I read somewhere that data was the key to boosting sales.  Really?  Says who?

When you look into the "who", it should come as no surprise that it's the companies that provide data analytics that say so.  Don't get me wrong; data (and especially the right data) can be very useful.  But data, by itself, doesn't boost anything.

If you are getting the right data...

• where opportunities stall in your sales process,
• why they stall,
• conversion ratios from first contact to closing,
• win rates by salesperson and opportunity type,
• length of sales cycle by salesperson and opportunity type,
• % of opportunities where there is true traction,
• % of opportunities that are fully qualified,
• % of opportunities that get demos, proposals, quotes,

...and you know what to look for, you can discover what and/or who needs to be fixed.  But you still have to fix it.  The data won't do that for you.  And you need to know more than what and who.  You must know why.  And the why could be different for each and every salesperson.

Data can help you identify bottlenecks, trends and problems.  The importance of those cannot be understated.  However, can you actually fix the problem once you know what it is?

For example, one of the common trends, being illuminated by data, is the dropping win rate.  So you know you aren't closing enough business to hit plan.  Why is the win rate so low?

It could be:

1. Poor sales selection,
2. Ineffective sales coaching,
3. Lack of accountability,
4. Unqualified proposals or quotes,
5. Unqualified demos,
6. Inconsistent messaging,
7. Lack of onboarding,
8. Skill gap,
9. Poor consultative selling skills,
10. Lack of listening and questioning skills,
11. Lack of effort,
12. Follow-up,
13. Pricing,
14. Inability to sell value,
15. Rushing through the sales process,
16. Ineffective sales process,
17. Poor sales DNA,
18. Poor closing skills,
19. Lack of relationships, and/or
20. Failure to reach decision makers.

Image Copyright: tashatuvango / 123RF Stock Photo

Journalism and content marketing may seem like worlds apart, but there are some things the reporters and writers of the world have mastered that we could all benefit from adopting. A journalist doesn’t just pitch stories, interview sources and write articles—at his or her core, a journalist is a storyteller. Whether for magazines, newspapers or websites, journalists engage readers, build relationships, and if all goes according to plan, tell a story that stays in the readers’ memory.

While a j-school degree probably isn’t the logical next move, there’s still plenty you can pick up from this crowd. Here, we break it down.

1. Know your audience and adapt your voice accordingly

Your friends and coworkers know who you are when you speak, and the same identifier applies to content. If you’ve ever read more than one magazine or newspaper (which should be everybody, everywhere), you were probably drawn to the unique style of that publication. But what you might not have noticed is, beyond the articles and photos, each outlet has an even more powerful way of unmistakably defining its identity and building relationships with readers—its tone and voice. Spend some time carefully defining who you want to read your content and figuring out their interests and behaviors. Keep these descriptors in mind every time you pitch or write a new piece of content. Need some examples to get started? Check out a few magazine media kits to see how other publications describe their voice.

2. Understand these five determinants of “newsworthiness”:

• Timing: why are you writing this story at this time?
• Significance: what will the article mean to your readers? Will it help or inform them?
• Proximity: is the topic close enough to readers for it to pique their attention?
• Prominence: put simply, why should people care?
• Human interest: does the article appeal to readers’ emotions?

While these may not make you eligible for a Pulitzer, they’ll certainly increase your readership.

3. There are lots of facts, but only one core story

No one is going to pick through piles of information to figure out your article’s purpose; you need to guide them there. Remember that, as a content marketer, the first goal is storytelling, not selling. From the introduction all the way through to the conclusion, it’s essential that your content flows like an article would. Draw readers in with text that entertains them, gives them answers and makes them want to learn more, then close everything out with a conclusion that ties it all together and reinforces what you’ve just said.

4. Support your claims

No journalist would send his or her editor an article full of unsupported statements. While you may be striving to be a thought leader in your field and already know a great deal about a given topic, that doesn’t make you immune to citing stats, noting case studies and/or linking to relevant external content. Beyond a credibility boost, supplementing what you say can also help readers make sense of more complex subjects. And what reader doesn’t want to walk away having learned something new?

5. Package and Repackage Your Content

Quality content has potential beyond a single piece of text. When you’re brainstorming, try thinking about ideas in a broader sense. Can your article inspire an infographic? A slideshow? Maybe a sidebar that includes even more information about a chosen topic? Can you create a twitter chat inspired by the subject or have readers submit their own stories or photos for a chance to be featured in a follow-up post? You can even think of ideas that fall under a theme and create “special issues” that cover a single subject from many different angles.

6. If you haven’t done the necessary legwork, it’s going to show

In the end, when someone chooses to read your content, they’re dedicating part of their day to checking out what you have to say. Show them you value their time and they’ll respond by coming back for more. It’s easy to get caught up in the speed and accessibility of posting articles online, but just like a journalist wouldn’t turn in a half-written story and an editor wouldn’t hit “publish” without everything being copyedited and fact-checked, resist the urge to broadcast your work to the world until it’s something you’d be excited to read yourself. Journalists pitch tons of stories and only the very best are worthy of publication. If you adopt that same mindset with your content marketing, people will notice.

Embracing content in this way, especially for those coming from a more traditional marketing background, requires a shift in mindset. But working some of these approaches into your own content strategy could be the difference between creating content for the sake of content and writing stories that readers are eager to engage with and share.

Let’s keep the conversation going: have you used any of these approaches to improve your content marketing strategy? We want to hear about it! Leave us a comment below.

Content marketing is one of the most effective ways to generate new leads for your business. But many marketers and entrepreneurs will tell you that feeding the content beast is one of the most challenging aspects of their online marketing strategy. Here are a few ways you can creatively repurpose existing content to save yourself some time and create more integrated, engaging campaigns.

1. The Giveaway. Everyone still loves to get something for nothing. The only real question is, can you come up with something that will actually provide some real value to your loyal or prospective new customer? Maybe it’s additional content related to the problem, issue, need or want the user is addressing. Maybe it’s some amount of your company’s actual product or service. Maybe it’s attendance at a special event that’s related. Whatever it is, the giveaway has the potential for doing just as well (if not better) in an email marketing campaign as it does in a social media marketing campaign.

2. The Discount. The next best thing to getting something for free is getting something at a great discount. So the same rules apply as the giveaway, although a discount is probably going to only be for your company’s actual products and services. Obviously, you’ll need to run the numbers through a bunch of scenarios in order to offer the right level of discount – one that gets people to purchase but doesn’t cut too far into company revenues.

3. The Contest. The key to a contest is the perceived value of the prize relative to the user’s chance of winning. If you can line up some kind of substantial prize from a sponsor who wants the additional exposure, more power to you. If you want to up the exclusivity of the offer, put a cap on the number of entries that will be accepted. If you line up multiple prizes, then you have the opportunity to keep extending the number of entries that will be allowed and adding extra prizes to boot. You can also consider adding in a layer of social networking such that every time a user gets a friend in on the contest, they get an additional entry as well.

4. The Infographic. Infographics are a customer favorite, and when done well they’re fun and informative to boot. If you’ve put together infographics that you’ve pointed to in your social media campaigns, you owe it to yourself to bring those infographics to your email marketing efforts as well. If you use the right platform, you can display the full version right in the body of the email message after a nice introduction. Otherwise, include a link to where your infographic on the web.

5. Inside Information. Everyone likes to feel like they’re part of an inside circle that gets information that others do not. This opens up lots of ways for you to take content from your social networking efforts and turn it into something that will work as an email marketing campaign. For example, let’s say you had a Facebook post about your predictions for something in 2014. You can follow that up in an email campaign to report on how your predictions fared.

We hope that seeing how you can take a both/and approach to social media marketing and email marketing has your wheels turning about how your business can make the most of each. Things that have been working well for you on social media sites ought to work just as well, if not even better, in your email marketing campaigns. Email campaigns should definitely remain a key part of your marketing toolkit, no matter what others may say.

After weeks of searching and networking, you’ve done it. You’ve found the perfect job for which to apply.

Of course, the first thing you want to do is impress the employer. In fact, you want to make such a great first impression they can’t turn you down. So what do you do? You wow them with your cover letter.

When it comes to applying for jobs, many job seekers are apprehensive about experimenting with their cover letters. There’s so much pressure to impress the hiring manager, and one slip-up could land your application in the trash.

In addition to writing an impressive cover letter, 18 percent of employers say a creative cover letter is valued. This is why you should allow your personality to shine through in order to differentiate yourself from other job seekers applying for the same position.

If you’re searching for some unique ways to make yourself stand out to employers, here are five unconventional ways to start your cover letter:

1. Break it down

Employers like numbers. They especially like numbers when they have meaning. If you choose to use numbers to illustrate your experience in your cover letter, use them within context. This will allow employers to understand your accomplishments and how they qualify you for the position.

Example: 640 hours. 50 volunteers. Eight weeks. One event. That’s what it takes to pull together Spring City’s Annual Community Expo.

As a special events professional, I’ve gained experience pulling off extremely successful events under tight deadlines. This is why I believe I’m qualified for your Special Events Manager position for Flowerville’s Chamber of Commerce.

2. Use a quote describing your work ethic

Although it may seem cliché to use a quote in your cover letter, when used well and in context, a quote can add more value to your cover letter.

Select a quote that relates to your experience, passions, and the position for which you’re applying. Once you find a quote, tie it into the elements of your experience and explain how it summarizes your qualifications.

Example: Stephen R. Covey once said, “Accountability breeds response-ability.” As an experienced manager, I believe accountability is the key to success in any work environment. In every management position I’ve had, I’ve encouraged my employees to be accountable for their successes and failures, which is why my leadership style will be a great fit for this position.

3. Tell a mini anecdote

Telling a story in your cover letter allows employers to see your more personal side. When employers search for candidates, they’re not only looking at your qualifications, but they also know if you’d be a good fit for their culture, too. By telling a story that relates to your career path, it will allow you to reveal your genuine self to the reader.

Example: I fell in love with basketball at a very young age. Not only do I love the sport itself, but also I loved the numbers behind the scores. Because of this life-long interest in sports and numbers, I believe I would be an excellent candidate for the Data Analyst position for the Washington Wildcats.

4. Illustrate your passions, dreams, and goals

Employers not only want to hear why you’re qualified for the position, but they also want to know why you chose your career path. Employers want to hire passionate employees because they know these individuals will be motivated to do their job.

Example: Content marketing, social media, and research are my passions and areas of expertise. Not only are these my passions, but also I believe these skills are the foundation for any digital marketing professional. These passions, combined with my enthusiasm, would make me a great candidate for your Digital Media Manager position at ABC Marketing, Inc.

5. Speak as if you’re already hired

When you jump into writing your cover letter, shift your mindset to as if you’re already hired. Pretend you’re in the break room and one of your coworkers or manager asks you why you chose to work at their company. This is a great way to show your interest in your cover letter.

Example: When I discovered Accounting Solutions was hiring, I knew I had to apply. I’ve been waiting to find a company where I feel like I can make a difference while working as an accountant. Not only are your clients awesome, but the overall mission of your company is something I believe in, too.

6. Say it in 140 characters or less

Brevity is key when applying for any job. The shorter and more powerful statement you can create, the stronger your cover letter will be. Remember, employers don’t have a lot of time to review cover letters and resumes. However, if you can make your introduction short and sweet, you’ll help the employer decide if they should keep reading.

Example: Design and nature are my elements. Let me tell you how my web design experience will help you protect the environment.

There are endless ways to write a cover letter and there’s no perfect formula. Just keep in mind your audience and how you can relate to them, and you’ll be able to write a much stronger cover letter that will land you an interview.

What tips would you add to ensure a cover letter stands out to an employer?

The failure to accurately forecast sales revenues has critically compromised the careers of many promising CEOs, Sales VPs and Sales Managers. Getting it wrong - and particularly getting it wrong consistently - sheds jobs and shreds reputations.

Despite all the obvious dangers, the average organisation continues to struggle. A series of annual studies by CSO Insights and others confirms that average sales forecast accuracy at a deal-by-deal level remains little better than flipping a coin.

And yet a significant minority of organisations are managing to achieve much higher levels of accuracy at every level - from the individual sales person through to the company-wide number. What are they doing better? What are they doing differently?

Buyer-aligned pipeline stages

First - and this is the critical foundation - they define their pipeline stages not by the activity that their sales people have undertaken, but by verifiable evidence of progress in the prospect’s buying decision process.

This means that opportunities can only be advanced from one stage to the next when key buyer-behaviour milestones have been observed and confirmed. For example, submitting a sales proposal to the customer is not a valid milestone - but getting their confirmation that the proposal has addressed their needs might be.

Continuous requalification

Next, top-performing sales organisations regularly and rigorously re-qualify sales opportunities at each stage of the pipeline against a series of increasingly tough criteria based on past analysis of winning and losing deals. In some of the most effective organisations, sales managers adopt the position that opportunities should be qualified out unless the sales person can justify retaining them.

The consequences, as you might expect, are fewer, better-qualified opportunities and a far more realistic pipeline valuation. They key mantra here is “if you’re going to lose anyway, you’d better loose early” - before a great deal of resource has been wasted.

Velocity and time-in-stage

Top-performing organisations also pay particular attention to deal velocity and time-in-stage. They know that - all other factors being equal - the longer an opportunity remains stubbornly “stuck in stage”, the less likely it is to close. Research by the TAS Group showed that on average it takes more than twice as long to loose a deal (or, probably more accurately, to recognise that you have lost it) than it takes to win one.

As a result, fewer bad deals get through to the forecastable letter stages of the pipeline. You’ll notice that the criteria I’ve mentioned so far are largely based on issues of provable fact. So where does the judgement come in?

Facts plus judgement

The simple reality is that in complex deals with multiple factors that could affect the outcome, you can’t rely on facts or statistics alone. That’s why you pay your top sales talent the big bucks. And that’s why you should properly expect them to apply effective judgement when assessing the likelihood that an opportunity will close in a given forecast period. But they need some guidance - and a clear frame of reference.

The bit about “in a given forecast period” is important. There’s a big difference between assessing the probability that an opportunity will close at some point in the future and making an informed judgement about the chances that it will close within the current forecast period.

Checks and balances (and "no miracles")

For this to work effectively, you have to apply some fact-based checks and balances. These must serve to exclude the “and then a miracle happened…” situations where, for example, the sales person forecasts a deal closing from a pipeline stage where few or no similar deals have closed within the remaining timeframe.

The judgements you are then looking for need to be carefully characterised, and your sales people need to know that their performance against the defined expectations is going to be measured. Here are guidelines that have worked very effectively for a number of the companies I have worked with or for:

• COMMIT: the sales person commits that the deal will happen for at least the predicted value in the current forecast period. In practice, and given the inevitable potential for upset in even a well-qualified deal, you should probably actually forecast thse even these deals at only 80% probability. The guidance that you should give the sales person is that you expect at least 4 out of 5 COMMIT deals to close in the period quoted, and for at least the value predicted. Long term results at anything less than this success rate are likely to trigger a personal performance review

• PROBABLE: the sales person rates the likelihood of closure at the predicted value in the current forecast period as being better than 50%. The guidance that you should give the sales person is that you expect at least half of their PROBABLE deals to close in the period quoted, and for at least the value predicted. Long term results at anything less than this success rate are likely to trigger a personal performance review

• POSSIBLE: the sales person believes there is an outside chance of the opportunity closing in the current forecast period, and they can describe credible circumstances under which this might happen. You might perhaps project 5% of these deals closing. This list is important because it gives the sales people something to work on to drive up their current period revenues

• FUTURE: there is no foreseeable way that the opportunity will close in the current forecast period

Over time, you should see your forecast accuracy improve. By combining fact and judgement, you’re giving yourself the best chance of beating those gambler’s roll-of-the-dice style odds - and of keeping your employees, management and investors happy. Please add to the discussion - what are your top tips for accurate sales forecasting?

Over the past couple of years, I’ve been working on the best practices for running campaigns on Google+ and how, as Chris Brogan would say, we can make our buyers the hero of the story.

Google+ campaigns are a great way of building trust and relationships with the people who may well become your brand advocates. Campaigns create movements. If you want to be a movement maker, then keep reading.

Why think in terms of campaigns on Google+?

When you run a campaign on Google+ you create a tribe, a movement, a circle of people all connected and relating for the duration. Most of the campaigns I run will tend to be one day long, but sometimes they will extend over a week. It is a great way to bring people together for a cause, or to promote a product.

Here are some key considerations:

Google+ is a global, open network; as such people value openness, transparency and disclosure. Check out this article if you want to see more on this.

The short version is this:

Be open, be transparent, and people will engage and over time trust you and your brand.

It takes time to build trust, and the more you have paid your dues to your community, the more you will find people will follow.

Now, here is my disclosure: I was not paid by any of the campaigns featured in this article.

So, why would I help with them? Well, three reasons:

1. To develop valuable case studies for people to gain insight from,

2. To give my community members an enjoyable learning experience, and

3. Because I value the relationship with each of every person who is involved, including those I helped promote.

In order to make campaigns work for you, you will have to invest in building your network and in finding a community who love what you do. If you try to do this too soon, it will most likely to be a flop.

Also, there are stages I have found to planning and delivering upon for a campaign and once you are ready, you may well like to move in that direction.

In recent days, I tend to refer to campaigns as “Quests” – people seem to connect well with the concept.

Planning Your Campaign: The 5 Cs

The first thing to figure out is this: What are you seeking to achieve through running a campaign on Google+?

There are several different types I consider:

• A joyful social experience leading to brand awareness,
• Social leading into action on a website (e.g. fundraising), and
• Social on Google+ leading into key Search results.

We will mainly be covering the process and examples of the first two in this article, but for the results of the third, simply search for “What is Google?” and you’ll see what can be done.

Once you decide your final goal, you can start the campaign planning process.

Concept

This is the name of the campaign, including the hashtag and the whole kit and caboodle behind what is going to happen.

At this stage, you will want to think of the assets you will create, including images, videos, and blog posts that will help people connect to the campaign.

The more time, effort, and energy you put into creating really cool content, the more likely people will engage.

Take time to cook the concept stage so it is mature before moving into…

Community Build

The process I use for campaigns is somewhat old school and reminiscent of the days prior to Google+ Communities. I use Google Circles.

Why? Well, I want to build a notify list to send more information on the Quest to the people who’ve opted in, and with Google Circles you can do just that.

This is a dream for the Permission Marketer, a mindset for which I will always be grateful to Seth Godin for instilling in me.

Contribution

I have found that campaigns which involve people are the best. People love to feel part of something and as I said from the start, you are building a mini-tribe for the duration.

As such, think of ways that you can make it about them.

Communication

Send a private message to the circle as to the full nature of the quest, as well as any other communication you may have along the way.

Important tip: When you ask people permission, also tell them how many times over what period you expect you will send them an email.

Control Room

Create a Google Hangout (or two) and invite the circle of people to join. This can be done as a text and image chat and/or as a video call.

I tend to have a circle size of 100 people, but sometimes the Quests may be as large as 250 people in the circle (they then can ripple out to thousands from that initial seeding group).

Having a control room will allow you to have real-time interactions and help people feel a part of it all.

Now you have everything set up for the launch.

Launch!

When you are ready to rock n’ roll, you can create your first post of the campaign on Google+.

Important tip: Make sure you notify your new community of people (having told them you would in earlier communication) in order to best seed that initial post. All being well, it will land in people’s inbox as well as a Google+ notification. You can do this by sharing “public”, choosing the circle (or circles) you want to share with, and then checking the “notify by email” box.

Now you will be in full flow of the campaign.

The more you have included people in the process, the more they will delighted to receive your interactions and contribute their own content as well.

Really, I’ll say it again - Make it about them.

Now, here is the thing: You are not really in control once things get rolling. You can adjust course a little, but most of what happens will have been generated in the set up. If you chose a hashtag that could be changed and one letter later you have a rude word, guess what? Within the hour someone will have started a counter campaign, a campaign of their own, and they may well find a tribe to share it.

Think of it like surfing – you’ve chosen the say, the waves are there, and you just surf as well as you can. The good news is that you may well have some very pleasant surprises when you trust your campaign members to let loose and be creative.

Tracking

At Plus Your Business, we work with the Social Network Analysis team at Nod3x.com to track the spread of the campaign. This gives us information including the number of people engaged, the reshare rate, and key influencers.

From those statistics, we can work out how long it takes to create a trending topic and how many people you would need to get involved to make an impact.

Let me take you through a few case studies and the reports for each one to illustrate how this works.

Case Study 1: Canva Quest

Teaming up with Guy Kawasaki and Peg Fitzpatrick to do a promotional event is always fun.

This campaign was set up to help them promote canva.com, for which they both work.

We set up two teams of people who created images using Canva.com. Then, people then went through an educational learning experience to find out which images and content seemed to get the most engagement. We capped the event with a Hangout-on-Air with Guy and Peg the next day and featured many of the participants images.

As you can see from the image below, #CanvaQuest trended for most of the day.

Case Study 2: Freak Quest

To celebrate the launch of Chris Brogan’s new book, ‘The Freaks Shall Inherit the Earth,” we went on a #FreakQuest!

Centered around a Google Hangout-On-Air, people on the Quest created an expression of their own wonderfully freakish qualities, just like this one below:

It is great to see brands like The Huffington Post show their love for the content, as they did below:

And once again you can see we sustained a trend on Google+ for many hours:

Case Study 3: Rubik’s Cube

To celebrate our love of Rubik’s Cube (which happens to be 40 years old this year), we created #RubikTuesday. In essence, we all shared cool content around the cube and its role in our lives.

The graphic below shows the explosion as it spread:

Using Nod3x.com, we are able to bring in more data on the reach and views per post:

As you can see above, it was great when the man himself – Erno Rubik – also engaged around the day.

Case Study 4: Camfed

Finally, here is an example of a campaign I supported Google on. I got involved with it about 24 hours before they were to hit the deadline. They have been very supportive of the approach I’ve taken.

I helped build a circle, a mini-tribe, bringing people together for a cause to which they relate, all while making it fun (people love fun) – just like the way I described in this article.

On this occasion, I also gave people a badge (that robot chap below) that they can display on their website using commoogle.com (an engagement tool I created as a way to give badges to people in your Google circles).

Here was the result:

Campaigns are not easy to run. They take serious planning and a tribe of people to make them work. But once you have managed to build your network they will become a lot easier and, as you can see, the results can be superb.

Abused Stats and Figures: Maintain a Healthy Degree of Skepticism 100% of the Time

Stats and figures help people make decisions or convince others to make a choice. Whether you’re a sales rep or a consumer, these numbers can be beneficial, but they are also easily misunderstood, misrepresented, or abused.

Uri Simonsohn, a research psychologist at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School, sensed that something was amiss with several sets of research findings published in his field. Upon investigating, he discovered that the studies’ authors had taken liberties with the data and were forced to back away from their published articles. For his efforts, he was labeled a “data vigilante,” which paints a portrait (either white hat or black hat, depending on your views), but more importantly, presents us all with cautionary advice: be careful how you use and interpret data and statistics. (See the full article “The Data Vigilante” by Christopher Shea in The Atlantic from November 28, 2012.)

The article in The Atlantic offers a somber comparison between massaging data to suit your study’s needs and doping by professional athletes: “Outright fraud is probably rare. Data manipulation is undoubtedly more common—and surely extends to other subjects dependent on statistical study… Worse, sloppy statistics are ‘like steroids in baseball’: Throughout the affected fields, researchers who are too intellectually honest to use these tricks will publish less, and may perish. Meanwhile, the less fastidious flourish.” In essence, cheaters with more sensational findings will fare better than by-the-book do-gooders.

Train Yourself to Be Skeptical of Stats and Figures

After seeing the article referenced above, it got me thinking about sales stats and figures dropped into pitches, presentations, and marketing literature. How much of it is true? How much of it is used out of context?

In their book Taming the Terrible Too’s of Training: How To Improve Workplace Performance In The Digital Age, authors Daniel and Ken Cooper illustrate why maintaining a healthy degree of skepticism is essential in order to avoid being duped:

“In doing research on the effectiveness of various e-learning media, we ran across some useful research that is commonly quoted across the Internet:

• According to Albert Mehrabian, 55% of what we communicate is through body language, 38% is through tone of voice, and 7% is through words.
• As illustrated in The Learning Pyramid, after two weeks people tend to remember 10% of what they read, 20% of what they hear, 30% of what they see, 50% of what they hear and see, 70% of what they say, and 90% of what they say and do.
• Researchers at Simon Fraser University found that the average continuous attention span for literate humans is 8 seconds with a maximum of 30 seconds, and the average general attention span is from 10 to 12 minutes.”

After presenting these three critical sets of data regarding e-learning, the authors reveal that none of it is true! These are instead myths lurking on the web for anyone to stumble upon and consume or abuse. They provide three explanations for this dilemma:

1. Too many people automatically believe everything they read, especially if it’s online.
2. People don’t have the skills or don’t take the time to evaluate what they find online to ensure that it is true and in context.
3. Once people find the information or data that satisfies what they’re looking for, they seldom continue their search to find contrasting opinions.

Figures (especially ones from reputable sources) can be presented in a very compelling way and can be used to move buyers toward a decision. But how are these figures arrived at, by whom, how long ago, and under what circumstances? What is opinion, and what is fact?

7 Suggestions for Vetting Sales Stats and Figures

As suggested by The Data Vigilante, if data looks too good to be true, it probably is.

Few of us have the resources, time, budget, or inclination to conduct our own scientific, peer-reviewed research on a given topic. Therefore, we accept or carefully scrutinize the stats put forth by others in an effort to make better-informed decisions.

You can’t personally vet each set of figures, though. So, you must approach each with balanced trust and skepticism. This goes both for consumers (BtoB or BtoC) receiving the data as well as sales and marketers to either conduct their own original research or collect and package stats to bolster their pitches.

1. Source —Is it reputable? Have you ever heard of it? Anyone can whip up a quick poll on SurveyMonkey these days. You don’t always have to cite a McKinsey or Harvard Medical School study, but be careful not to bet your sale on a random blogger’s unsubstantiated poll.

Is the source the company providing them? Have they conducted their own study among their clients or users? That can be okay, as long as they don’t mask their involvement.

2. Objectivity — Not just questioning whether the source is reputable, but considering what the source has to gain by conducting and promoting the study. Is there any risk or interpretation of bias involved? Who gains from the outcome? Even third parties can benefit.

3. Sample Size —It’s often said that you don’t need to ask more than 100 people the same question to get a meaningful data set. That may be true, and there certainly is a point after which gathering more data becomes meaningless because it fails to influence the outcome. but it is important to have quality respondents in your data set that represent their demographic.

For example, it’s understandable that a survey of Fortune 100 CEOs may only include 15 responses because of how busy they are and difficult to reach. But if you’re trying to survey heads of sales, HR, or accounting from the same Fortune 100 companies, one would expect you to have greater participation rates for the data to be of value.

4. Age —How long ago was the study conducted? Is it still meaningful? Some data sets can stand up for many years between studies, while others go stale in much less time. This is particularly true of anything driven by technology devices and habits.

5. Relevance and Context —Do the numbers and findings make sense for how you are using them? Can someone question the connection between the numbers you’ve cited and the message you’re attempting to bolster or undercut? Don’t stretch the truth to suit your needs — if discovered, you’ll lose credibility quickly.

6. Common or Unique Data Set —Has this study been conducted often, or is it a one-of-a-kind analysis? Do the findings align with previous studies or are they worlds apart? If the latter, can you satisfactorily justify or explain the difference?

7. Defensible — Be able to defend your stats or don’t use them. Whether they’re your numbers or someone else’s, if you cannot easily defend them or justify their relationship to your message, then they should not be used. Find better stats to cite or else risk that these questionable figures will serve as a distraction or undermine your credibility.

As a sales rep, when using data in a pitch or presentation, be conscious of avoiding manipulating data for fear-mongering or for leading your audience toward a mirage of false promises or hopes. If you aren’t, you’re just as likely to lose them as you are to impress them. And so, in addition to the points mentioned above, I’d also suggest these final two points:

• Beware the Data Barrage — Don’t overwhelm or numb your audience with too many numbers and stats. Your audience may feel bullied if you throw too much at them at once.

• Sell with Substance —Don’t expect to hang your entire presentation or pitch on a string of impressive stats. Even if they’re rock solid, you still need to be able to show them what you can do to make their company better or simpler.

Learn more About Richardson’s Selling with Insights® Sales Training Solutions 

Richardson’s Selling with Insights® sales training program teaches your sales reps advanced preparation techniques and dialogue skills to effectively present insights, challenge the customer’s thinking, add more value, differentiate your solution, and build credibility as a trusted business partner. If you would like to learn more about Richardson’s Selling with Insights workshops and full seminars, please email Jim Brodo at jim.brodo@richardson.com or click here to read more.

The post Abused Stats and Figures: Maintain a Healthy Degree of Skepticism 100% of the Time appeared first on The Richardson Sales Excellence Review™.

  The practice of social selling has crossed the chasm and entered the tornado stage. (Huffington Post, see Mike Kunkle’s excellent webinar) To fuel this content dependent activity, many are urging sales people to blog, and to become thought leaders. (Lori Richardson, John Jantsch,  ITSMA) This is a logical extension from a belief that sales people must think more like marketers. In my view, “think like marketers” means sales people must approach selling from a buyer perspective. They must understand and align to the issues, questions and process buyers must address to make a buying decision. (See Sharon Drew Morgen – Buying Facilitation) Not all buyers are ready or interested to hear about your company and product — especially those features. But I also know that thinking like a marketer does not mean thinking like a journalist. It does not require sales people to “blog” – certainly not in the way most people, and marketing bloggers, think of blogging. Social (or digital) selling makes sense because it embraces new tools and methods to conduct core activities sales professionals have always performed: research, networking, prospecting and building relationships with people. Sales people need content to build credibility, provide innovative insights (please, let’s stop with  “thought leadership”) and give value to get attention and interest. Here’s where the blogging premise is flawed: they shouldn’t have to create content. Indeed, isn’t this what we’ve been trying to avoid for 20 years? We want to reduce the time sales people need to spend creating and editing […]

The post For Sales Blogging and Social Selling – Think Like a Publisher appeared first on Avitage.

I know of no salesperson who doesn’t feel overwhelmed with everything they have to manage. There’s too much to remember and the sheer amount of product, industry, competitive and prospect information salespeople must deal with is exploding (it’s enough to make our brains implode.) Then there’s the fact that information changes. So you have to keep learning and expanding your knowledge in your already crowded brain. On top of all of this, you’re navigating a roaring river of activities—and not just your own. You’re also managing the flow of activities from others within your organization that have an impact on your results.

Let’s pile even more on. How about this? What and how your prospect thinks, does, and acts is also supposed to be within your purview. You’re to influence their decision and actions even though in truth, you have little ability if any to control it. The subject of control is a fascinating one. Salespeople want to control the sale and buyers want to feel that they are in control. This is a good time to bring up the golden rule. Those with the gold, rule. Buyers are ultimately, always in control. They might not manage the purchase process in the best way and they certainly won’t move through the process in the way that you would want, but it is never the less, in their control.

All you can do is influence. But even there, we face obstacles. These obstacles have to do with human nature and a false sense of reality. The way you and I see the world is invariably different from the way any other person views the world. And because of that, every decision, every judgment, and every action, is tainted by our own very fallible sense of truth.

Here are just a few of the pitfalls that salespeople are often unable to avoid:

• We see what we want to see and sometimes what we’re told to see. (watch this video or this one to see it in action)
• We don’t ask certain questions because we are afraid of, or don’t want to hear the truth.
• We have selective attention. That is, we process or react to certain stimuli selectively even though several occur simultaneously.
• We impose our own beliefs on things we see. It’s impossible to experience a situation “as it is.” Rather we experience situations in light of our beliefs about what is happening.
• We discount evidence which contradicts our judgment and objectives. This can impact forecast accuracy and cause us to spend time with the wrong prospects.

Salespeople also face pitfalls brought on by the buyer’s own fallible sense of truth:

• Their judgment is not always guided by reason and logic.  In fact, they’ll often engage in irrational thinking – dismissing evidence in order to maintain a version of reality which suits them best.
• When considering a purchase decision, the human mind gives more weight to the first information it receives. And the person delivering the information first is often viewed as the standard bearer against which no others can compete. This is one reason why the first seller in the door wins the deal 63% of the time.
• They instinctively stay with what seems familiar and look for decisions that involve the least change. This is especially true in B2B sales where more often than not the risk is not worth the reward.
• The more choices the buyer has, the more likely status quo will win out. This is because more choices involve more effort and time, while sticking with the status quo requires less. Complexity kills deals (or at the very least, it stalls them).
• The more actions the buyer has already taken on behalf of a choice or direction, the more difficult it will be for them to change direction or make a different choice, no matter how rational.

It’s really a wonder that anyone sells anything to anyone else. Yet they do. How can you succeed in this difficult to control sales environment? To start, I recommend a few books that approach the subject from different angles. The first is Sales Chaos, a fascinating and educational book by Tim Ohai and Brian Lambert.  They describe techniques for turning seemingly random complexity from enemy, into a competitive asset. I also recommend the books by Chip Heath and Dan Heath. “Switch” is particularly relevant to this post but Made to Stick and Switch are also fascinating and applicable to the field of Sales.

And last, is called “Yes! 50 Scientifically Proven Ways to be Persuasive” by Noah Goldstein, Steve Martin, and Robert Cialdini. Cialdini is the author of “Influence“ and when it comes to influence and persuasion, he’s the  most cited social psychologist in the world.

What’s your opinion? Do you think our perception of truth impacts sales efforts? What impact does chaos and complexity have on the sales and purchase process? Which books do you recommend?

Whenever you start a negotiation, you're trying to decide whether to be cooperative or antagonistic with the person on the other side of the table. 

A lot of it comes through nonverbal cues — like handshakes.

Take it from Harvard Business School professor Francesca Gino. 

"Across many cultures, shaking hands at the beginning and end of a negotiating session conveys a willingness to cooperate and reach a deal that considers the interests of the parties at the table," Gino writes on the Harvard Business Review. "By paying attention to this behavior, negotiators can communicate their motives and intentions, and better understand how the other side is approaching discussions." 

In short, a handshake signals that you're down to cooperate — given the warmth and trustworthiness that people tend to read into the gesture. 

Gino and her colleagues showed as much in a series of clever experiments. 

One study concerned a fictional real estate negotiation, with participants playing the role of buyer and seller of a piece of land. The twist was that the buyer knew about a forthcoming change in zoning law — a shift from residential to the more lucrative commercial property. 

"Clearly, the buyer had little interest in sharing this information with the seller," Gino says. "In fact, when asked by sellers whether they intended to use the land for commercial development, many buyers lied or dodged the question altogether."

But things went differently if people shook hands before negotiating. The handshakers ended up with a more equitable deal than those who went straight to business. Plus, they were less likely to deceive one another in regards to the zone changes. 

Follow-up studies corroborated the "win-win" finding.

In one experiment, undergrads taking the role of "hiring boss" or "job candidate" each got more of what they wanted after shaking hands — the hirers landed an earlier start date, the hirees a better salary. 

Taken together, the studies show that something that seems like empty custom has big effects on business.

A handshake — and the warmth it communicates — shapes the other person's perception of the negotiation. Opponents will be less antagonistic and more cooperative, with better outcomes for all as a result. 

What, then, is the best way to shake hands? Let's take the eloquent advice of Tom Chiarella over at Esquire. His take on the proper handshake:

On the street, in the lobby, square your shoulders to people you meet. Make a handshake matter — eye contact, good grip, elbow erring toward a right angle. Do not pump the hand, unless the other person is insistent on just that. Then pump the hell out of their hand. Smile. If you can't smile, you can't be gracious. You aren't some dopey English butler. You are you. 

SEE ALSO: Here's Why You Should Always Make The First Offer In A Negotiation

Join the conversation about this story »

Ad-hoc marketing is great if you need to fill a gap in your marketing timeline but let’s be clear, ad-hoc marketing is not a lead generation model which will drive business results or success, rather the opposite.

If you look into the topic further, it becomes clear pretty soon that ad-hoc marketing is a quick fix rather than a long-term plan. Roy Young, co-author of Marketing Champions: Practical Strategies for Improving Marketing’s Power, Influence and Business Impact, even goes so far as to name ad-hoc marketing one of the 10 biggest mistakes marketers make.

So why do so many businesses still practice it? Is it lack of education or lack of time? The latter, you might say, and I get it. We are all so busy with clients, eDMs, presentation planning and weekly meetings that we forget how important thoroughly thought through marketing processes and campaigns are. This is where I’d like to emphasise that more than ever, having a strong strategic and long-term marketing plan, can not only save you time and money but also a lot of headaches.

The problem with ad-hoc marketing is that it is, as the name suggests, targeted to one particular issue only. It is an out of date, on-the-spot-method and has been shown to drive limited results. By marketing your product or service sporadically, you are missing out on creating long term rapport and you fail to position yourself in the market place due to lack of regular contact with your target audience. Consequently, people will forget about you in the long run.

Successful, long term lead generation relies on your ability to create momentum in the marketplace and this, in turn creates a residual memory in your target buyer’s mind. Even though brainstorming with your team might be a great way to kick off a creative marketing process, it should, by no means, be the whole process. As tedious as it may sound, you need a plan.

The initial nitty-gritty stages of creating a plan means:

• Clearly defining your buyer persona(s).
• Developing your messaging so that it addresses your buyers’ problems and positions you against your competition.
• Developing a full content marketing plan that educates and builds trust with your buyers until they are sales ready.
• Clearly laying out the sequence and timing of your marketing tactics across the entire buyer’s journey.

Deciding on your plan will take a little while but once in place, it can be smooth sailing. How? Because this is where marketing automation comes in, your savior in shiny programmed armor. And don’t worry, automation no longer means loss of personalisation, in fact paradoxically, marketing automation allows us to respond more personally to your buyer’s needs. To find out more click here.

Deploying marketing automation essentially means you have a little techy assistant sending out marketing messages (that you created) automatically. And who wouldn’t like that? Marketing automation doesn’t just lighten your workload, but because it has a multitude of functionalities­ within the one tool – including e-mailing, blogging, social media, lead nurturing, lead scoring, distribution and tracking­ – marketers are able to significantly improve their efficiency and effectiveness.

Marketing is an increasingly complex machine that’s fueled by an increasing array of practices and tactics including segmentation, on and offline ad campaigns, social media, content production, customer research, website design and much, much more. The marketing machine will only run smoothly if there is a clear strategy and plan. So clearly, ad-hoc is the wrong way to tackle the issue.

A strong plan backed by automation will give you much more credibility amongst your colleagues and superiors, allowing you to argue strongly for your ideas and for budget. And believe me, you’re not the only one moving towards automation, in fact you can bet your competition is thinking along the same lines, simply because it works so well, brings precision and reliable analytics to lead generation campaigns.

Just to put this in numbers for you, according to The Wall Street Journal, IDC predicts that the marketing automation software market will grow from $3.2 billion in 2010 to $4.8 billion in 2015, that’s a whopping 50% growth rate. So stop hesitating and jump on the bandwagon already!

To learn more about how marketing automation integrates with inbound marketing, download our free eBook, The Revolution of Inbound Markting.

(Photo sourced from http://www.wallpapersas.com/wallpaper/alaska-national-park.html)

Celebrity gossip … game requests … Rob Ford news …

We all have posts that we wish we could block on Facebook. When I complained that I was sick of seeing endless “news” about the Kardashians, a friend recommended that I install F.B. Purity. It’s a browser extension that lets you block game requests, ads and even sponsored stories. It also lets you block posts containing specific keywords. So, if one of your friends likes to rant about a certain issue, you don’t need to block your friend to hide her rants.

I’ve just installed the extension, and it seems to be working. CNET also gave it a five-star review.

The fact that tools such as F.B. Purity are available show that people are going to great lengths to block irrelevant content. Over time, this will drive down the value of sponsoring content on social networks.

So, as a B2B marketer, how do you get your message in front of your target audience?

1. Make sure your content is relevant.

In the latest TechTarget Media Consumption Research Brief, B2B technology buyers stated that, “media is only effective if the information that it features is relevant to their research and is helpful for them during the process.” If your content isn’t relevant, your audience will tune you out.

2. Make sure the channel is relevant.

Once you have relevant topics, you’ll want to share it on the right channels. Many B2B marketers jump into social networks without asking if their audience wants to engage with them there. Sure, everyone is on Facebook, but do your customers want to research their business problems while they’re looking at baby pictures and cat videos?

3. Make sure your timing is relevant.

Aligning your content to where buyers are in your sales cycle will also improve your marketing results. According to a DemandGen Report, 61% of respondents choose vendors who deliver content that’s appropriate for each stage of the purchasing process. Check out this article for a list of what B2B buyers look for during each stage of the sales cycle, along with the types of content that would appeal to them.

And finally … stop selling, start helping. When you create content, your focus should be on helping customers … not selling your products. Customers can smell a sales pitch a mile away. The harder you try to sell, the more they will block you.

Here is a story about how four dumb companies managed to prevent significant deals from coming in the door.

Dumb Company #1

In an effort to prevent real people on the outside from bothering real people on the inside, this company decided to remove all information from its website that might lead to that sort of disturbing fraternization. Instead, they created a general mailbox called “sales@dumbcompany1.com”. Problem is, they forgot to make it anyone’s job to look at the emails. So when I sent a request for proposal to them, it was like that tree that falls in the forest.

Dumb Company #2
This company plainly has so many prospective clients waiting to waste its time, that they have created a Helpful Form on their website through which RFPs are to be submitted. Somebody named Todd probably wrote some logic to quietly flush the RFPs that failed to meet some criterion or other. The embarrassing result was, of course, a flustered account executive trying to get in on the bid three weeks later, after the prospective client called to see why they weren’t responding. If you must use forms on your site, maybe don’t impose them on people who want to give you money. Save them to torture the people who already have given you money.

Dumb Company #3:
This company was so tired of receiving emails from peasants, they had Todd turn on the force fields to prevent anything unpleasant from getting through. Kind of like his colleague Bethany is in charge of keeping people with talent from getting inside, Todd is charged with keeping people with money from breaching the ramparts. In this case, he cleverly makes sure mail from places like Yahoo, Gmail or LinkedIn bounces screaming into space. That included the RFP sent by a consultant with just such an email address.

Dumb Company #4:
They also put a Helpful Form on their website, with a mandatory checkbox for whether the sender was a business or not. My friend, soliciting quotes for a large charity event, quite correctly selected the no box, since, technically, the cause is not a business. They were somewhat surprised when, after receiving no reply, my friend mentioned on Facebook that they seemed to have gone out of business. Todd made sure that none of those dirty Not Businesses got through to sales.

We’ve been afraid of our customers for some time now, and we deal with that by forcing them into horrible IVR systems, making them fill in forms describing the problem they can’t describe and ensuring there is no reasonable way for them to reach a human being on their first try.

We are terrified of job applicants, charities wanting a handout, whiny customers, and, it seems, revenue.

Is it any wonder that sales people hand out their personal email addresses and store their leads on post-it notes?

Before you go and yell at Todd and take away his refurbished Commodore 64, consider that Todd is just an instrument of your corporate insistence on not talking to strangers. You need to deal with that.

How did we do it before clever things like spam filters, algorithms and Todd? Well, I’m a little hazy but if memory serves we got these things in envelopes that the post office dropped off everyday. Some were obviously junk, and those we chucked in the garbage; the rest were examined and considered by real human beings and then sent onward to the appropriate party. It just wasn’t difficult, and since the post sometimes contained things like offers to give us money, or even money itself, it was deemed a worthwhile activity. When did that change?

Since marketers own the website, and we own the world’s initial experience with our brand, I’m thinking it’s on usto figure out how to let in people who have money or talent or questions.

Urgency in marketing often leads to higher sales and more successful advertising or promotional campaigns. When you create urgency in the minds of your customers, you are in a sense forcing them into a quicker decision. You are turning a purchasing decision that would otherwise not be an impulse buy into one.

So how can you add urgency to your marketing?

1.       Deadlines and Expiration Dates.

Special offers and promotions are a great way to add urgency because you can make them only available for a limited time. Advertising an expiration date for people to take advantage of a discount encourages people to make a decision and sign up sooner. This can be utilized on the website in your sales or specials section, in email and direct mail marketing, and on landing pages for your online advertising campaigns.

Make sure people know what the deadline for the offer is, and make the process for signing up or checking out quick and simple.

2.       Limit Availability.

Urgency is immediately generated when supplies are limited. A limited availability strategy lets consumers know that if they don’t act now, others might and the product or service will sell out. Technology and consumer goods companies like Sony and Apple have long used limited availability to generate demand for new products, allowing people to preorder knowing that products will likely sell out very quickly.

When you purposely limit the supply of an item, you can increase the demand. Think about a class with only so many seats to fill, or an event with only so many tickets available. The urgency created with a limited availability offer can often lead to higher prices and more revenue than a deadline or expiration date on a promotion.

Think about how you can add urgency to your sales process, and begin to see higher conversion rates today!

Content is a huge part of inbound marketing, and it’s one that a lot of businesses struggle with. What content is right for your audience? Should you create more ebooks or are webinars the way to go? Does anyone even read your blog enough to matter what content is going up there? These are all questions that even an inbound marketing agency struggles with. You can audit your content and change what isn’t working. You can even revamp your strategy and try going a whole different route. But what it all comes down to is creating the right content strategy. Whether you already have one in place that isn’t performing well or need some help getting started, I can walk you through the steps.

Nail Down Your Audience

Before you do anything, make sure you have a buyer persona in place that details everything about your ideal customers. In regards to content, the most important part of the buyer persona are the challenges and pain points sections. Because the point of your content is to answer their questions and educate your audience on everything there is to know about your business.

Audit Current Content

Once you have a clear audience, it’s time to audit your current content. Content is normally broken down into 3 categories: top of the funnel, middle of the funnel, and bottom of the funnel. We map it out this way to signify a lead moving through the funnel being educated and coming out at the bottom ready to buy. Top of the funnel is educational about what your products or services are, middle of the funnel is more in-depth information specialized to your business, and bottom of the funnel is an offer such as a consultation or demo.

Take a look at your current content, put what you have into these 3 categories, and analyze if it’s really doing the job you want it to do or if you even have enough content for each segment. If you have a lot of top of funnel content but barely any middle of funnel then you’re leads might be getting stuck at the top and not moving through the sales funnel to become ready to purchase. Maybe your top of funnel content is attracting leads but they aren’t converting on your middle of funnel content, this could mean your top of funnel content isn’t catered to the right audience.

A content audit could look something like this:

From this you can list out in detail why certain content sections might need improvement, how to implement them if they are non-existent, or why they’re perfect and good to go!

Compile Content Ideas

The best way to do this is in a team setting. Gather some really good thinkers together and brain storm ideas for each part of your funnel that needs help. Below is an example:

Blogging

• Problem: Not blogging frequently enough and content is not unique to the industry so we aren’t capturing organic traffic.
• Solution: Increase blogging to 3 consistent days a week and come up with unique content that nobody else is creating.
• Implementation: Have employees help write blogs to increase frequency, use short videos in blog to generate more unique and interesting content.
• Topics: This will be unique to your industry, but here you can list out general topics and specific titles. This is where the brainstorming team will really come in to play.

Then, you do this for top, middle, and bottom of funnel. At the end you should have a plethora of great content ideas, topics, and titles that you can start creating.

Implementation Timeline

But wait! Want to know the number one set back to actually getting anything implemented? Not having deadlines and a timeline. Coming up with awesome ideas and innovative content isn’t that difficult, so you’re left with all these ideas and some big energy to get all of it accomplished. Then a week later it’s died down and nobody has started anything. That’s why after you create the strategy, you want to plan it all out with deliverables, deadlines, responsibilities, and anything else needed to get all your awesome new content completed.

Takeaway

• Create an in-depth buyer persona so your content is catered to the right people
• Analyze what content is currently working and what isn’t
• Identify current problems, creative solutions, and generate new content ideas
• Plan out a timeline to get everything done!

Speaking in front of a crowd makes even the best of us shake at the knees.

For many businesses though, webinars consistently prove to be an effective marketing and customer relationship tool.

But how can firms make the most of their live performances before, during and after their audience checks in?

In order to get a diverse range of ideas here, we turned to members of the Young Entrepreneur Council (YEC) for counsel and asked them:

What is one important tip you would give an entrepreneur who wants to regularly hold webinars?

1. Reuse, Recycle and Repurpose Webinar Content

Developing webinars is hard work.

Sean Kelly, CEO of HUMAN, advises you to “[reuse] that content elsewhere — on your website, in your newsletters, via social media, etc. You can get creative, too: turn it into a video, add it to an email drip sequence, and combine the content with your previous webinars as part of an e-book.”

Those, of course, are just a few ways to <href=”https://blog.shareaholic.com/repurpose-old-content/” target=”_blank”>maximize the utility of webinars you create.

2. Consider the Return on Time

A bit of strategic planning and metrics analysis goes a long way.

“Make sure you have some established goals for the webinars such as conversion to paying customers or customer retention. Use these goals to determine if the time you invest is getting positive results,” says Justin Spring of BringShare, a marketing reporting platform.

3. Don’t Forget to Offer Recordings Too

“There’s no way you can plan live webinars that will work for everyone’s schedule,” notes John Rood, President of Next Step Test Preparation.

“If there’s no time that works for your customer, he or she likely won’t sign up. If you prominently show that you’ll make a recording available to those that sign up, your participation rate will increase significantly.”

As long as your content is available whenever your audience needs it, you’ll be sure to capture their attention and hopefully convert sales.

4. Use Social Proof

Before new viewers would be willing to carve out time from their busy days, they will need to make sure your webinar will be worth watching. Offer them that confidence with social validation.

Vanessa Van Edwards, published author and behavioral investigator, shares, “The best way to sell a webinar is by showing social proof. We always get testimonials from previous students or readers to post on our sales pages. Before we launch a webinar we even do a preview call with select readers to get video testimonials to post on our sales page. We have found that this social proof is essential to differentiate our product and justify the price.”

To learn more from her, visit her website, Science of People.

5. Be Strategic With Follow-Up

Leading up to, and after, a webinar, you’ll want to keep communication with your audience frequent to remain top-of-mind.

“Consider leveraging a tool like Infusionsoft for identifying who has attended [your webinars in the past], who signed up and did not attend, and who didn’t sign up in order to structure the proper follow-up message. The more you segment your audience, the better your conversion,” recommends Charles Gaudet, CEO of Predictable Profits.

Don’t let you leads go cold because you failed at follow-ups.

6. Reach Out to Influencers

Recruit partners-in-crime.

“Whenever we run a webinar we reach out to other players within that topic’s space,” tells Nicolas Gremion, owner of Free-eBooks.net. ”By getting others involved, not only do we offer more to our viewers, but we expand our audience. It’s a great way to cross-promote your brand and make mutually beneficial partnerships.”

7. Only Hold Webinars With a Purpose

But thou shall never host a webinar for the sake of hosting a webinar.

“Sure, you’ve told your team that you’re going to have a monthly webinar for customers and prospects. This is all well and good if you have fresh, engaging content each time. But don’t fall in to the trap of just hosting regular webinars for the sake of it, or just to get a few more leads each time. It’d be better to hold 3 webinars on fresh topics than to have 9 out of 12 in a year be stale,” warns Grant Gordon of Solomon Consulting Group.

8. Give, Give, Give

“A lot of webinars are just lengthy sales pitches,” Alexis Wolfer of TheBeautyBean.com says. ”To really garner fans and loyalty, add value and give much more than you ask.”

Eventually, you’ll see your customers begin paying it all back.

9. Share on SlideShare

For further distribution, SlideShare has your back.

David Ehrenberg publishes slides from any webinar his team hosts onto SlideShare. There, Ehrenberg and his firm Early Growth Financial Services take full advantage of a platform that helps you reach an even greater audience.

The fact is, your customers “may not have 40+ minutes to listen to the whole recording.” This allows viewers “to at least skim on their own time (and decide if it’s relevant enough for them to commit more time to it).”

10. Make Sure Your Audience Comes First

A selfless approach will always provides long-term ROI.

Marjorie Adams, CEO of financial services firm AQB, reminds us to “know your audience first, then decide the topics. If you are trying to get new clients, you can train on what sets you apart from the competition or train about your products. If you are trying to get more out of your customer base, then pick topics that will allow you to expand business with the general customer.”

11. Go Pro Before You Start

An amateur set-up and presentation will only deliver laughs, not customers.

Clevertech’s Kuty Shalev encourages you to “have the right tools, whether it is a top-of-the-line platform or a top-of-the-line microphone; you want to be prepared before you start so you establish yourself from the get-go as a PRO.”

12. Send Last-Minute Reminders

A gentle nudge always helps. “Send reminders for all registrants on the same day and 30 minutes before the webinar is about to begin. Do this and you’ll double your attendance rate,” asserts Miro Kazakoff of education firm Testive.

13. Plan the Content in Advance

Lastly, an audience can tell when a presenter is overwhelmed and underprepared. Therefore, “Before you embark on creating a webinar series, be sure to plan the content for each episode far in advance,” suggests Doreen Bloch of Poshly Inc.

“Similar to how a teacher would prepare a curriculum for the school year, it will be less overwhelming to execute a webinar series when you have an overarching guide to how the content will progress. Also, planning your webinar flow will enable you to promote early and budget resources.”

Are you ready to launch your next webinar series?

Image source: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5

The difference between B2B and B2C sales can be staggering. You can tell just by looking at Forbes recent listing of Best and Worst Sales Jobs. It pretty much covers the wide variety of salesman stereotypes all the while hammering most, if not all, harder into public imagination.

Speaking of which though, just why exactly should this matter to those running your software lead generation campaign? Well, while stereotypes aren’t always helpful, they give an initial impression that might subconsciously determine the way they set appointments and qualify your software leads.

If this list is accurate, then plenty of B2B sales reps might rank pretty high on the company payroll. This is for a number of valid (and very obvious) reasons. Take the ERP software industry for instance where sales engineers wouldn’t look out of place. These are the people working day and night on user training sessions, explaining the technologies to prospects, and demonstrating how it can improve their current work processes.

Hence, it’s not surprising how many of them frequently complain about getting prospects who are still not sales-ready or wasting time on those still not fully committed.

On the other hand, some might feel tempted to draw a harsher parallel between that salesperson and the cashier. What does the cashier do? They just punch in and stuff in the cash. Of course, that’s hardly a fair comparison.

• 1. They’re not manning a cash register – Obviously there’s more to winning a sale from a prospect than just getting something signed. Even if it just takes half an hour, they provide information that you can’t easily relay on any marketing channel. (Heck, even a half-hour phone call can be too time-consuming when you’re still dialing to make first contact.)
• 2. They’re doing their fair half – There’s a reason why it’s usually just marketing and sales forming both halves of the sales process. A natural one has both sides mix and match tasks until they equally even out. Marketers can only spend so much time educating prospects who aren’t sales ready. On the other hand, sales reps aren’t shy of testing prospect commitment but need to be sure it doesn’t break so easily.
• 3. They tend to know more – This doesn’t mean that salespeople are geniuses, only they got a bigger stock knowledge of what the business offers. Their mental library however is actually bad news on the marketing end. Ever tried stuffing it in a banner ad or a blog post? That’s why you need both halves to manage the flow of information coming from your firm.

Here’s something that might just be more surprising. It isn’t just marketers who need to understand how this is behind a lot of B2B sales stereotypes. It’s also the sales professionals themselves. Avoid outsourcing your software lead generation process if it just means your sales reps taking a back seat behind the proverbial cash register.

When it comes to getting more customers from your marketing, the first goal is to drive consumers to your website. But that’s still not enough to determine true effectiveness of your online marketing efforts. You need your prospects to take the next step in the consumer buying journey, which is to contact you while they’re visiting your website or immediately afterward. And when prospects do call you, email you, or fill out a form on your website, they move even further down the sales funnel and can become leads once you qualify them.

How well you follow up with and nurture your leads at this stage of the buying journey often determines if they become customers. In fact, businesses that nurture new leads with marketing-related emails see up to 45% more lead generation ROI than businesses who do not use lead nurturing. So, how exactly do you turn new leads into customers? Try these four best practices that can help you master lead management and get more customers from your marketing efforts.

1. Build Your Contact List

When an interested prospect contacts you via phone, email, or website contact form, you first need to add their information to a centralized contact list. Collect details like their name, phone number, email address, and product or service interest. This is also the time to classify them as a relevant lead for your business. (If you know when the prospect is looking to make a purchase, you can even designate whether they’re a short- or long-term lead, which can help later in the process.) Having an up-to-date list of contacts and qualified leads gives you an easy and convenient way to organize the information you need to provide timely, pertinent, and consistent follow-up both over short- and long-term sales cycles.

2. Track the Marketing Source

How are people finding your business? Online ads? Social media? Direct mail? Radio? T.V.? (You get the picture.) Whether you’ve allocated marketing dollars toward online or traditional advertising channels (or both), you need to track what drives website traffic and contacts so you know which marketing methods are working. When prospects call your business, your staff can simply ask them how they found your company. You can also use tools like call tracking numbers, website URL tracking, and other lead management software to track your marketing sources.

3. Respond to Calls & Emails ASAP

Consumers often choose the business that follows up with them first, so it’s vital that you classify and respond to new leads by phone or email as soon as you can. While answering every phone call promptly is ideal, there might be times when you miss a call. In these instances, make sure you have a reliable phone answering service or call recording product in place so you can listen to the call recordings, classify new contacts as leads, and reach out to them quickly with helpful information.

If you’re responding to leads via email, a quick and simple thank you note can be a great response to start with. Your email should communicate that you’ve received their request and what your next steps will be. For example, you might let your leads know that you’ll be calling them to set up an in-person consultation or to provide a phone quote. Whatever the next steps are, just make sure your lead knows what they can expect next from you.

4. Regularly Follow Up With & Nurture Your Leads

It’s important to continually follow up with prospects you’ve classified as leads, but who haven’t yet made a purchase. This is especially true in industries with long lead times. You can stay top of mind with leads by making timely follow-up calls with helpful information and sending compelling emails that nurture leads and convince them to buy. If you’re sending emails, consider messages like customer testimonials, before and after pictures of your work, and special offers and promotions. Don’t be overly aggressive in lead nurturing emails. Rather, focus on providing content that will help leads understand the value of your business and convince them why they should choose you over a competitor. These types of emails can help build consumer trust so that when the time does come, your leads will feel more confident in buying from you.

How are you using these lead management best practices in your business? Let us know with a comment!

Greg Lhamon and I were talking sales, leadership, productivity and baseball recently. His passion and insight prompted me to ask him to guest post here. Enjoy:

My best salespeople are fearless communicators. They know how to work a room. They’re great conversationalists. They laugh easily. They have an insatiable curiosity that leads them to ask great questions.

But there’s a dark side to extroverts. An Achilles heel that must be managed:  They have a tendency to waste time.

Exceptional sellers rarely do it intentionally. They just enjoy a great conversation with anyone in earshot and on virtually any topic. But when goals are on the line, it is vital that leaders manage sellers with a sense of urgency.

Here are six specific ways in which you as a leader can impart a sense of urgency to your team. Several of these principles are taken from John Kotter, professor of leadership at Harvard Business School and New York Times bestselling author of, A Sense of Urgency.

You Must Be Determined to Win NOW
Great sellers know how to read people. They’ve learned to match their manner to the personality of a prospect. As a leader, you can use this to your advantage. If you move leisurely, they will too. But if you are determined to win now – today – then your team will catch that vibe and adjust their efforts accordingly. Try this: remain standing when a seller enters your office. It subtly communicates that this is not a time to relax. It’s “go time.”

Purge & Delegate
In order to instill urgency in your team, you must first have margin in your own day so that you can spend the time needed with each rep. This means stripping your calendar and to-do list of irrelevant activities that don’t immediately help achieve top-line goals. Delegate less critical tasks so you can focus on your sellers. Remember, doing something unimportant well does not make it important. Focus on being productive, not merely busy.

Don’t Let Your Salespeople Delegate to You
As you’ve purged your schedule in order to keep your team focused, some sellers will still attempt to bog you down by persuading you to take on their work. I’m sure you have someone on your team who – in the guise of asking for your help – is really trying to offload his work on you. I do. She routinely walks into my office with a monkey on her back. In the course of the conversation, she tries to transfer the monkey from her back to mine.  But I can’t allow this rep to put extra work on my plate which may keep me from maintaining momentum with the rest of the team. I’ve learned to coach her on the problem and then adjourn the meeting, all the while making sure she leaves my office with the monkey squarely back where it belongs – on her shoulders.

Move Fast!
Think about a period of time when you and your team were the most effective. Chances are good that you had a critical objective that needed to be completed with a short deadline. And your team responded. In his must-read book, The Four Hour Work Week, Tim Ferris said, “Identify the few critical tasks that contribute most to income and schedule them with very short and clear deadlines.” Short deadlines typically generate high quality work because they force us to focus.

Every Meeting with a Seller Must End with a Plan of Action
A meeting without a resultant plan of action is a get-together not a sales meeting. End each discussion with, “OK, what are your next steps?” Whether it’s developing a strategy for upselling a current account or creating his plan to increase the number of new business calls, the seller must have a clear plan of attack before leaving the room.

Over-Communicate with Your Team
You’ve created a culture of urgency. Your reps hit the streets with fire in their belly. But time away from you tends to throw water on the inferno. One method of keeping the flames stoked is to maintain regular contact with your reps when they’re away from the office. Call each rep in the field and ask, “How did your meeting go? What objections did the prospect raise and how did you handle them? What must we do to close them this week?” This is a subtle yet effective reminder that you expect every seller to never lose site of the goal.

Managing with urgency doesn’t mean trying to instill panic or fear of reprisal. It’s about maintaining focus and determination. As John Kotter wrote, “A higher rate of urgency does not imply ever-present panic, anxiety, or fear. It means a state in which complacency is virtually absent.”

These principles will help remove complacency among members of your sales team. And when that is achieved, there’s no limit to what they can accomplish.
________________
Greg Lhamon is Vice President of Interactive & Digital Media with Salem National, a division of Salem Communications (NASDAQ: SALM). When he’s not leading sales teams, you’ll likely find him standing waist-deep in a trout stream, fly rod in hand. You can keep up with Greg here…Blog: BlueHandleChannels.com. LinkedIn: Greg Lhamon. Twitter: @GregLhamon

The post Six Ways You Can Instill a Sense of Urgency in Your Sales Team – Guest Post appeared first on Mike Weinberg | The New Sales Coach.

Take one look at the investment your organization makes in events and the importance of these marketing activities is clear. But what’s also clear is the challenge marketers face when trying to demonstrate the specific and tangible return on their investment in events.

By integrating event technology with marketing automation, marketers can leverage a two-way flow of data related to event attendees that leads to better sales and marketing results—and clear evidence of ROI.

Here’s a laundry list of reasons you need these systems to be integrated:

* To eliminate inefficient, error-prone processes such as manually importing attendee lists and updating registration statuses

When systems are integrated, data flows automatically from one to the other. No manual data entry required.

* To use existing data to inform and personalize the event experience for attendees

When your event management and marketing automation platforms are integrated, the demographic, firmographic, and behavioral data you already have stored in these systems can be used to design your events for maximum relevance and impact.

* To optimize sales and marketing follow-up

Complementing the above, the same rich set of event data collected throughout the event, along with interest-based data, can be fed back into marketing automation to provide meaningful insight for targeted sales and marketing follow-up.

* To provide real-time insight into event behavior, engagement, and interest

Information captured during events can help companies not only track what prospects and customers are doing, but to understand what they’re really interested in.

* To score leads based on level of event engagement and areas of interest

Event technology can capture a wide range of data on attendees’ profile, engagement, and interests, and feed that data into marketing automation where it can be used to optimize lead nurturing decisions and scoring algorithms.

* To measure the results of event spend more effectively

Not only does the integration of events and marketing automation improve the outcome of events; it also improves your ability to measure the results of your investment in events. Just as other campaign types are more easily tied back to revenue in marketing automation, events can measured by the same stick.

Simply put, integrating an event management solution with marketing automation allows for intelligently-designed events and all-around better marketing results. The ability to not only register attendees and track what they are doing, but to understand their actual interests, results in more personalized lead nurturing and effective sales follow-up.

Learn more by downloading Certain’s guide, “The Power of Integrated Marketing.”

We have more data than God wants anyone to have. We have more talent deployed than was ever true in history. We have more money being pumped into our ecosystem than ever before. We have our senior leadership involved like never before.

Yet the end result of all that is so far away from where it should be. We definitely stink less in most cases. But with all this data, talent, money and leadership support, we are not knocking the ball out of the park.

I mean look at Zappos. It is functional. If you know what you want, you can buy it. But does the experience have to be like you are staying at a Motel 6? (Even they have refurbished everything per their TV ads!) I'm trying to buy a $1,845 Just Cavalli dress. It is an uninspiring page. The description is.. is. The You May Also Like has a $50 Converse shoe and a Sperry Top-Sider Angelfish for $63. Even the title of the page is "Just Cavalli S04CT0255N36734". What!

Click around randomly. Look at any page. Functional, yes. Inspired? Brand love evoking? No. Would you go there to explore your next fashion choices? Absolutely positively not! Not even if someone poked you with a sharp stick. Even for shoes, think of why and when you go to Zappos (vs. other stores/brands).

Zappos has great return conditions and very good customer service. That gets it xx million customers. But if they decided not have a Motel 6 experience, rather step up to a Hilton, or God forbid the Four Seasons, could they have xxx million customers (and improve margins while they are at it)?

Motel 6 is a good hotel chain, it serves an important purpose. But if you are running a hotel and you are Motel 6, it is difficult and expensive to raise everything up to the level of a Hilton (and even more expensive to to get it to get to the Four Seasons).

But when it comes to digital, it is only a bit more expensive to to punch significantly higher than your weight. Bits and bytes are cheap. You just get a little nicer talent, you get a different design group (internal or external) and you let your mind be open to new possibilities.

That is where this blog post comes in. My hope is to present a cluster of experience, each doing something spectacularly amazing, to open your minds to new possibilities. Because you want to move your digital strategy beyond just sucking less, you can rock so much more to achieve the combination of being unique, creating delight in your customers and improving your bottom-line (profit).

And I don't mean to pick on Zappos. Try Gucci. At best someone at the company has checked of a box that they have a digital presence. Or checkout Bare Necessities. If someone can create something truly awesome with the assets at their disposal, they are it. Yet. Or visit Orbitz. How long would it take you to find 14 things to fix on any page you visit? Two minutes? Or see Gillette. Enough said. Or have you been to Huggies? They go two things in their corner: Babies and irrational parents who don't know what to do. And this is the site they deliver!

We all can do a lot better.

This post has a collection of seven experiences that I love and adore. My hope is that they'll inspire you to not settle at sucking less. My hope is you are going to take the data, talent, money and leadership support to transform your digital experience into something truly delightful.

We will look at many different examples. From bras to dresses. From B2C to B2B. From pants to jewelry. From simple and effective personalization on your owned channels (your site) to deep and profoundly impactful engagement on your rent channels (YouTube). Here are the seven winning strategies…

Excited to go from simply not-stinking-at-all to punching significantly above your weight? Ready to take this expansive journey to not just win at performance marketing and brand marketing? Yes!?!? Let's go…

1. Create joy-inducing mobile experiences. Forget mobile first, it's a mobile only world!

This one, this year and this month, is so, so, so gosh darn painful.

According to eMarketer in 2010 we spent 3:11 (hrs:min) on digital content consumption and 4:24 on TV in the US. In 2014 those numbers are 5:46 for digital and 4:28 on TV. A stunning increase in digital content consumption.

The major contributor to digital finally beating TV? Mobile!

In 2010 we spent 24 minutes a day on non-voice use of mobile devices. In early 2014 that number is 2 hours and 51 minutes! Our time on desktops actually went down.

We are increasingly heading into a world where the slogan to follow is not mobile first, it is mobile only!

It is pretty surprising then that so many businesses are still not serious about their mobile strategies.

For example, I type in for "trip to Hawaii" (not an esoteric destination) into Google. I click on an organic listing for Travelocity. I end up on the site below on the left. In 2014. How crazy is that? Is it possible to make it any harder for me to give you money?

Ditto if I do a Google search for "high zoom digital camera" and get an ad for Frys Electronics. Clicking on the ad takes me to the site above.

Now, I was not looking to buy on my phone. I had a few minutes, I wanted to research the inventory and go buy it at a local store. Guess what store I did not go to buy my camera? I call it the silent death from not having an acceptable mobile strategy – you don't even know you are getting killed. And you are guessing why store sales are down (and because of such a simple fix!).

B2C sites like Travelocity and Fry's have not cornered the market on this.

A search for "sales automation" shows a link for Zoho, leading me to the site below left. If the mobile phone did not have a back-button hard-coded into the hardware perhaps I would try to read the. Since I have a choice, bounce and back I go.

You might think Salesforce is the winner here. They are not.

Yes, they meet the lowest bar for digital. They have a mobile friendly website. But for a search query stuffed with think intent, they have created a do page.

Let me rephrase that. Salesforce is the person that comes to a first date completely naked. If you are not interested in jumping into bed right away, they are happy to walk around the bar and look for someone else. They care that deeply about you. On. The. First. Date!

So. Not only should you have a great mobile experience. Make sure it is a relevant mobile experience that puts the customer first rather than yourself.

Here's an example of what awesome looks like. Warby Parker (mobile site: http://m.warbyparker.com).

Think of how hard it is to sell prescription glasses. Think of all the concerns and worries and freakouts people have. Yet, Warby Parker is challenging the giants in the space.

They do many things right, including the mobile experience. It is easy to see the glasses, try out different views with a couple swipes. You can switch colors, choose which version to add to cart with a single press of the button, read a brief well-written description and you've reached the end of the page!

Not only are they solving for the do audience, they also solve for the think audience. See the lovely + Home Try-On button. Quickly add five pairs to your selection and you can pick the one you really love form the comfort of your home.

It used to be silly to not have a smart phone and tablet friendly experiences of your digital existence. It is now profoundly harmful to your bottom-line. Silent death. Let the nice folks at Warby Parker inspire you to do better (and remember the Salesforce lesson above).

[If you refuse to have a true mobile-awesome experience, at least suck-less by using responsive design – like this blog. Responsive design is not the right way to go, but you will definitely suck-less.]

2. Deliver fantastic, yet simple, personalization. Don't wait for perfection.

There is, rightly, an insane obsession with Users rather than visits and cookies. From a data perspective this is reflected in our obsession with multi-channel attribution modeling or user based visitor segmentation. From a marketing perspective we have been on a quest to figure out how to personalize the user experience on our sites. It was the early promise of the web, we have your behavior/data, we can create a unique store/newspaper/everything.

Except that you've noticed that after million of dollars and trillions of hours being spent on this, there is almost no personalization on the web. When people do talk about personalization successes, they still talk about Amazon's "items related to the ones in your cart" or Amazon's light personalization of the home page. Most sites don't even do that (or do it badly like Zappos recommending Converse All-Stars with my Just Cavalli dress).

Personalization is hard from a technology perspective. But what is even more dramatically under-estimated is how hard it is for a company to create all the assets and meta-data and all the other stuff required to do personalization.

If all that nirvana is hard, why not let the users personalize their experiences by giving you a mass of data? Anonymously?

Much, much cheaper. Much, much, much more doable.

I have two examples for you to consider emulating. The first one is my favorite, Victoria Secret's personal bra boutique .

I'm not logged into the site, I don't have an account, they have no idea who I am. But upon landing on the site rather than being overwhelmed/distracted by the world of possibilities, I simply head over the the bra boutique…

I click on Get Started and I'm presented with a lovely screen where I can pick my bra size.

I choose 34 D. (As I'm not intimately familiar with bra specs, I'm making random choices above and below. In case you were curious.) I have an option to measure myself, or convert from international sizes. Good options.

That done I can move to the second (of five) steps. I choose how much coverage I like. The experience is nice, each choice is clearly highlighted with a brief description. I choose "like a Demi."

There are three more steps: Padding, Straps, Support. And Boom! I have my boutique with 202 bras chosen just for me!

The fun does not stop there. The bras are sorted by the percentage that they match with my wear, coverage (more), padding (some), straps (cross back) and support (wireless).

I can see the bra, prices, sale prices, and by clicking on the bra I can get a quick view with other details if I want. There are also some additional sorting and filtering options.

It does not take a very long time to pick my colors and other options to narrow down to just 12 to choose from. I order the first three with the highest percentage in the match column. Rocking them comfortably now!

I also take some of the others and click the heart icon to save them for future consideration.

An otherwise painful or just "it does not suck a lot" experience transformed into something that delights (and makes me give VS more money).

And all of this without first opening an account (so stupid when companies make you do that first!), and without it feeling like a torture from an experience stand point. I can open my account now if I want and save by bra boutique for the future. And VS can accomplish this without the worlds most crazy-freaky predictive algorithms of Earth and alien juice from Mars.

Why can't your customers personalize your website with just six clicks? Why can't they build their own store, newspaper, library, product catalog, ad experience and so much more in six clicks?

Here's one more example to inspire you… from another one of my favorites… Rent The Runway.

They have a feature called Our Runway / Woman Like Me that allows you to go from their infinite choice to your own specific set of dresses very quickly…

As you can see above, there is not a lot to it.

From the left nav you just choose your basic information like height, bust, usual size etc and as you choose from each drop-down the dresses you see change dynamically…

I pick 6', 32C, 10 and 30-39 and I get my custom store!

What is particularly fantastic about Rent The Runway is that they have an astonishingly loyal user base who sends in their pictures and now I can see women like myself! No fancy models (though if you miss them they are not too far away as you can see below).

It is so much easier for me not imagine how I would look in the dress I'm comparing for my special day. From a combination of my look and feel as well as the dress, I can easily choose the dress I want. I pick the one Katie's rocking…

Read her brief review (I can dive in and read more reviews and checkout other women – Asian like me – who rented the dress). From there it is but a short hop to renting it for myself…

$40 for an extra-special event, and new memories.

Personalization in the case of Rent The Runway came from two magical sources. 1. The basic dress and person data. 2. The information (reviews, pictures etc) contributed for free by existing Rent The Runway users.

Both, doable. Both, will take you less time (and deliver a strategic long-term advantage).

I'm not trying to dissuade you for pursuing the fantastic software/hardware/advance artificially intelligence path that takes years to bear even small fruit. I'm simply saying that you could see that with very little data and a little bit of moxie both Victoria's Secret and Rent The Runway can deliver an amazingly personalized experience. Do that first, even if you have unlimited money and a beguiling software vendor promising you everything magically personalized without any effort from you (well except your money). You'll still win big by emulating VS and RTR.

Personalize, smartly!

3. Empower customer reviews that are actually helpful. Start stinking less today.

Rent The Runway is a bridge into this critical awesomzation of the digital experience.

Is there anything more done to death more than reviews on the web? And it is all so boring. Who wants to work on reviews or improve them?

You. You should want to. Because you'll deliver higher customer value, customer loyalty and business profit.

The "gold standard" for review spec is Amazon. Name, date, text comment.

Why not go for a bold standard and stand out from the crowd? Two examples.

First, let's look at Rent The Runway. I'm considering renting the Psychedelic Floral Dress by Nanette Lepore.

It looks nice. But what about the reviews?

The dress currently has 55 reviews. What is particularly helpful are other features included such as Usually Wears (4 and 10 below) because I can compare that to what size of this dress the person ordered. I can also get other qualitative information such as Rented For (formal affair). And of course the pictures are super helpful!

On top of the reviews is also another lovely set of information related to Fit (small, true to size and large). I can also filter by various physical criteria to find the reviews to find just the ones I might find to be helpful.

Why aren't the reviews at Macy's or Nordstorm this awesome? Or Bare Necessities or Wal-Mart or every other website paying lip-service to customer reviews?

Perhaps your company's excuse for not innovating with reviews is that you don't sell clothing/fashion.

That's not good enough of an excuse.

Let me share with you one of my other favorite sites in this context, Williams-Sonoma. You are welcome to look at any random product, but let's look at the All-Clad d5 Stainless-Steel French Skillet.

The reviews have the common elements you see in the "gold standard" reviews like a text review and the various sort options. But when you look at the latter you get your first clues to the smartness at WS. In addition to Newest First or Ratings High to Low, you also see other lovely and helpful things like Photo Reviews First, Video Reviews First, Length Long to Short etc.

Awesome, is it not? In a world like Amazon's where every single product is four star rated, this is would be so helpful to narrow down to just the reviews you might find helpful.

And, it gets better.

Notice the area to the left of the review. I absolutely love Ability Level, Has Owned Product For and Uses Product!

In a world where people are passionate about every hotel, product, thing, I can how hone in on my type of people or people I would trust more/less. If my level in cooking is intermediate, I'll trust Rookstar's review more. The fact that she/he has had the product for 3-6 months increases my confidence, as would the fact that she/he has used the product every day.

It is not unusual for people to write product reviews even before the product is shipped. Or the day they get it. Or people slam a sophisticated camera because it does not make them coffee in 24 hours. Or a new game because their ability level is low and the game is more suited to ability level high.

Here's a great example, of my, now beloved, Breville toaster .

The toaster, when I first saw it, seemed to be too expensive and the reviews were mixed. But WS makes it easy for me to move away from the clutter and hone in on just the reviews I might find helpful.

While I respect drmikie, it is easy to ignore his/her review and identify more like belloftheball that have more of the elements filled out that match with my preferences.

Reviews are more painful today than they need to be. We need to adopt the "bold standard" followed by Williams-Sonoma and Rent The Runway. We need to deliver more than the look we suck as much as everyone else.

Care more. Be bold.

4. Design a glorious purchase experience. Take their money, please.

I've shared my love for Bonobos in the past. They do lots of small and big things right (along with doing the biggest thing right, sell great pants!).

Here's a tiny example of how smart the user experience is, full of delicious little bonbons everywhere.

When you hover your mouse over your waist size, it automagically shows you what length is available.

And of course it also works the other way around. Hover over the desired length, it shows the waist sizes in stock.

Awesome right?

Other companies also let you pick your waist and length and show you what's in stock. It just needs more clicks, drilldowns, and standing on one feet while balancing a coffee cup on your nose.

But the reason to mention Bonobos today is to introduce you to the world's greatest ecommerce purchase and checkout experience.

When you click start checkout you land on this beautiful sexy page.

No awful SECURE CERTIFIED, VERISIGN CHECK OK, NO VIRUS CERTIFIED, GROWTH HARMONES EXCLUDED, yada, yada, yada. It is 2014 after all. It is safe to assume intelligence at the other end.

No buy this and buy that. No also look at this and that. No fifty other columns of garbage.

Just a page. Waiting for you to do your thing. And if you are weak-willed, it says right up top, 3 Step Checkout. In the small chance you are having a heart-attack, you'll be comforted by the Get a real person right away. There. Feel better?

You add your email address, that's it. You move on.

If you already have an account with them things get more yummy, but let's just use the worst case scenario.

Here's step one in your checkout process. The choice for shipping is built in, press a button if you must. The default is free.

Surely by know you can fill in your shipping address in a few seconds and click Continue.

Gaze at the simplest credit card entry page known to mankind.

(I want to note that Bonobos does do error checking. The above is fictional address but recognized as legit by most address checking systems. I mistakenly had NE for state, the Bonobos system prompted me with a clear indicator that the Zip was wrong. Even before I clicked continue. United Airlines people, make note of this!)

It is easy to see where on your credit card the information will be that you need. Instead of just saying "billing address is same as shipping address," they repeat my street address and ask if that is also my billing address. Nice.

Instead of typing in the four required fields, I can also choose to pay via Paypal.

The whole checkout process becomes even simpler.

I click on Paypal and then Continue and I get my review page for the costs and a nice green Checkout With Paypal button.

I can log into my Paypal account and pay in a second. All I had to do is type in my shipping address.

Did you notice the reassuring "Free prepaid return label in the box" under the checkout button? If you were going to take five seconds to press that button, you'll press it in 0.5 seconds now!

Checkout abandonment rates routinely run in the high seventy and eighty percent. That is simply unacceptable. If people want to give you money, why not Bonobos your checkout experience and take that money quickly?

Bonobos' checkout experience does every single thing required, and nothing that is not required. Let them be your inspiration to move beyond we've met the standard of not sucking. Do more. Profits await.

Now. Where are my Blue Moon 30/34 pants?

5. Convert like a champion! Solve for on-line, off-line, later-line, maybe-line!

After looking at a great mobile experience we worked on creating simple personalizatoin that is driven by customer data. Then we did the next most optimal thing, focused on creating "bold standard" reviews. From there it is a simply hop-skip-and-jump to creating a delicous checkout experience.

We've gotten our conversion rate up. Hurray!

Time to focus on doing business however the customer wants to, rather than just want's convenient to us. Time to obsess about multi-channel outcomes.

I want to use an unusual example, Cartier. Unusual because if you look at most luxury websites they stink to high heaven. We will come back to this topic in item number seven below. For now, take my word that by not making you learn to use the internet all over again the team at Cartier is unusual and worth admiring.

If you are interested in the delightful Tank Anglaise watch, there's a simple red Add to Shopping Bag button.

Oh, and get $7,300 ready. On that note the Cartier team deserves another kiss. Most companies in their space will make you call them to visit a store or refuse to give you any option to do business online. You know because this internet thing is a fad. No Cartier though. They are happy to take your money.

So far a couple of nice things. But that is not why the Cartier site is in this post.

They are here because of everything surrounding their Add to Shopping Bag button.

There are five other choices for you to efficiently part with your money. Order by phone. Add to wishlist (in case you don't want to convert in the first visit!). Request information. And lastly, contact an ambassador.

Everything stacked up beautifully in a nice cluster. Cartier is solving for Do as well as See and Think. They are solving for online and offline. They are solving for people who need no help, people who need some – request info – and people who need a lot – ambassador.

This is rare. Yes, many websites offer some of these pieces. Only a few offer all. Even when some of these pieces are available, they are spread all over the website and hard to find.

Why?

Why not make it easy?

Why not have the macro-conversion and the micro-conversions related to making money, presented in a way that makes our customers feel like they are in control and we are happy to move at the pace they choose for themselves?

Please solve for the on-line, off-line, later-line and maybe-line. Your mom will be so proud of you.

6. Win with innovative, magnificent, brand experiences. Owned audiences await.

We've mostly focused on performance marketing, time to shift our attention to the other love of my life… brand marketing!

Let's focus primarily on the See stage with some Think thrown in with a very tiny pinch of Do. [The awesome See-Think-Do framework.]

Let's look at beauty, looking and feeling beautiful regardless of who you are.

I'm sure you know that only a small tiny handful percent of attention in the video space is being earned by big or small beauty brands. From your Chanels of the world to your Head & Shoulders to Olay to Axe. Yes these brands have YouTube channels and every once in a while they throw up a viral video and everyone oohs and aahs. They get temporary attention, there is no residual impact on the brand. Follow-on views. Subscribers. Offline sales. Online visits. Take any metric you want.

Attention in the beauty space is earned by Zoella, Carli Bybel, Bethany Mota, Jen Chae and, I think literally, hundreds of other real people in the world who are expressing their passion for beauty for free. There are teenagers with more Subscribers than many gigantic beauty brands.

So it is not the case that there is not attention to be earned. The problem is that your, and your lovely expensive agency's agenda of videos in the spirit of "LOOK AT US OUR PRODUCTS ARE BEAUTIFUL" does not work. Neither does "LOOK AT OUR MODELS THEY ARE SO AWESOME, RUN OUT, BUY OUR STUFF!" And of course video after video that says "LOOK AT ME I'M AM PRETTY" leads to 300 views or less.

Larger companies also have a unique problem where each of their brands tries to go after attention individually and that strategy means each brand has a gigantic problem to solve. They get zero benefit from scale that should normally flow for large companies.

Recently I came across and example of a large company that has decided to think different.

The wonderful team at Unilever UK identified that attention was currently owned by vloggers and other non-paid contributors. Furthermore pimpy videos don't work. Solving for short-term virality is not a sustainable strategy. And individual brands were individually struggling to make any headway.

Their solution is pretty amazing. It solves for See, Think, Do and Care by providing inspiration, utility and unique points of engagement.

They've created a beautiful custom designed YouTube brand channel singularly focused on hair (for all their hair-care brands). It's called… All Things Hair.

Pretty is it not? It also does a million clever things.

This post kicked off with a deep emphasis on user-driven personalization. Unilever UK is doing that well right off the bat. Once you get over how beautiful the channel is and how happy and delightful all the people seem to be, your eye with settle on the My Hair Is area. A quick click…

I can pick my hair color, curliness and length. As I do this the videos I see change. Relevance!

But the delights don't stop there. I can select what I want to do with my hair in the Make My Hair section.

I choose messed up. Why not? : )

And now I go from hundreds of videos to an absolutely delightful curate set of guaranteed to be helpful videos. All I have to do is press play. (I'm trying the Pixie Lott inspired look. Let me how how it looks next time you see me. :))

Rather than creating all the videos using their current stable of models and personalities, the team at Unilever is using people who already have attention on YouTube from their current body of work. They are using YouTube vloggers to create videos that deliver on the important dimensions of quality, authenticity and value. The videos are not too polished, just enough. It is extremely clear that the videos were commissioned by a Unilever brand, yet the tone, texture and content is authentic. And the 30 or so videos that I looked through were extremely valuable.

This is incredibly hard to pull of. If you work at a large company (and you don't have to be Unilever large) you can feel in your soul how freaking hard this is to do. A million barriers. A million entrenched agendas. A million reasons to keep sucking at YouTube and to keep shouting on TV. A million agencies, divisions, leaders, and more to work with.

It is unbelievable that Unilever UK managed to invest in a long-term sustainable strategy for the Unilever family of hair-care products, because it would be so much easier to just suck like everyone else in the beauty space around the world.

Back to the videos.

The videos show up in a custom window in a custom player. They are all pretty short (YouTube standard!). Sharing is built-in and prominent, see buttons under the video on the right side.

On videos where Unilever products are used, they show up in a space called the Hamper.

Because this is solving for the whole family of Unilever products, they can nicely showcase the entire portfolio of products that were used to deliver the hair look-feel-awesomeness.

The Buy Now button is small and subtle, but it is there and you can see it. You don't have to click on it. The tone set in the video also does not solve for selling, it solves for making you look and feel beautiful.

If you do click on a product, I could not resist something called radiating tropical elixir, you are taken directly to the product page where you can read the reviews, learn more, share it on various social channels or buy the product online or offline.

As the brand manager of one product, say TRESemmé, you can still take your current assets, relationships and people and be a part of the All Things Hair family.

Here's one of those videos by Matthew Curtis on how to get a vintage wave. In the past it might have languished by itself on a product brand channel, now it has 650k views and attention it deserves.

Visit All Things Hair – UK. Poke around. Checkout the videos. Try the personalization / solutions finder. Listen to the tone and texture of the videos. Pay attention to the authenticity. I think you'll love what the Unilever team has done.

One of the things you might notice are the lovely points of engagement spread out in the channel.

For example, the weather. Not as relevant for us here in the US (or for you in Nairobi), but useful for their core audience.

You'll notice that the elements with 40s and 80s actually move and are not stills. I don't know how they are doing it, but they are freaky and cool both at the same time!

And of course you'll notice the quizzes. Not the sexiest things in the world, but a delightful point of engagement with the channel.

Every number you look at for YouTube is going up and to the right. Amount of time and average person spends. The number of videos uploaded. The number of massive celebrities created on the back of YouTube. The number of people looking to YouTube as a See and Think medium. The amount of devices people are watching YouTube content. The number of subscribers on top channels. The number of successful movies/products/revolutions launched off YouTube. Pick any metric you want. Up and to the right.

Through All Things Hair the Unilever UK team shows us how to be ahead of the game and get a massive return on their investment. The primary purpose is to do more than/better than what they do with branding on all other media channels, the secondary, much smaller purpose is to enable commerce in a very quite manner.

It is very hard to do this. Even if the imagination exists, and that is a big if, the forces of entropy in companies large and small are hard to overcome.

I'll be the first to admit that you can still suck for a little while and your business will be fine. But the amount of time you have in front of you is as long as the person who will replace you in your job. And she/he will passionately hate you.

Owned audiences await you, move beyond renting. Create innovative, magnificent, brand experiences. One YouTube, and everywhere else you exist.

7. Create inspiring, luscious experiences. What if the first interaction with your brand is digital?

Since we are on brand marketing, one last quick example of a site I'm deeply fond of. Hermès.

Most luxury websites try really hard to be different. Company leaders have a desire to be the most unique experience on the internet to represent the uniqueness of the brand. Since they also have lots of money, the internal or external design team is happy to separate the company from that money and create a website that no one outside their immediate building will be able to use. Mice don't really work. If on a tablet you have not idea what to click, where to find information you actually want. They have bizarre horizontal scroll bars. And obviously the font size will be 6. Oh, oh, oh and you are right, light gray font on a light gray background. Or should I say sexy gray with subtle hues of love. Still does not work though.

I don't know what they are solving for.

As an example, I really do love Chanel. Great products. Wonderful brand. Fantastic heritage. But all of that is not enough for me to want to first learn how to use the internet in order to visit their various sites. It is 2014. Why do I need to first learn how to use the internet! They are simply trying to be too clever. [Though you can make a very strong and legitimate case for the fact that I'm too poor to be their target audience.]

It is of course entirely possible to create a stunningly unique experience that lives up to your brands heritage and glory, and does not require people to learn to use the internet first.

I give you the wonderful Hermès website.

This is the gorgeous page that shows up while the site loads. A custom beautiful animation!

The site, in a very subtle and not-in-you-face manner, pays homage to the brand's orange color preference. [I love orange. Flavor. Color. Land. People. Everything!]

See what I mean, you can show this is something special and uniquely you?

When the site loads you are presented with a cluster of what seems like an infinite number of tiles. Even shrunk down to this tiny size, you can make out what they are and what information they might provide (and as this is the French version of the site, it would help a little to know French though that is not mandatory).

The navigation aid is the little grid you see on the top right.

Move your mouse to the right element and the tiles more as well. Left, or right or center or top left or right or… well, wherever you want to explore. You also have a small + and – underneath to allow you to zoom in and out. Takes you less than two seconds to understand how to use the site.

Click on the tile itself and it zooms up to a large size (the image below is shrunk down). You can now consume the content. Video. Audio. Helpful hints. Stories. And more.

There are tiles that display text. Perhaps the only element that could be executed better, and even they are pretty readable (I bet even in the reduced size you see below!).

Did you notice the orange? Is it too subtle? : )

Sharing it built into each element, bottom right brings up the social icons you need.

Hermès is famous for many things, but perhaps their scarves most of all.

I love this tile that times how long it takes you to tie a scarf, or anything else really. A very creatively produced element. The belts move and change. The whole thing is so well done.

And that's what's awesome about the Hermès digital experience. A million small things done well with love and creativity to bring you closer to the brand.

Did I say the scarves are awesome?

I might betray my design sensibilities, but the Hiroshi Sugimoto collection is a favorite of mine. [Gentlemen and ladies, start your wishlists for me!]

It is easy to switch scarfs, see larger images, browse other galleries.

And when I'm ready to buy, the Hermès ecommerce website awaits ready to delight and deliver an amazing experience while taking my money.

Once I pick the scarf I want, I can easily J'achete it!

Oh and did you think they are only solving for softer outcomes like enhanced brand equity and harder things like ecommerce? No!

They've read this blog. [I presume!] They do macro and micro-conversions .

Here's their email sign up form…

Did I already say it is possible to deliver an amazing unique brand experience while not requiring people to learn how to use the internet all over again simply because you are trying so hard?

I think I did.

One last thing that touched me the first time I visited the Hermès site last year.

I tried to look for the nearest real-world store. The experience to find it is pleasant.

What was delightful was the sketch that I got next to the address. It was so lovely . (Did you notice the hint of orange? :)) I was really impressed that they created a special sketch for their store locator.

Then I went to look for a store in San Francisco . And much to my surprise, I got a different sketch!

And then I tried other cities. Different sketches!!

And then I went on a journey around the world to look at all the sketches. They were all beautiful, unique and heart-warming.

You can tell me you are special. Or you can show me how special you are. By caring deeply about things small and big. By going way above the call of duty. By setting your smartest people free to express their creativity. By creating a perfect match of what made you amazing in the real world and creating a perfect digital manifestation of that exact thing.

Everything above is amazing. But the most remarkable thing about Hermès is that their digital existence around the world looks the same, works the same way. Try to change the country. And their ecommerce stores also look feel the same around the world. Truly worth admiring because of the people, process, egos and platforms involved.

All of us can be Hermès. You just have to want to badly enough.

In their unique way, each of our stories today is a walking-talking example of going well beyond the call of duty and not settling at we don't suck any more. Each an example of being truly customer-centric, while solving for greater business profitability.

They inspire me to think different, and I hope they inspire you as well.

As always, it is your turn now.

Is there a mobile experience you are impressed with? Why? Who has impressed you with deeper personalization of your experience, beyond the obvious? Do you have another example of customer reviews to add to Rent The Runway and Williams Sonoma? What did you think of the Bonobos checkout experience? Is there someone simpler/awesomer? Does your ecommerce experience provide all the options like Cartier, that beautifully? Would All Things Hair work for your company's YouTube strategy? Who else do you love? Did you adore Hermès as much as I do? Is your heart with someone else how has managed this astonishing balance between unique and functional?

Please share your stories, critique, examples, best practices and everything else via comments below.

Thank you.

Digital Design & User Experience Best Practices: Happiness + Profits! is a post from: Occam's Razor by Avinash Kaushik

There are millions of users online and quite frankly, most will not be leads. By determining who your target audience online is, what information they value, and then finding where they spend their time online, you’ll be able to focus your marketing initiatives most effectively.

If you are not communicating to your target audience in the manner they are looking to receive their communication, then you are effectively not communicating at all. Think of it like this, if a tree falls in the forest, does it make a sound? Sure it does, but if no one is around to hear it, it is effectively silent. Unless you are communicating with your audience, the same could be true for you. You are communicating but no one hears a sound. Make sure this doesn’t happen to you.

Understanding Your Target Audience Online

Being online is literally like participating in a 24 hours a day, 7 days a week networking event. Your profile, the content you share and your contributions are working for you even when you’re offline. The challenge is that without a focused effort, your networking efforts can quickly become fragmented, overwhelming and produce minimal results, even through it feels like you’re trying to network with everyone, all the time. So, who has the time for that? Create a focused effort.  Know your audience, know where they hang out and know what they are interested in.

You can start heading down this path by asking yourself a few questions such as:

1. What does my target audience look like – define specifically in human terms. Who these people (age, gender, demographic, socioeconomic status, etc.)? Be as detailed as possible.

2. Do you have more than one target audience online? If so, for each, what are their biggest concerns, needs, and interests?

3. Who are the decision makers within the organization?

4.What are they “buying” from you?

5. What motivates them to hire you? What are their pain points? Increased efficiency? Cost-savings? Outsourcing opportunities?

6. What is the value that you offer which your competition does not?

7. Who are your best prospects and where can these audiences be found on the internet?

8. What process does your target audience use to make a purchase? (i.e. online research, word of mouth, bus benches, magazines, etc.)

Finding Your Target Audience Online

Next, brainstorm some strategies for finding your targeting audience online. There are millions of users already online and you need sift through “the noise” to find your best audience.  Trying to do this can feel a little like searching for a needle in a haystack. So how do you narrow the field to find your target audience?

9. Check out your competitors. Who are they networking with? What groups do they belong to? Read their profile, are they using keywords that make them easier to find? Are they listing industry specific experience in their profile that your target audience will be searching for?

10. Ask people you do business with where they interact online? Which groups, which functions and what information are they generally seeking?

11. Create your own company page on social media, and keep track of those who follow and/or view your page.

12. Search the company pages of those you currently do business with, take a look at who is active on their page, what are they contributing?

13. Search out groups related to your industry (competitors) and the industry of your target audience. Be where your prospects can see you. Ask to join these groups, and ease yourself into the conversation slowly. Start first by watching the group to see how they interact, what type of information do they share, is there specific content that they value over others? Are they receptive to asking questions?

Next… Communicate

Once you’ve found your audience, it is time to refine your communications with them.  The key here is to focus on the value they are seeking.  Think about this for a second… when someone offers you value that you are seeking, do you pay attention to it or dismiss it and walk away.  Clearly, you pay attention to it.  Communicating the value your audience wants is the “secret sauce.”

14. Value – Take the time to figure out what your target market wants to hear, the information they’re looking to gather, but also the way they want to hear it. Do they tend to take conversations out of the group and appear to start having a discussion on email instead? How forthcoming are they to sharing their business problems in a public environment?

15. Aviod providing “anti-value” – Most of all, start communicating with your target audience, but be cautious not to self-promote in an obvious way. Ask questions and provide thoughtful input on questions being asked.

16. Connect with decision makers – When you are intereacting online, are you engaging with the decision makers or insiders? If the group is largely composed of insiders, balance your time, and start planning a strategy to get to the decision maker.

17. Share, don’t sell.

This is a powerful and robust topic to dig into.  These are our 17 tips to get this conversation started.  We would be very interested to hear yours.

Want to find your target audience & generate more effectiveness on LinkedIn?  Click here to for a free 30+ page guide.

Is the history of web publishing repeating itself? 

In the early stages of the Internet, most publishers established separate teams – even parallel businesses – to address the opportunity and challenge of the new medium.

This time, it's the emergence of programmatic advertising that's triggering deja vu.

Back then, digital businesses looked very different than the mature magazines and newspapers they shared a brand name with–especially when it came to product and operations.

In nearly every case, the same thinking was applied to the sales organization, which was split between new and old. 

As Internet ad spending grew, this separation created all sorts of headaches: sales calls became “four-legged,” staffed by two (competing) teams within the same unit. New people were even brought in just to integrate the two parts of the (same) business. 

Now it's programmatic that's tempting publishers to split up sales. It's an organizational challenge that looks remarkably similar to that of 10-15 years ago.

The arguments for separate sales teams again seem self-evident: specialization requires expertise, and it's easier to compensate people when “separate” revenue is treated distinctly. Also, buying sources are often different, and many existing salespeople show little interest in selling programmatic. (And let's be real here– the revenue opportunity today for salespeople is much smaller in programmatic than in direct sales.) 

Why distract the golden goose?  Isn't the right solution to create and keep two separate sales teams?

This is wrong-headed thinking, and here's why: if spending estimates come remotely close to predictions, programmatic will not remain a specialty practice much longer. With both agencies and clients demanding ever more efficiency, programmatic infrastructure is the best and brightest solution yet.  

However, with the rollout of programmatic, if we're not careful, we could again be headed for four, six or even eight-legged sales meetings, unhealthy internal competition, unnecessary integration teams, and lengthy and expensive re-orgs that don't really “take.”

So what, then, can be done?  

Broadly speaking, sales teams need to get smart about programmatic. Here's how:

Train Your Team.  While it may be evolving quickly, programmatic is not going away. Sales teams need to get trained, and quickly, and marketing/ad product teams need to understand how and when to incorporate programmatic into programs and proposals.

Create Value. Programmatic often gets cast as just a technique to undercut CPMs.  But it's so much more than that, and offers so much more potential. Organizations that develop creative and smart ways to inject programmatic into their sales efforts will discover a powerful new tool in their arsenal.

Streamline. It's critical to reduce inefficient and ineffective processes. Most ad organizations and agencies have held on to truly wasteful systems in generating and executing programs. The opportunity to vastly simplify workflows exists, and the potential return on this effort is considerable.

Connect.the.dots. Publishers aren't the only organizations struggling with the shift towards programmatic. Agencies and brand marketers are equally challenged to make sense of this changing landscape. Help them!

The bottom line is this: programmatic is changing everything. And it's not an easy process. Every organization's culture will demand a nuanced approach to this rapid evolution.

It's the organizations that do the hard work now that will be much farther along the road than those that merely kicked the can down it.

Join the conversation about this story »

• Employers aren't just looking for technical skills in new hires. Soft skills, like your ability to negotiate and build morale, are becoming increasingly important.
• Business Insider compiled a list of personality-testing questions you should expect from hiring managers. 
• Edward Fleischman, founder and CEO of Execu Search, told Business Insider that companies are more likely to hire candidates who are better cultural fits, even if they have less experience than their competition. 
• Employers are also looking for someone with a growth mindset, said Traci Wilk, a former HR executive at Starbucks. 
• Click here for more BI Prime stories. 

Employers today aren't just looking for candidates with the right set of technical skills and years of experience. They also want to hire employees who have something unique to offer — like a great personality or a strong set of people skills.

"In fact, if they find a candidate who has less experience than their competition, but has stronger growth potential and seems to be a better cultural fit, the employer may feel encouraged to hire that person," said Edward Fleischman, founder and CEO of Execu Search, a full-service recruitment and staffing firm.

In an effort to find new hires that are great cultural fits, employers are putting more emphasis on soft skills —  your ability to negotiate, build morale, and maintain business relationships. 

Hiring managers are getting creative with their questions to determine whether a candidate possesses these skills.

Business Insider talked to executives about the personality questions a hiring managers ask. Here's what to expect and how to answer.

SEE ALSO: How to write the perfect subject line to get noticed by recruiters in 2020 and find the job of your dreams

DON'T MISS: 15 jobs no one knew about in 2010 that everyone will want in 2020

What was the last new task or skill you learned, and how did you go about it?

Your employers will ask this question to evaluate how you view your own professional development, Fleischman said.

In other words, they're looking for evidence of a growth mindset. 

Traci Wilk, senior vice president of people at The Learning Experience and former HR executive at Starbucks, told Business Insider that she often asks candidates how they overcome challenges and learn from mistakes. 

"Is this someone that's going to come into the organization certainly with best practices, but also willing to be flexible, willing to be innovative? That's really the main thing that I'm assessing when I'm meeting with a candidate," she said. 

Fleischman recommended answering with details on how you learn new skills. Emphasize that you're curious and continually learning new things about your profession.

Tell me about a time when you did more than what was required on the job.

Your interviewer wants to know you're committed. Companies want to hire employees who are willing to take on a heavier workload if needed. If you show that you're open to more responsibilities, you might earn a promotion in the long term. 

"Give an example of a time where you went above and beyond the call of duty," said Fleischman. "This will also help show that you care about the quality of your work."

If your best friend was sitting here, what would they say is the best part of being your friend?

Even if you meet the basic qualifications and check all the boxes, likeability still trumps all.

Dandan Zhu, long-time headhunter and owner of DG Recruit, wrote in a Business Insider post that an applicant's success is "usually dictated more by one's ability to influence, actively listen and respond appropriately, their level of social etiquette, and their general level of acceptedness by their peers and superiors."

This personality question pushes a candidate to self-reflect and be honest. 

"Learning about what makes an applicant a good friend allows employers to get a better feel for whether or not they would fit in with the company culture," Fleischman said.

How would you change the way you approach challenges?

This question puts candidates on the spot, and allows hiring managers to evaluate their self-awareness and ability to admit there are some aspects of their professional life they would like to improve, Fleischman said.

Be prepared to talk about your weaknesses and areas that you need to work on. Respond by avoiding general statements and turn the conversation into skills needed for the position.

What is your spirit animal and why?

Stormy Simon, former president of Overstock, told Business Insider that this is one of her favorite questions to ask candidates. 

"One time an interviewee said they identified with a red panda because everyone thinks they are so cute and approachable, but it turns out they're just really lazy," she said. "We hired the candidate anyway despite that answer, but we parted ways within three weeks. It just goes to show how important the question is."

Hiring managers want to see how quickly you can think on your feet while maintaining some degree of creativity. Don't be afraid to think outside the box. 

How would your last supervisor describe you in three words?

The best candidates know who they are. You should have a clear vision on what you bring to the table that others can't. It gives your employer a glimpse into how you view your professional value, Fleischman said.

Dara Richardson-Heron, former CEO of women's organization YWCA and current chief engagement officer for the National Institutes of Health "All of Us" Research Program, told The New York Times that she always ask interviewees this question to see how they package themselves. 

What drives you in your professional and personal life?

This question not only reveals what motivates you, but it also determines your cultural fit, and whether your goals align with your boss.

"By developing a better understanding of a job seeker's [personal and professional life] and by learning what drives them personally, an employer can get a better grasp of the type of personality they'd be bringing to the company," Fleischman said.

Jacquelyn Smith contributed to an earlier version of this post.

What skills do companies prize in C-level executives ? To answer these questions, we surveyed 32 senior search consultants at a top global executive-placement firm. Experienced search consultants typically interview hundreds and even thousands of senior executives; they assess those executives’ skills, track them over time, and in some cases place the same executive in a series of jobs. They also observe how executives negotiate, what matters most to them in hiring contracts, and how they decide whether to change companies. (See my posts on “The Seven Skills You Need to Thrive in the C-Suite” and “Headhunters Reveal What Candidates Want”)

Many consultants emphasized that executives need a first-rate core of technical and soft skills. These skills will vary by industry and function, but up-to-date financial, technical, managerial, and leadership skills are of universal value. The terms “flexible,” “adaptable,” and “curious” came up frequently. One consultant described a typical in-demand executive as “a sponge,” primed to “take in new skills” and “learn from the people around them.” Another endorsed “willingness to learn and adapt to changing environments,” and a third urged “adaptability, the ability to operate in multi-cultural environments and the openness to learn.” One consultant virtually spelled out a formal specification: “Executives should not only have a high level of intellectual curiosity (staying current on market trends and changing dynamics in business), but also a personal sense of flexibility and adaptability.” Several consultants urged executives to build on their personal strengths, or, in the words of one respondent, to “stay very focused and honest on where their core strengths lie.”

Several consultants urged executives to refresh their technical skills constantly. “It is always important to keep oneself up to date with what is happening in the industry,” one said. “Updating one’s IT skills and getting acquainted with the new ways of communicating and interacting (social media) are obviously also very important.” Another urged executives to “continue to educate themselves commercially, financially, and operationally.”

Some argued that merely keeping pace with industry and market changes is inadequate; an executive must anticipate change. The costs of not doing so—not continuously changing and evolving—are likely to be high. Those who neglect to keep up, one respondent said, “will be left behind in a rapidly changing market.”

Finally, team-building skills are both highly prized and shifting rapidly: executives are apt to find themselves managing co-located teams, cross-functional teams, global teams, and virtual teams. Accordingly, they are increasingly expected to apply an analytical lens to team management and to be familiar with best practices (as opposed to managing by gut).

Where should executives turn for advice on skills they need to acquire and upgrade? According to the search consultants, executives might also want to seek out these four sources of insight:

Self–assessment. Many consultants stressed astringent self-reflection, urging honest self-scrutiny about one’s shortcomings and developmental needs before turning to peers, colleagues, mentors, coaches, or courses. “Be extremely critical of yourself,” one counseled. Another urged “listening, adapting, and being cognizant about your own strengths and weaknesses.” The risks of complacency and arrogance arose repeatedly. As antidotes, some recommended flexibility, openness, and willingness to listen. “[Leaders] need to be constantly testing how people are responding to them,” one consultant said, “and open to adjusting their style—both in how they communicate with different groups of people and how they change their leadership approach to suit the situation.”

Peer and subordinate feedback. “External awareness”— which one consultant described as “the ability to seek information outside the executive’s classic sphere”—was viewed as just as important as self-awareness. Several respondents advocated a “strong and diverse network” and openness to 360-degree feedback—that is, not just feedback from supervisors. One even declared that executives “should always be asking their team, peers, and boss how they can be better.”

The same relationships that can fortify executives’ self-knowledge can also keep them abreast of the market and the industry. One consultant urged executives to “seek advice at all levels, and leverage the experts they have in their businesses—this helps build trusted relationships as well as provide them with valuable information.” Another noted one hazard of failing to do so: “Too often I see good executives focused only on their role, and not interested in spending time building a good network of peers. The consequence is that they miss the weak signals of the market.”

Mentoring. Many respondents recommended a mentor—one whose career trajectory the executive hopes to emulate—as a source of information and advice. “Analyze the success of others in their company,” one consultant suggested, “and don’t be afraid to seek out a mentor.” Others extolled the benefits of taking a more junior colleague as a mentor, or “reverse mentoring.” “In a few cases we have been successful in implementing a ‘reverse’ mentoring program, i.e., giving an under-30-year-old mentor to an executive of 54 years of age or older,” one consultant said. “They have been helpful in changing some old habits and ways of thinking.” The junior partners tend to be front-line managers and professionals with up-to-the-minute knowledge of customers, competitors, products, technologies, and trends.

Formal education and developmental assignments. Some consultants praised external educational offerings, including formal executive-education courses, for the access they offer to new research and practices, examples of companies facing relevant challenges, and sometimes a global network of contacts.

Others advocated seeking out varied and off-track job assignments, or what one consultant called “opportunities that take one out of one’s comfort zone.” Developmental assignments outside one’s areas of expertise can often provide exposure to new practices, new markets, and disruptive technologies.

Professional coaches were also cited as a source of reliable but confidential feedback about oneself and one’s managerial skills. “Having a coach or peer group to bounce ideas off is important as execs review their own performance critically,” said one consultant. “An impartial outsider is often required.” Coaches can help executives correct their blind spots and weaknesses, and offer valuable negative feedback that subordinates might withhold.

As one executive offered advice for the long haul: “Do not spread yourself too thinly, and focus on the objectives you have been given. Ensure you have a happy and healthy support system outside of work, and make this a priority.” Some cautioned, too, that flexibility ought not to displace long-term objectives. The goal, one consultant said, is to “stay open-minded but remain on purpose.” Another warned against embracing fads and “every whimsical management book that comes to the market.” Another observed, “The problem is not the sources of information. It is about the analytical and reflective capacity to sort through all that information and pick what is specific to their needs.”

Today, the most pressing question is,“How can you keep your skills current?” It’s really a question of career survival.

About the Research

We talked to the 32 consultants in 2010, but the findings are consistent with everything we hear today. As a group, the senior search consultants we spoke to were 57% male and 43% female. They represented a wide range of industries, including industrial (28%), financial (19%), consumer (13%), technology (11%), corporate (6%), functional practice (6%), education/social enterprise (4%), and life sciences (4%). These senior search consultants worked in 19 different countries from every region of the world, including North American (34%), Europe (28%), Asia/India (26%), Australia/New Zealand (6%), Africa (4%) and South America (2%).

Sales Training Article: How to Avoid the Slippery Slope in Negotiations

Image courtesy of Ponsulak at FreeDigitalPhotos.net

I was working with a client a few years ago. While I was onsite the CEO and CFO were huddled to discuss pricing on a transaction for a very large prospect. I soon learned they had been negotiating for over two weeks. Over that time the pricing had eroded to the point where they were actually concerned whether the transaction was going to be profitable.

Parachuting in from the outside, it seemed clear they were the vendor of choice and that they were in a death spiral of discounting. My suggestion was they had to say "NO" to any further reductions. They pushed back on those suggestions until I told them that if pricing was reduced any more they should probably withdraw.

Within a day the transaction was finalized, but it was painful to consider how much money they left on the table. Buyers understand that the longer negotiations take, the lower the ultimate pricing will be. Once you begin to discount, it is difficult to stop the bleeding. In our negotiation module we show sellers how to withstand a maximum of 3 requests for lower pricing and then utilize a "get-give" approach so that any conditional concessions are offered only after buyers have agreed to something the seller has asked for.

This technique can prevent the discount death spiral that buyers try to orchestrate.

Need some help with your sales performance? Take a look at the sales training workshops available to you and improve sales performance. Your Roadmap to Revenue Growth® awaits!

Read more sales training articles from CustomerCentric Selling® - The Sales Training Company.

Image Credit: SwiftKey

The best third-party Android keyboard is now completely free.

SwiftKey announced today that it’s dropping the $3.99 cost of its keyboard app — one of the few truly successful paid Android apps — and adding a new array of free and premium keyboard themes.

While it’s a surprising move for SwiftKey, it’s one that could help it grow beyond the 200 million devices it’s currently used on. After Apple’s surprising announcement last week that it’s supporting third-party keyboards in iOS 8, SwiftKey also announced that it’s already working on an iOS 8 keyboard.

“It’s less about banking on micro-payments — it’s broader than that, it’s about trying to build momentum behind a product,” said SwiftKey chief marketing officer Joe Braidwood in an interview. “It’s part of the idea that technology should adapt to you … core to that vision is having as many people using that technology as possible.”

The new SwiftKey keyboard includes all of the features its users are accustomed too: personalized predictive typing, the ability to swipe between letters to spell out words, and cloud backup for your SwiftKey usage history (which lets you bring your typing habits to multiple Android devices). But now you’ve also got access to the SwiftKey Store, which includes 30 new keyboard themes, and a number row.

SwiftKey is also offering a free theme pack worth $4.99 to people who’ve already paid for its previous apps. While recent SwiftKey buyers may feel a bit burned, I can’t imagine too many of its paid customers will complain. Thanks to its powerful predictive typing engine, SwiftKey has gathered a loyal fan base (it’s one of the first things I add to every Android device I test).

“In the grand scale, it’s about being more than just a keyboard,” Braidwood said. “We’ve got some great ideas for what a world with hundreds of millions of users using SwiftKey would be like, it’s certainly a much more exciting project instead of simply relying on a paid app to sell itself.”

SwiftKey is also rethinking how it partners with other companies now. Previously, SwiftKey licensed its SDK to partners to integrate in their own phones. But now, it plans to offer the full SwiftKey app to partners, allowing phone owners to see what exactly is powering their keyboard. Braidwood also hints that there will be a few ways to sweeten partnerships, including revenue sharing and exclusive content.

With more than $20 million in funding, a healthy user base, and a strong brand, SwiftKey seems ripe for an acquisition some point soon. “In terms of final exits, we’re trying to build a sustainable business,” Braidwood said. “That’s all that really matters, who’s to say what the outcome of that looks like.”

SwiftKey works alongside leading technology manufacturers, mobile operators and software developers to bring customers the highest standards in language technology. Its consumer product, the Android app SwiftKey, has been downloaded mo... read more »

It looks like a client of mine is about to lose a big deal.

The problem, the sales person has no idea what they are selling and although they made it to the finals on sheer luck and the strength of the features, it’s not looking good.

When I say the sales person doesn’t know what they are selling, I mean he doesn’t know why the client needs to buy. He doesn’t know what the motives for change are. He knows very little about the competition. He doesn’t know if the competition is a better fit, because he doesn’t know what the prospect is trying to do. For all intents and purposes, he knows nothing about what he’s selling, why the prospect needs it and the impact to their organization.

This is why he’s gonna lose this deal.

To make matters worse, he doesn’t have a relationship with the decision maker. As you can see, he is in deep shit.

On the surface all of these issues are a problem, but it’s the result of these misteps that I want to call out. Because this sales person has little to no clue on what’s happening in this sales, he’s in NO position to try and save it.

To save a deal, we have to be ready and capable of challenging the customer. Saving deals rests almost solely on our ability to challenge our customer and when we can’t we’re fucked. We’ve heard a lot about challenging prospects, and there is no time in selling where challenging a customer is more critical than when trying to save a deal you’re about to lose.

When we’re in a position where a deal requires saving, it’s because we messed up somewhere. We didn’t deliver the right value, we missed the buying signals, we didn’t understand the buying process, we didn’t understand the clients motivations, we didn’t understand the competition and more. This is where the irony comes in. It’s these very things, this very information we need to save the deal. When we don’t have this information, saving a deal is almost impossible. We can’t argue why our solution is a better choice and that they are making a bad decision. We can’t because we don’t know what their problems are. We don’t know anything about the competition and we can’t even get to the decision maker. Without this stuff, you can forget about saving anything.

Saving a deal is as complex as the deal itself, that’s why few can be saved.

Saving deals requires the same things that selling the deal required. Therefore, in order to save a deal you need to know, why the customer is buying in the first place and what they expect to get from buying. You need to know what future state they are trying to achieve. You need to know why; why it matters and why the current state is not acceptable. You need to know what other options they have and who your competing with. In other words, what other possible solutions are available to them and how does your solution stack up to the alternatives. Without knowing these things you won’t save the deal.

I’m not saying deals can’t be saved, because they can be. I’ve seen it. But it doesn’t happen very often for all the reasons I mentioned above.

When a deal is saved, one of two things happens. The sales person already knew all the above and made a mistake somewhere in the selling process. When this is the case they are able to pivot their deal strategy quickly in order to get the buyer to reevaluate their decision. The sales person identifies a “gap” in the buyers decision process and they are able to highlight the gap and it’s negative consequences to the buyer. By doing this, the buyer opens the deal to the sales person for further evaluation to ensure they are making the right choice. (This doesn’t include dropping your pants on price. In my opinion, it’s not “saving a deal” if you’re whoring yourself out by dropping the price big time to get back in the game). This isn’t common, but it happens. Things can be missed in the sale, creating gaps. Saving a deal when this happens is hard,  but not impossible. It all rests on the strength of the solution.

The  other scenario, and it’s extremely rare, is when a sales person recognizes they have non of the above and are able to get the buyer to slow down the process and give them a chance to recalibrate. When this happens, it’s usually because the sales person has a strong relationship with the buyer or someone very influential. In essence what happens is, the sales person falls on their sword and says, they didn’t do a good job in articulating the value proposition and ask for another chance to demonstrate why their product/service is critical to the buyer. If the buyer says yes, they use this precious time to get all the discovery info they DIDN’T get initially and deliver a stronger value proposition on the fly. But, I’m telling your this is no small order and rarely works. Just thinking about it is giving me anxiety.

Saving deals is a bitch. It’s a position you don’t want to be in. If you’re in a position where you have to “save it,” nine out of ten times it’s because you fucked up. You didn’t sell it right.

There is nothing heroic about saving a deal, unless you were brought into clean up someone else’s mess. Saving a deal is more like plunging your own toilet. You’re happy you were able to get the shit to go down, but everyone’s pissed it happened in the first place.

Don’t put yourself in a position where you have to save deals. It’s just bad selling.

You may have hired a lot of B2B salespeople in the past, and probably some of them looked great on paper, but turned in lackluster performances. How can you skew the odds for hiring a sales superstar in your favor? Many hiring managers look at the resume, but the key to hiring well is to look beyond the resume.

Interviewing sales people can be tough because they are trained at being interviewed by customers and can sometimes be very good at telling you what they think you want to hear. There are a variety of tests that evaluate personality traits of salespeople, and we highly recommend such assessments. But effective interviewing can also go a long way towards uncovering the best sales people – and it can often be a lot like peeling an onion. Here are traits to look for and solid tips for interviewing for those traits.

1. Goal oriented and ambitious: You can train skills, but motivation and a good work ethic is more innate, and you cannot train that into people. Of course, no sales candidate is going to assess themselves as unambitious so you need to make your own assessment.

• Tip for interviewing for ambition: High performers have a pattern of accomplishments and achievements. At Peak Sales Recruiting, we include questions in the interview script that probe what they are most proud of outside the workplace such as in sports or the arts. Look for signs of achievement and competitiveness as these are key indicators of someone who is a top performer.

2. Confident: This is perhaps one of the most obvious traits you need to look for in a salesperson. Yet, a salesperson can exude confidence in an interview, and still wilt under rejection or criticism. At Peak, we see false bravado all the time, but the best salespeople believe in their products, and if they are told “No,” they are not defeated – they still don’t give up.

• Tip for interviewing for confidence: Chet Holmes, sales guru and author of The Ultimate Sales Machine (Penguin Group, 2007), recommended what he called the “attack.” At the end of an interviews, he would tell a candidate that although he seemed nice, there was only one open position, and the candidate just did not appear to be a superstar. Holmes wrote, “You’d be amazed how many people crumble…Let that person go. Superstars never crumble.”

3. Optimistic: The ability for a sales professional to look past obstacles and focus on the end result is a trait that all top sales pros possess. This does not mean that they only focus on the ‘bright side’ of things, that they wear “rose colored glasses” or are delusional in any way. On the contrary, they are actively on the look out for challenges that may come their way and focus on the positive steps that can be taken to overcome them.

• Tip for interviewing for optimism: Ask the candidate to name two personal and two professional challenges they have faced in their life and ask them to describe what motivated them to take these challenges head on. Was it the fact that they had taken the right steps, and it was just a matter of speaking with the CEO one more time to close the deal? Was it the fact that they saw these as small obstacles that could be disregarded because the end goal was in sight? It is essential that the candidate demonstrates to you that they are positive in the face of adversity and don’t let rejection deter them from their goals.

4. Competitive: Defined by Merriam-Webster as “having a strong desire to win or be the best at something” is one of the most vital traits that your new sales hire should possess. It is the fuel that powers them to hunt new business opportunities, cold call, get in front of the key decision makers, and close deals.

• Tip for interviewing for Competitiveness: Have the candidate describe how they strive to be the best sales person possible. Do they talk about learning a new sales methodology to add to their arsenal? Do they talk about using their teammates recent big deal as a driver to start work early and leave late? Do they talk about the desire to surpass their best sales numbers to date? These are some key indicators of whether this candidate is indeed competitive by nature.

5. Sense of Urgency: The sense that “time kills deals”, defines the top performing sales people. They understand that every minute not on the phone with prospects or meeting them face-to-face is potential lost revenue. Hence, these candidates should demonstrate to you that they understand the need to act in a timely fashion.

• Tip for interviewing for Urgency: Ask the candidate to provide examples of how they used time to their advantage. Ask the candidate to describe their daily activities. How much time is split between prospecting, working the funnel, and closing accounts? Is it broken up 15%, 40%, 45%? These numbers will help you understand how they spend their time and how much emphasis they place on closing deals so that they can start pursuing new opportunities.

6. High Need to Interact and Influence Others: Let’s face it, people like to buy from people they like. The best salespeople have an innate need to bond with and be respected by others. That is not to say they are categorically extroverts, as many great sales people classify as introverts, but they have a strong need to develop relationships with others and influence behavior of buyers.

• Tip for interviewing for a people person: Does the candidate appear relaxed? Is their smile and handshake genuine? Do you get a sense they are trying to forge a real connection with you? Are they listening and asking questions that build upon what you are saying. Are they attempting to drive the discussion and qualify you as much as you are qualifying them? Ask the candidate how they bond with clients. If they are sending clients helpful information that has nothing to do with the product, asking clients over for Saturday barbecues and remembering to send them birthday cards, you may have a winner.

7. Persistent and Solution oriented: Creativity is not a word that is always associated with salespeople, but the best are very creative in finding solutions to problems. When a customer describes a challenge, the top reps instinctively move towards solutions and when they run up against obstacles, they do not curse their bad luck, but they come up with creative ways to get around the obstacles and convince the prospects.

• Tip for interviewing for creativity: Ask the candidate about times they had to develop alternative ways of doing things in order to succeed. Give them difficult scenarios and ask them to brainstorm solutions. Focus on how the candidate overcame the obstacles more than the actual situations.

8. Organized and disciplined: There is a commonly held view that great salespeople are akin to Wild West cowboys; that is, they ride out hard, lasso them in, and don’t give a whole lot of thought to structure or paperwork. That’s for the administrators back at the ranch. Nothing could be further from the truth. Great salespeople are disciplined, work with a plan and get things done on time.

• Tip for interviewing for organization: Ask the candidate how they strategize who they calls on first, how they decide to approach a specific prospect, what their structure is for follow-up, what kinds of materials they send to prospects before and after sales calls and when they sends those materials, how they work to improve their sales skills, how they manages their time and what efficiencies they have discovered to streamline paperwork. Insist on examples where they have done these things rather than philosophies of what they think should be done.

9. Fits into your organization and sales environment: Culture matters and so does sales environment. There is a world of difference between working as a salesperson for a company with widespread name recognition and a lot of sales support and working for a smaller company. The former typically has a lot of marketing and sales administration support, while the smaller company or start-up may expect the salesperson to do a great deal of marketing and administrative work themselves.

• Tip for interviewing for fit: Make sure the candidate has been successful in an environment similar to the one they will be working in. When you question the candidate about previous positions, ask if they were expected to develop their own leads and how, who developed and distributed marketing materials, and who did various types of needed paperwork. If a candidate comes with five star ratings from an organization that just handed he/she hot leads, don’t assume they will know how to cold call or to drum up leads on their own. On the flip side, if the candidate is doing well and making their numbers with very little support from the company, you may have a sales superstar.

10. Client-focused: Client-focused salespeople are focused on bringing the client what they need, not just what they want. A global study by the Sales Executive Council and reported by The Harvard Business Review, calls these kinds of salespeople “challengers,” and says they outsell all other kinds of salespeople. According to the article, “They focus the sales conversation not on features and benefits but on insight… They come to the table with new ideas for their customers that can make money or save money — often opportunities the customer hadn’t realized even existed.”

• Tip for interviewing for client focus: When you ask the candidate to give you a sales pitch, do they ask a lot of questions first and then come up with a solution that fits your needs? Now ask them for examples of when they were successful in convincing clients to invest in innovative solutions.

Resumes are important, but when you really want the best sales people on your team, you can’t stop there; you must take a deep look at the traits of the person behind the resume.

For more on traits of great salespeople, see The Traits of Top Sales Performers.

For information on evaluation, see Alternative Ways of Evaluating Salespeople and Sales Candidate Assessments – A Quick Guide.

References:

Superstar-growth strategy, Chet holmes

Selling is not about relationships, Matthew Dixon

The post How to Interview and Spot the Traits of Top Sales People appeared first on Peak Sales Recruiting | Sales Recruiter.

War profiteering. Among the many negative business associations, this is probably among the worst. Violence for the sake of greed. Conspiracy for the sake of fortune. You’re like the perfect villain in the fantasies of every Alex Jones fanboy.

Today, wars and conflicts are still raging (maybe not as badly as WW2 but still) with information and data technology now lying closer to the heart than ever before. It’s not hard to see all sorts of propaganda disseminating through the internet, for example. Businesses left and right resort to all means in order to find more customers and sell to them.

It’s a huge mess but the demand is dangerously tempting for those who desperately want a boost in their software lead generation campaigns.

Should you cave in and rake in or should you try marketing a product that’s not all that dependent on helping two parties trying to do each other in? The answer is somewhere between both.

• The nature of a conflict – The only thing really wrong with war profiteering is really bad PR and really bad business ethics. But here’s the thing: Not all conflicts include one or both in their nature. Competition in business can be both unavoidable but it doesn’t have to be a bloody affair (literally, at least). In fact, its inevitability requires no scheming on your part so why not just take it as it is and take the opportunities it makes?

• The dependence on the conflict – Of course, the scheming is more likely to come because you’re dependent on the competition in order to sell. You’ll be like a swordsmith who can’t forge plowshares. That’s why you need to at least have a sort of contingency plan during ‘peace time.’ That way, if you really don’t like being suspected of warmongering, your accusers won’t find a motive.

• The casualties of the conflict – Finally, the real price of a conflict isn’t so much the one being paid by your prospects or the one you pay to get sales out of software leads. It’s the ‘casualties.’ For example, take Facebook’s many privacy issues. Is it worth providing data tools for a competitive edge if it means possible end to all privacy?

The fact that conflict is really just a natural part of life should really sober you up when you think gaining from it doesn’t ‘seem right.’ On the other hand, it shouldn’t be something you place all your bets on. The war for information is there but you should also include other ways to generate software leads to maintain (if not increase) your output.