Rnordman

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.

Email marketing is the online marketing strategy that has stood the test of time. Many think it’s on its way out the door, but it’s not going anywhere, simply just changing! As online trends develop such as lists, the use of images, and automation, they become applicable to email marketing as well. Understanding these trends will certainly help keep your emails in inboxes and out of the spam folder!

Avoid being labeled as spam with these 5 tips for email marketing.

1. It’s All in the Headline: Emails with vague or boring headlines, say hello to the spam folder! The headline in the email subject section is literally the first thing customers will see in this form of online marketing. So if a headline puts readers to sleep, there’s a zero percent chance the email will be opened. The spam folder will be your best friend. Hooray for friends!   Get people to open email marketing by making the headline intriguing. The truth is, you should treat email subject headlines like blog post titles. That means that interesting lists or funny headlines work great. If the email marketing is actually a special offer, make sure to highlight the best parts of the offer in the subject headline. If an email provides value to readers through useful and easily digestible information or special offers, then the emails will continue to get opened. If not, hello spam folder!
2. Get Visual: Humans are very visual creatures. Bigger smartphone screens and the image-centric trend among Twitter and Instagram to highlight photos attest to this. If you don’t already see the trend, you soon will!   Peak readers’ interest in your email marketing strategy by including high quality photography, illustrations and graphs. Give readers something to look at and once they open your email, they’ll be more likely to stay. Consider that 55% of consumers said they turn images ON in their emails. This means that over half of the market prefers to see images in their emails as opposed to just straight text. One thing to make sure of when getting visual in email marketing: file size. Don’t overload emails with huge image files that will bog down readers’ computers.
3. Mobile, mobile, mobile: Optimizing your website for mobile is a must in 2014. Enhancing entire online marketing plans for mobile is essential, and email marketing is no exception!   Test emails out in mobile before committing to a layout. If the emails look less than official or, even worse, spammy on mobile, then it definitely needs to be redesigned. More and more audiences and shoppers are accessing content on mobile devices and it’s vital to optimize everything for them.
4. Time Warp Sending: Scheduling email marketing is an efficient way to manage subscriptions and keep followers up-to-date. For brands with email subscribers across the country, scheduling emails according to time zone is a no-brainer.   Time warp sending is just that: scheduling emails based on time zone differences. Schedule an email to go out at 9am in New York and instead of going out at 6am in Los Angeles like it would normally do, time warp sending will make sure West Coast subscribers also receive the email at 9am PST.
5. Have a Clear Message: Is your email marketing campaign a newsletter, or is it an offer? If the answer to this simple question is unclear, there could be a situation brewing…   No one likes to be confused, plain and simple. If emails are coming in and the message of them is unclear, whoops, into the spam folder! Be very clear with the message of email marketing campaigns. If it’s a newsletter, be clear in subject headlines that there’s content to be found within. If it’s an offer, come right out and say so! People love offers about as much as they hate confusion.

Email marketing is a necessary prong in online marketing. However, the line between an awesome email marketing strategy and one that ends up in the spam folder can be quite thin. By following our 5 email marketing essentials, your campaign will steer clear of the dreaded spam folder!

How have you managed to make your email marketing work for you? Share your ideas with us below or tweet us!

A Brand Marketing Break Up Story

“It’s not you it’s me.”

“I feel like you just don’t get me”

“I need to prioritize my focus”

Break Ups. We’ve all been through them, and they are never something that feels good. No one has ever said, “Well that was a walk in the park!” Splits are a nature of this game we call life.  But when it comes to social business, “me-first” marketing is the leading cause that people cut ties with your company and your brand marketing fails.

Me-First Marketing has been around since the invention of the megaphone. From flyers on your window to the pizza menu rubber-banded to your front door, businesses have tried every trick in the book to get their brand in people’s hearts and minds. But times have changed. Nowadays, this kind of intrusive, invasive marketing can make your customers think about seeing other people. If you value your customers, then respect that these are busy people and no one likes to be bombarded with “Look at me! Look at me! Look at me!” Here’s 5 steps you can take to avoid a social breakup:

1) Show Value

Whenever sending out company communication, be sure to showcase the value of the content upfront . Whether it be in the subject line of an email or Facebook post, it is crucial to quickly grab the “golden nugget” and highlight it.  This will automatically tell your viewer that this piece of content is relevant to their success and education.

2) Don’t Be Obnoxious

Yes, hilarity can get you so far, but it doesn’t make you succeed. Be cautious, respectable, and honest when you are posting content to your social networks. It only takes one person to feel discriminated or offended to ruin your social reputation so always think about your audience.

3) Embrace Permission Marketing

While allowing for the opt out isn’t ideal, it is necessary. Make the unsubscribe process easy, simple, and conspicuous rather than trying to make it difficult for your followers to opt out of your mailing list. Provide the option, make it easy, and — most importantly — create great content that your customers will eagerly receive and read.

4) Ask for Less

You have heard it again and again: Less is More. Make content easily accessible without forms, wizards, and diversions.  When it comes to social & email marketing, the best practice is to always avoid cumbersome processes because they create poor customer experiences and will minimize the value of your content. You will see more engagement and feedback if you let your customers consume freely and happily.

5) Encourage Feedback

Transparency is key in today’s social business sphere. When sharing across your social channels continue to be a part of the conversations and collaboration. Chime in, help out, and, most of all, be present. So if you want to avoid a social break up with your customers, followers and fans, always think: What is the purpose of this communication?  If you do just that, I promise you won’t be hearing: “I think it’s time we move on.” any time soon.

Learn more how employee advocacy can help activate your workforce on social.

As discussed last time, a question I get quite often is “Why can’t my sales people sell?”

Because this is a very complicated and complex question, it cannot be answered in one simple sentence.

B2B Sales is probably the most difficult and one of the most sophisticated processes in business. It is difficult, (sophisticated/complex) because you have to convince another company to part with its money. And, in B2B sales, this usually requires more than one person (group or committee) to say yes.

There are many things a B2B sales person must know and understand before he/she can become good at his/her craft. This is true with most professions, but in no other job, other than marketing, must you get another company to part with its money.

There are three areas that B2B sales people must be competent in, before they will be able to sell. B2B marketers should also be competent in these areas too.

The three areas are;
1. Selling skills.
2. Foundational Knowledge.
3. Client Objections.

We revealed the first area last time No Selling Skills. Let’s look at the second area today – Internal Company Issues.

As you can see from the graphic, you must demonstrate results to your prospects, based on the value your products and services bring to these prospects. That builds the TRUST, which develops the relationship, needed for your prospects to buy from your company.

And most companies do not give their sales and marketing people the knowledge they need to sell properly.

Let’s look at what basic knowledge is needed for B2B sales and marketing people to sell your products and services. There are seven areas that your company needs to know in order to sell knowledgably to your prospects and clients, to build that trust.

1. Know Ideal Client Company
2. Know Ideal Client Personas
3. Know Client Goals
4. Know Client Issues
5. Know Your Value Proposition
6. Know Your Differentiators
7. Know Your Competition

Ideal Client: The first two knowledge areas are obviously closely related. You must know what your ideal client looks like, and who, within your ideal client, is the decision maker, and what he/she looks like.

You need to understand the demographic and psychographic characteristics of your ideal client company. What does their marketplace look like? And where within that marketplace do they sit? Are they SMB’s, or very large corporations? Are they in the private or public sectors?

Your ideal client personas must show a detailed description of this person. Build an avatar so that when you send out information and content, you feel like you are actually talking to a real person, and they feel that you really understand them. This will draw them in, and give them a warmer feeling about you and your company.

Goals & Issues: One area, that I feel most companies omit, is understanding their ideal client’s goals. Yes, you have to know their issues. But if you understand their goals, then you can always relate how your products and/or services are not only helping them resolve issues, but more importantly, helping them reach their goals.

And let’s face it; people really only want to solve issues so they can reach their goals.

Value Proposition: Most company’s value propositions, if they exist at all, are usually very weak. They don’t really show the prospect what is in it for them. They don’t show numbers, either exact numbers or percentages, that their company brings their prospects by buying their products.

This will give the buyers of your products/services a better reason, and understanding, of why they should buy from you. It makes your sales’ and marketers’ jobs a lot easier. It also allows you to sell based on value vs cost plus.

These numbers can sometimes be difficult to get, but when done correctly, these numbers will give your company a big leg-up over your competition.

These numbers also serve as a differentiator for your company. And if you relate these numbers to solving issues and to your prospects goals, you have an even better chance of winning the sale!

And these numbers also show how your prospect can reach his/her goals much easier.

Differentiation: You also need to build other differentiators. You need social proof in the form of case studies and testimonials. People believe what other people say about your company nine times more than what you say about your own company. These are great differentiators.

Competition: And lastly, you must know who your competition is. However, in today’s connected world, it is becoming more difficult to know all of your competitors. There will be competitors that come at a solution for your prospect in a much different way than your company does. You must be prepared for this, and that is why you need all of the knowledge elements listed and explained above.

So, as you can see, B2B selling and marketing is not a simple issue. It is sophisticated, or complex, and there is a lot of work involved in ensuring your company is ready to well; especially in today’s connected world. Once your sales and marketers know have this knowledge, your sales will grow at a much faster rate.

So give your sales and marketers the knowledge they need, as described above, and you will increase your chances of success multifold.

We had a second meeting with a potential vendor recently as we’ve been seeking to implement a series of strategic sales initiatives. We had a very specific set of requirements, fully budgeted, and did our due diligence to identify the right potential partners.

What was interesting about this second meeting is that the sales person on point at this vendor seemed to have misplaced, or otherwise completely forgotten, our very first meeting where we articulated our business needs, budget, intent to buy, and timeline. It perplexes me to no avail that in today’s fast moving, ever-changing business environment, a sales professional will take the time to present a PowerPoint deck to an executive in a second meeting after said executive already stated, “ok, let’s write it up.”

In a recent email to the vendor, we pointed out that we had already made our decision and were ready to move forward. What ensued next was dumfounded. A series of additional communications asking questions to answers that were already provided in that second meeting. As if a piece of additional collateral was going to make the deal larger.

I don’t mean to get on a rant or anything (too late), but really? This is a true story, and even sadder is this is the sixth vendor this year where the same thing has happened. Would love to say that it’s just me – overly methodical, decisive, and with a keen sense of results-driven purpose. But the fact is, this happens every day to others I’ve spoken with recently. So what gives?

WE NEED TO CHANGE THE WAY WE SELL

The inherent need, and otherwise inescapable gravitational pull to change how sales teams sell seems to be at the forefront for everyone… except sales. To the point – sales leaders need to instigate change, and now. The selling world is constantly changing, and whether you agree with this next statement or not, things need to change. The statement – somewhere within your sales organization, sales is broken. Your buyers surely know it.

Why is it broken? Because of the statistical fact that 60% of deals end in no decision. And mainly because sales did not effectively communicate value, let alone get out of their own way and align to the buyer.

So, change is inevitable, while being the most difficult to implement, let alone to accept. But a fork in the road is not the end of the road, unless you forget to turn. I offer this “call-to-arms” to any buyer, seller, executive, sales manager, or individual contributor that wants to buy, but doesn’t want to be sold – tell them.

Remind that vendor, that sales professional – who, in every regard is a good person – to simply “stop selling me, I want to buy.”

Urban dwellers like me consider farming a relatively safe occupation. There’s no having to navigate through rush hour traffic like office-goers, no handling of dangerous chemicals like scientists and pharmaceutical employees, no struggling with heat, cold, rain and snow like the construction worker—the farmer rides a tractor around the field. It is back-breaking work; much more than what we city dwellers are used to, but it is quite safe, correct?

That’s what I thought until I came across this news article about an Illinois farmer who fell into a corn silo and was buried alive. Firefighters had to cut into the bin releasing about twelve truckloads of corn and recovering the deceased man. Apparently, there was a lot of hardened corn in the silo and the farmer and his family / co-workers had been working away to dislodge it. At some point, a chunk of the hardened corn must have moved to create a sudden and huge vacuum. The poor farmer got sucked in, engulfed and asphyxiated.

What an unusual tragedy, I thought. The U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) worksite inspection database, however, shows that an average 6 people have died each year since 1984 from being buried in grain, many of them teenagers. Common sense says that these accidents could have been avoided with the right training, proper safety precautions and vigilance by co-workers.

Why did I bring up this (morbid) story? Because it moved me. It really made me think about the hazards of what I believed was a safer occupation over others. The other reason I wanted to share this story with you is to use this analogy and comment on B2B lead generation with digital marketing and search engine optimization.

A Wakeup Call for B2B Marketers

Stop the Endless Chase! Here’s A Better Way to Market Online

As marketers, we seem to be on an unending chase. We chase our target audience to convert them into leads, we chase leads to convert them into customers, we chase customers to keep them, we chase past customers to bring them back, we chase referrals from customers, we chase channel partners to deliver results, we chase our sales people to drive revenue, we chase our social media followers to share our content, we chase every new twist and turn in search algorithms…it goes on and on and on. Where will it end? How can we ever keep pace? How can we prevent a big hole, a vacuum from appearing? What can we do to ensure we are not sucked right in and buried forever out of sight from our audience?

7 Steps to Revitalize Your B2B Marketing and Lead Generation

1. Recognize that SEO is a landscape of shifting sands; think past the search engines. Yet again, Google released an important update, Panda 4.0. Marketers, including big ones like RetailMeNot and eBay are scrambling to save their sites and blogs from being sucked deep down into the SERPs. Except those savvy marketers who always knew and stayed cognizant of the fact that the audience comes first. Building a digital marketing strategy that focuses on every little change that Google implements will not take you far in the target audience’s view. If you create content that is credible, relevant, interesting and shareable, you’ve created value. Remember, don’t let content kill your sales!
2. Promote your audience’s content alongside your own. You don’t, and you can’t possibly have all the answers. Your customers know that too so there’s no point pretending otherwise. Instead, realize that often your customers may know more than you or have information on a topic that complements what you have put out there. By linking and sharing to their content, you can achieve a few easy wins—massage their ego (subtly), possibly gain access over time into their online circles and give your larger audience much more food for thought.
3. Identify the influential powers besides Google. Google is a great enabler to bring thought leaders into the limelight and get them the attention they deserve. It is a mistake, however, to pour all your energy and resources into influencing Google. Instead, identify the thought leaders that are worthy influencers within your target market and industry. Get them to contribute content to your social and website properties, share their content with your audience and ask them if they are willing to take contributions from your organization.
4. Don’t just pick up “the word on the street”, act on it. Marketers love research. Or rather, we love the idea of doing extensive research. Now with everyone advising organizations on how to listen to what is being said about their company and their brand on social channels, many are doing it. Not the same can be said about how many are doing something positive after listening intently. That’s the big opportunity bus many B2B companies are missing. Why not chase that, if we must chase? See these three case studies about successful B2B content marketing.
5. Ask for feedback but make it worth their time. One way to persuade customers to provide feedback is by giving them something valuable in return. But more than that, you must communicate clearly what you plan to do with their feedback. That plan of action needs to speak directly to what your customers want and expect from your company. If it doesn’t benefit them, why would they waste their time giving feedback?
6. Continuously grow your tribe of storytellers. No matter how brilliant your marketing team and content agencies are, they will eventually, or at least occasionally, get tapped out. Does that mean you will starve your audiences frequently, or regurgitate stale content, or push out meaningless, irrelevant content because you must stay active? You can’t afford any of these scenarios. There are hundreds, maybe thousands of storytellers out there—cloaked as employees, design engineers, product specialists, sales reps, vendors, research analysts, market advisors, business associates, industry experts, customers, even friends and family of employees. It’s a myth that your target audience is only interested in stories directly related to your industry or the product/service they are researching online. A powerful story sparks off many different trains of thought in people’s minds when it is told in a compelling manner. Who would have thought that a news story about a corn farmer would inspire me to write this piece? But it did.
7. Use all that Big Data: If you use it the right way, Big Data can actually be quite a big deal for B2B marketing and lead generation. Know what you want from your data; plan your collection and collation activities accordingly. Make sure that data is shared across the organization in a timely and efficient manner. Use lead generation program tools that facilitate faster and better real-time communication as well as content management, such as the latest channel app from MyLeads2Go.

Does your B2B lead generation need a shot in the arm?

Image credit: Shutterstock

Image Source: Social Birbal

Twitter is a great tool for Social lead generation because it allows businesses to monitor conversations in real-time. The ability to interact with their audience in real-time provides marketers the unique opportunity to identify how their message can fit into the context of the conversation.

Using Twitter as a tool for social lead generation helps drive powerful connections and raises awareness among your audience. With numerous features built into Twitter, marketers can identify and leverage a community of people that are interested in the content they provide, and share information with people who are unfamiliar with their business.

Here are some reasons why Twitter is a great tool for Social Lead generation:

1. Profiles

As any marketer will attest, the first step in your strategy has to involve identifying the audience that you are targeting. Twitter provides marketers the ability to identify profiles that a business can target including existing customers/partners, influencers within a specific industry or market, and potential customers/people they would like to engage with online.

Twitter allows businesses to build Twitter lists, which contain segmented lists of people that a business can follow or engage. Businesses can also identify key influencers who possess high social currency and leverage them.

2. Engagement

With Twitter, marketers can identify conversations that are currently taking place around them in real-time. This allows them to identify key topics of interest and also, provides a baseline of what their audience is interested in. Trending topics, keywords, and hashtags enable marketers to increase visibility of their posts among people who are interested in what they have to offer.

3. Promoted Tweets

Another reason why Twitter is a great tool is because of the built-in features that promote lead generation. Twitter offers ‘Promoted Tweets’ that are like ordinary tweets but they are purchased by advertisers who wish to reach a wider group of users. With promoted tweets, marketers can target both current and potential followers.

Promoted tweets are highly effective in promoting the right content, to the right people, at the right time. By expanding the reach of their content, marketers can connect with influencers and ultimately drive awareness for their business. Marketers can also include calls-to-action (CTAs) in the content they’re promoting, which can drive website traffic, offer deals, and even promote sales.

4. Twitter Cards

Twitter Cards are a great way to improve your tweets by adding content and media experiences. With a variety of Cards available for different functions, Twitter allows marketers to share their content in an attractive manner. Marketers can capture their customers’ attention by using a range of media content from simple photos to product and lead generation cards.

5. Analytics

Measurement is key in determining what works and what doesn’t work. With Twitter, marketers can leverage a number of tools to track the performance of their marketing efforts. Twitter also offers a rich analysis on various attributes, which allow marketers to gain a strong understanding of their audience.

6. Content

Twitter allows marketers to determine the type of content that is being shared. By identifying who is sharing the content, and what content is being shared; marketers can gain a better understanding of the context in which content is being shared. This allows them to understand and interact with their audience, and ultimately provides them the opportunity to leverage new leads.

Social Media has changed the marketing landscape and with it the traditional marketing funnel. Twitter is a dynamic channel that allows for real-time interactions and conversations on various topics. Marketers stand to benefit from being present on Twitter, listening to the conversations on topics of interest to them, engaging with their audience, and sharing relevant information that may help that audience. Twitter offers a wide variety of features that allow marketers to interact with their audience, and nurture leads in the social space.

Sales teams are faced with a plethora of obstacles in today’s digital marketplace. Sales representatives must not only find prospects, but score each lead quickly and efficiently while identifying their needs. With the right amount of info, sales can then dive into a more meaningful conversation for the customer. If a sales representative misunderstands or miscategorizes a lead at the start of a conversation, there is a real good chance the conversation will be rocky and the sale will be more challenging than necessary.

Likewise, it can be difficult for marketing teams to relay specific information about a single or new set of inbound leads when passing them along to sales departments. If sales representatives have a bit of background information on each incoming lead, pitches can be tailored to the specific needs or interests of the caller. If the customer’s needs are being met right from the start, he or she will be more inclined to make a purchase and come back again in the future.

So let’s talk about a small, quiet, yet exceptionally useful technology that takes some of the guess-work out of a sales team’s job description: whisper messaging.

I Got a Secret for Ya

Marketing teams appreciate call tracking technology as a way to source leads across multichannel campaigns. The resource extracts key information about the prospects such as what initiative encouraged them to contact the brand, or which offering they showed interest in prior. But what happens after the call is tracked and the phone starts ringing?

The data generated from call tracking technology can quickly and efficiently captured and shared with sales teams via whisper messages. Before a call is connected to a sales agent, an automated system relays specific caller data so the sales teams are aware of customer interest or marketing source that piqued the interest of the caller.

Furthermore, a whisper message can be created when a lead enters his or her unique contact information on a web form to download specific content. The lead’s data and the product or service he or she is investigating will be whispered to the sales agent conducting the follow-up call. This enables sales teams to contact leads with greater confidence as they know exactly what to say to the customer to keep the pitch relevant and informative. No more guessing game!

You Ready?

Whisper messaging provides more than just some basic information on each caller such as which marketing campaign effectively hooked the lead or what product or service was of most interest. Whisper messages can also equip sales teams with the data to properly score incoming leads to make better use of agents’ time and resources.

Many leads come into a company via different channels throughout the day. But not all leads are created equal. Sales teams must have enough time and background information to efficiently qualify a lead and close a sale. When sales teams attempt to interact with leads that are far from sales-ready, valuable resources are spent on the wrong customers.

Voice-based marketing automation solutions set up automated questions or self-select options that ask the caller to provide specific information regarding the purpose of their call. This data then feeds into a call distributor that routes leads to appropriate channels so time and resources are allocated effectively. Whisper messages are the final stage of relaying key lead scoring information from the automated system to the live agents at end of the phone line. Whisper messages help connect key dots for a more clear picture of a caller’s wants, needs, and preferences. When a sales team is given unique data with each call, less time is spent on identifying the lead and more resources can be given to offering a personalized experience and shortening the sales cycle. Collecting the best information at the start of a sales cycle makes it easier to connect with the caller and increase customer satisfaction. All you need is the right tool to help marketing pass along some juicy tidbits to sales. But shhh it’s a secret

To understand what other call solutions can improve collaboration between sales and marketing teams, check out our “Definitive Guide to Voice-Based Marketing Automation” whitepaper.

The Marketing department that’s existed inside traditionally sales-driven B2B companies is disappearing. The days where Marketing was a cost-center or a service provider to the rest of the organization—particularly to Sales—are passing by.

Marketing is now a revenue generator. But adapting to this new role is a significant challenge for CMOs and their teams.

Actually, it’s the biggest challenge. In a recent Exact Target and Deloitte study, “Bridging the Digital Divide,” CMOs identified “Greater Revenue Growth Responsibility” as the top change they’re contending with in the digital marketing era.

CMOs—and their teams—need to learn how they should align within their Marketing departments to best respond to these new challenges.

Aligning Externally

If Marketing is to be a revenue generator, they need to get tight with Sales. This is a major effort. It’s spawned an entire set of best practices around Sales and Marketing alignment.

If Marketing is to be a revenue generator, they need to get tight with Sales.

Essentially, a set of rules and processes around how Sales and Marketing were to interact in creating revenue were established, including definitions on different types of leads and opportunities (the various MQL, SAL, etc. acronyms) along with service level agreements that define how the two organizations should hold each other accountable.

Also required were technologies that could measure and manage this process. This came in the form of marketing automation tools (e.g. Eloqua, Marketo, Pardot, etc.). These tools could score leads and determine how they moved through a pipeline, ensuring Marketing fulfills it’s obligations to Sales.

Aligning Internally

Marketing has made a great leap forward aligning with Sales. Its own internal alignment remains unresolved. Too often, Marketing still treats itself as a cost center.

“The core fabric of marketing execution will be ripped up and rewoven by data and marketing technology.”

CMOs know this needs to change. In a 2014 study of CMOs, IDC found that the top CMO challenges were “how do we increase the amount of qualified leads in the pipeline?” and “how do we re-prioritize and do more with less?” Clearly, they’re wrestling with how to organize their teams around revenue-generating activities.

So much so, that IDC noted it, stating that “by 2020, marketing organizations will be radically reshaped. The core fabric of marketing execution will be ripped up and rewoven by data and marketing technology…The marketing function in leading companies will be reorganized along three key components: content, channels, and consumption (data and analysis), getting rid of traditional silos.”

Intra-Marketing Alignment

Marketers obviously can’t wait until 2020. But how do you adapt without undergoing another crippling reorganization?

We’ve had the privilege to work with hundreds of world-class marketing departments in their efforts to build content operations that drive revenue. And these marketers are aligning Product Marketing, MarCom, Social and Web, PR, Demand Gen, Sales Enablement, Field and Customer Marketing, and Marketing Operations teams around content, using it at every stage of the customer journey to produce real revenue. As a result, we’ve seen firsthand what works and what does not work.

A model has emerged we call Intra-Marketing Alignment. It’s based on the consensus that content lies at the very heart of what marketing does, how when marketing teams work together as a Content Operation, they are best positioned to achieve their goals. It’s not a reorganization, but rather a set of best practices on how existing teams can collaborate and be accountable to one another. Specifically the Intra-Marketing Alignment model involves:

Intra-marketing alignment is not a reorganization.

• Content Teams
• Content Team Participants and Roles
• Content Operations Knowledge
• Content Operation Dynamics

Content Teams

At many companies the marketing organization may be split up by product lines, divisions, etc. The idea is to break up large teams into smaller, more manageable units.

But as a result, when we work with companies to form content teams, their first instinct is to organize around product lines. That would look roughly like the diagram below.

In this example, the company is a software provider with four specific product lines: Security, Analytics, Big Data, and Integration and Governance. The company sells to four departments inside its customers: IT, Finance, Marketing, and Operations.

“The Content Operation should align around buyer personas rather than product lines.” @tobymurdock

One of the core tenets of Content Marketing is customer centricity. We’re creating content to address the needs of our customers, not our own organizations. We’re creating an effective Buyer Journey, and the Sales Process comes second. So the Content Operation should align around buyer personas rather than product lines. Using the example above, we would align content teams around clusters of buyer personas represented by the persona’s department within their organization so it looks like the graph below.

In this model, we have four content teams: IT, Finance, Marketing, and Operations. Each team should focus on 2-4 related Buyer Personas. This ensures a cohesive, unified go-to market strategy. A CIO prospect doesn’t get different and even contradictory messaging from different internal product lines (e.g. Security, Analytics, and Integration and Governance). Instead the product lines work together, pooling their resources to reach the single persona.

Content Team Participants & Roles

Once the broad Content Team is outlined, marketers then need to identify who should serve on each team and what role each participant will play.

In an effective Content Team, five principal capabilities are required: Insight Providers, Communicators, Customers, Logisticians, and Optimizers. They’re described in the graphic below.

A Content Operation is like a machine: a set of participants who understand their role and can work together in a repeatable, scalable process that outputs effective content consistently and predictably. The various capabilities work with one another according to the following model:

What Is Intra-Marketing Alignment? by @tobymurdock

The Insight Providers produce the raw materials of insight. This could be the rough draft (work document) of an eBook or whitepaper. This comes from the deep understanding that Insight Providers have for a particular segment (ideally a set of personas).

This raw material is then passed on to the Communicators. They transform the rough eBook into a finished product that is edited, articulate, and polished with graphics. They also break down this pillar piece into smaller derivative assets such a blog posts, videos, presentations, webinars, and emails.

The Communicators then deliver these completed assets to the internal Customers. These are the various groups that utilize content at various levels of the funnel to achieve business outcomes such as traffic, leads, and revenue.

Logisticians manage the process components of the operation, coordinating the interaction of the other participants. And Optimizers analyze the metrics of the operation so that all can gain insight on how to improve its performance.

Here’s a graphical display of that model.

The individuals and groups who would be applied to this model adjusts for the unique needs of every organization. But at Kapost the most common model we see is shown in the diagram below.

Product Marketing serves as the Insight Provider with its deep knowledge of different customer segments. MarCom or PR teams utilize their communications skills in the Communicators function. Internal Customers are Social/Web at the top of the funnel, DemandGen in the middle, Sales Enablement at the bottom, and Customer Success/Account Management post-sale.

The Content Operations team houses the Logistician and Optimizer function. These roles are staffed by whichever department is most supportive of the Content Operation effort, usually MarCom or DemandGen.

It’s important to reiterate that this internal alignment is achieved without reorganization. Instead this model ties together how existing departments interact. Each of these stakeholding groups should be represented on a Content or Editorial Board, which collectively manages the Content Operation.

Content Operations Knowledge

Once different groups and participants are organized, they need to be armed with knowledge of how to perform their role within a Content Operation. We have identified the seven core best practices of a Content Operation:

1. Strategy
2. Team
3. Ideation
4. Planning
5. Production
6. Distribution
7. Analysis

The links above give deep description around the various best practices, each of which is a subject to itself. But for purposes of this post, it’s important to highlight the need for participants in the Content Operation to gain this best practices knowledge.

Content Operation Dynamics

As a Content Operation forms, there are certain critical dynamics that need to materialize in order for the collaboration to be effective: unity, visibility, accountability, and insight.

Unity

For a Content Operation to be effective, you need unity, visibility, accountability, and insight.

First, we have unity. For too long different marketing teams have been producing content in their own silos, giving inadequate efforts and finding unsatisfactory results. In order to create content that is compelling enough to win the attention, trust, and business of the empowered buyer, those silos must unify their efforts.

This unity is not just across people. The content itself must unify—through planned campaigns centered on pillar content that can be re-purposed into derivative assets that satisfy the needs of all groups and channels. Systems and channels must unify—the different silos need to work not only in their own marketing automation, CMS, or webinar tools in isolation, but bring cohesion to the activities in those different tools so that the unified content is distributed in an aligned way across channels.

And a single plan, putting forth a single message, must unify all of this disparate efforts into a one operation.

Visibility

For all of these stakeholders to unify their efforts, there needs to be clear visibility into what’s happening across the entire content operation. What is the plan? What are the tasks? When are they due? What content do we have? Where is it? How do I search for it?

A content operation that is regularly stymied by these sort of questions cannot succeed. All participants need visibility into these elements of the content operation.

Accountability

Another important issue in a Content Operation is how “content” is often not the “day job” for most participants. They contribute to the content effort in addition to their other responsibilities. And these various stakeholders are spread across many departments and groups all across the org chart. There is no single manager who is directing everyone. Thus, for the Content Operation to function, all of the stakeholders need to be held accountable to performing their assigned roles and tasks. Clear, detailed plans and responsibilities need to be held up in order to enforce accountability for all involved.

Insight

Lastly a Content Operation needs insight into how it is performing. Only this insight can provide the feedback loop that refines the strategy, improves performance, and achieves success. Specifically, insight is required in three areas:

1. Operational performance: How is the Content Operation itself performing internally? Are campaigns and assets launching on-time? Where are the bottlenecks?
2. Cross-channel performance: Marketers must operate in so many channels now to connect with their buyers, thus Content Operations needs a consolidated view of how their content is performing across all of those channels.
3. Revenue performance: Most content metrics—like page views, number of comments—are helpful, but are still relics from content’s publisher heritage. Content Operations need to understand how content is performing in winning buyer’s attention and driving revenue.

Metrics are the capstone to a Content Operation which generates the quality and quantity of content marketing departments need to meet their demand generation goals. But the Operation begins with an understanding that just as Marketing has aligned externally with Sales, it must align internally around its new revenue responsibility.

This focus on Intra-Marketing Alignment and a Content Operation is what CMOs and their teams need to meet their new challenges.

Buzz-phrase alert. Today, we’re going to talk “sales and marketing alignment.”

Although this phrase elicits occasional eye rolls, there’s a very good reason why it’s become commonplace—because it represents a strategy that works.

Marketo’s 2013 Sales and Marketing Alignment Study shows that when sales and marketing teams are in sync, companies become 67% better at closing deals and generate 208% more revenue from marketing. Now, consider the omnipresent Corporate Executive Board statistic that 57% of the buyer’s journey is completed before that buyer talks to sales.

Together, these two stats show that the responsibility for driving revenue is shared by sales and marketing, and alignment makes the ultimate business goal (more revenue and new business) more attainable.

How Does Sales and Marketing Alignment Play Out?

Modern marketing departments are held accountable for leveraging content to generate qualified leads and opportunities. Sales is responsible for making the most of those leads and opportunities by keeping them engaged through the sales process. Sales teams (particularly “Challenger Sale” sales teams) need content that answers questions and addresses problems their prospects are working through. To do this efficiently, sales needs the help of marketing.

When sales and marketing teams are in sync, companies become 67% better at closing deals.

Traditionally, marketing has been reactive, responsible for feeding sales-requested, product-focused collateral to the sales team. But now, marketing has (or should have) a number on your head. You need to “control your own destiny,” as we say in Salesland.

This means planning your content campaigns in advance to meet established marketing goals. And it also means staying on top of the common questions and concerns prospects are dealing with. To do this effectively, marketing needs the help of sales.

And when collaboration happens, both sales and marketing get what they need.

Strategy + Agility

There are many ways in which sales and marketing need to be aligned—and many reasons why it’s more important than ever.

An Agile, Real-Life Example of Sales and Marketing Alignment by @ben_oren

Just a few alignment necessities include: agreed upon hand-off strategies for qualified (read: meet specific criteria that indicate purchase readiness) leads, a consistent understanding of buyer personas and sales cycle, and communication of upcoming and valuable content. All of these come from a strategic, long-term plan—and all of them are important.

And when preparedness is present, flexibility is possible. When you have a structure in place, you can maneuver more effectively if something timely arises, because you know exactly what needs to shift and how to do it. So, too, an agile approach to sales and marketing is possible if you have your strategy set and open lines of communication between sales and marketing in place.

Here, I’m going share a story about how sales and marketing worked together to create quick, relevant content that answered specific buyer pain points.

Here’s a Concrete Example

I was on a sales call. My prospect started talking about the problems she was trying to solve with her content operation. She asked if I could help. I dug into the problem with her, talked a little bit about Kapost and how our software could support her team, then (after the call) followed up with relevant content that she could use to get the ball rolling in the right direction.

Pretty standard sales interaction right? At least for sales organizations who have embraced the power of content.

But, on top of providing relevant content, I ended my email with a question: “What other problems are you facing that you could use some content to help solve?”

She followed up with two additional questions, one of which hadn’t yet been addressed in our content. I took this question to our Senior Managing Editor, Anne Murphy, who said “Great question. I don’t have anything for you to send to her, but I can move some posts around next week and write something about this.”

Within a week, I had a post answering my prospect’s specific question. My sales cycle advanced and the content team had a fresh new post that answered a question many of our other prospects encounter.

Why It Worked

Here are the three elements that made this example of sales and marketing alignment possible:

1. Sales leverages thought leadership content along with product collateral to build trust and add value to conversations
2. We’ve established a communication and ideation process between marketing and sales
3. The content team is in control of their content operation, which allows them to fill important content gaps quickly

Buzz-phrase or not, sales and marketing alignment is nothing to roll your eyes at.

Buzz-phrase or not, sales and marketing alignment is nothing to roll your eyes at. The way we find and purchase products has changed—and these two teams depend on one another for success. And like any good relationship, it requires alignment on goals and values, as well as constant communication.

Oh, and some damn good content.

I have always been a firm believer that there are two types of people in this world: those who have children and those who don’t. The reason I differentiate between them is that those who don’t have children tend to think they are the best parents in the world, and some insist on telling you how to raise your kids.

Now, a bit about me: I am a father of three with a boy and two girls.  I have had my share of experiences with people saying things like, “I would never do that with my kids,” or, “You’re doing that?”  I have to admit, there was a time, before I had children, that I remember saying, “Oh my, I would never feed my kids french fries.”  Friends and family fall into one of these two groups. But when or if they have children, their opinions about parenting usually change, and they start to understand how difficult a task it is and stop judging others for their choices. The same can be said regarding outsourcing lead generation for sales and marketing.

I have taken a stint of my tenure here at AG Salesworks to try the Corporate Business Development Representative route, explaining to prospects why we are as successful as we are.  Just as I wrote earlier, there are two types of people out there.  There are those who get it and understand what we do and why we are successful, and there those who think that there is no way we can do what they do in-house as an outsourced company.

When advising these companies about why outsourcing lead generation for sales and marketing will be beneficial for them, there are a few points I discuss in detail, which are similar to parenting:

1) Consistency –  When you say you are going to do something, you do it.  We have a consistent call plan based on qualified leads and quality data. Leads are nurtured so inside sales reps are ready when a prospect is ready to enter the buying process.

2) It takes a village – It really does take a village to raise a child.  Parents, grandparents, and even friends get involved. At AG Salesworks, it also takes a village to generate leads. We operate with teams, so a group of people working on your lead generation to get the most out of it. Inside sales reps may also meet to go over prospecting techniques for this specific provider.

3) Everyone is unique - What worked with one child may not work with another. We take a personalized approach to prospects, so inside sales reps understand their place in the buying cycle, their needs and behaviors, and their likes and dislikes. They have the time to do research – even social – on buyers.

4) Customized training - While parents are not necessarily “trained” to raise a child, they do see what works, and tweak their strategies until it does. In the same way, outsourced inside sales reps are trained so you will be able to get results in mere months. According to the Inbound Sales Network, outsourced lead generation gives 43% better results than in-house.

When a client starts to look at the deliverables that we provide, it suddenly clicks.  They go from one group to another, and begin to understand, just like new parents now understanding what those who had children first were saying and doing. Our clients get the value that we bring to the table and see what we are doing and why we do it.

The majority of marketers, 71 percent, are increasing their investment in content marketing. Even with this increased investment, however, few will find success in their content marketing endeavors as a result of this investment. Unfortunately, the root causes for this lack of success vary significantly based on your content strategy, staff talent, organizational structure, content marketing processes and technology infrastructure.

Below I’ve included some of the top ingredients to this content marketing death wish, as well as some ideas on what you can do to avoid creating a potion for disaster.

#1: Publishing Boring Content Simply to Meet a Deadline

It may have worked for the Dunkin Donuts “time to make the donuts” guy to simply bake the same donuts day after day, but when it comes to your blog, this mentality just won’t do. You’ll never rise above the cacophony of online content noise by consistently publishing the same form and type of content day after day – your content must inspire your audience into action. This doesn’t mean that all of your content should be complex and for the most advanced of your readers; but content you publish must be entertaining, digestible, high quality and relevant for your audience.

How to Avoid this Trap

• Tap into the voice of the customer: Stay connected to your audience and the market by reading up on industry blogs & trends and staying tuned in to your audiences’ comments and questions. Are you going on to an industry conference?. . . Find out if any of your customers will be there and grab a coffee with them or have lunch. Don’t forget about your sales team! No doubt they will have some insight into your customers’ pain points and challenges. The best content will answer your buyers’ top questions and help them with their everyday activities. (If you sell to marketers, here’s an Ultimate List of Marketing Events to consider)
• Do not publish content unless it’s great! Gotta meet a deadline and you’re not happy with the blog post or infographic that you’ve created?(e.g., not enough visuals, subject line needs work, content is uninspiring) Then don’t publish it yet. Have you ever watched Chef Gordon Ramsey of Kitchen Nightmares in action? If a $50 lobster is overcooked and the meal is long overdue to the customer, he’ll throw it right into the trash and recook the meal rather then risk delivering a poor product. You have a reputation to uphold, and your audience has the advantage of being picky in our world of online content today.
• Entertain your readers. Add humor to humanize content and make it more personal. No one is going to take the time to read through a lifeless post they can’t relate to. Use images to help get your point across and make content more digestible. Offer your content in unique formats like infographics, quizzes, video or SlideShare. (e.g., Content Marketing History infographic; Quiz – What’s your Content Marketing Animal Spirit; SlideShare – Why Content Marketing Fails by Rand Fishkin)
• Inject new perspective into your content through content curation. To publish high quality, relevant content on a consistent basis, especially if you don’t have a large staff or time to write, liven it up with curated content. Curation gives your readers unique insights from diverse sources and on various topics. (5 Simple Steps to Becoming a Content Curation Rockstar)

#2: Publishing Product-Focused Content

Ok, 20+ years ago it was “OK” to have a plethora of 40-page white papers about how great your products are and how your customers use them; and the picture above of a person getting excited about reading a whitepaper has always been a product marketer’s dream. However, the most that may get you today is a fine by the EPA for wasting paper. Today’s buyer 2.0 does not get ecstatic about such a piece of content, especially when they’re not even ready to consider buying your product. Not that your product marketing and product management teams don’t have a lot of expertise and great insight to offer, but the best marketers are creating content that engage buyers long before they’ve even begun to think about product purchases. (Buyer’s Journey Demystified by Forrester) And the worst tactic you can use is to condense your traditional product management driven white papers or related content into a blog post. Bottom line?. . . STOP egocentric content marketing and climb the 4 steps to marketing enlightenment.

How to Avoid this Trap

• Get your company to admit that it has a content problem. Much like an addiction, the first step is admitting that you have a problem before you’ll be able to develop a solution and a plan of action to resolve it.
• Realize that your buyers’ interest needs to be earned. Ok, so most people reading this post already get this. The action item is to get the rest of your organization on-board with the new content marketing mentality.
  • Let your audience do the heavy lifting. For example, solicit feedback from your audience on your current content offerings.
  • Share with your executive team what your competition is doing from a content marketing perspective.
  • Bring in a content marketing consultant to build the credibility of your new strategy.
• Keep your customers in mind when writing content. . yup, that means using personas, identifying key segments, etc. Product-centric content isn’t always going to answer their questions – plus it’s best practice to avoid being egocentric. Seek to provide value for readers by writing content that addresses their needs and interests. Start by creating an informative piece of content, such as an eBook, with actionable information, best practices and examples that they can start using to improve their business. Then, use the content marketing pyramid method to break down this eBook into more digestible pieces – providing value for your readers, enabling you to consistently publish quality created content, and getting the most mileage out of your information packed eBook.

#3: Not Curating Content

Ok, let’s say that you do have the most amazing content in the entire world: Do you really think that people will want to give up reading everyone else’s content to spend all of their time on your site? Even if you do create amazing, unique, high quality content, people are still going to seek various opinions.

Almost 1/3rd of marketers today are creating 90% or more of their own content, while hardly curating or syndicating external content. The good news is that this number will drop to about 10% of marketers in the next 6 to 18 months as more companies increase their use of curated content to complement their created content. This will enable them to better engage with their audience in a less egocentric manner, not to mention getting more return from their content marketing investment. Best-in-class content marketers will strive for a mix of 65% created content, 25% curated content and less than 10% syndicated content, as prescribed in Curata’s Content Marketing Tactics Planner.

How to Avoid this Trap

Content curation offers you an opportunity to not only better use your resources, but also to rise above the content noise. In fact, 48% of companies intend to increase the use of content curation in their content marketing mix in the coming year. Here are some places to start:

• Learn the basics of content curation.
  • Content curation is when an individual (or team) consistently finds, organizes, annotates and shares the most relevant and highest quality digital content on a specific topic for their target market.
  • Curation is intended to complement created content, not replace it.
  • Attend one of Curata’s Content Curation 101 webinars to learn the basics of curation and see best practices in content marketing.
• See content curation in action. Some of the best content marketers in the world are using content curation to rise above the noise:
  • Lee Odden (@LeeOdden) of TopRank curates content about repurposing from Intel’s Pam Didner (@PamDidner) at the recent Content2Conversion event.
  • 360Chestnut, a Massachusetts-based company that connects energy efficient contractors and homeowners, once struggled to provide sufficient and relevant content for readers of their blog outside of Massachusetts. The company now uses curation to supplement created content and provide knowledge and incentives to readers across the country, resulting in a 40% increase in leads.
  • IBM’s Big Data & Analytics HUB is a dynamic website that includes created and curated content about various aspects of technology. The site is optimized for social sharing and has experienced a 291% increase in social referral traffic since its inception in January 2013.
  • Aternity, an application performance management vendor, uses curation to produce a destination site called EndUserExperience2Day. The site provides readers with valuable and pertinent information about the end user experience industry and is now a leading source of referral to the company’s corporate website.
  • Xerox’s Jeannine Rossignol, VP of Marketing Services, has led a content marketing strategy focused on C-level professionals through their Chief Optimist Magazine. This magazine, which is a mix of created and curated content, is offered in both digital and print formats.
• Communicate the benefits of content curation to your organization to build support. Here are some of the benefits:
  • Increases thought leadership: Demonstrates to your audience that you are connected with your market’s independent thought leaders, and that they support your company’s own messaging and direction.
  • Improves lead generation: Content curation is a great way to nurture your audience and to better engage with them. Ultimately it will improve your site traffic and the length of time that your audience spends on your “owned” digital properties. According to Marketing Sherpa, Aternity increased their email list by 130% in 1 year as a result of content curation.
  • Lowers content development costs. Content curation enables you to tap into the plethora of valuable content that others have created, yet your audience cannot possibly find in their current stage of content shock.
  • Don’t believe me?. . . check out what others have to say about the benefits of content curation:
    • Jake Sorofman (@jakesorofman) of Gartner:
      • Forget Big Data–Here Comes Big Content
      • Why Curation Matters More Than Ever
    • Ann Handley (@MarketingProfs) of Marketing Profs:
      • A Simple Content Marketing Org Chart
    • Pam Didner (@PamDidner) of Intel:
      • How Content Curation Can Benefit Your Blog
    • Jay Baer (@jaybaer) of Convince and Convert:
      • Content Curation – 5 Ways to Succeed … Eventually
    • Lee Odden (@leeoden) of TopRank:
      • How Content Curation and Tools Can Fit in Your Digital Marketing Mix
      • Essential Digital Marketing Skills for Content Marketers in 2014
    • Heidi Cohen (@heidicohen) of Riverside Marketing Strategies:
      • Top 10 Reasons You Need Content Curation
    • Forrester:
      • Ryan Skinner (@rskin11):
        • Get to terms with “Content Curation: Pros and Cons and Six Principles
      • Sucharita Mulpuru (@smulpuru):
        • The Art of Awesome Curation: Lessons from Gilt and Houzz
    • Rebecca Lieb (@lieblink) of Altimeter
      • The Content Marketing Software Landscape: Marketer Needs and Vendor Solutions
• Follow Fair Use and ethical practices when curating content; for example:
  • Always give proper attribution to the original source, with a clear link back to the post you’ve curated.
  • Add your own insights and opinions. If you don’t, it’s a simple copy and paste – bad for your reputation and adds no value for readers. This step will also add more “SEO juice” to your content piece.
  • Give more than you take. If you quote a piece from the original article, make sure your annotation is longer.
  • Use new titles and images so you don’t compete with the original post in search results.
  • Don’t just curate from one source. This is likely to annoy the author and will limit diversity for your readers.
  • See a comprehensive eBook on this topic for more information, The Definitive Guide to Executing an Ethical Content Curation Strategy.

#4: Tailgating Too Closely to Other Content Marketers

Yes, identify trending topics and keywords and learn from the success of other content marketers to build your content creation strategy; but be careful not to tailgate too much. That is, abide by fair use and ethics standards when creating your own content or even using others’ content marketing tactics. Not only may it be perceived as bad taste to blatantly copy another person’s content or specific strategy, but you also risk too much similarity with your competitors and the rest of the market. Don’t forget, we’re trying to rise above the content noise, not add to it.

How to Avoid this Trap

Here’s an example of the right way to do it.

• Rand Fishkin’s recent SlideShare, Why Content Marketing Fails, is an excellent piece of informative content. Sure, his title may have been inspired by other folks that used similar wording (such as Joe Pulizzi’s Why Content Marketing Fails Without Strategy), but that’s where the similarity stops. Rand created a unique piece of content based on his own insights and opinions.

Here’s an example of tailgating just a bit too close to another content marketer:

• HubSpot is, no doubt, one of the industry’s best-in-class content marketers, however, I’m going to use one of their recent posts as an example of tailgating too close: Why Content Marketing Fails[SlideShare]. This post is essentially a curated piece of Rand Fishkin’s Why Content Marketing Fails SlideShare. I’m ok with the fact that they curated Rand’s presentation. It’s an excellent way to bring value to Hubspot’s audience in a nonegocentric manner and to give Rand’s great work increased recognition through proper attribution; however, HubSpot has broken our #5 Content Marketing Done Right rule: Retitle Any and All Content that you Curate. There are three main benefits of retitling any content you curate that are beneficial to both you and the original publisher:
  1. You are no longer competing for the same title on search results.
  2. You can add your own value. (e.g., context, insight and guidance for your audience) Not to mention that it can be fun to retitle.
  3. You can incorporate your own keywords.

#5: Not Marketing Your Marketing

Creating content without promoting is like building a baseball stadium without telling anyone about upcoming games. Our most recent survey asked content marketers to rank their greatest content marketing challenges. It came as a big shock to us that promotion and measurement of content were cited as the lowest ranked challenge for participants.

How to Avoid this Trap

Promotion is instrumental to the success of content marketing efforts. Unfortunately for Kevin Costner’s character in “Field of Dreams,” the old adage “if you build it, they will come” does not apply to the increasingly crowded landscape of content. Here are some ways to ensure your stadium is sold out and your content is promoted:

• Make content a priority within your company.
  • Without proper promotion content fails to reach it’s full potential. This is especially true in larger companies where social media teams are siloed and distant from their content marketing counterparts. They don’t hear about new pieces of content and lack encouragement to promote them across their own social networks.
  • Make your content strategy known company wide – employ effective shared information tactics so that your next blog post reaches the social network of not only your content team, but also your product marketing and sales teams.
• Promote content across multiple channels. Be sure to utilize all channels – email, newsletters, various social platforms, blogs, microsites, third party blogs, paid channels, etc. in order to reach the widest audience. Readers consume content in different ways and from varying sources.
• Don’t forget about the masterpieces you have already created.
  
  • Remember the content marketing pyramid method here as well. That next shiny object we create looks so good that we forget to squeeze that last bit of value out of our existing “works of art.” Repurpose and reuse that great piece of content you spent a lot of time on. Turn eBooks into webinars, webinars into blogs, etc.
• Measure the impact of your content to plan promotional efforts for future campaigns. If you don’t know the success of a certain piece how can you be sure if you readers love it or hate it? Take into account pageviews, shares, comments and overall feedback before creating and promoting content with similar topics or format.

#6: Not Innovating

What worked yesterday may not work today, and you’ll risk quickly sliding into the abyss of monotony if you’re not publishing innovative content in an inspiring manner. For example, publishing a blog post about how “Content is King” is less than noble these days, if you catch my drift.

How to Avoid this Trap:

• Embrace Google and its keyword and search tools such as the Google Adword Keywords Planner.
• Spend a considerable amount of time, or use a powerful discovery software, to find the highest quality, most relevant content to inspire your team and your audience.(i.e., through content curation)
• Identify innovative ways to communicate content to your audience.
• Identify and follow your industry’s influencers to help stay sharp on what’s hot and what’s not on the content front for your audience.
• Do the opposite of what everyone says you should be doing. We’re trying to differentiate here – following the herd like a wildebeest will not help your organization stand out.
• Start a multi-author blogging strategy
  • Guest blogging is an excellent way to expand your horizons – new topics, new insights, new readers!
  • Use tough editorial standards – just because you want outside insights doesn’t mean they don’t need to appeal to your quality standards.
  • Editorial calendars will be your best friend when it comes to managing multiple authors, topics, editors, publish dates, etc.

Nobody said it was going to be easy being a content marketer; just ask any “old school” newspaper veteran. And I can guarantee you that rising above the noise of digital content will only get more difficult. That said, maintain a laser focus on your audience’s pains and needs, bring great content to your audience in a fun and easy to consume manner, and continue to experiment and take chances to avoid the Content Marketing Death Wish.

Marketing automation is not just a buzzword – it’s bringing about a seismic change in the way marketing works in the modern world.

Mad Dash

B2B firms are falling over themselves to adopt marketing automation, with research indicating that MA adoption rates will skyrocket to 50% by 2015.

Boom time

As of the end of 2011, the marketing automation software industry reached $2.8 million. It is predicted to hit $4.7 billion in 2016.

But Europe is lagging

… especially the UK. Expect this to dramatically change during 2014 though – two-thirds of companies in Western Europe are planning to invest in marketing automation this year.

Goodbye human interaction

Come 2020, 85% of a customer’s relationship with a company will not actually involve talking to them directly, as customers increasingly prefer to conduct their own research into products/services.

Lead-to-revenue management: rebooted

With the customer taking control of the buying journey, marketing automation is more essential than ever. According to marketers …

“We can deliver exactly the right campaign to the right contact when we know they need it”

75% of the time with marketing automation

compared to

50% of the time using no automation processes.

The 451 percenters

Companies deploying marketing automation for prospect nurturing are experiencing adramatic increase of 451% in qualified leads.

According to a recent Forrester report, categories and criteria that should be closely evaluated when choosing a Marketing Automation platform include:

■ Ease of use.

■ Marketing process management.

■ Functionality needs created by scale.

■ CRM integration.

■ Capabilities to support global operations.

Remember, research says that:

• By 2015, 50% of marketers will use marketing automation systems.
• By 2020, customers will manage 85% of their relationships with companies without talking to a human.
• The marketing automation software industry reached $2.8 billion in 2011.

Want that 451% increase in qualified leads for yourself? Get started now with the Introduction to Marketing Automation video

Tell me if you have heard this before; “we need more, and/or better leads.” The chances are, if you’re in hi-tech marketing you may hear it on daily, weekly and monthly basis. Why? According to Forrester consultant Tom Grant, it’s because of the need to feed the funnel.

In his report Tech Marketers Pursue Antiquated Marketing Strategies Grant compared hi-tech firms to other industries “B2B technology companies treat marketing as an opportunity to sell new products and services to new customers.” As he stated “the product is the axis around which marketing efforts turn,” and as a result, the primary objective of marketing is to produce leads.

Similarly, marketers have long held the belief that because of sales short-term focus on making quarterly objectives, it either lacks the appreciation of, and/or the sophistication to understand anything other than lead gen, for example longer-term brand building and awareness activities.

But what if both of these viewpoints were actually wrong. What would happen if you asked sales what they valued, rather than assumed you knew the answer? How might it change how marketing thinks about its impact on the organization?

For one B2B Tech Company, feedback from the sales force is helping them refine their value to the organization. “When it comes to enabling the sales force, we’ve previously relied on what I call “measurement-by-anecdote.” Our goal with this study was to quantify what sales values from marketing so we can focus on the things that make a difference.” said Rick Dodd, SVP Marketing of Ciena, a $2 billion global optical and packet networking company.

To gain that insight the company surveyed its global sales force, including five types of sales reps covering five different account types. Over 400 sales reps provided feedback on their priorities for marketing and marketing’s performance.

According to sales, the highest ranked marketing activities were at the top of the funnel, 92% of sales said that increasing the awareness of solutions was very or extremely important, increasing consideration was close behind at 91%, only 65% mentioned lead generation.

“Our sales force is very experienced; they understand that technology and industries change quickly. We’ve obviously been successful positioning ourselves for today’s market, and now we want to take best advantage of the big shifts in our landscape. The survey showed us that for sales to be successful, marketing has to be able to change customers and prospect perceptions,” according to Dodd.

Perhaps the most interesting insight to come out of the research, is how Ciena is now thinking about measuring and reporting marketing’s impact on the organization. “Measuring pipeline value is a struggle in our business”, said Bill Rozier, VP of Marketing. “We have long, complex sales cycles that make it difficult to isolate marketing’s impact.”And they are not alone it in that challenge. The Aberdeen Group’s recent Demand Generation study found that 77% of respondents rated visibility into lead performance across stages as very valuable, but only 43% indicated they can do thi effectively.

Instead of spending a lot of time and energy in trying to perfect an imperfect process, thecompany is focusing efforts on measuring marketing performance at the macro level. “At the end of the day, our performance is ultimately measured in sales success, so that’s what we are focusing on measuring”, said Rozier.

To do that, the company has created a quarterly dashboard from the survey. Two regional sales organizations each quarter will be asked to evaluate marketing’s performance in three areas: 1) Marketing’s contribution to sales success; 2) Marketing’s performance compared to competitors; and 3) Marketing’s contribution to the success of the organization.

It’s a unique approach, and perhaps one that should be considered by others, because the challenge in performance management is often in defining the right metrics to drive the intended behaviors.

Ciena’s approach, as Dodd concludes, is to put the focus on the right conversation; “As we learned through the research, contributing to the success of the sales force isn’t just about one thing, it isn’t just lead gen. I appreciate that they give us credit for doing a good job when compared to competitors, but what we’re most interested in understanding is how well are we doing in enabling them to win. If the sales team rates our contributions as being valuable to their personal success, then we know we’re doing the right things.”

Clearly, a buyer has different objectives than we do as sales people. In this article, we will talk about how you might be more effective by following some Ground Rules in the early stages of a possible sale. But, in order to do that, let’s first quickly review The Buyer’s Objectives.

Typically, as a prospect is gathering information, he will listen to our presentation. Afterward, he will say he must “think it over” and may instruct us to call next week. We leave thinking that this meeting went well and that we may make a sale in the near future.

Unfortunately, when we call the following Tuesday, the prospect will not take our call. We leave a message, but he does not return the call. A couple days later, we call again and leave another message. When he doesn’t return that call, we are left wondering what happened. What went wrong between last week and this week?

We call this behavior “hiding” and it is part of the buyer’s process. A prospect’s buying process often proceeds like this—Gather information. Hide. Gather information. Hide. Gather information. Hide. The point here is that our prospect is going to find out as much as he can… without making any commitment. He may do this by searching the internet and by talking to many different sales people who will answer his questions in the hopes they will make a sale.

As young children, sales people learned to answer the questions posed by parents and teachers and we were admonished if we did not respond quickly and completely. We were trained to answer when someone speaks to us and this habit carries over into our behavior with prospects. We play by our parents’ rules and, as a  result, we allow the prospect to control the game of selling. As sales people, we often don’t play the game of selling well enough to “win”-- to convince the buyer to purchase or to discover that he is not a real prospect. So, we need to create a set of ground rules, so we can better control the process and eliminate wasted time and effort.

When I train participants on how to sell, I often draw parallels to the game of baseball. In baseball, Abner Doubleday’s rules of the game prevail. These rules include the basics like three-strikes-and-you’re-out.

However, unlike baseball, there are no established and agreed-upon rules for selling/buying and so we don’t know exactly how the buyer is going to play. We try to force our process on the prospect, but there is a natural disconnect between his motives and strategies and our motives and strategies. This disconnect, in part, explains why we have low closing ratios and prolonged sales cycles. We need to understand the buyer’s process, learn how to set up our own ground rules and quit the game if a prospect refuses to play within the parameters.

Obviously, my parallel to the game of baseball is somewhat limited because it is understood that both teams on a baseball field will play by the same rules. In the world of selling, it is not realistic to hope that prospects will follow the ground rules that you might establish. So, although setting up the following ground rules will help you control the amount of time and energy you invest in a prospect, they will not necessarily help you control the prospect.

Rule 1: Don’t look, act or sound like a sales person. As buyers, we are all wary of being sold and we have a natural resistance to following the lead of someone we do not know or trust.

Rule 2:  All prospects hide the truth. The question a prospect asks is never the real question. The problem a prospect presents is never the real problem. The statement a prospect makes is never the real statement. As sales people, we must develop a relationship and ask questions to get to the real issues.

Rule 3:  Answer every question with a question. Instead of offering information or a solution to the prospect, ask him another question. This technique will enable you to stop giving up your expertise for free, as well as help you discover the real issues.

Rule 4: If a prospect does not have compelling reasons to buy, he is not a viable prospect. He must have a level of personal discomfort that motivates him to take action. “A prospect’s pain of not-changing (not-buying) must be greater than the pain of changing (buying).”

Rule 5: If a prospect does not have TMR (Time, Money and Resources), he is not a prospect. If he has pain to change (buy) but does not have the time or the money or the resources to do so, he is not a prospect.

Rule 6:  Start all questions with “who”, “what”, “where”, “when”, “why” or “how”. Never ask a “yes” or “no” question.  

Rule 7:  Do not present without knowing budget or getting in front of the decision maker.

Rule 8:  SW³N. “Some will. Some won’t. So what. Next!” Often the hardest thing a sales person must do is quit a prospect. As sales people we spend countless hours on prospects who, for one reason or another, does not/will not buy. Recognize that there are times when you need to move on to the next prospect.

These eight ground rules will help you to spend your time more productively, helping you weed out the non-buyers and freeing you to pursue real prospects.

Download the entire Why is Selling So Darn Hard eBook

Success is a matter of signaling. 

To Sylvia Ann Hewlett, that signaling is a matter of "Executive Presence," which is the title of her new book. Hewlett says executive presence is a matter of "communicating that you have what it takes."

It's that it quality that draws people — and job offers, promotions, and opportunities — toward you. But getting it wrong can repel people. 

In an earlier post we looked at those positive signals, which were identified by Hewlett and her team at the Center for Talent Innovation in their survey of 4,000 professionals in the U.S. 

Here are a few of the behaviors to avoid. 

1. Not having emotional intelligence. 

If you want to lose an election, be tone-deaf toward people's emotional lives. 

Cut to: Mitt Romney.

"That he could say things like 'binders full of women,' that 43% of the population are losers — it gave a real sense of a man in a bubble who was clueless to how real people live," Hewlett says. "Obviously that did him no good in the election." 

Such an ire-drawing insensitivity can find its way into the workplace, like with racist or sexist language. Hewlett's research finds that those are reliable ways to look like you're not to be trusted with responsibility.

2. Checking your phone incessantly.

Projecting capability requires you to look like you're actually in the room — not sucked into your phone. 

"We found that constant device checking was a huge piece of resentment amongst bosses and a big black mark for up and comers who did not have the courtesy to focus," Hewlett says. 

It's not enough to know your facts, she says; you have to have the body language of being present. Since body language is one of the strongest forms of communication, being alert and attentive to your colleagues is one of the easiest ways to evidence your ability to get things done. 

3. Looking physically sluggish. 

"There's a real premium on fitness and looking as though you exercised recently," Hewlett says, "and that is much more important than the size of your waist." 

Again, she says, it's a matter of signaling: showing that you can take care of your body demonstrates that you can take care of whatever responsibility might be headed your way. It goes for men and women equally, whether they're 28 or 40. Hewlett says we're all under scrutiny to look physically able. 

4. Getting into sex scandals. 

If people are going to trust you with power, you need to appear trustworthy. For this reason, Hewlett says that "sexual impropriety takes some kind of prize as a career killer." 

For a few examples, notice the word "former" for all these one-time headliners:

• former congressman Anthony Weiner,
• former New York governor Eliot Spitzer,
• former CIA director David Petraeus,
• former International Monetary Fund head Dominique Strauss-Kahn,
• former Best Buy CEO Brian Dunn. 

Extramarital, intra-organizational dalliances are such career killers since they call into questions people's judgment, Hewlett says, and their very ability to lead. 

5. Not having spontaneity. 

To signal that you're able, you need to show that you have a deep knowledge of your subject area. For example, notice how Elon Musk and Marissa Mayer drill into any pitches that come their way. To Hewlett, spontaneity is a natural outgrowth of that understanding. 

"When my first big book came out I was overwhelmingly boring," Hewlett says. She had been a college professor for years, she said, which trained her in not telling stories, hiding behind podiums, and generally going over "like a lead balloon" in public settings.

The solution is to be overwhelmingly prepared — so you can improvise when you're overwhelmed, like the best TED speakers do. 

"You have to know the arc of what you want to say so that it comes out even when you're super nervous," Hewlett says.

The takeaway: signaling that your capable — showing that you have executive presence — is a lot like a duck gliding across the water. Above the surface it looks relaxed, but take a look underneath, and those feet are pedaling hard.

SEE ALSO: 5 Keys To Making A Great First Impression

Join the conversation about this story »

Do you have Bluetooth connected devices in your home? If so, then a $99 hub from oort might be of interest, as it claims to let you control all of those devices using the hub and either the oort app or web site. Oort’s idea is simple — that Bluetooth will be the dominant radio standard for the internet of things, and that the big money will be in offering ways to control multiple devices and build out recipes in the home.

Radek Tadajewski, CEO of oort, told me in an interview that the company is launching the Kickstarter with a variety of connected sensors and devices (such as a lamp, air quality monitor and power strip), but that the end game for oort won’t be in physical products. It will be in the app and services. He explained that several of his Chinese manufacturers are gearing up to make Bluetooth connected devices that would undercut his own designs.

Thus, oort is focusing on making an app that can speak with a variety of different Bluetooth profiles and takes advantage of the beacon technology that iOS has been supporting for months and Android is likely to support soon. The oort hub supports Bluetooth and also Wi-Fi so you can access your home via the web. But Bluetooth is the key. The beacons will add an additional layer of communication between you and your surroundings by offering opt-in notifications about discounts, sharing data from beacon-style sensors on pets or lost objects or simply giving you in-depth presence information in the home.

The idea is that the use of a standards-based radio technology will mean the oort app can read a variety of beacons and sensors from other manufacturers when running on an iOS 7 or later and Android 4.3 or later device. Oort’s job will be to build the capability to understand what those devices do in its app, much like other hubs (SmartThings and Revolv for example) are supporting multiple devices by building our custom profiles that let users control things under one app.

But eventually as Bluetooth is built into more devices, you won’t need the oort hub to control products, your phone can act in that capacity. Although once it’s out of range you will lose control of your home devices, so I think the hub is a smart investment if you want to set schedules and track what’s happening in your home while you’re out.

I think this is an interesting project and do expect to see an onslaught of Bluetooth-capable devices in the coming months, that would make this even more compelling. The oort products will ship in September.

Related research and analysis from Gigaom Research:
Subscriber content. Sign up for a free trial.

• Gigaom Research predictions for 2014
• Connected world: the consumer technology revolution
• What first-quarter 2014 meant for the mobile space

There are times when, magically, customer quotes are exactly what you dreamed they would be. The featured customer delivers glowing, colorful, emotive comments that speak to the exact challenges that the audience is facing and provide the much-desired validation that the vendor wants in the case study.

Then there are all those other times, when the quotes are not the exact fodder you wanted for the perfect story that’s in your head.

Fortunately, you do, in fact, have some control over the quotes you collect from customers. The rest depends on the person you’re interviewing.

How do you cue up perfect quotes for your case study?

Here's a best-practices playbook on getting effective quotes in customer case studies:

1. Interview the right people
This matters for so many reasons. Ideally, you want to quote someone in a business role/title similar to the audience for your case study so the reader automatically feels peer-to-peer respect.

If the CIO is your target audience, quote the CIO or similar executive-level person from your customer company. Always quote the highest-level person you can.

BUT what if the CIO can only speak to part of your story and a technology manager has more insight into usage and results? Then interview the manager but grab one quote from the CIO. You need both the detailed perspective and the credibility of the high-level quote.

2. Ask the right questions
To a certain extent, the personality of the person you interview drives the content of the comments. But you can ask questions that encourage your subjects to frame their responses in certain ways.

Ask open-ended questions that help them share details and emotion...
•    What did your day look like before [the solution]?
•    How has your job changed with [the solution]?
•    Tell me about a time when you knew that things had changed for the better.
•    How did it make you feel when you saw that incidents had decreased [or whatever benefit is relevant in your story]?

3. Get Challenge-Decision-Results Quotes
At a minimum, try for these three types of quotes:
•    The Challenge - Something that describes the pain or challenge the customer experienced before
•    The Decision - Why did the customer choose the solution?
•    The Results - What is the number-one result the customer has experienced?

Feel free to quote more, but at least hit these points.

4. Don't make up quotes
Made-up quotes sound, well, made-up. Actual customer comments are way more interesting and authentic.

But it's a common practice to do this in marketing and PR. We don't want to bug the customer and they just want something to approve. So at times we write case studies based on interviews with the internal account teams, rather than customers, and hence, have no customer quotes.

Try to get something directly from the customer, either from live interviews or by inserting a question directed at the customer right into the draft that you deliver. If you need to know why the customer chose the vendor, insert the question in the draft: "Why specifically did you choose to work with [vendor name]?"

5. Don't over-edit
In customer case studies, we have the freedom to "doctor" customer quotes, but don't give them such a full makeover that they are unrecognizable to the customer.

Customers appreciate it when we make them sound good but I've seen customers get a little uncomfortable when we market-ese the quotes too much.

What can you do?
•    You might put two sentences together that were not said consecutively (most customers don't notice.)
•    You can eliminate repetitive or extra words
•    You can add the vendor's product/company name

Just don't change the meaning of the quote.

6. Create quotes that stand alone
One of the awesome things about customer case studies is that it is content that's approved by the customer. That means that, if you want to pull quotes out of the story for other marketing materials, you can do so.

But the quotes should still sound complete when they are seen on their own. They should also have the vendor's name or product name in there so that the audience knows what the quote is referring to.

A quote that looks like this…

“No other database in the company provides that information…”

might be changed to…

“No other database in the company provides the information that [product name] does."

Strive for as many of these tips as you can and you'll do your part in capturing strong quotes. The rest is up to the customer!

What are your tips for better customer quotes?

The post How to Cue Up Hard-Hitting Customer Quotes appeared first on Stories That Sell.

Email delivery is a minefield. The rules are always changing. What’s right for Hotmail, doesn’t work for Gmail. You need SPF compliance, Sender ID, DKIM, Domain Keys and DMARC. Some people say it’s best to send from a shared IP pool, some that it’s best to have your own IP. The goal posts keep moving and what you thought you knew last year has changed. Only this weekend there was a discussion on the Only Influencers email group discussing some possible Gmail changes last Thursday that have impacted Gmail delivery. Webmail clients, like Gmail, Yahoo and Outlook (Hotmail), never announce changes to their filtering methods so we’re all left to scramble around trying to guess what they’ve done.

All of this makes providing a list of rules very difficult – by the time you read this some will have changed again. What is possible though is to give you some rules of thumb to live by which, if followed, will give your emails the best chance of being delivered.

Technology and infrastructure

If you are sending bulk email it is imperative you use the correct hardware for best email delivery. Sending bulk email using an SMTP set up is not going to deliver many of your emails. You need to use a commercial email delivery platform and mail transfer agents (MTA) which will give you the ability to make hundreds of connections to webmail clients rather than one at a time and send as many emails down it as you can before it is cut off. MTA’s send each email is individually, maximising the delivery opportunity.

It is also important to make sure you are compliant with all the validation protocols, SPF, Domain Keys, DKIM, Sender ID and DMARC. You can use checking tools like port25′s Authentication tool to see whether you’re compliant. If you’re not you need to take immediate action.

List Hygiene

List hygiene is of paramount importance to email delivery. If your list has high numbers of bounces, hitting spam traps or receiving high levels of complaints then you are dead in the water before you even start.

Check with your ESP how they handle bounces, what rules they apply and how bounces are removed from your email database. A clean file should receive less than 5% bounces, and you should be aiming to get your bounce rate under 2%. Fatal bounces should be removed from a list immediately and soft bounces which bounce for the same reason between three and five times should also be removed.

Spam traps are particularly difficult to identify, but can have a massive impact on your email delivery so you need some tools and techniques to avoid accumulating them in the first place. If you haven’t removed non-responsive email addresses for some time then that is the place to start. Unengaged data hurts you disproportionately because the more of it you have the lower your chances of inbox delivery. Not only are the unengaged not seeing your message but they are impacting the chances of your engaged users receiving the message in their inbox too. Only you will know what rules you should apply when removing non-responsive data but a user who hasn’t opened an email in the last 12 months or more is unlikely to be a customer and is no longer interested in your emails. Almost certainly that is where your spam traps are if you are seeing them.

Email complaints are also indicative of bad practice, and can signify one of several things. You are mailing too much, and I am fed up of your emails and it’s easier to hit the spam button than it is to unsubscribe. You are not mailing me enough, which sounds bizarre that someone would complain you aren’t emailing them enough but it is very common complaint. For example, I sign up to receive your emails and then you don’t contact me for three or four weeks and guess what? I’ve forgotten the sign up, have received many emails from other companies and brands during that time and have moved on. So I get your email and my reaction is it’s spam, so I click the button and my email address is added to the list of spam complaints. Another reason is content and code. If the content is not relevant or is badly designed I won’t be engaged and the easiest way for me to guarantee not getting anymore messages is to click the spam or junk button. Alternatively the code is poor and the email renders badly, or I am on my smart phone and the email has not been designed and coded to be responsive so I can’t read it. All of these things have an impact on your ability to deliver emails.

Bitly URLs

Don’t use URL shorteners like Bitly, Ow.ly or Tiny, Spammers use them, so the ISP’s look for these types if URL and they and the IP addresses hosting them are routinely added to block lists.

A habit is a routine way of thinking, feeling, or behaving, which tends to occur unconsciously, explains Darlene Price, president of Well Said, Inc. and author of "Well Said! Presentations and Conversations That Get Results."

"For instance, in golf, no player intentionally raises up on the backswing, as you're sure to top the ball and make a poor shot in doing so. However, it's among the most common errors on the course," she says.

Similarly, as a speaker, you would never consciously clench your hands, pace the floor, and avoid eye contact with the audience, as your listeners would surely perceive you as nervous and insecure. "Yet, these common bad habits occur daily in the workplace by presenters who are otherwise smart, accomplished professionals."

Here are the top 10 public speaking habits presenters should avoid at all costs, along with their potential consequences and remedies:

1. Not tailoring your message to your audience. As Benjamin Disraeli once said, "Talk to a man about himself and he will listen for hours." On the other hand, if you don't talk to your audience about themselves, they most likely won't listen, Price says. "Speakers frequently fall into the bad habit of giving generic off-the-shelf presentations that are not tailored to address the needs of this particular audience. Listeners know when the speaker has not done their homework, and their response ranges from disappointment and frustration to anger and disengaging."

To avoid this, ask yourself: "Who is my audience? What are their burning issues? How does my message help them? How much do they know about my topic? What will I ask them to do in response to my message? "All the best practices in public speaking depend upon this first tenet: Know Your Audience."

2. Eye dart. From beginners to veterans, the majority of speakers fail to maintain meaningful, sustained eye contact with their listeners. "Unconsciously, their eyes scurry from person to person, darting around the room, without ever pausing to actually see the recipients of their message," Price says. "A lack of eye contact implies a list of offenses: insincerity, disinterest, detachment, insecurity, shiftiness, and even arrogance."

To visually connect, maintain eye contact for at least two to three seconds per person, or long enough to complete a full phrase or sentence. Effective eye communication is the most important nonverbal skill in a speaker's toolbox. 

3. Distracting mannerisms. There are at least 20 common tics to tackle, including: clenching or wringing your hands, pacing back and forth, keeping your hands in pockets, jingling change or keys, twisting your ring, gripping the lectern, licking your lips, adjusting your hair or clothing, fidgeting with a pen, bobbing your head, placing your arms behind your back, and touching your face. "One or more of these habits can distract the audience from your message and jeopardize your credibility," Price explains.

As a remedy, record yourself speaking and watch the playback. "Practice often to increase your comfort level and reduce anxiety. Take a public speaking class or enlist the help of a local coach to eliminate distracting mannerisms and habituate purposeful movement."

4. Not rehearsing. Most proficient presenters prepare. "That is, they know the topic, organize their content, design a slide deck, and study their notes," she says. However, according to a recent survey Price conducted, less than 2% of over 5,000 business presenters in Fortune 100 companies actually conduct a dress rehearsal and practice their presentation aloud. This bad habit results in the audience seeing and hearing the unrefined run-through, versus the finessed final performance. "

To optimize their perception of you and get the outcome you want, perform the entire presentation aloud at least once, and the opening and closing at least three times," she suggests.

5. Low energy. "As the Guinness World Record holder for the most performances in the same Broadway show, George Lee Andrews is famous for playing the role of Monsieur André in The Phantom of the Opera," Price says. "Surely, he must have felt tired during at least one or two of his 9,382 performances, but he didn't show it considering his contract was renewed 45 times over 23 years." Enthusiasm, defined as eager enjoyment and active interest, is an audience's most desired trait in a presenter. Conversely, a boring delivery — evidenced by a low monotone voice, dull facial expressions, and overall lethargy — is their most disliked trait.

"To avoid losing your audience in a New York minute, crank up the energy level. Speak expressively, smile sincerely, move naturally, and enjoy the moment."

6. Data dumping. "It's understandable. After all, our credibility is on the line when we stand up and speak out," Price says. "So, to be safe, we focus almost entirely on what Aristotle called Logos, which includes the left-brain functions of logic, language, analysis, reasoning, critical thinking, and numbers."

When we rely too heavily on this type of content, we end up talking too long, reading too many over-crowded illegible slides, and turning our backs on the most important element of all: the audience. "Ditch the habit of data dumping," she suggests. "It loses the audience and undermines your innate ability to inspire, connect, and persuade."

7. Not inspiring. Even more vital to persuasion than Logos, says Aristotle, is Pathos, which includes the right-brain activities of emotions, images, stories, examples, empathy, humor, imagination, color, sounds, touch, and rapport, Price says. "Tomes of studies show human beings typically make decisions based on emotions first (Pathos); then, we look for the facts and figures to justify it (Logos). Audience members do the same. With your words, actions, and visuals, seek first to inspire an emotion in them (joy, surprise, hope, excitement, love, empathy, vulnerability, sadness, fear, envy, guilt). Then, deliver the analysis to justify the emotion."

An engaging, memorable, and persuasive presentation is balanced with both information and inspiration. "It speaks to the head and the heart, leveraging both facts and feelings," she says.

8. Lack of pauses. Many speakers have the bad habit of rushing through their content. Like a runaway train, they speed down the track out of control unable to stop and turn at critical junctures. The causes are often anxiety, adrenalin, or time constraints, Price says. "Regardless of the reason, the three times you definitely want to pause include: before and after you say something very important which you want your audience to remember; before and after you transition from one key talking point to the next; and between your opening, main body and closing."

When you consciously use silence as a rhetorical device, you'll come across as more self-confident, your message will be more impactful, and your audience will remember more of what you say.

9. Not crafting a powerful opening. "According to Plato, 'The beginning is the most important part of the work.' Yet, it's a common bad habit for speakers to waste those precious opening seconds rambling pointlessly, telling a joke, reading an agenda, apologizing needlessly, all of which fail to grab the audience's attention and motivate them to listen," she says. You, your message, and your audience deserve much more.

So, open with a bang.
 Invest the thought, time and effort to craft and memorize "the most important part of the work." For example, tell an engaging relevant story; state a startling statistic; or ask a thought-provoking question.

10. Ending with Q&A. There's a good chance you've heard a speaker end an otherwise effective presentation with an abrupt, 'That's it. Any questions?' "For the audience, it's like a firework with a wet fuse, otherwise known as a 'dud,'" Price says. "Your grand finale is your last chance to reinforce your key points, ensure the memorability of your message, and motivate the audience to action. Avoid the bad habit of closing on Q&A, which risks ending your presentation on a non-climatic down-in-the-weeds topic."

It's fine to invite the audience's comments and questions; however, be sure to end strong. "Craft an effective three-part closing where you deliver a strong summary; present a call-to-action; and conclude with a powerful closing statement. Develop the habit of saying last what you want your audience to remember most," she concludes.

SEE ALSO: 10 Things You Should Do In The 15 Minutes Before A Big Presentation

Join the conversation about this story »

Pardon the crazed title but logically speaking, there’s really a parallel between the two halves of the B2B sales process and the two halves often featured prominently during wartime: combat and propaganda. Salespeople are more likely classified as combatants seeing as they’re the ones on the front lines, asking prospects direct questions and getting involved at the heart of prospect problems. Lead generators use tools like telemarketing more along the lines of swaying and shaping minds, much like the propaganda at the time.

It’s common knowledge that propaganda was heavily used by both sides during WWII. And like telemarketing, its effects were more psychological than physical. On the other hand, many veterans would like to tell you the ‘hard truth’ that the bullets and blood counted more than what was being broadcasted at home. Doesn’t that sound similar to sales reps saying marketers have no real, personal understanding of the prospect outside of the former’s demand generation activities?

The truth is though that the Allies took the best use of both halves in order to win. Likewise, both the ‘combat’ of sales and the sway of telemarketing need to work just as in tandem:

• Not everyone’s cut for the sales cloth – Just as not everyone’s cut to be a soldier, you can’t all be salespeople. Telemarketing services exist to support them just as propaganda was used to garner support from non-military citizens.

• Yes, there is an emotional side to swaying customers – Attributes like lead quality and conversion rate are more favorable simply because conversations are more polite in tone. And while sales reps can be just as professional, polite telemarketing calls make for good set-ups.

• The process is a self-sustaining cycle – Morale during war time is critical because it gave soldiers a reason to fight and when they fought well, they gained more morale. It’s a cycle. And like any cycle, it should be self-sustaining. Telemarketing loses its value when there are no sales reps to ask the harder questions while the same reps can suffer without good marketing to polish their image.

War isn’t the only thing that has people seeing only one side or one aspect of it. In business, it’s going to take success from all areas in order for a company to thrive. It needs soldiers to fight and propagandists to inspire reasons to keep fighting.

Would it surprise you to know that the most important, most relevant blog post on your entire website might never get read?

In the world of content marketing, your blog post headline acts as a gatekeeper to the content you and your marketing partner produce. It doesn’t matter how insightful or how useful the post is if it’s blocked off by a lackluster headline.

That’s why when we craft thoughtful and meaningful B2B blog content, we take it a step beyond keyword research and ideal word count to create a headline for that blog post that is compelling and intriguing to the intended audience.

The minute a blog post headline becomes intriguing, it becomes clickable. And when it presents an intriguing and meaningful value, it must be shared. Here’s what goes into making a blog post alluring enough to click on and share:

1. It Has a Clear Topic

The most important thing the blog post headline does is alert the reader to the topic that will be addressed. The blog post title needs to contain an keyword or two that will register with your B2B buyer. This isn’t just SEO best practice — it’s about providing a context for your reader.

Just consider blog post titles like “Why We Love Our Customers,” and “Our Company History.” Even if these blog posts provide meaningful insight into the company and its relationship with its customers and history, these aren’t immediately useful or interesting topics that would compel anyone to click or share.

2. It Tells You What You’ll Get From It

Beyond identifying a clear topic, your headline also needs to provide a compelling reason the reader should read the post. Just consider how unappealing titles like “Newest Website Launch” and “Thoughts on Healthcare Marketing,” are. They simply don’t work. The reader is left wondering, “why should I read this post?” and “what value will I get from it?”

It’s the headline’s job to answer these questions before they are asked. We do this by including the value to make the post immediately more interesting: “Our Newest Website Launch Changed Our Marketing Strategy,” and “Thoughts On Healthcare Marketing That Will Surprise You” are not quite perfect, but immediately more intriguing than simply mentioning the topic. They point to an immediate value or result that may come from reading the post.

3. It Indicates Who The Post is Intended For

The best titles also help readers self-identify that a blog post is relevant to them. We take into account two important factors when deciding how to indicate who the blog is for: the purpose of the blog post and the target audience of the blog post.

Sometimes this is done in a more obvious way, such as “Five Things That PR Agencies Need to Future-Proof” and sometimes it’s done in a more subtle way, such as “3 Ways Your Non-Sales Employees Can Grow Your Sales Pipeline.” The first example is clearly written for PR agencies, and you can easily deduct that the second example is written for CEOs and Marketing VPs.

4. It Doesn’t Follow Any of These Rules

Headline writing isn’t an exact science, and sometimes it can pay to break all of the rules. Sometimes certain blog posts lend themselves easily to the rules listed above — and sometimes they require specialty headline formulas to make them even more shareable. Make note of the times you “break the rules” and measure reads and social shares to measure how it works.

Just a title? We don’t think so. There’s a lot more to crafting a click-worthy and shareable B2B blog post headline than you might think. When we work with clients to offer content strategy and blog writing for SEO and customer attraction purposes, we know that the headline is crucial. It can be the difference between getting seen and getting ignored altogether.

Do you have any great headline writing tips to share?

photo credit: Juliana Coutinho

Ever since the earliest concepts of humanoid robots were introduced into popular culture, the idea of robots replacing people in various capacities has never been far behind. Science fiction movies tend to portray the dark side of this imaginary equation, with robots eventually becoming smarter than their human makers and deciding to eliminate them in some grand fashion. While this concept has sold a lot of movie tickets, the reality is a lot less sinister. The same holds true for the debate surrounding robots taking jobs.

Arthur C. Clarke, a famous science fiction writer from the 1950s, is reported to have said, “We overestimate technology in the short term, and we underestimate it in the long term.” This sentiment has been borne out repeatedly over time. Despite the incredible advances in artificial intelligence, mechatronics, and human-machine interaction made over the past several decades, as a society we tend to overestimate what robots are capable of today. The simple act of tying one’s shoes can be taught to a 5-year-old in minutes, but the combination of cognitive and physical interpretations that need to happen to make this task second nature to the child are incredibly difficult to replicate inside the control system of a robot.

So while it’s possible today to program a traditional SCARA industrial robot to perform a physical task in a way that is superior to a human doing it (for example, moving an object faster and in a blink placing it more precisely than a person can), the downsides of this approach the high cost and technical difficulty preclude it from being used universally throughout a facility to “replace all the people.” There are simply too many parts of the process (whether that process is in a manufacturing plant or in the checkout line of the local fast food restaurant) that require a human’s dexterity, reasoning, and intuition to effectively replace an entire workforce with machines today.

That said, it is becoming increasingly feasible and cost-effective today for robots to assume many of the repetitive, labor-intensive tasks that are part of many people’s jobs. “Smart” robots that can work safely next to people, are aware of their environment, and are able to modify their behavior according to those circumstances are fortunately becoming more and more commonplace. And yes, I do mean fortunately, because it is often these tasks that define the least meaningful and rewarding aspects of a person’s job.

For example, TUG robots from a company called Aethon in Pittsburgh are in hundreds of hospitals across the U.S., taking dirty dishes and sheets from patients, and allowing the nurses and aides who did that previously to spend more quality time with their patients doing what they do best – administering care. The PackBot from iRobot largely took over the life-threatening task of investigating roadside bombs in places like Iraq and Afghanistan, saving the lives of many soldiers in the process. And my current company’s robot Baxter is now performing many of the simple, repetitive packaging and material handling tasks that used to take up the time and effort of factory workers in the many facilities who have adopted this technology over the past year. As a result, those same people are being redeployed to other tasks within the plant, in some cases with a promotion and a new job description to show for it.

In each of these cases, the robot has effectively assumed the responsibility for the dull, dirty or dangerous task – but has not replaced the human responsible for getting that job done. The robot in this equation is a tool – not at all unlike what a PC is for an office worker, a tractor is for a farmer, or a nail gun is to a home builder. All of those technologies were once speculated to be replacing or at least reducing the need for the humans that wielded them. Yet all of those professions still exist today, and the workers in those fields are better, happier, and more productive because of them.

Which brings me back to part two of Mr. Clarke’s assessment, that we underestimate the value of technology in the long term. I believe we do this today as well, and it concerns me that we as a society are not producing robots and other technologies quickly enough to ramp up to the expanded needs we will soon have for them.

Over the next 40 years, we are going to see a dramatic drop in the percentage of working-age adults across the world. And as baby boomers reach retirement age, the percentage of folks in retirement is going to change dramatically in the opposite direction. That means there will be more people with fewer social security dollars competing for services, and fewer working people available to deliver those services to them.

We will need robots to help us deal with this reality, doing the things we normally do for ourselves but that get harder to do as we get older.  Things like getting groceries, driving cars to visit people, and helping us move around more safely and efficiently as physical ailments settle in.

Before you dismiss this vision for a highly automated society, think about it the next time you put a load of laundry into your washing machine or hit the start button on the dishwasher as you head off to bed. These are tools that have automated unpleasant and time-consuming aspects of our lives, and given us more free time to pursue more productive or pleasurable activities.

A generation ago, these machines were looked at with skepticism and sometimes ridicule. Today, they are staples of modern life that most of us would be hard-pressed to live without.  I hope and fully believe we will be saying the same thing about robots a generation from now.

There’s a statistic out there that buyers have, on average, progressed 57% through their buying process before they engage a salesperson. That ‘average’ piece seems to have been lost, and a commonly held-belief now is that this 57% is a fact in all cases.

How you act before and after ‘the 57%’ is a matter of choice, not a function of averages. Buyers buy different things, and sellers sell differently. You get to choose. But first, let’s explore the differences.

As we researched this topic, we spoke to many of our great customers to see what they had observed. Here’s their buyer’s point of view.

• Xerox sells many things, including copier paper. Copier paper is a commodity. As a buyer I don’t need a lot of advice. I’m going to buy frequently and only care that the price/quality is reasonable.

• Hewlett-Packard provides most things an IT buyer might need, including a cool laptop called the HP Envy – a little more complex than my copier paper.

• If I wanted a temperature control system in our building, Honeywell is the place to go. It’s a more specialized purchase than a laptop. I am probably going to need guidance and advice.

• Harmonic sells media controller systems that manage video workflows in some of the world’s largest and most demanding video environments. That’s not something I want to buy on my own. I’ll need some consultative advice.

• Box provides enterprise online data sharing and large-scale content management services. Buyers want to engage strategically when determining their enterprise content strategy. It’s a big commitment.

• If you are choosing Salesforce as your CRM, it is likely to have significant impact on your business. You know it is important to get some serious advice.

As evident from these examples, there is a lot of variability in how buyers need to engage before buy, so let’s look about how you might deconstruct that.

Organizational Impact is a Driver of Buyer Engagement

If you engage early with the buyers in their buying cycle you will be more successful. That is a core tenet of my book Account Planning in Salesforce (free excerpt here). Being a buyer isn’t as easy as it might seem. Understanding and articulating their own needs and then finding the best solution can be a stressful exercise. The greater the organizational impact, the more stressful it gets. Buyers need help.

The two axes on this graph are cost and intellectual property (IP) intensity. As they increase, so does organizational impact. Buyers then need help in establishing criteria, evaluating options and choosing a solution. The engaged salesperson can create value for their customer and gain more control of the deal.

There are also two other factors that matter: risk and frequency. Organizational risk is higher when choosing a CRM system than it is when buying copier paper. The buyer performs greater diligence and needs more guidance. Also, greater frequency translates to greater familiarity and less need for help. I buy copier paper more often than I buy a temperature control system so I know how to make the copier paper purchase on my own.

In the chart here you can see in the top right quadrant, our buyer is more likely to engage the supplier early, because a business process infrastructure project is usually high cost, contains a lot of IP value and a bad decision carries significant risk.

Conversely, there is less IP value in purchasing utilities (e.g. electricity). The difference when buying office equipment is even more striking; Cost, IP and Risk are typically low and Frequency is high, so buyers are less likely to need a seller to guide them.

Here’s the thing: If your solutions don’t fit into the bottom left quadrant, your buyers likely want to engage with you (or your your competitor) much earlier in their process, and there are many things you can do to influence the outcome.

In the next post, I’ll help you understand how to respond when the buyer is in fact well along the path to developing a buying preference. In the meantime, please feel free to download our latest publication Battling the 57%: Deconstructing the Buyer Seller Dance.

When you are trying to drill down on a business issue with the largest impact, you need a great sales discovery process that demonstrates your perspective and positive business intent. You need solid questions, if you want to effectively map your value to their business problems.

It is important to understand, however, that you have to to ask the tough questions. My colleague, John Kaplan, uses the term “rip your face off” questions. Those are questions that help a prospect realize the impact his/her lack of decision or action is having on their business. These questions make the prospect stand in the moment of pain he/she is experiencing with their current business processes. These questions help both the seller and the buyer. They open the door for a conversation about where the client wants/needs to take the business in the future.

But, you have to earn the right to ask those burning questions. You can’t just go into the conversation and rip someone’s face off. If you start your meeting or call with a hard-hitting, “what are you going to do if” type question, your prospect will shut down. Depending on the question, they may even throw you out.

Build Business Acumen in Your Sales Discovery Process

When you begin a discovery session, start with your general questions. Then, with each additional question, move towards the tougher topics. Each question should get a little more uncomfortable. It may get uncomfortable for you, too. Getting comfortable being a little uncomfortable is what it’s all about.

In the interest of full disclosure; I’ve experienced both situations above. I learned early in my career, however, that even the best clients need to know that your intent is about their business first. Asking questions that are focused on the business first and the pain second will make these tougher questions more fluid for you as a seller and the reasoning behind them more clear for the buyer.

Have confidence in yourself as you ask the questions. Of course, this confidence comes from preparation. Remember, you’re having this conversation for a reason. Customers know what you do for a living. If a customer isn’t interested in talking about solving tough business issues, then you’re talking to the wrong person.

Get comfortable with your customer being uncomfortable.

Remember, where there’s smoke, there’s fire. How big is the problem? You have to be willing to help to help the customer fan the flames (or put his/her face back on if you ripped it off, right John?).

You need to use discovery to get to the negative consequences that are so pressing, your prospect needs to stop them right away. Uncovering that pain is the first step to your buyers (1) correcting the issue and (2) seeing a return on their investment with your company.

One mistake I often see from salespeople, is that they have a tendency to move too quickly from the negative consequences to the positive business outcomes or the success metrics associated with the solution.

It’s human nature for a salesperson. We are “fixers” and we want to help with the products and services that our company has created. It’s obviously more fun to talk about the “positives” than the “pain” they’re experiencing right now. But, if you aren’t comfortable talking to a prospect about those pain points, you’ll never uncover a problem that’s worth solving.

Don’t forget, effective discovery allows you to qualify deals in or out much earlier. If you let your prospect off the hook and jump right into telling him/her about your solution or the value that solution will bring to the business, you won’t have the information you need to move forward or more importantly, move on.

Finish Strong

If it’s time to move forward, remember to finish strong. There’s a lot of you out there that have finished a great sales call and gained great knowledge about the business problem and impact, but weren’t sure how to end the call.

Don’t just ask the generic, “What would be the best next steps?”

Remember, your discovery conversation should’ve been completely focused on the customer. If you executed your discovery right, then your next meeting should focus more on your solution. I always finished my discovery sessions, by first asking if there’s anything I missed in the conversation that should’ve been included. That answer helps fuel my follow-up. Then, I gain commitment on the next part of the conversation. I’ll say something like:

“What I’d like to do is to come back next Tuesday and talk with you about what a solution could potentially look like along with how we do it and how (where) we’ve done it before.” 

Because I (1) uncovered the business impact and (2) created urgency during my discovery session, my prospects are more than willing to schedule that next meeting.