Rnordman

If You Want Your Salespeople to Sell More… Ask Them for Less!

This may seem counterintuitive, I know, but I’ve learned from my own experiences that it works.

It’s very common for salespeople to have multiple things that they’re trying to execute.  They’re trying to sell a complex portfolio of products.  They’re selling to lots of different customer types.  Or there’s lots of different prospects to go after.  In society in general, there’s pressure to multitask; to always be “on.”

And yet research of the human anatomy shows that the brain, other than automatic functions like breathing and heart beating, can only deal with one thing at a time.  Brains work in serial, not parallel.  Study after study supports this.  

Most people recognize the value of focus.  Ask nearly anyone, “If you’re focused on doing something and it has all of your energy, what’s the likelihood that you’ll get good outcomes?”  There’s a high probability they’ll respond “Very, very high.”  So people don’t object to it.  And yet, we see salespeople all the time asked to do all of these different things.  

Here’s an interesting example of this:

We recently launched a new product.  As sales leader, I took two good salespeople and asked them to dedicate part of their time to launching that product, and part of their time serving their existing territories.  And then I turned to all of the other salespeople and said, “Add this product launch to the things you’re already doing.”  

It violated the two ideas that I just talked about, which is that we’re hard-wired to do one thing at a time, and that if we dilute focus we’re likely to get less than we want.  

So what do you think happened?

We go through the first quarter of our product launch.  The two guys who’ve I asked to support the product launch part time sold a little of the new product.  The rest of the salesforce – who outnumbered those two guys by about 80:1 – sold nothing.  Nothing.  

Fast forward to the second quarter.  I turned to the two people who I asked to focus part time on the new product and took everything away but the new product.  Everyone else continued to just add it to their list of things to sell.  

So what happened in the second quarter?  The two dedicated salespeople increased their quarter-over-quarter productivity by 500%. – they sold five times more in the second quarter than they did in the first.    As for the other salespeople?  They still sold next to nothing.

Blinding flash of the obvious!  

I chose to write this week’s blog about applying what I already know.  But like you, I have a lot going on so I ignored what I knew.  I violated the very basic principle of focus, and the result was predictable.  

So if you want your salespeople to do more…ask them for less.

Ben Horowitz is the co-founder of Andreessen Horowitz, the Silicon Valley venture firm that invested in Facebook, Twitter, Skype, and Foursquare. Of course, they’ve backed a lot of failures too. But suffice to say that few people think about competition as much as Horowitz, so I was interested in seeing his reading list.

He recommends the following reads for managers, entrepreneurs, and investors.

1. "The Innovator’s Dilemma" — Clayton Christensen

Interestingly this is the only business book that Steve Jobs liked. In his biography of Jobs, Walter Isaacson’s wrote that it “deeply influenced” Jobs. Fittingly the book shows why and how most companies miss out on new waves of innovation — they do exactly what they are taught to do in business school.

2. "The Black Jacobins" — C.L.R. James

This is a powerful history of the Haitian Revolution of 1794-1803, which became the model for Third World liberation movements. A barely literate slave, Toussaint L’Ouverture, lead the people of San Domingo against successive invasions by French, Spanish, and English forces. Oh yea, and in the process he helped form the first independent nation in the Caribbean.

3. "Only the Paranoid Survive" – Andy Grove

I read this book as part of my MBA program. It’s full of common sense, which, while I didn’t know it at the time, isn’t so common.

4. "Focus" – Al Reis

This is an interesting pick. Marketing “expert” Al Ries believes that focus is the answer to continued growth and prosperity. You know, the common sense approach that Apple and almost no one else seems to follow these days: focus on core products and avoid the siren song of everything else. Of course this isn’t the only way to success and lots of companies that focus fail while lots of companies that diversify succeed. Notwithstanding that, focus is the key to mindfulness.

5. "My Years at GM" – Alfred Sloan

This is a book that everyone talks about but few people have read. Bill Gates, who did read it, called it the best business book every written. Peter Drucker said the same thing. A great story about how to lead, organize, and communicate things at a large organization.

SEE ALSO: Why Star Silicon Valley Investor Ben Horowitz Is Obsessed With Hip Hop Music

Join the conversation about this story »

They Aren’t Who They Appeared To Be in the Interview

The third biggest complaint I hear from business owners and sales managers about salespeople is that they aren’t who they appeared to be in the interview. If you hire the wrong person it is your fault not theirs. Everybody is going to be on their best behavior in the interview. Any salesperson with an ounce of skill will probably try to bond with you so you like them. The good news is that this problem is totally fixable. But the problem lies with you as previously stated. Frequently we see leaders who are hiring salespeople approach the matter like they would for other positions and salespeople are the hardest to hire. They will bond with you, they might be friendly and cause you to like them, but I urge you to realize a few facts:

• 90% of all hiring decisions are made from the interview

• Traditional interviewing is only 14% accurate

• More than 30 million people have secured a job by lying on their resumes

Regarding the last point, I know a recruiter who believes EVERYBODY lies on their resume, so my statistic might actually be low. And, I find that owners and leaders who have made mistakes in this area or a little gun shy about having to do it again, so they live with mediocre or poor results too long and then complain that person wasn’t who they said they were. But you can fix this. Here’s how:

1. Assess all candidates using an objective tool designed specifically for sales. I choose to use the #1 rated tool on the market offered by Objective Management Group. Sample candidate assessment.
2. Assess them as early as feasible in the process so you don’t waste your time on candidates that won’t work out. Also, by assessing early and eliminating those candidates that won’t work out you won’t fall in love with them in the interview and then disregard the assessment findings.
3. If you don’t have someone in your company who is skilled at recruiting salespeople, strongly consider hiring this service. You do not want to choose the best of the worst pool of candidates and most people inside middle market and small companies do not have the expertise to recruit salespeople even though they may have success with other types of positions.
4. Take more of an audition approach in the early stages of interviewing sales types. Do not make them feel comfortable and wanted. Make them show you how they would bond with prospects who aren’t that excited about them.
5. Use good behavioral questions to uncover what they actually know how to do and what they have done.
6. Pick apart every claim they make on their resume to determine if they are who they say they are and also to determine how similar their experiences are to what they will find with your company. They don’t have to be from the same industry, but you want to determine how well their history has prepared them for what they will need to do to be effective with you.
7. Have a killer 90 day plan to effectively onboard them.

If you struggle with effectively hiring sales talent, you are not alone, but when you hire the wrong salesperson, not only is it frustrating, it costs your company somewhere between 3x and 5x their annual compensation. Don’t blame the bad hire. Make a commitment to fix your process so you don’t do it again.

Five Most Common Complaints About the Sales Team – Part One

Five Most Common Complaints About the Sales Team – Part Two

While following in the footsteps of the successful doesn't guarantee success, it provides a pretty good outline when forming your own strategies. The biography of the late Jerry Garcia points to such an outline of how the Grateful Dead approached their work that might serve useful in yours.

Read more...

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We are witnessing the emergence of a new industry of collaborative enterprises that let consumers bypass traditional, inefficient companies to get the products and services they want.

Zipcar (automobiles), Airbnb (rooms to rent for vacationers), and BookCrossing (a social book sharing community) all help people find what they want quickly, cheaply, and efficiently — from each other.

From Etsy to TaskRabbit to Lyft, the sharing economy is on the rise. Your customers are sharing products rather than buying them — and that’s a disruption to you.

Sharing is not new, but with the emergence of digital connections, it is taking on a different dimension. The sharing mentality is making a dent in economic models, businesses, and resource-inventiveness. The traditional roles of business and consumer are blurring. Consumers are now creators, producers, financers, hoteliers, and more. People are bypassing traditional businesses to find custom services and products that better fit their needs.

This change will be more obvious as the millennial generation moves from a culture of owning assets to a culture of owning experiences.

Your consumers are asking:

• Do I need a new snow blower, or should I just rent one when the need rises?

• Do I need a new car (and all the miscellaneous services to support it – gas, insurance, parking fees, maintenance), or can I just borrow one when I need one to run errands?

• Should I rent out my spare bedroom and make some cash while supporting the tourist influx into the city for the big concert?

For my new report ‘Sharing is the New Buying,’ I surveyed over 90,000 people in the US, Canada, and the UK and estimated that “sharers” (people interested in sharing) make up nearly 40% of the population in these regions. About 75% of these sharers cite convenience as their main incentive, and more than 50% cite lower costs.

If large corporations think that web-based sharing companies will take years to achieve scale or disrupt the current climate, they need to think again. Internet in households and on a mobile device, magnified by social connections, is powering these businesses like never before. Tech giants like Facebook and Google want to bring the Internet to every household worldwide and have added these goals to their company mission statements, so demand for these services is only going up.

The survey findings highlight numerous opportunities for established businesses:

• No single category of the emerging sharing services enjoys more than 10% of population patronage, signaling room for growth and new players.

• The number of neo-sharers (sharers using emergent sharing platforms) is set to double in the next 12 months.

• The emerging-sharing platforms like Etsy, Uber, and Taskrabbit are set to grow at the same rate as the mature re-use marketplaces like eBay and Craigslist, spelling similar consumer acceptance over time.

• Nearly half of the neo-sharers are millennials, so we can expect this trend to grow in the coming years, and that’s one of biggest reasons corporations need to wake up.

• Neo-sharers engage in mainstream life-style choices and hence look a lot like your average consumers – so if you can reach your consumers you can reach these sharers!

Another important result is that these neo-sharers are not driven by economic need, rather they form a part of the affluent population that sees “sharing” as a natural extension of their lives.

So why adopt the collaborative economy, and why now?

- The millennial generation is moving away from an ethos of ownership to one of access, sharing and community support, driven by altruism (sustainable living) and pragmatism (cheaper goods and services in a tough economy).

- An ecosystem of middlemen, startups, and early adopters, enable these exchanges and provide trusted platforms to fund, design, develop, rent, sell, and service offerings from within communities.

- Sharing businesses are fostering new-age parallel services and businesses.

- The Internet of things is able to tap into unused resources and turn them into revenue through sensors and other hi-tech monitoring.

The economic impact could be huge. I estimate that each properly shared car replaces nine or more purchased cars, with obvious ripple effects to the auto manufacturing, dealer, insurance, and financial sectors that serve the car market.

Whether you’re a big company or small, nearly every vertical is being impacted by the sharing economy. So what should your company do about it?

The first step is to recognize this change and disruption that is growing with every new user connected to the Internet or a smart mobile device.

The next step is to create a culture for innovation and change in the organization to be nimble in response to these changes.

Then you want to look for the opportunity in this new ecosystem and have the courage to change what’s ‘not working’.

Corporations can not only just stay relevant, but also lead the charge in their own community. North America is leading on this mindset, but I am really excited about the potential for the sharing economy in Asia.

This April, I will be speaking at the Crowdsourcing Week Global Conference in Singapore on how the collaborative mindset can propel Asia into a new era. Asia has 1 billion people online, but this is just 30% of its population. This number is increasing every day along with smartphone usage, and a high percentage of these users are from English-speaking countries. Crowdsourced labor is helping micro-entrepreneurs, and Zhu ba jie, China’s crowdsourcing platform, boasts more than 8 million workers.

The travel industry is set for disruption and creating a ripple in Asia with parallel services booming.

We live in a very exciting age, and now is the time to shape the conversation on what the future of collaborative business will look like in the coming months and years.

Jeremiah Owyang is chief catalyst and founder of Crowd Companies. He helps major companies navigate the first phase of sharing, called social media. He’s committed to helping companies through the second phase of sharing, as people share and create the physical world around them. He was previously a founding partner and research director at Altimeter Group. Prior to that, he was an analyst with Forrester covering social computing for the interactive marketer, and he handled Global Web Marketing at Hitachi Data Systems, where he launched the social media program. You can follow him on Twitter, Facebook, and Google+.

HONG KONG – Asian stocks followed Wall Street lower Friday on lingering concerns about weakness in the Chinese economy and tensions in Ukraine.

Regional benchmarks took their lead from the Dow Jones industrial average, which had its worst day in six weeks.

Worries that world’s No. 2 economy is entering a deeper slowdown were heightened after data released Thursday showed Chinese industrial production and retail sales grew slower than analysts expected. At the same time, Premier Li Keqiang signalled that China’s leaders are “not preoccupied” with hitting the official 7.5 per cent economic growth target.

Investors are also retreating from risky investments such as stocks ahead of a public referendum in Crimea on Sunday to decide whether to break away from Ukraine and become part of Russia.

“Risk aversion is likely to deepen at the end of the week and at the beginning of next week,” strategists at Credit Agricole CIB wrote in a research note.

Japan’s Nikkei 225 tumbled nearly 3 per cent to 14,380.79 as investors sought haven in yen, sending its value higher. A stronger yen makes goods sold by the country’s exporters pricier for overseas buyers. The dollar has lost about 1.4 per cent against the yen in the past week and was trading at 101.65 Japanese yen, down from 102.74 yen late Thursday.

Hong Kong’s Hang Seng dropped 1 per cent to 21,541.04 and China’s Shanghai Composite fell 0.5 per cent to 2,008.36. South Korea’s Kospi slipped 0.4 per cent to 1,925.81.

Stocks in Australia, where the resource-led economy and currency have been highly dependent on China’s fortunes, dropped sharply, with the S&P/ASX 200 sinking 1.3 per cent to 5,340.40.

Mining and resource companies were among the hardest hit on the Australian bourse, with Rio Tinto losing 2.4 per cent and BHP Billiton shedding 1.6 per cent.

“Cyclical names were already going to be on the back foot due to Ukraine concerns but China data just exacerbated the situation,” said Stan Shamu, market strategist at IG Markets in Melbourne.

On Wall Street, the Dow Jones industrial average slid 1.4 per cent to 16,108.89 on Thursday. The S&P 500 fell 1.2 per cent to close at 1,846.34. The Nasdaq composite dropped 1.5 per cent to 4,260.42. The last time the market had a bigger decline was Feb. 3, when the Dow sank 326 points, or 2.1 per cent.

The euro fell slightly to $1.3861 from $1.3863.

Oil prices edged higher. Benchmark crude for April delivery was up 1 cent to $98.21 a barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. The contract rose 21 cents to close at $98.20 on Thursday.

The post Asian stock markets follow Wall Street lower as China economy, Ukraine worries persist appeared first on Canadian Business.

If you’re lucky enough to have a successful small business, there may come a time when you’ll want to expand your business abroad.

Branching out internationally can bring huge benefits. You stand to gain a whole new client base, a bigger business profile, fresh tax options, potential new partners and, most importantly, more profits.

But exploring unfamiliar business territories can also bring risks. You may have to grapple with language barriers as well as differing banking and business systems. So how can you expand your business abroad without jeopardizing all the hard work you’ve put into building up your company on your own turf?

1. Client Base

When starting a business abroad, many entrepreneurs make the mistake of choosing a country that might look good for their profile but doesn’t hold the sales potential. It’s all very well dreaming of having the glamorous words ‘Paris – New York – London’ under your business name but if those cities don’t hold a solid client base for your product then you’re likely to be eating into the profits of the company in your home-country.

Find out all about the cultures of the countries you’re interested in and the people who live there. If you have some idea of the trending products of the country or popular pastimes of the residents, then you’ll be on track to be able to cater to their tastes.

2. Branding

The name of your company may mean something in your home country but does it say the same thing abroad? Watch out for words or slogans that could get lost in translation.

Some examples of disastrous branding translations include an Iranian company who produced a soap powder called ‘Barf’(which means snow in Iran) and the KFC slogan ‘Finger Lickin’ Good’ which didn’t go down so well in China where is was translated as ‘Eat Your Fingers Off’!

Double check with a native speaker that your brand name and advertising slogans hit the right note and won’t offend or turn off potential clients overseas.

3. Rivals

You might be the only person in your country who is offering your particular product or services but across the waters you might find that your business idea is not as unique as you thought. Make sure you check up on your potential rivals first and see how you can tweak your business to stay one step ahead of your competitors. Sometimes the very fact that you’re foreign is seen as exotic or special for some customers, so find ways of accentuating those points in order to cash in on your distinctive brand.

4. Tax Options

Finding out which countries offer the best corporate tax rates is easy enough – with just a bit of time on Google you can discover that Bulgaria has a very pleasing low rate of 10% but Japan by contrast has an eye-wateringly high corporate tax rate of 38%. But a word of warning: simply shifting your business to a country just for tax reasons could leave you open to tax fraud investigations.

Opening virtual offices is a practice that has become very popular amongst international entrepreneurs who don’t want to base themselves permanently in a country, but in order to take advantage of the low tax rate of certain territories you’ll need to be able to prove that you either have an established client base there, the prospect of potential customers and sales leads, or that you have employees on the ground. And watch out for hidden costs too. Some countries offer low corporate tax rates but will make their money back on other taxes and charges.

5. Support System

One way to make sure you have all the relevant tax information is to find yourself an accountant or lawyer who is fully versed in the finance and law of your chosen country. It’s much wiser to pay for the services of a professional at the start, than run the risk of complications later on down the line which may cost you an even bigger wad of your company cash and also your precious time (that could be better spent on your business).

If you’re setting up in a country where the language is different to your own, you may find that hiring a company formations agent is a smart move. Not only will they do all the paperwork for you, but they can also set you up with lawyers, accountants, banks and serviced offices.

All the best pioneering international entrepreneurs have at least a small support system of professionals to smooth the way, so follow their lead and build a team of trusted people you can rely on for facts and advice.

6. Bon Voyage!

Before you pack your briefcase, try to read up on the company creation requirements to ensure you have all the correct documentation to hand. Some documents need to be translated by a certified office or verified by a lawyer so double check the forms before you submit them if you want to minimize delays.

Whatever country you decide to expand to, ensure your entry into international business by keeping an eye on your chosen country so that you avoid the pitfalls and reap only profits and success by expanding your company overseas.

It is not enough in selling anymore to just show up and be effective at working a sales territory. You need to plan, strategize, and prepare for success.  You also need to be aware that a number of strategies will get you closer to prospective customers – not just one. At Score More Sales we call the multiple strategies in prospecting the Sales Pipeline Success Puzzle. Put all the pieces together, and you have the whole picture – which means you have new sales opportunities.

It always works to add at least one more strategy to any seller’s single strategy routine. You say your industry is special? Your market niche is different? I doubt it.

Take Joe for example. He sells SaaS cloud services. Joe has a massive work ethic and sends out over 200 individual emails to prospective customers each week. He does not like to use the phone much, and has never had a formal plan to contact strategic partners who could refer him multiple opportunities on a regular basis. His company does not offer him much support in marketing or social tools. Joe has to be entrepreneurial in order to succeed.

After several conversations, Joe identified a list of 20 people in adjacent industries – so not people who work at competitive companies but rather those at companies that compliment what Joe does. They, along with Joe, run into many of the same companies every week. Traditionally everyone contacts these companies on their own.

Joe felt that the 20 people he listed were all movers and shakers – even some real industry experts and influencers. Joe knows all of them – some more than others, but he has no regular conversations with any one of them.

Here’s what Joe did. In January he kicked off the new year making regular contact with each of the 20 strategic individuals – people who could refer him in an ongoing way into potential sales opportunities. Joe made 4 calls a day initially to reach all 20 of these contacts. He found 3 who were not interested in collaborating and sharing ideas, so he changed those 3 out to 3 others who would be a much better fit. Two of the last three people he identified, it turns out, helped him to find four potential sales opportunities he was not aware of. Joe ultimately closed two of the deals, adding $48K/year worth of net new business within 45 days. Not bad, since Joe’s two new clients helped him blow out his Q1 quota.

What did Joe do? He was open to a new strategy. He added it into his normal week, and put a plan to regularly call his “Power 20″ as he calls them – all individually – to offer them insight, ideas, and leads. They do the SAME for him.

Interested in hearing more about the  Sales Pipeline Success Puzzle? Click here (FREE DOWNLOAD), and stay open to diversifying your prospecting strategies if you are focused on just one or two ways to reach potential prospects.

Lori Richardson is recognized as one of the “Top 25 Sales Influencers for 2013″ and one of “20 Women to Watch in Sales Lead Management for 2013″. Lori speaks, writes, trains, and consults with inside and outbound sellers in technology and services companies. Subscribe to the award-winning blog and the “Sales Ideas In A Minute” newsletter for sales strategies, tactics, and tips in selling. Increase Opportunities. Expand Your Pipeline. Close More Deals.

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

The post How a Referral Plan Gave a Seller 2 Big Deals appeared first on Score More Sales.

Accept that she’s right

The leads probably are horrible.

Most B2B companies concentrate on selling products.  Folks only stumble onto their websites when they search for the name of the company, a brand name, or a specific product spec.  And if that’s how they’re finding you, that’s the same way they’re finding all your competitors.  By the time your rep begins a conversation it’s already an advanced competitive situation which has devolved into a discussion of details.

Additionally, most B2B websites (realistically the source of most leads today) aren’t more than a mediocre on-line brochure.  (Ever think about the difference between how companies treat real visitors vs. web visitors?)  They excel at boring the heck out of a visitor with boilerplate information about the company….and little about the value customers realize.  Visitors are either expected to navigate to a page footer (looking for a telephone number) or a “Contact Us” page looking for a clumsy form which often doesn’t provide any confirmation that it worked.  Could you make it any harder for a genuine lead to quickly understand how you might help, and then raise their hand for you?

So, honestly, she’s probably right.  The leads are probably both meager in quantity and abysmal in quality.

Demonstrate that she’s wrong

At the same time she’s way off base.  The way her team sells is outdated – they’ll screw up even good leads.  ”No way!” you say?  Here’s what I mean.

The whole premise of lead follow up in most companies is that a prospect has said they’re possibly interested in buying your product.  So the call or email response goes out – and sounds something like “You were looking at/asking about/interested in our 93GWhizA-10.  I’m calling to see what questions I can answer for you.”

Think about how you buy yourself.  It’s different now, right?  It’s so easy to find information (at least from companies that deliberately work at it – not relying on hocus pocus SEO tricks) that you tend to search as soon as you have an idea.  You don’t “need it” yet; you probably don’t even know exactly what you want, much less what you need.  You poke around, gather some information and then get back to your priorities – noodling what you learned.

Back to focused on other priorities, you’re interrupted by a sales rep who calls to talk about specifications of the 93GWhizA-10.  Is that even remotely relevant to the task on your plate?  Probably not – in fact you likely don’t even remember what you specifically saw on one of a dozen websites that might have peaked your interest.  You’ll be courteous to the rep who interrupted you, maybe ask them to send you something to graciously get them off the phone, and then disappear off their radar.  The rep will tell his sales manager that you were another of those crappy leads.  Then she’ll come to the weekly staff meeting grumbling about the quality of leads.

Bottom line?  Your VP Sales is probably one of your biggest business development hurdles…but not the biggest.  There are two bigger problems to cover in upcoming blog posts.

Move beyond the tweaks

By now you’re thinking, “OK, not sure I buy it, but if it’s correct, how do we fix it?”  Fair question.

First, recognize that this isn’t’ about technique – this is about a fundamental shift in how “marketing” and “sales” are defined.  The demarcation used to have marketing responsible for creating brochures, scheduling trade shows and collecting volumes of leads from bingo decks.  Direct sales was responsible for building relationships, creating projects, educating prospects and closing deals.  Selling was done by reps.

That’s now shifted dramatically in the market – but most companies haven’t adapted their model.

Research shows that today it’s common for B2B buyers to be 70% of the way through their buying process before they entertain speaking with a sales rep.  So companies are applying an outdated model to modern buying practices.  That’s broken, and it’s not going to be fixed by practicing how to ask questions in a crafty way.

Most B2B manufacturing companies describe the same challenges

• not generating enough leads
• the leads they do generate are low quality
• they face more competition
• margins are compressed
• sales cycles are protracted

So most step up traditional lead generation efforts…spending more without clear ROI…and achieving more frustration.

Solve it

How do you fix it?  How do you generate more sales qualified leads and then sell them empathetically?

That requires tackling your three largest business development barriers simultaneously.  Your VP of sales is one.  We’ll outline the other two in coming days.

But simply put, it’s time to adapt (not a comfortable word for most B2B manufacturing companies) the way you market and sell.  It’s time to match your B2B Sales &  Marketing to today’s buyers’ habits and expectations.

Want some more background while you’re waiting for the next installment?  Check out our book on the evolution of B2B Marketing and Sales.

image – NetSpeed Learning

It never fails. I am speaking to a prospective new client about how to better acquire new and qualified leads for their business. My first question is usually what have you been doing up until this point. Invariably, the person will say; “We bought a list of 10,000 names and email addresses.” Much like a good attorney, always knowing the answer prior to asking the question, I still pose it anyway. “How did that work out?” The answer almost 99% of the time is; “well, it didn’t”.

Please do not get me wrong the people that compile business lists are good people with honest intentions. But when I hear over and over that companies are spending 2, 3, and $4,000 for lists with less than a 1% response rate, it just makes my head hurt.

So what is the alternative to buying bulk B2B lists you may ask? Well there really is only one or two options.

1. Create your own. An organically created list of qualified prospects will be your best bet. You or someone in your organization built it, qualified, and verified it. Is this time consuming? You bet it is. If you are a start up or you are venturing into a new vertical or geographical territory wouldn’t you like to have the piece of mind that the information in your inside sales team’s hands is accurate? There is nothing worse than wasting time and money sending emails and making calls to people that do not exist or are not involved in any decision making process whatsoever.

2. If you must purchase bulk lists try and narrow your parameters. Instead of buying a list of 20,000 facility managers in higher education. Narrow it down to the southeast or the top 200 largest universities. You will get information that is easier to digest and if the data is inaccurate, then someone in your organization can do a one minute Google search to verify and correct.

High quality prospects are the life blood of any sales driven organization. Why waste time on money in the acquisition and dissemination of this data? If you are not willing to do the extra work to increase your pipeline, I am sure your competitors will be.

Good Luck and Good Selling!

Last week I posted a LinkedIn Update about how many people took advantage of LinkedIn’s “Happy Birthday” feature. It received the highest number of views of any Update I’ve posted since LinkedIn began “Who’s Viewed Your Updates”.

The Numbers:

• 5696 Total Views
• 29 Likes
• 25 Comments

Here is a breakdown.

1,031 Views from my Level 1 Connections. That’s 30% of my total Level 1 Connections. That amazes me because Updates are in a time stream. That means 1,031 of my Connections were on their Home Page when I posted this. 18 of them Liked the Update and 23 people made a Comment about it (mostly “Happy Birthday”). Triggering responses is critical to going viral because responses from your Level 1 exposes your message to your Level 2 – people who don’t know you.

4,267 Views from my Level 2. The update was seen by 4 times the number of people who did not know me as it was by people who knew me. This implies a few of the Level 1 responders have big networks. Again, some of them Liked (5) and Commented (4).

398 Views from my Level 3. While I am excited to get this far out of my network, I thought this number is not bigger, but hey, I am not complaining. Besides, some people in my Level 3 Liked and Commented, meaning it went to my Level 4 – beyond what LinkedIn displays in W.V.Y.U..

The best part about this feature is that I can click on the “See Full Conversation” link to view all comments and reply to any or all of them. This makes it a two-way conversation.

The Opportunity for Corporations

I recently asked a VP of Sales, “How would you like to add 250 people to your Marketing Dept. overnight without increasing payroll?” Of course, I was talking about his sales force of 250 reps. Imagine all 250 sales reps getting these results twice a week. That would be 148M views a year.

That’s likely to generate a few leads, don’t you think?

This is a guest contribution from Luke Guy, blogger and graphic designer.

It’s amazing how blogs have exploded within the last 10 years – take ProBlogger for instance. Blogs like these can provide a good living for the owner if the traffic remains strong and healthy. But how do these blogs retain the traffic and keep a steady flow? There are many ways, but I want to discuss with you a vitally important one: your email list.

Usually more email subscribers would mean more traffic. Right? Well, not anymore.

Bloggers are facing diving open rates today like never before. Small bloggers and the celebrity bloggers alike suffer.

But why?

Let me give you 8 Reasons Why Your Email Open Rate Is Nosediving.

1. You have lots of images within the email.

When it comes to email open rates, fashion is not how you make waves. Simpler is better in this case. HTML is good, but text based emails are even better. I know we’re tempted to be flashy, but if no one is seeing it, what’s the point? Your email is going to be seen more when images aren’t within them. They flag filters many times, and can annoy the reader also. It’s best to simply state your message and get to the point quickly.

2. Way too long!

In the blog world an article of 200-1000 words is considered an informative post (View Darren’s Post On Word Count). Reading one of these could take 5-7 minutes to read, and 15 minutes to fully understand.

In email this is simply not so. Why? You’re simply updating them with short exclusive information, and persuading them to spend a minute on this unexpected message from you. Think of your email newsletter as a bite-size sample of your blog. Let every bite be extremely pleasant and leave them wanting more. Where do they get more? Your blog.

In order to do this, your email must be short, sweet, and fulfilling in bite-size. 150-450 word count would be best when writing. You’re sharing exclusive content, updating, and telling them about your new blog post kind-of-thing.

3. Links Everywhere.

When all they see is outlined sentences everywhere, landing somewhere in the unknown, the word SPAMMY is the first thoughts of most readers. They get the idea that all you’re trying to do is send them to a place they don’t want to go, to spend money they don’t want to spend. Put only one link in your article, and give them many good reasons why they should click on that link. Not one reason to click on 10 links, that’s not as effective. So choose your link wisely, and this also will prevent your email from getting vacuumed by the email filters.

4. Your agenda appears to be making money.

When they see your email appear, what should they expect? If it’s another course, eBook, or program in which they must buy, there’s a good chance you’re going to get turned off eventually. A good rule of thumb is to give your reader 10x more. Instead, offer freebies just so they will warm up to you. If you need some freebie ideas, go here: 6 Freebies That Will Spike Engagement In Your Blog

I know we’re all trying to come up with ways in which to make money, but it’s better to have our customers coming to us with their money, not the other way around with us chasing them and their wallet. When they understand that you’re for them and wanting to help more than to make a buck, they will come.

5. Your email is only a result from an RSS blast.

Your emails should be exclusive content, not an email blaster from your RSS feed. Many will disagree with me on this, because they don’t want another article to write. I understand their pain, but what’s the point of offering this option of RSS if they’re not going to read it? With Google’s Gmail Algorithm, RSS is a turn off and a good chance it will never make it to their inbox.

How will they find out about by my new blog post then? you might be asking.

Give them many reasons within that email why they should read that article and give them a link to it. The reason shouldn’t be because it’s new. It should be because it’s helpful and can be found almost no where else. You’re just pointing them back to it so they won’t miss this amazing content.

6. Not full of helpful information.

You thought that tips, helpful information, and how-tos were only for blogs? Not so, it will apply to your email rate as well. Except you have only a few seconds to persuade them to read it, a few more seconds to finish reading it, and finally to click on whatever link you may have for them (that was the point of the email right?).

The only thing is with email, shorter is better. Why? When trying to catch the eye, you have only a few seconds to persuade them to read it and consume your information. As for a blog post, most were searching for the solution you have to offer and were willing to spend the time to solve their problem. So make it short but powerful since your message was unexpected!

7. They don’t feel a personal connection with you.

If all you do is sell, command, and write like you’re talking to the wall, they’re not feeling what you write. To avoid this, write as if they’re your friend. Instead of writing to your readers, write to your reader specifically. Pretend that you’re writing to one of your readers, and let them feel that one-on-one connection. It’s about winning their trust, which is key to any business.

8. You’re boring.

If you’re doing all of the above, it’s time to face it. It’s time for a recharge. Sometimes to make our tips more helpful, and our writing voice more inspirational, we need to read more and be inspired. Like an athlete, we must eat more than we burn. If not, we don’t have much to offer.

Go out in your niche and explore again. It could be the simple fact that you are burned out and need to refill with more helpful information.

Ways to improve email letter quality:

1. Read a blog post like this one by Darren Rowse On Passion: Passion – Do You Have It?

2. Interact more in the comment section.

3. Listen to podcasts.

4. Talk to pros in your niche.

5. Take a course.

6. Think more, and spend more time with that writing piece.

7. Study your competition and how they write their emails. Read this to be inspired: Learning Your Foes Makes You a Better Hero

So basically you’re defeating two things here, the email filter and the reputation of scammers. It’s so easy to be flagged as a scammer these days and you must work extra hard to appear the very opposite. These tips will make that happen, and will also get your emails to bypass the filters.

Mission Accomplished.

You’re going to see great results from this if applied correctly. I’ve learned by not selling, you kind of are. When they know you’re in business, and all you do is help, curiosity takes over them. When they see your free tips work tremendously, what will your paid versions do?

Thanks for reading and I wish you higher email rates!

Did I miss something? Leave a comment below and let’s see what you have to offer to the Problogger community.

Luke Guy is both graphic artist and blogger, publisher for LukeGuy.com, and graphic designer for hire. He’s loves to blog and helping people with dreams in starting a business.

 

Originally at: Blog Tips at ProBlogger

8 Reasons Why Your Email Open Rate is Nosediving

Facebook commissioned GfK to better understand people's behavior as they move across multiple devices, including smartphones, tablets and laptops or PCs, throughout the day. The study of over 4,000 online adults across the UK and US found that people feel a different connection to each device, and that each plays a distinct role as people switch between devices during their daily routine.

Are you baffled about the price-tag on the Whatsapp acquisition? We’ve come up with an infographic that will make this union with Facebook make a lot more sense.

Do This And Win. Don’t Do This And Lose! is a post from: The Sales Blog | S. Anthony Iannarino

Let me pitch you on how to think about your sales process and why it is important to you as a salesperson and/or a sales manager.

Do This And Win

Your sales process is simply the collection of things that you do that lead to a won deal. It outlines all of the steps between target and close. It outlines all of the outcomes you need to obtain, all the little milestones along the way. And it outlines all of the commitments you need, most of the important ones coming way before you ever get to the final commitment.

When you follow your sales process, you massively improve the value you create for your dream client, and you massively improve the likelihood that you win. That’s why it’s kind of a big deal.

Now look, I’m not suggesting that a sales process isn’t dynamic, that you don’t need some chops to work through the parts where turn-by-turn directions aren’t available. But not following a process is foolish.

Don’t Do This And Lose

When you don’t follow your process, you miss some of the important outcomes that end up costing you deals later.

When you miss the development of needs, you put your solution, your presentation, and your proposal at risk. When you decide that consensus isn’t an outcome you want to worry too much about, you discover later that your “power sponsor” doesn’t have the power, and that the other stakeholders killed the deal.

If there are commitments you need, you need to ask for them. These commitments are what propels your deal forward. Not asking for or obtaining the commitments you need is going to add a big “L” to your record.

Questions

Do you follow your sales process? Be real here. Do you follow your company’s process?

Do you always obtain the outcomes you need to create value for your dream client?

Do you always ask for and obtain the commitments you really need?

Look at the last deal you lost. Now look at your sales process. If you could go back and compete for that deal all over again, what would you change? Is it right there in your process?

Whether you have many competitors, are in a small niche industry, or are one of two finalists for a project, you need to differentiate. You need to demonstrate you are different, as well as better.

Not only that, but you must appeal the to the buyer's emotional side, as people buy based on emotion and justify the decision with logic. That means you need to present the facts in a way that makes buyers feel good about you, your company, and your work. It calls for some creative thinking.

Creative Sales Habits

Everyone adopts best sales practices. Everyone develops patterns for doing things. The problem is if everyone follows those same practices, repeating what they and others have done, everyone starts to look the same.

"There tends to be this pattern of replication," says Mark Donnolo, author of The Innovative Sale. "What we tend to do is we find how others are doing it, or maybe we think about how somebody did it before at a prior company, and we tend to replicate—we tend to repeat. So, there's a big space, a big opportunity to think about how to do something differently."

At the top of the list of challenges for SMB B2B CEO’s is hiring sales reps, as shown in the proof that every single client of ours is hot on the trail to hire additional sales personnel. We all know that hiring sales reps is extremely difficult – you are rolling the dice on a large investment, with the HOPE that you will have hired a performer that is equal to, or better than what you already have in your team. If you end up making a poor hiring decision, you typically won’t figure it out for another 6-9 months, leaving a large amount of money and a lost opportunity in the wake of your decision.

In order optimize your chances of hiring a great sales rep, we recommend gathering the following information when assessing a new sales hire.

1. Income Verification. Yes, you should verify income with any rep that you plan on hiring. Income verification is a touchy subject because most people are afraid to ask the question for fear of turning away the prospective hire. Here’s the bottom line- people lie, especially when it comes to compensation. If you are going to lay out a plan that either bridges a prior commission plan or entices someone to leave a good situation, trust and honesty are two items that need to be quickly validated in the front end of the relationship. High performing individuals are proud of the money they make and aren’t deterred from flaunting fat W2’s. I would think that most CEO’s and VP’s of Sales would prefer to hire individuals with healthy earnings in past lives, with the desire and hunger to maintain a comfortable living based on future success.
2. Detailed Hunting Process. Typically, companies hire to the sales team because they are seeking net new logos. Unless the role is defined as “account management”, these new hires are required to be pure hunters. Being a successful hunter requires a detailed plan of attack. Rogue hunters are not consistently successful; they are successful in spurts, primarily at the start of a new job. Asking a prospective hire to lay out a plan (when in the interview) as to how they would prospect a territory, is not out of line. In fact, I would ask them to whiteboard the process over a live and impromptu session. This should give you a clear indication as to how much of the planning is innate versus derived from previous exercises.
3. 5 Writing Samples. Written communications are considered a critical success factor in today’s age of B2B communications. Because it is becoming more difficult to contact and engage B2B buyers, the various forms of written channels are emerging as more prevalent avenues for connecting with your buyer personas. Outside of evaluating the candidate’s social media profiles, LinkedIn, and email exchanges, we recommend that you ask your prospects to submit various writing samples that mirror the types of communication they may have with your clients. Assessing written communications may uncover various characteristics that you may not be able to visualize during an interview. With a large part of a sales role requiring writing as a high volume task within the position, why not vet out this skill as well?
4. 3 Former Client References. Everyone has (selective) references that are willing to tell a wonderful story. How about requesting 3-4 specific client references that can vouch for the pursuit, the close, the relationship value, the management of the relationship, the credibility, and the trust of the sales candidate? It’s critical to dig real deep into these references. When I say dig deep, I mean ask ALL of the tough questions that give you a complete assessment to understand whether or not they have sales champion pedigree. Don’t be afraid to find out why clients selected your candidate to work with specifically and how they compare against competition. Evaluate the client’s buying process and how this candidate engaged in the relationship over the life of the process. These references, if checked effectively, could become the determining factor for a hiring decision.

Many companies play the odds game by hiring a slew of reps and weeding them out through the process of natural selection, but if you don’t have the luxury of this model and need to make each decision count, make sure to ask these 4 questions to all of your candidates. After all, you’re only hiring for the future of your revenue stream.

Here’s Bonus Material if you think that you’ve got all of the answers on evaluating sales metrics:

Author: Jon Miller

Too often, I see first-time marketing automation buyers focus too much of their attention on relatively small differences in cost, rather than growing the top-line opportunities that the right automated marketing solution can provide.

For example, for a database of up to 100,000 contacts, most vendors charge somewhere between $2,900 to $3,995 a month. The difference between the lowest and highest-end options is $1,000. When you think about it rationally, that’s not very much — we’re talking one penny a month per contact. Many companies probably spend around $50 for a business-to-business lead. Would you really let $50 slip through your fingers for the sake of one more penny?

You would never buy a Tiffany’s ring and present it in a box from Target, just to save a few dollars, or purchase an expensive piece of art, and put it in a shoddy frame. And yet, many marketers make just this kind of error when comparing the price of marketing automation solutions.

It’s About the Value of Your Tools, Not the Cost

Ironically, you’ll win when you take the opposite approach. If a particular automated marketing solution has even a slightly higher chance of turning a lead into a customer, it’s worth the slightly higher price tag.

Rather than worrying about a price difference of a few hundred dollars, shift your focus to creating value: converting leads into actual customers. In other words, focus on the return on investment, not the raw cost. Ultimately, the risk of not turning your $50 lead into a sale is way more costly than your marketing Software-as-a-Service subscription.

What many don’t recognize is that the real cost of marketing automation is in what’s lost when companies use cheaper, “good enough” tools. Even if a company offers you free marketing software, you might still be losing money. If it doesn’t help you turn leads into opportunities, the cost of that “free” software is actually extraordinarily high.

Start thinking rationally when you’re shopping for marketing automation software. Of course, not every lead will convert. But for a penny, a solution with even a slightly higher fraction of likelihood-to-convert is worth the extra investment.

Want to learn more about the risks and costs of buying the wrong solution?  Download our ebook, Dangers of a “Good Enough” Marketing Automation Solution.

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Here’s A Key Mistake That Many Marketing Automation Buyers Make was posted at Marketo Marketing Blog - Best Practices and Thought Leadership. | http://blog.marketo.com

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Education technology startup Knewton has clinched a major partnership with Microsoft.

Knewton provides an open API for “adaptive learning,” an insidery term for computing that helps students learn at their own pace. Knewton’s technology works by dividing lessons into building blocks and then measuring students’ performance as they learn.

“We feel that we have the best education technology — our algorithms can determine students’ proficiency on any given concept,” explained chief operating officer David Liu in a recent interview.

Knewton already works with publishers like Houghton Mifflin Harcourt (HMH), but Microsoft is even bigger get. The technology giant has invested heavily in its education division, selling its flagship Office and Windows tools to thousands of schools and universities. It also boasts a sizable partner and publisher network.

According to the terms of the partnership agreement, publishers who work with Microsoft can incorporate Knewton’s software into their products.

“This means that publishers will be able to offer robust predictive analytics for teachers,” explained Sara Ittelson, head of business development at Knewton, in a company blog post.

The partnership is strategic on both sides: Microsoft will be able to enhance its product with an adaptive learning tool, and Knewton gains access to a vast distribution channel. According to a company blog post, Microsoft will also introduce Knewton to governmental education agencies around the world.

According to education technology experts, Knewton has become the poster child for adaptive learning.

“Knewton is trying to create some kind of standard around adaptive learning and be the brains behind adaptive content,” said Rob Wrubel, executive vice president at Apollo Education Group, which owns several for-profit educational institutions, including the University of Phoenix. “And Microsoft will now be able to offer more personalized content to students.”

Knewton is also partnering up with hardware developers, course delivery platforms, learning management systems, and more. “Knewton’s partnership with Microsoft is an early example of this flexibility,” Ittelson wrote.

The larger goal for Knewton, according chief executive Jose Ferreira, is to create the world’s most valuable repository on how people learn. This data will likely prove to be highly valuable, particularly with governments attempting to understand and solve the crisis in education (high costs of tuition, overstretched school districts, out-of-control dropout rates, and so on) through technology.

Knewton recently raised $35 million in funding — significant for an ed-tech company — in a round led by Peter Thiel’s venture firm Founders Fund. To date, it has secured $54 million.

It is a no-brainer – as marketing automation and demand generation continue to mature, the need for well-rounded and experienced demand generation marketers also increases. Recently, MarketingProfs published an article about how to hire the best marketers for your team, which got me thinking – with the different facets of demand generation and their discreet areas of expertise, what is the ideal skill set for the future?

In addition to the skills highlighted by MarketingProfs, the following is my list (in order of importance), for the well-rounded demand generation professional of the not-so-distant future:

1. Demonstrable demand generation experience – a proven portfolio of results – orientated original demand generation strategy, and content marketing examples in action
2. Excellent copy writing and editing skills including web and email copy
3. Experience using real KPIs to make informed decisions
4. Solid understanding and practical application of lead management principles
5. Email marketing experience
6. Certification and experience using a robust marketing automation platform

The rise of digital marketing and Buyer 2.0 has brought technology front and center for B2B marketing, creating a new breed of marketer. Now that real ROI and other KPIs have made marketing more accountable for its contribution to pipeline, the days of purely generating awareness are long past. You absolutely need to understand how to set up your measurement and analytics for the entire Demand Process using the technology you have at hand (CRM, MAP, Web Analytics, etc.) in order to effectively create and measure the lead management process and market to your buyer universe. But those skills are easily studied and learned.

The much more challenging skill is that of content production, and not just any content, great content. Content that is aligned to the buyer’s journey and content that converts. Are you able to tell a story? Better yet, are you also able to effectively write (or manage writers), edit and produce that story? That skill takes a journalistic instinct, a critical mind and experience to get results. So if you want to be the most effective and sought after demand generation professional, get comfortable researching and producing content for your buyers, build that portfolio along with getting your MAP certification.

Some will counter and say they’ve got people for content production. And while that’s great to some extent – it leaves you to focus on delivering that content, you have to wonder…if you are the one responsible for demand generation, you’ve got to get yourself involved. Specifically, if you are responsible for the results, you need to have input into that content at a minimum. Otherwise it is not really demand generation, but email marketing.

While you won’t focus on all of the skills above at the same time in your demand generation career, having the exposure to them will prove indispensible.

Author: Erin Kelley @MsErinKelley Vice President, Professional Development and Enablement, ANNUITAS

Ditch the facts-only pitch. Stories with emotion are your most powerful selling tools.

The rule that governs creative writing also governs sales: showing is more powerful than telling.

Entrepreneurs like telling because it is the most efficient way to deliver the myriad facts they have accumulated about their products. And buyers do care about those things. But we are inundated with facts to the point where they have become just noise. Buyers buy on emotion. Facts are devoid of emotion.

You convey emotion with stories. Stories don't tell: they show. As such, they are your most powerful selling tools.

There are two kinds of stories. One kind is about you and your company. The spark of an idea that led you to create the business. A near-death experience and what it taught you. These stories won't come up in every sales conversation. But when introduced as background they communicate values and build trust.

The other type of story provides context. Sometimes buyers need help defining their own challenges--the reasons why they might buy. Stories describe real people to whom buyers can relate, which evokes emotion. The buyers follow those people on their journeys to to the buying decision. That is a more immersive experience than simply reading testimonials. It's the difference between watching a game on TV and checking the score the next morning.

Here is a facts-only pitch for a business-to-business product. It incorporates features and metrics but no emotion.

When there's a lot on the line, you need a solution that works. Our services are designed with that in mind. We have developed a 5-stage model for tackling process efficiencies. Our people bring years of experience helping large organizations diagnose process issues, establish action plans, and measure results. Our clients experience up to 65 percent efficiency improvements over three to six months. That's a substantial ROI.

Here is a story-based pitch for the same product:

One of our clients, Sam, was put in charge of a high-profile project, and he needed help. The problem was, he wasn't sure what type of help. He knew that if he didn't move quickly, the project would be in trouble. He consulted us: we diagnosed the situation and determined we could help. Sam had never heard of our company before, so he was understandably hesitant. But he brought us onboard and our team went right to work, using the first parts of our 5-stage model to get some early wins for Sam. We were delighted because Sam was a fantastic partner, and using our approach he was able to deliver significant results quickly.

Notice that this story both starts and ends with Sam, whose travails and triumphs the buyer will relate to. Sam's "early wins" are much more evocative than those "65 percent efficiency improvements" in the facts-only pitch. And the story shows not only the product doing its job in context but also a believable and satisfying human relationship developing between the company and its client.

As you work with clients, be alert for stories. Ask for testimonials or references: but ask also "what was this experience like for you?" You also need stories about things that didn't go quite right, because those build trust. Your credibility hinges on confessions of vulnerability.

For every set of facts that underpins your business, distill a story or two that give context and connect to emotions. Buyers don't remember facts. They remember stories.

I have a goal and a plan to attract 1,000 leads in the next 30 days. 

Six months ago I launched my Gitomer Certified Advisor program. It allows others in the coaching and training field to use my brand and sell my classroom training and my online platform along with their offerings – or by itself.

After a very successful (but limited) launch, I want to take the program to the next level and need to find interested and qualified people to do so.

THINK ABOUT YOU AS I TELL YOU ABOUT ME. Before I get into the strategy and actions I’m going to take, I want you to understand why I’m writing about the process. I want you to compare it to how you attract, how you prospect, and how you connect with willing buyers.

• How do you get leads?
• How do you prospects?
• What is your strategy to socially involve and attract?
• Is your personal platform strong enough to attract?
• What is your social media lead-conversion rate?

The answers to these questions will significantly impact results.

BIG PICTURE: The strategy for this “attraction campaign” is to use every form of social media and electronic outreach to find interested people, and offer them multiple ways to connect with me. The goal is to give information immediately without a barrier of registering or giving me their information. I want to get my messages BOTH responded to and passed along.

THE TARGETS: In order to get 1,000 leads, I am going to mass mail my contacts and connections AND specifically target existing coaches, existing sales trainers (corporate and independent), and anyone looking to start their own sales training business that wants to use the Jeffrey Gitomer brand to increase authenticity. As a Gitomer Certified Advisor, I provide them with the content, the brand, and the training to make it happen.

TIMED SOCIAL MESSAGES: Posting time and frequency are directly proportionate to the audience reached and their likelihood of response. From my personal experience, my social media consulting expert, Joe Soto, and the article, “The Scientific Guide to Posting Tweets, Facebook Posts, Emails and Blogs at the Best Time” in The Huffington Post, the best times to post on social media are as follows http://blog.bufferapp.com/best-time-to-tweet-post-to-facebook-send-emails-publish-blogposts:

Facebook. Best post times are between 1pm and 3pm Monday through Friday; engagement rates are 18% higher on Thursdays and Fridays.

Twitter. Tweet later in the day. Re-tweets on Twitter are higher at 5pm compared to any other time during the day; the best times to post are between noon and 6pm. This same study found that people are on Twitter 181% more during their commute.   Think about it. Aren’t you more likely to be all about your life and how to improve it before or after work? 

LinkedIn The Media Bistro suggests LinkedIn is most often used right before and after work hours (specifically on Tuesday and Thursday, but no one knows exactly (except maybe LinkedIn).

Blog readers read in the morning, with the “sweet spot” being Thursdays around 11am. But that’s a subjective opinion as well.

YouTube has no “best time.” By comparison to others, its visitors are more search oriented, so I intend to be both searchable and findable. And my new video posts will go out to all my existing subscribers.

CRAP SHOOT REFINED: No one really knows. All messages are different, and all experts are flawed. (I’ve been proving that for years.) I believe that content is a bigger key than what time you post it. And key words will get you found. So that’s where I’m concentrating. I’m going out to my audience, and asking them to go out to their audience (re-tweet, repost, forward, like, comment, and anything else that spreads the word organically).

My overall goal is to generate at least 1,000 leads by May. You may think that is an aggressive goal, but highly achievable through social media and email. Generating 1,000 leads will create a pipeline that will lead me to one sale per day by June 2014. 

And I am going to give you the complete detailed outreach plan for you to use as a guide to creating your own game plan for new leads – next week. 

Today’s guest blog post is by James Rogers, chief marketing officer at Avention. According to Forrester Research, executive buyers today are frustrated by “product-focused” salespeople. Executives don’t want to hear all about your product. They can learn about your offering (not to mention your competitor’s offering) online. Give executives a reason to talk with you – demonstrate that you understand how to help them solve their most pressing business challenges. How can you, the salesperson, push beyond a product-focused conversation? There are a couple of challenges here: first, sellers and marketers might have access to lots of information online, but...

If you want to connect with people, remove the obstacles and implement systems. You'll be amazed at how far it takes you.

Smart companies use systems to provide great service at scale. At dotloop, I do just that for real estate companies. By removing obstacles like paperwork, our customers can deliver what I call "human" experiences. Regardless of what industry you serve, systems are the only way to scale.

The Apple Experience

In particular, a Peoplework company is obsessed with making the human touch scale. One such experience is visiting the Apple Store. From the moment you enter, you are greeted by a rep, then after finding what you need, you get to test it in-store. To check out, you just swipe your card, and then the receipt is sent to your inbox, all before you've walked out the door.

What makes all of that possible with thousands of stores, employees, and customers? Systems.

As a realtor you could never scale helping more people buy or sell a home without a system like the Multiple Listing Service. This allows you to view thousands of homes so you can then show them to interested buyers. Without the ML or something comparable, like a more accurate version of Zillow, a real estate agent can only work with a few people.

People Connect with People

Unlike most people who have a small circle of friends or family members, many businesses serve hundreds or thousands of customers. Being a Peoplework company requires systems, because just a few can't serve the many. People connect with human companies, not robotic ones. So let it become part of who you are as a company. Encourage your employees to think this way, too. Lead by example, and make it known what being a human company means to you and your business. You don't have to be perfect, and your customers don't expect it. Even Apple screws up sometimes.

The Wrong Goals ...

The goals of most businesses today are impersonal. Those with call centers focus on minimizing the time per call, rather than maximizing the value of each conversation. If the goal with all your friends was to keep the calls short, how long do you think you'd stay friends? What if you forwarded your wife's calls to a guy around the globe who could barely speak her language? Flip your current thought process on its head and as Apple said, think differently. People think about business the way we were trained to think about business. However, if you approach your business the way you approach friends and family, things are bound to be far more compelling.

Focus on Existing Customers

My co-author Chris Smith and his business partner Jimmy Mackin launched a real estate digital marketing company called Curaytor in January 2013. By October, they had exceeded their annual goal by 125 percent. However, they decided to hit pause and stop adding new customers, even with demand at an all-time high. This action appeared counterintuitive to growth, but Chris and Jimmy's goal was to focus on providing a better product and service. They rebuilt their infrastructure, and in turn grew their business. Most importantly, their customers felt like family when they heard the news.

In the Peoplework era, companies will see the big picture and realize that quality, not quantity is what matters. Focus on the customer experience, and you're guaranteed to win.

For more information about Peoplework, visit pplwork.com.

Adapted with permission of Peoplework LLC from Peoplework: How to run a people-first business in a digital-first world by Austin Allison and Chris Smith. Copyright (c) 2014 by Peoplework LLC. All rights reserved.

Getting your name in the digital sphere can seem daunting when you’re starting from scratch. Here’s your online reputation checklist.

1. Set up a Google+ Business account to get found by your customers across Google and boost your Google search rankings. Post engaging content regularly to get your message out, and promote your Google+ page with a badge on your website. Posting on other social platforms such as Facebook and Twitter will also increase your presence in organic site listings.

2. Set up site tracking for your website. Arguably the foundation of online marketing, tools such as Google Analytics are easy to set up and allow you to see where visitors are coming from, which channels are working and which definitely aren’t. You can then invest time and resources accordingly.

3. Get some killer content on your social channels. Customers won’t come and take part in the dialogue if there’s nothing to talk about! A new product, a thought-provoking blog post or even a cool picture, accompanied by a question or call to action is a good way to get the ball rolling. Don’t saturate your pages with content, but be consistent in your updates.

4. Start a blog on your website, and promote the content via social channels. Talk about industry issues, or exciting things you’re doing in-house. Be affable and chatty, and allow readers to make comments. This creates a narrative that can be shared around the internet, and creates a personable identity for your brand, which in turn creates trust and improved reputation.

5. Use an online review solution. Customers trust brands that allow them to be objectively reviewed by other users, which is good for the bottom line – one piece of research suggests that providing a review platform for your customers could result in a 27% uptake in sales. Reviews spark dialogue, which will filter across the internet, establishing your online reputation.

6. Start listening to what people say about your brand/products so you’re aware of what’s being said about your company. Accept that sometimes comments and reviews won’t be positive, but take that opportunity to address any grievances publicly. Customers trust companies that are transparent and responsive, and trust leads to a strong online reputation.

7. Create a plan for monitoring what’s being said. Set up social media monitoring and Google Alerts for your company name to uncover the conversations that are relevant to you as a business, allowing you to get feedback on your online reputation and respond if necessary.

8. Reinforce your reputation with trust signals on your website. Make sure contact details are easy to find, that you display any badges or certificates prominently and that social cues (such as ‘share this’ or ‘tweet this’) are obvious. This is your way of saying, ‘Tell the world what you think about us’, which fosters an atmosphere of good faith and trust.

9. Reach out to your existing customers and tell them about your social channels and review platform. Encourage them to take part in the social conversation, and to leave reviews, and even to give feedback on your brand’s journey. After all, happy, valued customers are your best advocates!

To find out more about online reviews and how to make them work for you download the free eGuide now: How to sell your brand through socially shared reviews

Each quarter I review my recent PowerViews shows and select one outstanding talking point from each expert (five this past quarter) who joined me. Their comments will surprise and enlighten you.

The interviews are available on our blog and YouTube channel. In the blogs each interview is broken down into smaller segments that allow you to watch brief clips around a specific topic.

 

Nick Stein, Vision Critical, Youth Meets Experience in Sales Force

Click to start video at this point—The young people entering the sales force are changing the dynamic between managers and their reps. Young people have grown up in an era of instantaneous, real time feedback, Nick said, so they expect to get answers immediately. They especially want to know about their job performance. Not so long ago, managers and their sales team were in one centralized location. But with the rapid growth in technology, a manager’s sales team can be spread out. That has pros and cons, Nick said. Among the negatives: the on-the-spot feedback that was vital to the relationship between a manager and his reps is now less common.

Nick Stein, SVP of Marketing at Vision Critical
Vision Critical is the world's leading provider of insight communities, currently supporting over 650 brands worldwide. Nick is a results-driven marketer, has been a writer for Fortune magazine, an adjunct professor at New York University, and an award-winning investigative journalist for CBC Television.

Matt Heinz, Heinz Marketing, The Quality of Sales Leads is Abysmal

Click to start video at this point—Matt said the biggest problem is that marketers are not taking responsibility for what happens after leads are generated. I agree. The quality of leads being generated nowadays is abysmal. In a recent study, it was determined that of 9,000 leads, only 1.28 percent were quality. Marketers and sales people need to be working towards the same goals.

Matt Heinz, President of Heinz Marketing
When he’s not spending time with his wife, children, cats and six chickens, Matt is the head of the Seattle-based agency that prides itself on delivering results—more customers, higher revenue, lower costs. 

Dave Stein, ES Research Group, How Much Social Selling Should Sales Reps be Doing?

Click to start video at this point—Are you a sales rep in the high-tech industry? If so, you should probably be doing a lot of social selling. But if you’re a rep who sells heavy machinery, spending a lot of time on Twitter and LinkedIn probably isn’t an effective and efficient use of your time, Dave said.

Dave Stein, CEO and Founder of ES Research Group Inc., which assists sales trainers in selecting the appropriate providers.
Dave, a former sales rep, sales manager, VP of sales, competitive sales strategist, consultant, and sales trainer, has worked in 26 countries—with companies from the Fortune 10 to start-ups.

Chad Burmeister, ConnectandSell, Field Reps Should be Open to Moving Inside

Click to start video at this point—The traditional model of inside sales reps providing leads for the field is going away, Chad said. The technology available today is allowing veteran field reps to work in an office and not get burned out because the potential leads are largely automated. The boon in inside sales has been a benefit to sales reps and their families, since reps don’t have to spend the same amount of time in the field.

Chad Burmeister, Vice President of Corporate Sales at ConnectandSell
Chad was voted Top 25 Most Influential Inside Sales Professionals by the American Association of Inside Sales Professionals 4 years in a row—2010, 2011, 2012, and 2013.

Ruth Stevens, Inbound Marketing is Tough to Scale

Click to start video at this point—In a recent blog post on Biznology, Ruth wrote, “The most reliable and scalable approach for reaching new B2B customers is outbound communications.” We talked about this issue and about the sustainable relevance of direct mail and cold calling. Social media and inbound sales are like the icing on the cake, she said. The cake still consists of the tried and true standby media channels.

Ruth Stevens, who is an expert in customer acquisition and retention.
Ruth has held high level marketing positions at Time Warner, IBM and Ziff Davis. A business professor at Columbia University, Ruth is also the author of “Maximizing Lead Generation: The Complete Guide for B2B Marketers” and a guest blogger at Biznology and HBR.org.

By Dan McDade

Despite the bold headline, we are not promising to deliver absolute solutions to the complex problems of lead generation for your organization. However, we can offer you some clues about how to make the new sales leads more profitable to your business.

First, recognize that the buyer is in control in today’s market. B2Beacon identifies the 4 phases of the buyer journey this way:

• Explore: In the early phase of buying, the buyer is simply exploring options.
• Evaluate: Buyers want to be knowledgeable about the products they purchase.
• Purchase: Although important, the purchase step is not the end of the relationship.
• Experience: Social media gives power to the buyer to publish information about your company.

Data Differentiates

Actually, the data does nothing. But – it informs decision makers with tangible evidence of how a buyer is processing the decision to purchase. When the data is transformed into actionable goals, dashboards can be set up in your CRM to gauge your effectiveness. As you gather more and more data about the buyer and what they want, it gives you uncanny insight into the buying journey.

Automation is Personal

Running your email marketing campaigns based on bytes of seemingly impersonal information seems like it would distance you from your customers. Counterintuitively though, data is exactly what your company needs to create emotional connections that lead to meaningful customer relationships.

Data-Based Insights Save Money

No one can tell you exactly what you need to do to reach your best sales lead opportunities and convert them into buyers. But your current buyers and the recipients of your emails can give you what you need unknowingly. Seeking guidance from real customers through the data generated in their CRM will help you avoid costly mistakes. It will also give you valuable lessons that trigger customer engagement and trust.

Measure and Adapt

This is particularly important at the stage where a buyer is evaluating options. Pay close attention to the clicks and open rates during this phase. Learn what articles are consumed and what other content is downloaded. Tailor your future email marketing based on what you learn from the data.

When a buyer reaches the purchase phase you will have data that enables you to both look back and project forward. In other words, success leaves clues. Let your CRM data make distinctions between those who purchased and those that didn’t. Use that rich information to make changes about how you develop future email marketing campaigns. For example, the look back will give you clues about the ideal client persona, behaviors taken by those who purchase and what content caused them to move forward.

Image via Shutterstock

Why You Don’t Need to Go Viral to Make Video Marketing Work written by Guest Post read more at Small Business Marketing Blog from Duct Tape Marketing

Thursday is guest post day here at Duct Tape Marketing and today’s guest is Amy Harrison – Enjoy!

A viral video is the dream of many marketers and business owners. One smash hit can transform a business’s reach overnight. And it’s not just big brands like Blendtec and Old Spice dominating the video market. Newer companies such as Dollar Shave have exploded onto the scene largely due to their viral video presence.

The myth of viral for small business

While it can be a game-changer to be suddenly watched by the world, most small businesses don’t need this level of exposure to see results. If you could grow your audience by a few hundred, or a few thousand engaged prospects, would that make a difference to your inquiries, leads and sales?

The pressure to go viral can have a negative effect if you think:

• You need a perfect video with high-end production to stand out
• You need to create something wacky or crazy to get attention
• If your video doesn’t go viral, you should can it and forget it

If you think video isn’t worth it unless you’re a YouTube star, you could be missing out.

Smaller audience, bigger rewards

Last year, I started a light-hearted sketch show called Content Marketing…Stripped!  I’ve created just 18 short videos

None of them have ever gone viral.

Most get around 100-300 views, but site traffic is growing, subscribers are up 75% and I’m seeing increased social media engagement.

Most importantly, they help attract clients. I’m closing sales faster because leads are more qualified. After watching, prospects say they feel they know me, would enjoy working with me and contact me based on that. I’ve never woken up to a phone call from The Tonight Show, or asked to comment for the New York Times, but this consistent creation of short videos has improved my marketing results.

Where to start? How to get results from a non-viral video

Even a simple video of you talking to camera can build rapport and engagement with prospects. So why not break out your camera, and start planning your first simple marketing video using these steps?

1.     Focus on your customer’s problem first

Solving a customer’s problem is a great idea for your videos. Think about common “how do I…” questions your customer has that you can solve. For example: “How do I create a customer profile for my marketing?

2.      Ask yourself: what is the impact on my customer if this problem is left unsolved?

In the above case, without a clear customer profile, you don’t know what marketing will work, and you can’t attract your ideal target market to your business.

3.    Don’t just state the impact, illustrate it

Rather than simply tell your customer that it’s important to solve this problem, see if you can give them examples and illustrations to prove it, for example:

• Wasting time and money on marketing that doesn’t make the phone ring
• Attracting the wrong clients and losing time on sales calls you’ll never close
• Getting the wrong referrals because people don’t know who you serve

Video lets you be creative in how you present this information, you could think up a quick sketch, or unleash your whiteboard skills. Even if you’re just describing your examples, it’s better than simply telling your viewer that it’s important to solve their problem.

4.    Provide tips to solve it

Once you’ve illustrated the impact of the problem, provide useful tips viewers can use straight away.

5.    Remind viewers that you have products or services that can also help

In addition to free tips, don’t forget to let them know you can solve their problem directly with links to your contact, services or product page.

Start small and dip your toes in

If the goal of going viral has been putting you off, give video a try, there might be some low hanging fruit that you didn’t realize was ready and waiting for you.

Amy Harrison trains companies to write better content, faster. She provides live content workshops for clients in Europe, and online training sessions for the wider world. You can find her Content Marketing…Stripped videos here and she was a featured speaker at the 2014 SXSW Interactive conference.

According to the 2014 Marketing Score Report, a survey of 318 marketers, executives and entrepreneurs, organizations lack confidence in their internal marketing teams, which are particularly weak in key digital marketing skills, such as social media, data analysis and lead management.

Yet, these are the exact skills needed to run high-impact campaigns that perform better than their traditional counterparts. Let’s dive into this digital disconnect.

Digital Done Right Yields Bottom-Line Results

According to the report, 86% of organizations identify “generate leads” as a high-priority goal. So what are organizations that excel at lead generation doing that others aren’t? In short, they’re creating content and driving leads through digital marketing.

We analyzed a segment of high performers—organizations that rated lead volume as an asset—and compared how they perform versus all others in the Lead Sources section. These high performers have an average Lead Sources section score 1.2x higher, and they dominate in critical digital marketing-related lead sources:

• Premium content = 1.8x
• Blogging = 1.6x
• Digital ads = 1.5x
• Organic search = 1.5x
• Email marketing = 1.3x
• Social media = 1.3x
• Website = 1.3x

Digital ROI is proven once again when we look closer at specific digital strategies and technologies, compared to performance.

• Blogging high performers rate 1.7x higher in lead volume, and 1.5x the average lead-to-sale conversion rate.
• CRM high performers have a lead-to-sale conversion rate 1.4x the average rate of all others.
• Marketing automation high performers have an average lead-to-sale conversion rate 1.6x the average rate of all others.

As demonstrated above, those organizations pursuing digital marketing strategies perform better in lead generation and sales.

But, Are Organizations Equipped to Deliver?

While digital strategy benefits abound, organizations lack the internal skills and resources to deliver.

With the exception of strategic planning and website management, on average, organizations rated their internal marketing teams weak in all 15 skills that should be considered part of a modern marketing team.

These findings are complementary to OMI’s State of Digital Marketing Talent report, which also identified gaps in digital marketing skills. According to the OMI report, only 8% believe their internal teams are strong in all areas of digital marketing.

Many organizations also lack, or are underutilizing, fundamental marketing technologies, with call tracking, internal social networks, marketing automation and marketing analytics as the lowest scoring.

So, how can marketers improve their performance and drive greater results?

Move Your Marketing Forward

Success starts with an assessment. Gain a clear, well-rounded view of where your organization stands and what work needs to be done by involving multiple stakeholders. Ask each to rate your current marketing assets, processes, talent, etc., to pinpoint where strengths and weaknesses lie.

Armed with this information, put strategies in place to improve deficiencies and capitalize on strengths. Examples may include launching an internal training program, breaking down organizational silos or implementing a new marketing technology. The only way to develop your action plan for 2014 is through a thorough, honest assessment of your current status.

How are you overcoming the digital divide to achieve greater performance in your organization? Share your comments below.

Interested in strengthening you digital marketing skills? To learn from the world’s top brands and agencies on how they are integrating to drive results using digital advertising, analytics, social, mobile, register for Online Marketing Institute’s Integrated Agency and Brand Marketing Summit next Monday, March 17th!

Pinterest is used by more than 21% of all American adults. This is up from 15% on the previous year.

This figure comes from the last study by Pew Research, which also states the even more incredible fact that one-third of all women in the USA use Pinterest.

Pinterest drove an unprecedented amount of traffic to retail sites in Q4 2013 achieving a 50% quarter-over-quarter increase in revenue-per-visit (RPV). In fact, Pinterest has overtaken Facebook for UK referral revenue and is expected to do the same in the USA this year.

Also, with the amount of Pinterest Pin it buttons overtaking the amount of Facebook Likes on product pages, retailers are realising that Pinterest is a key way to drive sales. 

Let’s take a look at how the top 10 US retailers (in terms of 2013 sales) use Pinterest.

Wal-Mart

Wal-Mart currently has 38,278 followers on its Pinterest page, although this is not the largest amount by a long way. 

It has topical boards for various holidays to remain relevant. Here's its St Patrick's Day board, filled with pins and repinned from sources all around Pinterest and the web, not just its own ecommerce concerns.

It also does a fine line in boards that offer handy tips and advice. From gardening tips to beauty.

It's this mixture of how-to-guides, repinned images from around the web and its own product listings, along with a huge amount of boards fully stocked with pins, that make Wal-Mart an impressive Pinterest brand.

Kroger

A slightly more humble 2,993 followers, but a nonetheless attractive Pinterest homepage.

There are some great ideas for boards here. I particular like the Unpredictable Matchups one below. However each one suffers from being dramatically underpinned. This one only has 12.

Elsewhere the Feels Like Spring board only has eight pins, and a really helpful Saving Time in the Kitchen board feels rather stymied with 14 pins.

Target

Target has a amassed a massive 149,846 followers with its relatively small amount of boards. However each one is stuffed with pins. Although this occasionally leads to overstuffing.

This Women's Style board has 638 pins. One of the biggest boards I've ever seen. The result is a random menagerie of products where the only theme is 'women wear things like this'.

Target could do with dividing up thees categories into smaller boards, to make them easier to navigate.

Costco

Costco doesn't have a Pinterest page. I can't imagine that a membership only, warehouse club that sells products in massive volumes would make for the most attractive page.

The Home Depot

On an aesthetic level, this isn't the most appealing range of boards, but with 135,188 followers The Home Depot is doing something right.

Here's a huge and wonderfully helpful board with hundreds of storage and organisation ideas. These tips are pinned from The Home Depot and repinned from around the globe.

This is brilliant too. A guide to all of the tools you can hire, with videos and written explanations on how to use them all.

Full marks for practicality and helpfulness.

Walgreens

Walgreens only Pinterest concern is this Walgreens Beauty page.

It's a very hesitant foray into Pinterest, with very little originality or appeal. 

This one in particular is less than half-hearted, with specious logic and little sense to why these few products are collected together.

CVS Caremark

Enter the tumbleweeds.

Lowe's

I wrote about how Lowe's nails social media earlier in the year, and it's Pinterest page is no exception. 

A particularly brilliant feature is the Build It! board, where customers who have used Lowe's' products for their DIY projects are showcased. 

The strength of Pinterest is being utilised to the full here. Showcasing the customer’s efforts makes the user feel like the brand has a vested interest in their project and creates a deeper level of connection.

This board currently has 3.4m followers. That’s only 100,000 less than the total amount of followers that Lowe’s entire Pinterest account has.

It also remains topical. Here’s Lowe’s partnership with Pantone, revealing 2014’s color of the year. (Radiant Orchid, I know you chomping at the bit to learn.)

Safeway

What Safeway lacks in pins within individual boards, it also lacks in range of original ideas for its themes.

Maybe that's a little mean, but this really looks like every other middle-of-the-road grocer's Pinterest page. All the boxes are ticked: seasonal themes, lunchtime ideas, quick meals, sweet treats. There's just little else to make it a bit more interesting. Mixing the parade of food photography up with other images would certainly help stem the malaise.

McDonald's

A relatively humble 3,311 followers for this massive global corporation, however boards like the ones below certainly show a keen desire to provide something different for its audience, with content they wouldn't necessarily see elsewhere.

This is a great board full of menu items from around the world.

It's encouraging to see a massive brand like McDonald's use Pinterest in such a unique and surprising way. Many of the above retailers could well take a lesson from that.

For more on Pinterest for retailers from the blog, check out the Top 10 UK retailers on Pinterest.