland is his finest novel yet. It’s almost impossible to sum it up a way that’s not misleading—which may be its problem with literary juries—but Moses Sweetland, the imperious and impetuous 69-year-old last-man-standing on his eponymous island off the Newfoundland coast, is an extraordinary, beautifully realized character. (He’s not alone in that: readers really should spend some time with the feral Priddle brothers, “Irish twins” born 10 months apart.) But however absorbing Moses’s interactions with his kith and kin—not to mention the government man—Sweetland reaches its mythic and mesmerizing heights only after the others islanders are resettled elsewhere. Then Moses—a Newfoundland Robinson Crusoe who even encounters a Friday-like dog—is alone on his island, except for his ghosts, bracing for a bitter winter both seasonal and personal.

Not that good books being ignored—or for that matter dreadful ones selling like frozen peas—are unusual phenomena. One of 2014′s best and most thought-provoking views of the nuts-and-bolts aspects of modernity is Andreas Bernard’s little noticed Lifted: A Cultural History of the Elevator. There are a lot of candidates for the inanimate icon of modernity—the one object to symbolize the sea change in Western life between about 1870 and the Depression—the car, the airplane, the machine gun, even the flush toilet. Bernard makes a compelling case for the elevator.

The post The Maclean’s You May Have Missed List 2014 appeared first on Macleans.ca.

In October, Google started rolling out a new update to its search algorithm. Penguin 3 is part of the ongoing effort to reduce spam and other low-quality content on the web. While only a small percentage of websites (the worst offenders) were drastically affected, many more may have lost a little ground, and with it, valuable traffic.

Web search results are constant flux, skewed by new competitors, industry terms or buzzwords, spikes in traffic, the quality of inbound links, reviews, and even social media. How important is staying on top? Advertising network Chitika shows Google positioning in charts. To sum up their findings, 91.5% of all web traffic comes from the first page, and the higher you are on the page, the more hits your site will get. If you’re on page two, 75% of searchers won’t even see your link.

Why Google is hurting you

Google algorithms are complex. Page rankings are determined by more than 200 factors, some of which you can’t control. One important thing to remember is that throughout Google history, every change has had the same goal: To improve the quality of results and reduce spam. The end game is to deliver exactly what people are searching for, high quality, informative answers to their queries.

Naturally, marketers are always looking for a way to game the system.

Content Issues

Content is literally everything you use to communicate with your customers. It includes copy, blog posts, articles, ebooks, whitepapers, social media posts, and even graphics. Everything you put out there should be consistent, informative, high quality, and industry-specific. Opinions and personality on blog posts are fine, but the overall subject matter should relate to your business or your customers in some way. Here are some common content mistakes to improve on your website.

• Stale content. It’s not enough to slap a website up with a few pages and then change nothing for the next 5 years. Google wants fresh, updated content, and so should you.
• Poor quality content. There’s no other way to say it. If your content is crap, Google will smack you down. Every word on your site needs to be well-written, authoritative, and relevant to your industry. If you’re not sure and you don’t have a budget for web content, find an English major and have them check your site for grammar and spelling, at the very least.
• Poor focus. A business blog is significantly different from a personal blog. It is absolutely fine to post about fun things that happen at the office (in fact, it’s entertaining and helps you connect with your customers), but let’s not mention your gall bladder surgery or post random cat videos, ok? Keep the subject matter related to your business, answer your customers’ questions, or discuss industry info or news.
• Keyword stuffing. Using awkward keywords over and over to meet a specified density criteria is SO 2010. Forget keywords and just talk to your customers. If you write about your subject, keywords and related words will just fall into place naturally.

Incoming links

This one is tricky. One tactic used a few years ago by shady marketers that’s now coming back to bite web owners in the butt is seeding links on low-quality sites slapped up for that exact purpose. In the past, the number of incoming links was important, so putting up a hundred one-page sites with a link back to the client site was almost a sure-fire method of gaining market share. Today, it’s the fastest way to find your site in Google Hell.

You can use Google Tools to help identify bad links that might be shooting you in the foot. You’ll need to set up a free Webmaster Tool account and follow the steps to verify your website. To see your inbound links, go to Search Tools > Links to Your Site > More. Under “More” you’ll find “Who Links Most.” Click that and then “Download Latest Links” for a spreadsheet view of what pages are linking to your site.

From there, it’s all detective work. Look for suspicious, low-quality sites, sites completely unrelated to your industry, and spammy links posted in random blog comments (another tactic that used to work and is deadly poison today). The first action to take when you find suspect links is to email the webmaster of the site or blog and ask them to remove the link. Only if all else fails, try Google Disavow Tool. It tells Google that you want nothing to do with this link. But if you have a long list of spammy links you’re only now trying to distance yourself from, it’s obvious you were up to no good in the past.

Checking your blind spot

When you move down in the rankings, your competitors move up. Google struck fear into the hearts of marketers and SEO mavens everywhere with “Keyword Not Provided,” the use of keywords has changed considerably.

Don’t worry. You may not have access to the same depth of keyword knowledge you once had, but one thing you can do is check out your site against your competitors to find out why they are outranking you. RivalIQ allows you to see how your website SEO data stacks up and measures keywords rankings for Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, YouTube and Google Plus. Using that information, you can figure out what they did right…and what you may have done wrong. What you know, you can fix.

2015 and beyond

Here’s the good news. If your website is filled with quality content and your marketing techniques are completely on the up-and-up, your website will always be Google proof. That said, you can’t rest on your laurels, patting yourself on the back. If you’re on top, your competitors will be working to overtake your position. To retain your stellar ranking, you need to work constantly at improving and updating your website.

Will you be making content changes for 2015?

Beautiful chess game image courtesy of chrisgj6. Graphic created using free tools by Canva

In every release we do, we have what we call “quick wins”: low-effort, high-value items that focus on usability and build an experience users will love. I’m so excited to be a part of the vehicle that enables these for Allocadia — and its customers.

Here are some specific quick wins we’ve got coming down the pipe:

Modernizing Icons

In response to customer feedback, we are enhancing some icons for improved usability. We took the opportunity to also improve these for color visibility for the visually impaired and product performance (replacing the image based icons with font-based glyph). The result is a clean, modern look, with icons that are easier to identify at a glance.

Focusing on Type

Paying attention to typography ensures your app gives users the right feel. The Allocadia website uses a striking font family called Proxima Nova. It’s visually pleasing, very readable and easy on the eyes. We have plans to use this typography in the Allocadia application itself. We’re also moving toward standardizing font sizes and appearance throughout the app, making the grid more usable and readable.

Custom Branding

This was one of the first ideas I had when coming onto Allocadia and I’ve learned it’s been on the mind of others even before I got here. After customizing some of our prototypes for prospective customers, both our sales team and clients fell in love with the idea of customization.

We’ll be talking more about it when it happens, but some of the features that are coming include choosing heading background colours, uploading your company logo, and menu themes. This custom branding will be available in the January 2015 release.

Consider the Small Things

Little tweaks here and there are the quick wins that provide big results. Change a label to make it more understandable or change an icon to make a button clear, and customers will say, “Yes — that’s what I was looking for.”

The image below shows the current budget tab toolbar and what it will look like with some minor tweaks. Simply reorganizing items can make a big difference; in this case we’re putting the grid buttons into a light grey toolbar box of their own and moving dropdowns not associated with interacting directly with the budget grid hierarchy to the top and out of the way.

These kinds of changes don’t always get the attention they deserve when a company is focused on large-scale strategies or rapid growth. I’m looking forward to prioritizing user experience and implementing these small but important changes to continuously improve our product.

The last couple of weeks I have shared some of thoughts on how you can create a jerk free office. Today it is about the role of HR to create a jerk free office and the deal with the last 5 jerks from my 15 jerks in the office list.

My shortest definition of the role of HR is: to help line managers maximise the performance of the individual, team and the organisation. As jerks have got a significant negative impact on the productivity of the company, HR should be all over them.

Human Resources needs to do the following:

1. Create a Value Driven Organisation

The first step in creating a jerk free office is for all employee to be clear what behaviour is acceptable and what is not through the through the articulation of values. Of course I dont mean this nice posters and screen savers that shout out what the values are. But the values and behaviour that every body in the organisation is agreeing to ‘live’ and on which basis selection, promotion and even firing decisions are being made.

As the saying goes: “If you don’t know where you are going, any behaviour is acceptable”. It is most important to have articulated and inculcated the values of the company.

2. Be a Role Model First

As the ‘value advocates’, every member of the HR team should ‘act holier than the pope’, set an example of values in action and treat all people with respect and fairness. Be sensitive to other peoples’ needs and ready to act and guide if you see jerks in other departments.

3. Be Clear on your Policies and Procedures

Of course not all jerks should be shown the exit door, but jerky behaviour that irks towards bullying or harassment should be dealt with zero tolerance, speedily and fairly. For this, clear policies and procedures need to be articulated on how the company will act when other employees are harassed or bullied. HR is the champion of these policies and should be completely aware of their inner workings.

4. Know the Pulse of your Workplace

The HR team members should have their finger on the pulse of the organisation at all time. This means that they are aware of the atmosphere in the organisation and specific teams. HR should know who is a jerk, which boss is a jerk, where are the office ‘cliques’ (groups that exclude others), where there is increased negativism and which teams are most affected by the jerks in the company.

5. Act to Remove Jerky behaviour

When you are aware you can help (1) interact with the jerk to help him understand the consequences of his behaviour, (2) support the line manager of the jerk to ensure he sees the impact and help him how to deal with it and (3) help people around him accept and deal with his jerky behaviour. This of course excludes behaviour where the jerk is harassing or bullying people. Zero tolerance is required and HR should act fast, fair and indiscriminately.

How To Deal with 5 More Jerks in the Office

11. How to Deal with The Perfectionist Jerk

This type of jerk can’t get his work done in time, is absorbed by details and is nitpicking your work, never satisfied and imposes his need for perfection on others.

As employee don’t take it personally they’re just programmed differently. Don’t get intimidated by the need for perfection. Experiences shows that in 20% of the time you get 80% of the results. Use these jerks for what they are good at, details and shooting holes in your work.

As a line manager set clear priorities and explain to them what the goals are. Explain to them about it if your work is being held back because of them. Use them for what they are good at, don’t put them in teams where you need to develop new ideas, they are great completer / finishers.

12. How to Deal with The Credit Stealing Jerk

This type of jerk always claims paternity for the results/ideas, brags, lies, take advantage of others and is needy for recognition.

As an employee be vocal about your work, no one else will do promote it for you. Keep an eye on this jerk; don’t let them take you for a ride twice. Find to way to address the subject with the jerk.

As an line manager make sure you have you finger on the pulse of your team and know who is doing what. Publicly share credits with team members and make sure you only credit the jerk for the work that he has done. When his behaviour becomes obnoxious you can publicly make fun of the jerk.

13. How to Deal with The Feels Sorry For Himself Jerk

This type of jerk is self deprecating, insecure and lacks confidence.

As an employee be a force of positive energy around them, dont let them drag you down into the ‘victim swamp’. Point out the positive aspects of the situation and maintain your distance with such kill-joys and keep conversations short.

As an line manager try to engage the jerk and understand what the root cause of the insecurity and negativity is all about. Explain the consequences of his behaviour on others but primarily on himself. Coach, give suggestions on what to read / learn and in some case suggest counselling

14. How to Deal with The Overachieving Jerk

This type of jerk does more than is expected of them, making others look bad by doing so; even if others help them out they will find something else to make them look super busy.

As an employee find the positive aspects in these jerks. Learn and be amazed about their desire to be the best in whatever they do. If you have different priorities in life make sure you dont get caught up in their whirlwind.

As an line manager make sure you keep throwing challenges at these jerks. They are like pitbulls and have a ferocious work appetite. Just make sure that you help this jerk understand that not everybody is wired they way they are and that as a result others are not inferior nor should they be treated that way.

15. How to Deal with The Victim Jerk

This type of jerk always blames others for his inability to get work done, progress in his career or the situation that he is in.

As an employee dont get caught up in the bottomless hole of despair and complaints. Don’t argue as that will only strengthen the belief of the jerk that others are to blame. When the jerk let his guard down share your positive outlook, but dont get your hopes up that he will get out of this victim mode.

As an line manager make it abundantly clear what the causal relations are between deliverables and consequences (recognition, promotions, firings). Don’t entertain the jerk in his need to share his views on how others have treated him. Don’t ever allow the jerk to be the victim.

OK I promise next week is the last in the Jerk at the Office series, when I will share you my list of Jerk Bosses!

Breaking up can be hard to do, but in 2014, spinning off less profitable divisions that aren’t core to one’s business proved a popular way to unlock value. Among the year’s highest-profile spinoffs: eBay’s plan to carve off PayPal; HP splitting its PC and printer businesses from its corporate hardware and services operations; and BHP Billiton, which succumbed to investor pressure to cut loose its less lucrative assets and piled them into a separate company. A rise in activist investors pushing companies to become hyper-focused on their main businesses is helping drive this trend. Another is the fact that some firms simply can’t find willing buyers for their assets. Whatever the reason, we can expect to see more offshoots in the years to come.

That’s not to say all corporate spinoffs create value. Encana learned this the hard way when it spun out its oil assets to form Cenovus in 2009, leaving it exposed when the bottom fell out of the natural gas market. Energy and mining firms have a habit of clustering spinoffs to capitalize on the market highs, says Jim Osman, CEO of Edge Consulting Group, a research firm that focuses solely on spinoffs and special situations.

It’s important to understand the reason for the split, he stresses. Avoid a move that appears opportunistic, but if there is a compelling justification Osman says it could create a good opportunity for investors. A new report by Edge Consulting and Deloitte that looks at 15 years’ worth of spinoffs found the share prices of parent companies climb an average of 28% two years after a move, while the offshoots jump about 48%. Best of all, many of these deals are telegraphed months in advance, giving investors time to buy in early and the chance to own a piece of both companies.

READ MORE:

• Founders, CEOs and business legends tell us what they learned in 2014
• What We Learned 2014: The market is mad for marijuana

The post What We Learned 2014: Breaking up is profitable to do appeared first on Canadian Business.

Some sales people lie but don’t believe they do. They lie to make a sale. They lie to get you to buy what they want you to buy. They lie to promote their agenda, not yours.

They don’t believe they lie because they don’t give you false information. They don’t blatantly tell you a lie. They don’t tell you something that is straight up not true and so because the don’t directly lie; they’ve convinced themselves they aren’t lying. But they are.

How do salespeople lie and convince themselves they aren’t lying? They lie through omission.

Lying through omission is when someone deliberately and knowingly withholds information that could be beneficial to the buyer. When someone withholds information in order to influence a decision, that’s lying through omission.

I was in NYC with my girls last week, and we went to the Empire State building. The minute we got out of the cab; we were approached by woman who was selling tickets to the top. She was quick to tell us the wait was an hour long, but that while waited we could get tickets to a cool, interactive ride. It took you on a virtual tour of NYC. She said the girls would absolutely love it. She said that the tickets also included access to the museum on the 88th floor. I asked her if the price was the same at the ticket counter inside and she said yes. I asked her what the difference was if I got the tickets from her and instead of getting the tickets inside; she said nothing EXCEPT I couldn’t get the Skyride tickets inside. So, I bought the tickets.

Here’s what she didn’t tell me. She didn’t tell me that although the Skyride experience took about 30-45 minutes, it didn’t save us a place in line or reduce the hour wait. We still had to wait an hour once we finished the Skyride. She didn’t tell me that the museum was free, regardless of what tickets you bought. She didn’t tell me that buying tickets from her ONLY got us to the 88th floor NOT the 102nd floor or the top. Finally, she DIDN’T tell me for the same price I could have bought Fastpass tickets. Fastpass tickets would have allowed us to go straight to the top, skipping the line. It allowed us to go to the museum, go to the 88th floor AND the 102nd floor all in half the time. My girls are 4, 7, and 9, waiting in line fucking sucks. Had I known, we would have skipped the Skyride, and bought FastPass tickets straight to the tippy, tippy, top.

But no! We didn’t know that was an option until after we bought the tickets from her.

This woman lied to us without ever telling us something that wasn’t true. She just lied through omission and as my dad taught me, that is just the same as lying.

Just because you haven’t told your customers or buyers a falsehood, doesn’t mean you’re telling the truth. It’s your job to make sure your buyers and customers have ALL the information so they can make an informed decision. Anything short of that, you’re being a scumbag.

Ask my kids, they’ll tell ya. Waiting in line for hours, when you didn’t have to, puts a sour taste in your mouth.

 

Looking to make your content marketing as targeted and as effective as possible? Then you’re going to need buyer personas.

A buyer persona is a tool used to profile your target audience/customer demographic. Not in a creepy way. It’s simply a model of what your average customers look like—a written description that breaks down the basic, identifiable groups that make up your customer base.

For example, if you have a hardware store, your buyer personas might include construction workers who come to you for supplies; industrious couples who like to tackle DIY projects on the weekends; lawn care zealots; women who come looking for gifts for their manly-man husbands and boyfriends; and so on and so forth.

Using buyer personas helps you to make your content marketing specific; instead of talking to anyone and everyone within earshot, you’re able to address a specific group, honing in on what they care about and what they need to hear from you.

So what should your buyer personas entail? Really as much useful information as you’ve got—but in particular, never neglect these seven essentials:

1. The basics. Are you selling primarily to women or to men? And are they older or younger? If nothing else, your buyer personas should include these demographic essentials.
2. This is especially important in B2B content marketing. Take the hardware store example. If you know that a big chunk of your client base works in construction, well, that helps you hone in on a pretty specific group.
3. If you’re selling to the affluent, you may want to emphasize luxury, class, prestige. If you’re selling to middle-class families or single moms and dads with limited incomes, then you may want to emphasize your value and affordability.
4. How much will your customers already know about your products and services—and how much will you need to educate them?
5. What issues do your customers face—and how might your products be positioned as the solution?
6. Shopping habits. Do your customers usually buy online, or in the store? Do they do a lot of planning and research before making a purchase, or are they impulse buyers?
7. What sorts of things do your customers really care about? The environment? Social causes? Or simply doing what’s best for their families?

As 2014 comes to a close, we get to turn our sights to 2015 and prognosticate on what may be in store for those in B2B Marketing in the coming year. While trying to predict the future can be fun, especially when you predict correctly, I do hope that for several of these predictions I am completely wrong, as I hope – but not ready to predict – that 2015 becomes known as the breakout year for those in B2B marketing.

Prediction 1: Marketers Will Continue to Struggle to Show the Value of Their Efforts and Investment

This is one of the predictions I do hope I get completely wrong, but given the last few years and some of the research from this year, I don’t think I will be.

• Only 8% of those in content marketing say they are highly effective with their content – Content Marketing Institute
• Only 2.8% of those in B2B Enterprises who are responsible for Demand Generation state they are highly effective in reaching their goals – ANNUITAS
• Only 13% of vendors that were reviewed passed the “B2B Customer Engagement Test” – Forrester

While this is only the current years research, this is actually a decline from the previous year, which is obviously does not bode well. 2015 must be a year where marketers begin to show demonstrable value to their organizations and the investments that have been made. A lot of investment and trust has been put into marketing from their organizations, this will not continue if marketers continue to struggle in showing what that investment is yielding.

Prediction 2: The Gap Between Vendors and Customers Will Continue To Grow

As mentioned in the previous prediction, according to Forrester, less than 15% of B2B organizations are connecting with their customers with effective content. However, many organizations still do not realize that the buyers are not just outpacing B2B marketers in terms of sophistication; they are also doing the same to B2B sales people. According to VP and Principal Analyst at Forrester, Laura Ramos, this is an area where many organizations are still playing catch-up, “Companies need to help salespeople understand the narrative that has been going on between marketing and prospects, so they can carry key points, survey results and other information, and put it into person-to-person conversations.”

It is imperative that both B2B marketing and sales reps understand that they no longer lead the conversation, direct the “sales cycle” or move the buyer through their funnel. The buyer is in full control and desires dialogue and discussion with their vendors. If this is not done, and let’s hope that 2015 is the year that organizations begin to understand this and apply it to their strategy, otherwise, then the gap will only widen.

Prediction 3: The Full Scope of Transformation Will Not Be Realized

While it is safe to say the investments in technology and content will again increase in 2015, I believe it is equally safe to predict that marketers will spend 2015 thinking these investments will yield positive results. While their may be some positive, incremental impact as an outcome of these investments, what marketers must begin to realize is that unless there is a true realization of Demand Process – the alignment of People, Process, Content and Technology to that of the buyer and their buying process, any outcomes and positive impact will be minimal at best.

Too many companies only focus on a part of the whole and the lack of buyer insight, end-to-end process and how the organization is aligned to the buying process are often the some of the greatest failure points in an organization. CMOs must address this in totality or else risk another year with minimal improvement.

There are many more predictions that could be made heading into 2015, however, as with all predictions, only time will tell. As we head into 2015, I do truly hope my three predictions are way off. I hope that 2015 is seen as the year where marketers make great strides, advance their skills and lead in value creation for their organizations and if this happens, we will have a much different set of predictions in 2016.

 Sales startup Datanyze is announcing its first acquisition — it’s buying a similar service, LeadLedger. On a broad level, Datanyze and LeadLedger basically promise customers the same thing — they’re trying to help salespeople find new leads, particularly by tracking which websites are using competitors’ products, as well as overall market share. Read More

Sales development reps, you’ve all heard it. Cold calling is not a walk in the park. Sometimes, it will seem like a monumental struggle, trudging through lists full of incorrect contacts, and trying your best to influence influencers. If your company has a sales development team, you know that one of the few things that helps these sales reps get through the day is knowing that the person sitting next to them is dealing with the same challenges. They can reach out to each other for advice, or to bounce off ideas. At AG Salesworks, this is especially helpful as we have teams for support, including team leaders, managers, and directors of client operations, each of which have experience in the field and have their doors open to reps at all times.

However, at other companies, we’ve heard horror stories about walking into a sales development or inside sales job and getting little to no support. One day of training and a list of target accounts with no names, phone numbers, or email is all you are given. Then, you’re expected to somehow make quota.

I understand in some cases companies just don’t have the cash flow to afford to hire someone to manage this process, but why not consider hiring another sales development rep? You not only could double the lead out-put, but there can be many other benefits as well.

Here are five reasons why we feel that having just one B2B sales development rep in your company doesn’t work:

1) The Team Dynamic.

Burnout is a common reason for attrition in our industry. Hundreds of calls on a weekly basis can wear on the best of us. Now we realize that we can’t expect sales development reps to do this forever, but dedicating the time to hire someone who only lasts 3 months is a waste of your time and company money. If you can build out a team of like-minded individuals who can lean on one another, you’d be surprised at the additional mileage you can get out of them.

2) Benchmarking.

Multiple reps can help set the bar. If you only have 1 rep, 20 calls a day and 3 leads a month might seem adequate, but the problem is, you really have no one to contrast their performance against. (Want to see the industry standard? Check out the new Outbound Index.) How many calls a day are reasonable? How many leads a month should we expect? These questions could more easily be answered if you calculate the average between the reps making calls to determine reasonable goals.

3) Competition.

Nothing motivates a good sales development rep more than someone competing for top dog. Hey, we’re in B2B sales for a reason right?

4) Peer Training.

If you don’t have the time to train your team, have them train each other. It’s always good to have your reps listen in on each other’s calls to pick up on a few best practices and in return provide some constructive feedback. How about lead qualification? Could they be asking better questions? Peers can assist in editing leads which could mean that the outside rep is more likely to follow up on the opportunity
because they are thoroughly qualified.

5) Mitigate Your Risk.

It is very common for us to see a monthly ebb and flow of lead output. If you are only relying on one sales development rep to feed a hungry outside, inside, or field sales team, you are setting yourself up for failure on certain months. Generally the minimal growth of your forecast on a low lead month won’t make the VP of sales very happy. We’ve found that can be offset with multiple sales development reps helping to balance out the low performer.

If you’re considering building out your sales development team, consider these factors before hiring. You may want to hire in multiples instead of one at a time, and you must give these reps the resources they need to succeed. How are you building your sales development team?

New ways to sell in the midmarket world are happening all around us. What used to be a one-way road – a sales person “telling” potential buyers what to buy, is now a two-way, busy street where buyers find their own information and need us in sales to offer specific insights and stories – and paint a vision of the future – to help them know if the information they have is right for their scenario.

Bring-your-own-device (BYOD) policies are growing at mid-sized companies with many organizations giving new sales reps a tablet rather than a desktop or laptop now.

Most of us read our email on our mobile phone (put stat here) and we give out our mobile number like never before.

Sales organizations need to take advantage of this scenario and leverage it in 2015. One issue is that websites are not viewing well on mobile devices despite technology that can make this happen. It is called “responsive”- and to see the basics about making your website a responsive one, check out Copyblogger’s post from last year.

What is viewable on a potential buyer’s mobile device should be the most important things to them right now in terms of reaching you or finding what they need from you and your company.

Example: If I am looking up a restaurant from my mobile device and am on the road, having a phone number right on the main page is critical because I may want to call for a reservation. Having a menu (with current pricing) to view is critical, so are the updated hours.

Did you hear about the Chinese restaurant snafu where they did not have their latest prices on the website and a customer, Harvard professor Ben Edelman, made a big stink about it?

This is a B-to-C example but it illustrates the point that you need to think about what is important for your buyers to see on their mobile device when they pull up your website.

Software Advice, a company that evaluates CRM software, surveyed nearly 2000 sales professionals who use a mobile version of a CRM tool and found the following:

1. Nearly all salespeople using mobile CRM (82 percent) say that accessing their system on smartphones and tablets greatly or moderately improves the quality of their CRM data
2. Reps using both smartphones and tablets to access their CRM were much more likely to realize specific benefits, with 50 percent saying this improved efficiency and productivity
3. Sales content management was most-cited as a regularly used feature (37 percent), even ahead of reviewing and inputting contact information (31 percent)

See their whole study here.

We’ve only talked about phones, tablets, and CRM here. This conversation continues with more about other mobile tools in a future post.

If it is true that sales reps do a better job with their CRM using a mobile app, then they should be encouraged by you and your company to do so.

How are you helping your reps in 2015 with tools and systems that allow them to do their job better?

What is your plan to help increase their (and your) productivity in the new year?

Here is another post written this year about how mobile helps sales reps sell.

This post was written as part of the IBM for Midsize Business program, which provides midsize businesses with the tools, expertise and solutions they need to become engines of a smarter planet. I’ve been compensated to contribute to this program, but the opinions expressed in this post are my own and don’t necessarily represent IBM’s positions, strategies or opinions.

Lori Richardson is recognized as one of “50 Most Influential in Sales Leads Management” and on Forbes as one of the “Top 30 Social Sales Influencers” worldwide. Lori speaks, writes, trains, and consults with inside sales teams in mid-sized companies. Subscribe to the award-winning blog and the “Sales Ideas In A Minute” newsletter for sales strategies, tactics, and tips. Increase Opportunities. Expand Your Pipeline. Close More Deals.

email lori@scoremoresales.com | View My LinkedIn Profile | twitter |Visit us on google+

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Imagine being on a game show, you’ve been selected to chose door number one and door number two. Behind each door is a stack of leads.  One door has a stack of leads gathered at a trade show, the other is a stack of leads generated via inbound marketing. Do you know which you’d rather bring the sales team?  Would a pile of inbound leads or trade show leads go further for your company? Before we answer that question, let’s talk budget.

Budgets

Tradeshows can vary in cost, and pretty significantly at that.  They can range anywhere from $10 – $200 a square foot for an exhibitors booth.  There are also other expenses to consider when exhibiting:

• Travel & Hospitality
• Entertainment
• Shipping
• Booth Design
• Promotions

According to the Exhibit Designers & Producers Association (EDPA) the industry average for cost per square foot for custom exhibits is $138-$154.50.  A 10 x 10 space would be $13,800 just for the space.  Add on the items above and the number is starting to grow.

Inbound budgets don’t necessarily come cheap either, although that depends if you’re inbound marketing campaigns are managed in-housed or with an agency.  Exhibiting at two trade shows a year might be the same as developing a full-on inbound marketing program.  Now comes the real question, how does the ROI stack up?

Qualified Or Not Qualified, That Is The Question

Spending all that money on a trade show may not be a bad thing.  After all, bringing a stack of business cards back to the office is never a bad thing.  There is a question in there though somewhere, how qualified are the names on those business cards?  Was it someone you met while waiting in line for coffee before the show floor opened?  Oh right, it could have been that gentlemen who wanted to win the iPad your company was giving away in exchange for his contact information.  Regardless, bringing back a stack of leads is better than no stack at all right?

One of my favorite punch lines with inbound marketing is being able to tell how qualified inbound leads actually are.  Knowing exactly where they came from, what was consumed, when a hand was raised is all valuable when picking up the phone to further engage.  The great thing is this can be done with trade show leads as well.  There’s no reason implementing an inbound campaign with a stack of trade show leads is a bad idea.  Why not weed out all the iPad entries and coffee line exchanges right away?

Either way, leads may be leads, but qualified leads are what really matter.  You can gain them via each outlet, outbound may just come with a pile you throw away.  Making the cost-per-lead for tradeshows a bit more expensive than that of inbound.

What percentage of your trade show leads turn into real opportunities?  Leave a comment below!

For the most part, businesses are on board with social as a legitimate marketing channel, worthy of some amount of the marketing budget–a growing follower count and increasing engagement might be enough to maintain the current social budget. But the only way to get a bigger social marketing budget is to prove ROI, as executives are demanding accountability. Social marketers know social has some impact on the bottom line, and so far have been able to get away with the excuse of not having the metrics to truly determine social ROI. But when asking for more of the budget, this excuse will no longer be valid.

Fortunately, social analytics are getting more sophisticated and are closing the gap between the metrics social marketers are reporting and the metrics their executives want. For social marketers, it will take a mindset shift. It has to, really, if they want to prove their value and earn bigger budgets.

So how do social marketers change their mindset and thrive in a pay-to-play world?

Measure social conversions

Many social marketers are already doing this, but they’re using simple referral analysis (i.e. Google Analytics conversion tracking) to do so, which is valuable for search marketing, but doesn’t translate well to social–it reduces social’s true impact and purpose. For example, after the big Thanksgiving weekend, reports came out that social was only responsible for a paltry 1-2% of online sales. But that’s because that only counts social sales via last-click attribution. With the introduction of direct sales conversion products, such as the Twitter buy button, and more sophisticated remarketing, many are predicting (including us) that direct social sales will surely increase. But regardless, social is a powerful channel–and is responsible for conversions–throughout the entire increasingly complex customer journey, not just the last click.

Fortunately, social is integrated into just about every company’s ecommerce website, making it possible to follow a customer’s journey and more accurately attribute social to its true business impact. Which leads to…

Integrate learnings with the ecommerce team

If you want social to move the needle (which you do), the ecommerce team must be your best friends. Social integration on the website is crucial to social success. If you’re measuring social conversions (above) properly, you’ll be able to see what products are getting shared and what products, when shared, are converting. Today, often the first thing people do when they find something they like online is share it. It may not be a Facebook status update or a tweet; it may be an instant message, a Facebook chat, or a pin. Nonetheless, it’s shared on social. How products are being shared is crucial information for both social and ecommerce. Work together, and both teams will be better off.

Improve direct-response social targeting

In 2014, we as an industry grew tremendously in ad targeting capabilities. Just about every social network improved their own ad products and analytics offering, and we even put a pretty good dent into figuring out the intricacies of dark social. The new data we’re able to capture as well as the new ad products available make for some powerful new opportunities. We expect there to be even greater advances and innovation in 2015. Social marketers who are early to adopt and understand the new targeting technologies will be well positioned to do powerful retargeting on social and improve their ability to convert via social.

Rethink your social content

Facebook attracted brands to the network with the promise of never-before-seen reach at essentially no cost. They said that if brands accumulate likes (often by paying for them), they’ll be able to reach that audience with owned posts. That promise is no longer true. Owned posts, on average, reach 6% or so of a brand’s following. And that percentage is decreasing. As a result, many brands have turned to a combination of boosting their owned posts (paying for a greater reach) and paying for sponsored posts–hence the shift to pay-to-play. On the bright side, social advertisements (sponsored posts) are much more targeted, allowing brands to show specific content to a specific audience–a much more tailored and personalized approach. And that means social marketers must rethink their social content from this new perspective.

As the saying goes, if you try to please everybody, you please nobody. Unlike owned posts, which are targeted at all of your followers, paid social posts can provide different content to different subgroups, which provides the opportunity to be substantially more effective. The more you can divide your total audience into specific subgroups, the more you’ll actually be able to please everybody. This, however, requires deeper audience insights and more tailored content.

Social marketers’ mindsets will need to evolve in this new pay-to-play social world. By 1) thinking about and measuring social with the metrics that businesses care about, 2) integrating and leveraging insights with the ecommerce team, 3) using more sophisticated targeting tools, and 4) rethinking content for targeted social communications, they’ll be able to prove their value and get a bigger budget in 2015.

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