By Gerhard Gschwandtner

After Elay Cohen was named Senior Vice President of Sales Productivity at Salesforce, he pulled off an amazing feat: He accelerated growth and turned a $500 million enterprise into a $3+ billion enterprise.

That’s why we invited Cohen to speak at the Sales 3.0 Conference in Philadelphia on June 19. In his session, “Crack the Code to Sales Growth with a Winning Sales Enablement Strategy,” he will reveal the hyper-growth sales strategies that made Salesforce the global industry leader.

If you register now to attend the conference, you’ll learn how Elay’s sales enablement best practices and adaptive processes create an unstoppable sales force. As Elay has revealed to me in an interview, a success mantra was part of his proven blueprint to successful sales enablement.

Here’s a summary of Elay’s success mantra:

S – “Seed and grow.” They ultimately believed that, if they could win a customer, a division, or a team, they would be able to seed the success of Salesforce into that business.

U – “Users sell for you.” They believed that, if they could get their customers to share their stories, the customers would do the selling for them.

C – “Customize the demos.” They always tailored the demo to the customer’s business and used the customer’s vernacular.

C – “Connect the dots.” They figured the chances were high that they already knew someone with a connection in the prospect’s company. To use those relationships, they connected the dots.

E – “Experience events.” Think about Dreamforce. Each year, thousands of customers come to the event, get energized, and get connected to other customers. This creates value.

S – “Show them the money.” They used a classic value-based selling approach to build political maps and understand the customer’s business processes.

Elay firmly believes one of the most critical elements of success was the tight partnership between him, the enablement organization, and the frontline sales managers. (His book, SalesHood: How Winning Sales Managers Inspire Sales Teams to Succeed, takes the best of enablement and teaches managers how to bring it to their teams.) And Salesforce founder Marc Benioff agreed: He told Elay he wanted every single salesperson on message, sharing the same stories, and selling the same way. Elay’s team knew their corporate pitches and the playbooks. As Elay told me: “We always had support and expectations that we were going to deliver excellent sales enablement.”

You can hear more from Elay in the video above, and you can also register now to join us at the Sales 3.0 Conference in Philadelphia on June 19.

The post Here Is the Incredible Sales Enablement Plan Worth Billions appeared first on Sales 3.0 Conference.

In technology, 25 years is an eternity. In 1993 there were no smartphones, the web was brand new, and we were heading to A & B Sound to buy CDs and cassettes.

The B.C. Tech Association is celebrating 25 years of innovation. While technology tools have come and gone, the innovation that drives our industry remains the same. What do you need to create a thriving innovation ecosystem? Problems to solve and limited resources.

With a small population in a vast, rugged land, in B.C. we’ve had to be problem solvers by nature.

Before there was a British Columbia, First Nations on the coast turned cedar tree roots into watertight baskets, its bark into fishing nets, and its boughs into medicines. More recently, B.C. was home to the invention of the caulking gun, the walkie-talkie, and the egg carton. Today’s entrepreneurs are just the latest in a long line of local innovators.

The spirit of innovation lives on in our vibrant tech sector that uses the latest technology to do good. More than 105,000 British Columbians are working in the tech sector, and another 50,000 work in tech careers in other sectors.

Their work in technology is strengthening our health care and education systems, and it’s making our resource sector more competitive and environmentally sustainable. In government services, in banking, and in retail, tech is helping people connect.

Tech drives about seven per cent of our economy. We’re highly ranked for our connectivity to the rest of the globe, and our tech players are strong in rapidly adapting to emerging trends. But there are challenges too. It’s hard to keep up with the sector’s growth and the possibility of 30,000 jobs going unfilled by 2012 puts us at risk of falling behind. B.C. needs many more large, homegrown companies that are global players. These anchor companies are the foundation of a strong ecosystem, fuelling sustained growth and creating new spinoffs as they expand.

All these challenges are surmountable, if we have the ambition and determination to work together to tackle them. Now is the time to be bold and B.C. Tech is ready and willing to work across our sector and with governments to get the job done.

We need to shakeup our education system even further, embracing the positive new K-12 curriculum changes while helping teachers and schools bring it to life with modern tools. We need to be unapologetic champions of continued growth of post-secondary seats in science, technology, engineering, art, and mathematics — the STEAM disciplines. And, as the speed of economic change accelerates, we need to make sure mid-career retraining is available so workers can learn the skills needed to play key roles in the new economy.

On the business development front, B.C. entrepreneurs need to have access to capital to help them grow their startups into mature companies. We need to support companies as they take their innovations to market so they can grow their sales and exports at the same time as they invest in R&D

And, above all, we must tear down the barriers inside the sector and between the tech sector and the rest of the economy. Today, every company is a tech company. In mining, in forestry, in agriculture, and in every sector you can imagine, tech is building a brighter future by making sure companies are set up to thrive for the long term in every corner of our province.

It will take hard work, determination, and the courage to take bold steps, but it will unlock limitless opportunities for our children, our communities, and our province.

Jill Tipping is President and CEO of the  B.C. Tech Association.

In startup land, the mandate is to get bought, go public or die trying.

And, as far as getting bought goes, one of tech’s Big Five could be a desirable acquirer. They have a lot of weight to throw around. Alphabet (the parent company of Google), Amazon, Apple, Facebook and Microsoft account for a titanic amount of market value — close to $3.9 trillion at time of writing. At least, that’s according to Crunchbase News’s dashboard of notable tech stocks.

When challenged by one another, these hulking behemoths of the tech sector more often fight than flee. And when challenged by a scrappy upstart, it is likely that they will gobble up the talent, technology and business of any aspiring competitor. It’s the circle of life.

And it’s those acquisitions we’re going to look at here.

Taken together, tech’s Big Five account for a relatively small portion of the overall M&A market. The chart below shows the number of acquisitions made by members of tech’s Big Five from 2007 through 2017. (For reference, Crunchbase records thousands of acquisitions per year.)

But what the Big Five lack in quantity is made up for in size. If you’ll forgive the big-game pun, acquisitions by Big Five account for a lion’s share of big deals in dollar terms.

So, for each of the Big Five, let’s see just how big some of those deals got. We base our analysis on Crunchbase data that, whenever possible, has been cross-checked with public news sources and regulatory filings. We’ll proceed from the most valuable (in market capitalization terms) to the least.

Apple

Despite being the most valuable among the Big Five, Apple’s acquisitions are not just among the smallest of the bunch, but also the least disclosed. In other words, out of the deals listed in Crunchbase and elsewhere, most of them don’t have dollar values attached to them. This may speak to Apple’s secretiveness and its tendency to build most of its products and services in-house.

Apple’s biggest M&A deal to date was its $3 billion buyout of Beats Electronics, which is perhaps best known for its flashy wireless headphones. But it’s not the headphones that caught Apple’s eye. Rather, it was its streaming service, which Apple CEO Tim Cook told ReCode’s Peter Kafka was “the first subscription service that really got it right.”

Including the Beats deal, here are the largest M&A deals we were able to find.

Amazon

It’s hard to find a business vertical Amazon isn’t somehow involved in. Web hosting? Check. White-labeled staples like batteries and paper towels? Check. Doorbells? Check. They apparently sell books online, too.

Now, in all seriousness, Amazon’s $13.7 billion buyout of Whole Foods in June 2017 brought the online shopping giant squarely into the world of brick-and-mortar retail as well. And while the Whole Foods deal was Amazon’s biggest splurge to date, it’s certainly not alone in the company’s collection of commerce company buys. These include Amazon’s buyout of Quidsi (the parent company of Diapers.com and Soap.com, which was the first to offer the free two-day shipping for which Amazon Prime is famous), footwear and clothing retailer Zappos, and Middle Eastern e-commerce site Souq.com.

Alphabet

Of tech’s big five, Alphabet is the most acquisitive, and it makes the most corporate venture investments. It’s also the company with the most complicated corporate structure. Recall that Alphabet is the parent organization of Google, and it’s Google which has made the surpassing majority of Alphabet acquisitions.

But for all the resources Alphabet has put toward M&A, its acquisitiveness resulted in a rather mixed bag of results. Most glaring amongst its duds is its $3.2 billion buyout of Nest Labs and, relatedly, the $555 million spent on Dropcam (which would later be rebranded as part of Nest’s home security offering).

Nest reportedly failed to meet revenue expectations and seize a dominant position in the connected home market, ceding ground to incumbents like Honeywell. And there are plenty of scrappy upstarts nipping Nest’s heels in markets like home security, smart doorbells and smart locks.

This being said, then-Google’s YouTube deal is likely Alphabet’s best acquisition from an ROI perspective. Although Alphabet doesn’t break out YouTube’s revenue, some good estimates and public market comps suggest the video streaming unit could be worth a cool $100 billion.

Microsoft

Microsoft made news this week by announcing its acquisition of software version control and code hosting platform GitHub for $7.5 billion. And, at this point, it seems like Microsoft is timing announcements of its biggest deals just to dunk on Apple. Myke Hurley, a tech podcaster and the founder of Relay FM, observed on Twitter that Microsoft’s 2016 acquisition of LinkedIn and its GitHub deal were both announced on the opening day of Apple’s Worldwide Developers Conference.

Apart from cheeky timing, you will notice that Microsoft has made the largest M&A deals among tech’s Big Five.

Facebook

Of the Big Five companies in tech, Facebook’s M&A patterns seem to be the most binary. Its deals are either tiny or humongous. There isn’t much of a middle ground.

Some of Facebook’s biggest acquisitions present a case study of acquiring one’s way to nearly insurmountable market dominance. Although its acquisitions of Instagram and WhatsApp didn’t cause much of a stir at the time, today these deals are seen as a cautionary case for current and future antitrust regulators.

On a brighter note, though, Facebook’s M&A record is also a lesson in the “buy versus build” dilemma many companies face. It’s sometimes more expedient to buy a company (and, critically, its engineering team) than to build new features from scratch. For many of the smaller deals listed here, we can see that Facebook opted to buy.

The Big Five’s acquisitions in perspective

At the very top of the tech food chain, the Big Five are in a unique position, and not just as rainmakers for VCs seeking liquidity.

Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, Facebook and Microsoft are some of the most powerful companies operating today, and their acquisitions tell part of the story of how they got to prominent positions in the first place.

Although some acquisitions appear to come out of the blue, it’s important to remember that one doesn’t just buy a company for the heck of it. There’s a strategic motivation for these deals at the time they’re made. And when these deals are struck, they can telegraph the company’s future plans.

• Money priorities differ from person to person, depending on what you value.
• There are some things, like a college education, that cost a lot of money but can give you a great return on investment through your salary later on.
• Here are six pricey things, from a financial expert, that are well worth the money.

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We all like to be — or at the very least try to be — smart with our money. But that doesn’t always mean choosing the least expensive option. In fact, sometimes the pricier item or experience can be the one that is most worth your hard-earned cash, while the cheapest can be the biggest waste.

“Most of us spend money on things we don't really care about at the expense of the things we do without even realizing it,” Stefanie O’Connell, financial expert and author of “The Broke and Beautiful Life,” told Business Insider. “So step one is defining your priorities, then tracking your spending (an app or a simple pen and paper works) to see if you're actually spending in alignment with those priorities, and making adjustments as needed.”

You should also weigh the added value something can bring to your life. “Before spending a lot of money on an item or service, it may be good to understand what value it brings to you,” Roger Ma, certified financial planner and founder of Life Laid Out, told Business Insider. “Does it help you save time or help you avoid doing something you don't enjoy, does it make you feel more confident, or will the experience be something you remember for a long time?”

Here are six expensive things, from financial experts Ma and O’Connell, that are completely worth the money.

SEE ALSO: 5 things you may be wasting your money on

1. Education

About 70% of students graduate from college with student loan debt, and there have been plenty of debates on whether getting a higher education is even worth it. Despite this, Ma said that education is most definitely worth spending money on.

“An investment in yourself is typically worth it,” Ma said. “Increasing your knowledge could ultimately increase your human capital — that is, how much money you're able to command from your employer. Besides, learning new material keeps life interesting and exciting.”

2. Travel

Travel can be good for your body and your overall well-being, NBC reports. O’Connell said that it’s something she spends money on herself. “I love to splurge on travel because it brings me joy,” O’Connell said.

As Business Insider previously reported, people are happier when they spend their money on experiences rather than things.

3. A mattress

Sleep is essential to good health, according to the National Institute of Health. It only makes sense to invest in a mattress that provides optimal comfort, even if we can’t get the suggested seven to nine hours nightly.

“We spend 5-8 hours a night on our mattress, depending on our sleeping patterns. Getting a good night's rest affects every other part of our life,” Ma said. “If we don't get a good night's rest, we won't be productive at work, may not get that promotion, and may just feel like crap. A good mattress is good for your health and will pay for itself in the long run.”

See the rest of the story at Business Insider

Are you having trouble finding new candidates and prospects? Do you need to re-invent your recruiting and sales pipelines? If so, you need to tap into your 2nd-degree LinkedIn connections. They’re a direct pathway to expand your reach and influence without breaking the bank, investing in a new tech stack that your team may find daunting.

Identifying Centers of Influence (COI) is one of my favorite ways to uncover potential high-quality connections. Your Centers of Influence are a small group; people you know, like and trust and who know, like and trust you. They are natural connectors, and they use LinkedIn with a level of proficiency and ease. Their connections may include people that you should connect with and know. They can, if asked, introduce you. I find that few people ask for introductions. It seems to be a combination of not being comfortable asking or not sure of the mechanics on LinkedIn. No doubt, lots of opportunities remain undiscovered.

Beyond COIs, you need to identify your 2nd-degree LinkedIn connections to expand and add value to your network continually. Use LinkedIn’s filters including location, industry, company, and school if you’re a Basic member or more filters if you’re a Premium or Sales Navigator member. Notice your mutual connections. The more mutual connections, the stronger your tie to that person.

Rather than ask for an introduction, send a personalized connection request mentioning you have several common connections and mention one or two by name. If you notice they have little information on their profile or less than 100 connections, it may not be worth reaching out to them since they may not be using LinkedIn regularly.

If these are 2nd level LinkedIn connections and you don’t know them, DO NOT hit the Connect button and send off the default message. Take five seconds and personalize your connection request. You can personalize from your mobile too! Please give people context for why they should connect with you. More on this in an upcoming Quick Tip.

By the way, if you’re a Premium member, you may decide you should send them an InMail. Don’t, right away. While InMail is useful, it poses a challenge because some people don’t know how to accept it. Even if they accept and respond to your InMail, they’re not connected to you or a part of your network. The customary goal should be to connect, not just correspond.

Your 1st-degree connections are the gateway to a more extensive group of people who should (if they are the right people) bring value to your network. 2nd-degree LinkedIn connections are the gateway to a strategically diverse network. Please note, this post isn’t about connecting with everyone indiscriminately. It’s about expanding your network with thought and intentionality.

Finding, connecting with and nurturing 2nd-degree LinkedIn connections is a worthwhile endeavor if you are the face of your organization, focused on recruiting, business development and sales. Everyone in your organization should understand they have a responsibility to help in recruiting and business development.

This kind of connecting and networking is a significant paradigm shift for most people and most companies. It’s the rare CEO or President who sees this potential. And, it’s not because they are strong leaders or visionaries, it’s because they’ve networked in smaller doses throughout their careers and they haven’t taken the time to dive in, understand and leverage LinkedIn for this or any other purpose. Their mindset shift is the first step to embracing a philosophy of opportunity and highly encouraging their teams to do the same. An executive endorsement is one of the elements of a healthy organizational presence.

Rather than assume anything, let me say, please carefully consider what you post. The posting on LinkedIn is reasonably benign and focused, as it should be on professional events and topics. I hope that never changes. There seem to be more “grown-ups” apologizing these days for inappropriate comments, missteps and a lack of civility than any other swath of social media users. Let me say that, not every thought, position or opinion needs to show up somewhere.

Be the person people want to have in their network because you’re:

• relevant and smart
• engaging
• adding to the conversation
• a good social citizen
• and above all, a genuinely authentic person

Let people see enough of you through your profile that they know you’re a good bet to connect with on LinkedIn and potentially in person or by phone.

Nothing will turn off your 1st or 2nd-degree LinkedIn connections more than the person who’s screaming from their LinkedIn or other social media channels about everything. Just don’t be that person.

Hold on, there’s more.

What’s your take away from this post? What’s one thing you can do today or tomorrow to further your network in a meaningful way? Let us know.

If we’re driven by data and interested in statistics, there are a wide range of sales metrics we can choose to monitor. Assuming that we have collected the data in the first place, we can measure win rates, sales cycle velocity, changes in deal value or close date and all manner of other indicators.

If our data is good enough and we know how to interpret it, and if we are able to slice and dice it (and I realise that these are big “ifs”) then we can come to some powerful and illuminating conclusions about how and where we can most effectively improve sales performance and revenue reliability.

But I have in mind a metric that’s rather easier to measure – even with the least sophisticated CRM system or spreadsheet – and yet is capable of driving desperately dysfunctional behaviors if it is not used in an intelligent fashion. Can you guess what it is?

It’s raw pipeline value and in naive hands it has the potential to be “the most counterproductive sales metric”.

As with so many other apparently simple perspectives, raw pipeline value is more useful in predictable, straightforward, numbers-game-driven B2C or very simple B2B sales environments where output is closely and directly correlated to a combination of input and energy applied.

Quality is more valuable than raw quantity…

But in complex B2B sales, an obsession with raw sales pipeline value can lead to some truly counter-productive behaviours and negative sales consequences. Raw pipeline value is a quantitative metric, not a qualitative metric. We need to be aware of it, but we should not be using it as the primary measure of the health of our sales pipelines.

And even weighted pipeline value – if naively calculated in the traditional fashion by applying the same standard percentages to every opportunity that has reached a certain stage in the sales pipeline – isn’t that much better (the only effective way of weighting complex B2B sales pipelines, by the way, is to assess each individual opportunity’s chances of closing based on clearly-defined deal-specific qualification parameters).

But back to our old friend, raw pipeline value. As we’ve acknowledged, it’s a purely quantitative metric. It makes the assumption that the number and value of opportunities (regardless of their quality) has some sort of useful predictive value.

Driving dumb behaviors…

But far from helping, an obsession with raw pipeline value can actually hinder salespeople, their managers and the demand generation folks in business development or marketing from making smart choices.

It can cause marketers and business development reps to believe they have done a good job when they flood the top of the sales funnel with weakly qualified opportunities that are never going to close and which instead act as a distraction from the unrecognized better-quality opportunities they are jostling for attention with.

And it can (I’ve seen it happen) discourage otherwise apparently sensible salespeople from qualifying out their weaker opportunities for fear that their sales manager will give them a hard time for having a shrinking pipeline – an interesting manifestation of the “law of unintended consequences”.

Sending out the right signals…

First-level (and above) sales managers have a significant responsibility here, particularly if their primary focus is on the easy-to-measure stuff (raw pipeline value) rather than the harder-to-measure but more valuable indicators that properly reflect the true quality of the pipeline.

You’ll probably have observed that top sales performers have too much respect for their own time to waste it chasing opportunities that are never going to close. They are appropriately ruthless in removing the dead wood. They have no problem defending the consequent reduction in headline pipeline value to their manager, because they know it drives superior results and higher commissions.

In fact, when you compare top performer productivity it typically shows far better conversion ratios than their less able peers. They know that winning four deals out of seven is far more effective than winning two or three out of ten.

Establishing a virtuous cycle of success…

Top performers use the time freed up to invest more time in the high-quality opportunities, and in conducting targeted prospecting to fill their future pipeline with more of the right type of deals – creating a virtuous cycle of success.

It’s obvious, isn’t it: if we focus our salespeople on doing a few things well, both we and they will be more successful. But if we or our sales management team inadvertently send them signals through our obsession with raw pipeline value that quantity counts for more than quality, then we and they will get the results that those behaviors deserve.

If we focus on quality of both opportunity and sales execution, we will establish a platform for reliable, predictable performance and revenue growth. But if we ignore or downplay the importance of quality, we and our salespeople will end up doing a lot of things badly.

By the way, if you are a salesforce.com user and have reached the stage where you are starting to realize the potential value of sales analytics to help you and your salespeople to focus on high-quality sales behaviors, I strongly recommend that you evaluate InsightSquared. I’ve heard nothing but good things from the clients that are using their platform. If you’re not wedded to salesforce.com, then Membrain is a brilliant complex-B2B-sales orientated CRM with a bunch of invaluable analytics and sales guidance built in.

If you’re unable or unwilling to invest in these sorts of technologies at this time, I would at least recommend that you identify the handful of factors that best define deal quality and your chances of winning, and that you assess and assign a deal-specific probability based on these factors to every active opportunity. That way, when you run a weighted pipeline calculation you can at least be more confident that it will actually have some useful meaning.

But please, don’t rely on raw pipeline value as your primary metric. It’s more likely to lead you astray than lead you in the right direction…

Most B2B startups initially sell to other startups before going after more established companies. And for good reason. Startups are approachable, quicker to close, and more forgiving when things go wrong. But is selling to startups really a good growth strategy in the long-term?

Want to upgrade your sales process in just 30 days? Sign up for my free Startup Sales Success course.  

Why sell to startups in the first place?

There’s nothing more powerful in sales than customer intimacy. And as a startup selling to other startups, you have unique insights into exactly what your customer wants and needs. But there are many other good arguments to be made for selling to startups first:

1. Startups are easier to reach

Unlike larger companies, startups usually post their contact details online. Most of the time, you can even quickly find their founder’s info and reach out directly. This means less dealing with gatekeepers and more time spent talking to the decision makers who actually matter.

In the early days of ElasticSales—the on-demand sales company we launched before Close.io—we landed 7 paying customers in 14 days just by reaching out to founders. Before we even had a website, we researched startup contact info, picked up the phone, and called them. (If you want to try this strategy out for yourself, you can see our original sales script here.)

2. Their decision-making cycle is much faster

Until you know who your ideal customer is, you want to be able to test different ones quickly. Startups are smaller, more nimble, and have a faster decision-making cycle than larger companies. Which means they won’t string you along with a long maybe. They’ll tell you yes or no right away.

3. They understand what you’re selling

If you’re selling a technical product, then going after small, technically minded teams is much easier and faster than dealing with a larger, more traditional organization. Startups generally need less hand-holding and will be able to tell right away whether they can integrate your product with their current systems.

4. They’re comfortable buying from you

Trust is one of the most important factors when it comes to closing deals. When you’re a startup selling to other startups, you speak the same language, which helps you build a level of trust and comfort that you otherwise wouldn’t be able to.

Startups also don’t have the same reservations and doubts that a larger company might have about buying your product. They’re not worried that you’re a startup yourself and might be more forgiving if bugs or issues arise.

5. The founder-to-founder connection is strong

The entrepreneurial world can be incredibly supportive. When you reach out and ask for a 15-minute call, it’s difficult for other founders to decline as they were in that position themselves not too long ago. You can use that empathy to your advantage and connect with them on a personal and business level.

6. They can be influential beyond just the startup ecosystem

Startups are the current rockstars of the business world. And many founders and companies are influential beyond just the startup ecosystem. Businesses of all sizes look to influential founders to tell them what tools and technologies to use. If you can get in with this crowd, you have the chance to build hype and buzz with customers you otherwise wouldn’t reach.

7. You might hit the startup jackpot

When you sell to other startups you become a part of their journey. Which can have huge returns. Take Twilio—a cloud communication provider—for example. As a startup, Twilio sold their services to other startups like Uber and AirBnB. When both of those companies exploded, Twilio went along for the ride and eventually became a billion-dollar, public business themselves.

How to market and sell to other startups

Selling to startups isn’t the same as selling to your usual SMB or Enterprise client. They’re completely different beasts that need to be tamed in a different way.

We’ve spoken at length on this blog about sales in general, but when it comes to selling to startups there are some specific best practices you should follow:

Know your audience and their needs

No matter who you’re selling to, you need to do your homework about who your ideal customer is before reaching out. But when it comes to startups, you need to be especially judicious.

Startups don’t want to waste time with your generic sales calls. Before you reach out, know who you want to talk to, why you’re calling, and why they should want to talk to you.

Use startup data tools like Mattermark and Crunchbase to tell you who your best contact is at a company. Or look for signs that it’s the right time to reach out, like funding announcements or jobs for hire on places like AngelList.

Hang out where other startup founders hang out

The startup market has much more of a community aspect than other industries. Founders generally hang out in the same places, and if you want to sell to them you need to be there as well.

Start by checking out Hacker News, ProductHunt, Growth Hackers, and other industry specific or niche Facebook communities. Be active and ask for feedback on your product or share your experiences of starting a company. Look for ways you can build authentic relationships and connect with your potential customers.

Lose the BS

You might be able to get away with a buzzword-laden pitch to someone at a larger company, but a technical startup founder won’t stand for it. To sell to startups, you need to lose the lingo and buzzwords. Instead, you need to be straightforward and transparent. You have to be specific, not ambiguous. And if you don’t know the answer, tell them “I don’t know.”

Founders have fantastic bullshit detectors and they’ll see right through you.

The dangers of selling to startups

At this point, it might seem like startups are the perfect customer. And in many ways they are. (Especially if you’re a startup yourself.)

But there are also dangers that come with including them in your sales strategy.

By their nature, startups are volatile companies, which means they can be unpredictable customers. Not only that, but you have to be comfortable with the fact that startups often:

• Have smaller budgets than larger organizations: This means your customer acquisition cost (what you’re willing to pay to get them as a customer) has to be smaller as well.
• Churn at a much higher rate: Not just from going out of business, but because they might make a hard pivot and not need your product anymore. This makes their lifetime value much harder to calculate.
• Give feedback that can muddy your product roadmap: Startups change quickly, and acting on all their feedback is a dangerous game. Startups will often request features they think they’ll need once they’ve grown to a certain point. But often don’t when the time comes. Blindly following customer requests like this can leave you with serious feature creep.
• Are vulnerable to the funding market: If you sell to startups with lots of funding you’ll do great when the funding market is strong. But when that dries up, it could impact or even kill your company. I’ve seen this happen again and again, and founders always like to complain about it: If only funding hadn’t dried up at that point, we’d have succeeded, but it was outside of our control. No, it was not outside of your control. It was very much within your control to decide to focus on startups that require a generous funding environment, and you should have hedged against the possibility that the funding environment would change in the first place.

Startups should be part of your sales strategy. Not the entire thing.

It used to be that selling to startups was only seen as a stepping stone to selling to SMBs or enterprise. But that situation has changed.

Today, the startup model is used across industries and company sizes. With how quickly markets change, companies need to be smaller, faster, technical, and more nimble. So when you build a product and a sales culture that serves startup customers, you’re in essence preparing yourself for the future.

This doesn’t mean that you should only sell to startups. But that you should be aware of what it takes to sell to them successfully. Do your research. Be active in the community. And then make the call whether selling to startups makes sense for your business.

Want to create a predictable and scalable sales process for your company in just 30 days? Sign up for our free "Startup Sales Success" course.

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M&A deals that are made for the purpose of acquiring new technology can make or break a company. At worst, a disastrous deal leads to wasted effort and dollars, often in the millions or even billions. On the flip side, a strategic transaction can catapult a company into first-mover position, give a speed to market advantage over rivals, and potentially let a larger company run away with a new market. Take Google’s purchase of YouTube, now a multibillion-dollar revenue stream that’s fueling the disruption of cable, or Facebook buying Instagram, which solidified its social media dominance.

But the M&A landscape is also littered with examples of failures, such as Microsoft’s attempt to buy its way into the mobile market by acquiring Nokia. And probably the most notable example — AOL’s ill-fated purchase of Time Warner during the dotcom bubble (or better phrased, Time Warner’s mistake in selling to AOL).

As a former M&A attorney, former Google executive, and a serial entrepreneur, I have experienced M&A from every point of view. Experience has taught me that the art of good M&A requires a combination of careful research, emotional intelligence, and attention to detail that might otherwise get overlooked; due diligence requires more than a scan through boxes of contracts and reviewing the balance sheet. Here are three tips for sidestepping some pitfalls that aren’t always obvious, but that could spoil an otherwise successful technology acquisition:

Make sure you’re buying the core underlying technology (and the full rights to it), not just the company licensing the technology.

In 2005, eBay spent $2.6 billion on Skype, which it hoped would increase sales on its platform by giving buyers and sellers an instant communications channel. When Skype failed to take off among eBay users, most people assumed that was the reason eBay put Skype for sale four years later (taking a $936 million write-down in the value). But there was a little known fact complicating the situation: The purchase didn’t include full ownership of Skype’s underlying technology. At the time, I was at Google, heading up Google Voice, and we were thinking about trying to buy Skype from eBay. We decided against it when we realized we would have to negotiate not only with eBay, but also Niklas Zennstrom, Skype’s founder, who maintained ownership of the core peer-to-peer networking technology. Eventually, eBay sold a big stake of Skype to a group of private investors and a few years later, Microsoft bought the company along with the intellectual property.

Insight Center

When I was in M&A law, we spent the vast majority of our due diligence work on every deal checking to make sure the acquisition target had clean rights to the technology the acquiring company was trying to buy. The first and second year associates would get the task of reading through every contract the target company had entered…usually stacked in in banker’s boxes in some due diligence room. It was painful, but it helped ensure there were no legal limits on any underlying intellectual property.

Communicate with all shareholders, even those with a small stake.

When Yahoo was about to buy my first startup, Dialpad Communications, we met surprising resistance from an unlikely source. An investor, who had written off most of his stake in Dialpad many years earlier, thus indicating that the company was worth close to zero to him, suddenly had his own ideas. As the deal was about to close, I called him to say, “Great news! You’re about to make millions off of the investment you wrote off years ago. All you have to do is sign this paper.” I expected gratitude and cooperation, but apparently my lack of communication about the negotiation process was not appreciated, and the investor put a higher dollar value on his share. Looking back on it, I shouldn’t have expected champagne corks and flowers so soon. A deal isn’t over until the ink is dry.

First, every M&A deal throws curveballs, so anticipate and brace yourself for them. Second, people act in their own best interests — often at the last minute. Mitigate the consequences of that potentially irrational self-interest by having conversations early on. That way, you’ll buy yourself more time to negotiate tricky requests and help shareholders understand what they’re getting.

Don’t underestimate the value of chemistry and culture.

Sometimes companies are so blinded by the potential for technology synergies and market growth from a merger that they fail to take into account something obvious — the people. One of the most notorious examples of a post-M&A culture misfit is the 2005 merger of Kansas-based Sprint and Nextel. Conservative Sprint executives clashed with scrappy Nextel personnel. A Nextel managers’ meeting illustrated the dynamic perfectly: The Nextel CEO wore khakis and shouted “Stick it to Verizon!,” while his Sprint counterpart, wearing a suit, gave a PowerPoint presentation. Lack of chemistry affected the ability to effectively integrate in other ways and ultimately forced the Sprint CEO to resign.

My current company, Dialpad (I bought back the name after selling Dialpad Communications to Yahoo! in 2005), recently acquired TalkIQ, a leader in the artificial intelligence and machine learning, and our shared culture and values have been a key factor to the success of this deal. Months before the acquisition, we were working together as partners and during weekly engineering meetings we found the two teams naturally worked as one. This made sense, as TalkIQ’s CEO had worked side by side for years with my co-founder (now Dialpad’s vice president of engineering) to oversee the massive growth of Google AdWords, remaining close friends after they left Google to pursue other career opportunities. You can’t put too fine a point on how important shared chemistry and culture are.

Good mergers aren’t easy to pull off. There are a host of things that lead to failure — financial losses, stock drops, lost market opportunities, fizzled dreams. Being prepared for all the possibilities, and knowing about the various snags that might arise, will increase the likelihood of a smooth and successful union.

Welcome to DIGITAL HEALTH BRIEFING, the newsletter providing the latest news, data, and insight on how digital technology is disrupting the healthcare ecosystem, produced by Business Insider Intelligence.

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US HEALTH EXECUTIVES EXPECT AI TO REACH HEALTHCARE IN 3 YEARS: Although AI is generating significant buzz in the healthcare sector, it has yet to infiltrate the clinical setting properly. In 2017, the overwhelming majority of healthcare delivered in the US had little to no AI involvement. However, 85% of US health executives believe AI will have a central role in healthcare within the next three years, according to an Accenture report shared with Business Insider Intelligence.

Two key trends indicate that AI is poised to impact US healthcare over the next 18 months:

• Clinical trials are becoming more common. Several clinics and researchers have begun exploring how AI can be used within a clinical setting. For example, Google, Stanford, the University of Chicago, and the University of California conducted a study that assessed the ways AI could be used to predict mortality rates. As more evidence reveals that AI can empower health systems’ offerings, investment dollars will likely creep up. 
• The FDA is taking a greater interest in products that use AI. The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) announced in April that it planned to expand its regulatory coverage to encourage and prepare for the development of health products that incorporate AI. The FDA is working to facilitate the inclusion of AI in digital health tools by considering how it can add the segment to its pre-certification program.

Building consumers’ and clinicians’ trust in AI will be paramount as health systems and insurers implement the technology, Accenture notes. While consumers are concerned about how their data is being used, clinicians want proof that the technology is dependable amid liability concerns and that it ensures positive patient outcomes. There are two primary strategies to overcome these issues:

• Provide transparency around the motives for using patient data in AI as well as how AI models make decisions. This can help to demonstrate that the business understands and acknowledges the consumers’ concerns and helps to foster trust in the brand’s use of AI.
• Present evidence of how AI can provide positive outcomes. As more pilot studies of AI in clinical settings come to light and show how the technology can assist physicians and hospitals, such as through clinical decision support, clinicians will become more comfortable trusting the technology in a clinical setting.

PHILIPS PARTNERS WITH DANA-FARBER TO BRING PERSONALIZED MEDICINE TO CANCER TREATMENT: Health tech giant Philips is using cancer research institute Dana-Farber Clinical Pathways to develop a cloud-based precision medicine platform that helps oncologists more quickly identify appropriate cancer treatments, according to Healthcare It News. Philips’ cloud-based precision medicine platform, “IntelliSpace Oncology,” will help oncologists map cancer patients to the appropriate treatment options based on their radiology, pathology, genomics, and electronic health records (EHR) data. Precision medicine — which makes use of variations in consumers’ genes, environment, and lifestyle to guide the treatment of diseases — enables health systems to process large amounts of data to tailor personalized treatments that deliver better experiences and better outcomes. This helps to minimize the number of hospital readmissions and unnecessary tests, the number of hospital readmissions and unnecessary tests, thereby lowering the overall cost of healthcare. Moreover, the potential of precision medicine to reduce costs and improve outcomes means it has a role to play in the emergence of value-based care (VBC). An earlier implementation of Dana-Farber Clinical Pathways for lung cancer resulted in a $15,000 reduction in the cost of care per patient. 

WEB PRESENCE IMPORTANT FOR INSURERS AS CONSUMERS FLOCK TO ONLINE SEARCH: Online search and consumer reviews play a significant role in consumer behavior and decision-making when engaging with insurance providers online, according to a new Yext study. When it comes time to select a new provider or agent, 75% of respondents rated reviews as somewhat or very important to their decision, and half used online search tools as their first resource for insurance information. The “Yelpification” of healthcare means patients are shopping around online before choosing insurers and providers, and both players have reason to worry — review sites transformed the restaurant landscape with increased transparency, putting more power into the hands of consumers and pushing some businesses out of the market. Moving forward, payers that invest in their online presence, including monitoring online reviews and improving search engine optimization, will be best prepared to capture more of the available market. This trend will gain momentum as a younger, more digital-friendly demographic begins to shop for insurance.

NATURAL LANGUAGE PROCESSING HELPS HEALTH SYSTEM GAUGE CARDIAC DEVICE EFFECTIVENESS: Missouri-based health system Mercy is using natural language processing (NLP) — a branch of machine learning that trains computers to process large amounts of natural language data — to evaluate the performance of cardiac devices, according to Healthcare IT News. NLP enables Mercy to analyze raw data across its EHR system and unlock previously inaccessible data from areas like clinical notes. The result is a more complete picture of patient data, which Mercy clinicians have used to glean insights into the efficacy of the different heart failure devices it has installed in 100,000 of its patients. Clinicians can use these insights to give feedback to medical device manufacturers and to evaluate which device a patient is most compatible with to improve quality and outcomes. Given the success of the tool for medical devices, Mercy's exploring new areas where they can apply NLP, such as operations workflow.

IN OTHER NEWS:

• Medisafe, a prescription management platform, increased the rate at which HIV patients refilled their prescriptions, according to a new study. Medisafe aims to reduce the $300 billion in healthcare costs related to poor medication adherence each year, which leads to unnecessary hospitalizations, ER visits, and extra tests.
• The UK National Health Service's (NHS) online patient portal was down for nearly 24 hours beginning May 30, 2018, according to Digital Health. Patients were unable to refill prescriptions, view medical records, or schedule appointments during this period.
• Zebra Vision, an Israeli diagnostic imaging startup, secured $30 million in additional funding to bring its total financing to $50 million, according to TechCrunch. Zebra uses computer vision, or the automated extraction of analysis from images, to help radiologists improve diagnosis.

Join the conversation about this story »

To be successful at Account Based Marketing, you must answer two fundamental questions:

1) “Are the right people at accounts spending time with our company?”

2) “Is that engagement going up over time?”

These are leading indicators of success. After all, ABM is all about quality and not quality.

Fortunately, when you have account analytics, you can give your team these insights and more. And it all starts with one thing: engagement.

Engagement is a cornerstone concept in ABM. It denotes something fundamental about the customer’s connection to your brand. More engagement means the customer has a more profound commitment; engagement begets activity, such as buying and advocating.

For a deeper dive into measuring Engagement and how that important metrics fits into ABM analytics, check out Engagio’s Clear and Complete Guide to ABM Analytics. Download it free here. In this post, we’re not going to look at what engagement is, but rather how to measure it and how to take action on that data.

How to Use Engagement Data

There are multiple ways to use Engagement data. Here’s how we think about it and use it at Engagio.

Account Scoring

Assuming you have already identified accounts of potential interest, engagement data effectively prioritizes resources to the accounts most interested in your products or services.

Sales is always asking questions like:

“How do I get qualified meetings with key decision makers who understand why they’re meeting with me?” and “How can I engage everyone who matters at the account?” This means we must provide data to help them prioritize their time and efforts.

To do that, you can filter engagement data produced by marketing-driven activities. While sales-driven engagement (like meetings and replies) is useful for measuring relationship depth, it’s less useful for scoring.

Reps want to view their most engaged accounts immediately to help them understand where to focus their energy and what impact different activities are making on their target accounts.

Aggregate Engagement

Measuring total minutes across all target accounts is an excellent proxy for overall engagement. If the overall trend is up, especially with the right personas, you’re likely connecting with target accounts.

For a company “all-in” on ABM, engagement minutes can replace marketing-sourced pipeline as the number-one marketing metric, and that’s precisely what we have seen with some of our customers. Target accounts with increasing engagement help teams understand the effectiveness of their ABM efforts.

Show where your engagement is coming from using an engagement heatmap. Target accounts can be in the rows, and job level in the columns. Then, you can visualize engagement with a heat map to see where you have coverage and where you need to work.

Advanced Engagement Analytics

The next level of measuring engagement is segmenting your data further with filters. Filtering engagement data can answer interesting questions about target accounts. For example, your filters could tell you if Tier 1 CXOs and VPs actually attend webinars.

Other filters let you answer questions such as:

• Which of a specific rep’s accounts had someone visit the pricing page?
• With which target accounts did we meet with last month?
• Which executives at target accounts in New York have engaged with us for at least 30 minutes, but the account lacks an opportunity?

The possibilities are endless with the right ABM foundation.

Delivering Engagement Data You Can Act On

Data are useless unless you act on it. That’s why it’s important to get it in front of your team. We find that Sales and SDRs love engagement data as much as Marketing!

When you make engagement data available to Sales and Sales Development, they will be able to use it to:

• Identify engaged accounts
• Find the best people to contact next
• Understand how effectively Marketing is supporting their efforts
• Prepare QBRs and other account reviews

If you want your team to be effective, you must expose data about existing rep activity and effectiveness. Give it to them in multiple ways, and to it consistently. At Engagio, we deliver engagement data via email, CRM, sales tools, and your analytics platform.

In Email

Most reps appreciate weekly (or even daily) emails about engagement with the accounts they care about. Imagine coming into the office first thing in the morning and having an email summarizing activities and changes in engagement of your key accounts. They can use that data to drill down and determine the next action to take on that account.

Here is some other key information that reps can use in these emails:

• Most engaged accounts
• Accounts visiting the website
• Newly engaged executives

In CRM

Reps also want to see engagement data where they spend another significant portion of their day: the company’s CRM. Include online and offline activities for leads and contacts as well as insights across Marketing and Sales activities. Tracking web activity is not enough.

In your CRM, display:

• Calculated fields. Show total minutes by account and individual for engagement types across time periods.
• Visual timelines. Map account engagement activities in a visual timeline. (These are essentially electrocardiogram, or EKG, charts for account health.)

In Other Tools that Sales Uses

Engagement data is useful anywhere customer-facing employees work: corporate email, calendars, LinkedIn, and so on. Engagio’s Scout product is a Chrome extension that lets reps quickly see engagement information about accounts and the people at the accounts, as well as all the emails and meetings with the account (a “unified account inbox”) — anywhere reps are already working on the web.

These essential account insights coordinate relevant, human interactions — which is what ABM is all about.

In analytics platforms

Directly logging into analytics platforms like Engagio’s Engage product is the most sophisticated option. Salespeople mine for nuggets of opportunity by drilling into territories and seeing account data. About ~30% of Engagio customers encourage their AEs and SDRs to log in to the platform directly.

Engagement analytics answer a fundamental question that all ABM practitioners are trying to answer: Are we creating and deepening relationships with the right people at target accounts?

To learn more about how fits into the broader topic of account analytics and ABM measurement, check out Engagio’s Clear and Complete Guide to ABM Analytics.

Too many times, salespeople talk themselves out of making a call or taking action. They overthink it. Want to know a better approach to increasing sales and boosting sales motivation?

Go first. Ask yourself second.  In other words, take the initiative and GO, whether that be making the phone call or reaching out in another way. After the fact you can decide if it was the right move, but you at least need to make the move.

Check out the video to see what I mean:

A coach can help you excel in your sales career! Invest in yourself by checking out my coaching program today!

Copyright 2018, Mark Hunter “The Sales Hunter.” Sales Motivation Blog. Mark Hunter is the author of High-Profit Prospecting: Powerful Strategies to Find the Best Leads and Drive Breakthrough Sales Results

As solopreneurs, we’re tempted to want to do everything ourselves. In fact, it’s become cool to call yourself a “solopreneur” in the last few years. I believe that what was meant to refer to small business has been a bit misconstrued into “do it all yourself.” The reality is this doesn’t work. You need to seek out people you need to hire or else you will go crazy.

Why Being a Solopreneur Doesn’t Work

I just crossed the six-figure business mark and I noticed something interesting – I spent money to get here. Because it seems that the old saying is true, you need to spend money to make money. More specifically, it’s spending money on people you need to hire so you can continue to scale and grow your business.

Here’s what happens if you don’t. If you don’t invest in people, you get stuck doing everything yourself. More often then not, solopreneurs get stuck working in the business rather than on the business. As the business owner, your focus should be on “How do I make more money?” If you’re doing everything yourself, your time is caught up in stupid things you can outsource to someone else.

Additionally, the people you need to hire will make you more money (that is if they are good). For example, my agent doesn’t just pay for herself, she makes me money. My accountant doesn’t just pay for himself, he saves me thousands of dollars by making sure I don’t overpay in taxes or penalties. If I were to hire salespeople in the future, they would make me money.

That is just a brief overview of why you need to hire people. Now let’s get into who it is you need to hire and how they can help you.

Accountant

I’ve heard it said that the first person a business owner should hire is an accountant. I tend to agree. There’s a certain peace of mind that comes with knowing what you need to pay in estimated taxes. It’s good to hire an accountant who can help you tax plan.

If the accountant is especially good, they can also help you with some small business consulting. At the very least, you may be able run expenses by them so you can crunch some numbers or strategically plan how it’s going to work.

You also do not want to mess with the IRS. While it’s true that they are very nice and will help you create payment plans, you just don’t want to get in a bad cycle. Additionally, you can get penalized and have to pay extra money for a bunch of different things. This includes not paying enough in estimated taxes or contributing too much money to tax-advantaged retirement accounts.

That’s why an accountant is the first person on our “People You Need to Hire” list.

A business manager

The reason a business manager is on our list of people you need to hire is quite simple. Let other people do the managing so you can get back to being the visionary. Once you reach a certain level of success on your own, it’s imperative that you find a business manager. This is a lesson I’m currently learning the hard way.

Here’s the scoop. In the last week, I’ve had a speaking engagement, sales calls, media reaching out to me and client work. On top of that, I’m keeping an eye on leads myself and I’m trying to get my own content done. I’m tired.

This is an example of how you get overwhelmed because you need help. When a business manager steps in, they can take care of some of these processes for you. Or at least help you streamline them. Additionally, they can screen requests and delegate to other team members so you don’t have to be the direct point of contact.

Again, this frees up a lot of your time, mental bandwidth and creativity so you can focus on growing the business.

Salespeople

Want to make more money? Increase your sales.

When you’re ready to take things to the next level, you could hire salespeople to sell your products and services for you.

For example, eventually, I’m hiring salespeople to sell my six-week group coaching program. This is because I’ve already tested it for a year with students and I know it works.

How does this help me? First, if someone’s sole role is sales, they can bring in a lot of money. Second, this again frees up your space to do a lot the marketing that gets people in your funnel in the first place.

Grant Cardone is a great example of this. He is putting content out there for free every single day. He also has a team of salespeople that sell is products and services for him.

Also, selling is an art and not everyone can do it. Often times the solopreneur is great at delivering a service or product but isn’t so good at selling it. You can fix that problem by hiring people who can sell.

So if you’re looking to make money fast, then salespeople should be on your list of people you need to hire.

Marketing Manager

Next, on our list of people you need to hire is a marketing manager. This is the person who creates marketing plans and delegates all the moving pieces.

Marketing is the first part of the sales process and it’s very important. If no one knows who you are they aren’t going to buy from you. The problem is you probably can’t handle all the moving pieces yourself. That’s where the marketing manager comes in.

For example, they find a Facebook ads person and delegate to them. Or they run your social media. Or they are the middle man between all the contractors involved in creating marketing content. Depending on how far you want to take it, this includes writers, graphic designers, photographers and videographers

Public Relations Agent

A PR Agent is not a top need for a business because I believe you can get a lot of PR yourself. However, there does come a moment where you just don’t have the time anymore. The problem is you do need to focus on getting visibility. More visibility equals more leads. Those leads equals more money.

When you get to the point where you can’t do it yourself anymore (as I have), you may want to consider hiring someone else. They can pitch you, book you and handle some of your social.

Spokesperson and/or Speaker Agent

Just like actors have agents, so do business owners. This comes in handy if you plan on doing any spokesperson work or speaking to increase brand awareness (and make more money).

Again, they aren’t a top priority on our people you need to hire list, but they can make your life easier. For example, they can negotiate on your behalf and get you more money. They can also take over the pitching for you. This allows you to be the talent while they do the hard selling.

Final Thoughts

You’re probably wondering, where do I find the money for this? Well, you don’t have to hire these people all at the same time. You can layer team members in as your business earns more revenue. The list is also organized from most important to “this can wait.” The important thing is that you just get started in building a team, starting with these people you need to hire.

Have you ever completed a BuzzFeed-like online quiz in order to find out how you “rank” or “score” compared to others who also participate in the quiz? Chance are you’ve taken at least one of these types of quizzes. It’s our human nature to want to participate in these types of quizzes to see how we stack against others, or simply out of the curiosity to find out the “secret” or “answer” that the quiz promises to solve.

Most people wouldn’t spend too much time deciding whether or not to take a quiz online, as they’re usually short, fun, and easy to complete – plus they come with the reward of knowing your result upon completing it. Yet, if that same quiz was called an “online form”, or “survey”, then most people might think twice before deciding to commit their time and attention to completing such form or survey. Even if the actual quiz or survey had the same questions, the fact that one is labeled as a quiz automatically breaks the barrier people have to complete it. Why? Because in most instances the quiz becomes a game, and a challenge, rather than a “task” you have to complete.

Have you ever thought of using a quiz on your website to generate new leads and potential clients?

Most people haven’t, which is why today you should take advantage of this amazing opportunity to get your website to stand out from the rest. By integrating quizzes into your website, you’ll be turning your regular “lead generation” process 180 degrees. Now, instead of having people fill out a boring contact form on your site so you can reach back to them, your web visitors will actually want to take a 1-2 minute quiz so they can find the answer of how they’ll score.

How do you turn quiz respondents into leads?

When you set up your quiz, you can create a simple ranking system that can show users a different quiz result based on the answers they choose as they complete the quiz. Once they complete the last question, but right before you show them their result, you have the option to show them an “opt-in” form asking visitors to share their contact information (Name, E-mail, etc) in order to see their quiz result.

Naturally, those who do provide you with their information are usually interested in hearing more from you, and thus may now be considered new leads generated from your website. Do keep in mind that if you make it a requirement for your visitors to provide you with their info, many will just exit the quiz and will never become leads – plus, they may leave a bit angry or disappointed from not getting to see their quiz result.

Alright, time to show you how we built an online quiz, which asks users the question “How effective is your sales and marketing team?”. Let’s get started:

Steps to set up a website quiz to generate leads and drive sales

1.Setup our opt-in form to turn quiz takers into business leads

Start by choosing what type of information you’d like to gather from your quiz respondents after they complete the quiz, but before they see their results. In our example, we chose to ask for their first name and email.

Yet, as you might have noticed we made filling out the opt-in form “optional”, based on the fact that you can see the “skip this step” button, which takes people to their quiz result without forcing them to give us their contact information. We chose this strategy to avoid considering those who truly only care about their quiz result as leads, as they probably don’t want to hear from us again. Yet, those who do fill out their info, do probably want to hear from us, and thus we’ll consider them real leads.

2.Setup an integration to save quiz leads directly into a CRM or E-mail system

Through Interact’s built-in integrations you can automatically save your new leads into some of the most popular E-mail marketing platforms, marketing automation CRMs, or to over 1,000 other apps through the use of Zapier.com. In our case, we use Zapier to save our quiz leads into our AgileCRM system.

3.Setup conversion tracking codes for Google Analytics & Facebook

Next, you have the option to install your Google Analytics and Facebook pixel tracking codes to keep a perfect record of your quiz performance as a lead-generation machine.

Installing the code is as simple as copy/pasting your Google Analytics account number or Facebook pixel ID. No need for the full Javascript code.

4.Design your quiz cover page

Now it’s time to start getting creative. At this stage, you have the option of designing a short cover page that will introduce your quiz to the prospective respondent. You can customize the graphic, quiz title, description, and the CTA (Call-to-action) button.

5.Defined our quiz results scale: Levels, stages, or personality types

Then, it’s time for coming up with your various quiz results options, stages, user types, buckets or however you want to call them. The idea is that each quiz respondent will get a different result based on the answer they chose while answering the quiz. This is the step where you get to define what those result options will be.

For Bloominate, we chose to rank our users into one of five productivity levels. At the first level, we called our quiz respondents “Dinosaurs”, as their productivity levels are very low based on their responses. At the second level we call them “Cavemen”, at the third level “School Boy”, at the fourth level “Soldier” and at the fifth (and highest) level we call them “Jedi”

6.Created your quiz questions

Next, come up with 6-10 questions that people can respond within 1-2 minutes. Each question should probably have 3 to 5 answers to choose from.

In our example, we created a total of 8 questions, each with 5 options to choose from. In this case, each of the 5 options directly correlates with each of the quiz results levels – which makes it easier to program the quiz.

7. Correlated answers with quiz results scale

In this next step, you’ll need to correlate the answer from each question with the appropriate or most likely quiz result scale/level/stage/personality/bucket type that the answer relates to.

For example, in our quiz, answer A) always corresponded with the result Level 1, while B) corresponded with Level 2, C) with Level 3, D) with Level 4 and E) with Level 5. In our case, we built our answers in such a way that it would be easy for our team to correlate answers with results. Yet, Interact’s software gives you the flexibility you’ll need to be very creative with your quiz setup.

8.Publish and share your quiz online

Now, as the final step simply save your quiz, publish it live, and share it on your website, social media or anywhere else online where you can share a link.

Interact lets you publish your quiz as a pop-up, announcement bar, Facebook Ad, embedded into your website or landing page, as a self-hosted quiz (you’ll get a direct link to your quiz), or will automatically help you share your quiz on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn or Google+ (Yep, in case anyone actually still uses G+)

That’s it, now it’s your turn to build your own quiz and start collecting new business leads.

Action Steps to Get Started:

1. Think of a fun, clever, or interesting quiz that your target customers would enjoy to take.
2. Write down at least 3 to 5 ideas for quiz titles, and then pick the one you like the most.
3. Come up with a list of 6-10 questions you could ask your ideal target customers.
4. Decide if you’ll have 3, 4 or 5 answer choices per question. Once you’ve decided, that will define your quiz scale to build your levels, stages, buckets or personality types.
5. Write down all of your questions, along with the answers choices for each of them.
6. Design a cool graphic for your cover page.
7. Write a short description of what you quiz is about, and what your respondents will learn about, or “discover” about themselves after they complete it.
8. Setup a Google Analytics account if you don’t yet have one, and set up a Facebook pixel code.
9. Decide where you’ll want to save your leads. MailChimp? Your CRM? Or just as an Excel list?
10. Then go ahead and get started setting up and designing your first quiz.

Cold calling can strike fear into the hearts of even the bravest of salespeople.

If you’re not doing it right, it could be a waste of time. But, if you’re utilizing your time and resources in the most efficient way possible — a cold call could be an effective sales tool in your bag. But even still, we don’t full recommend it.

Before you even begin, try a different frame of mind: This call isn’t just some “cold” call. It’s the first conversation in which you’re just introducing yourself to a potential customer to see if they’re a fit for your stuff.

Here are the 10 Cold Calling Techniques all good reps need to make quota.

But First, Avoid the Cold Call

Complete disclosure, LeadFuze’s goal in life is to kill the cold call.

Our ten cold calling techniques are legitimate and (we hope) helpful, but we still would rather you try a different approach to booking a call. Yes, by all means, call!

Just not the traditional definition of “cold”.

Based on recent cold calling data, it takes roughly 100 cold calls to get 7-10 conversations. Out of those calls, it takes over 100 “no” answers (actually 118) before you get a “yes”. If you can make 150 calls a day, you may get that yes, but at the cost of your day.

And for B2Bs, the product you sell may not be an instant purchase, but only the beginning of the sales process.

So, a rep spends 2-3 days a week calling to find a few prospects and the remaining time is chasing, nurturing and closing those prospects.

Here are two ways that could help you avoid the 150-300 a day call cycle.

Cold Email, Duh (is “duh” still a thing?):

Seriously, in the B2B world, emails can get 30%-50% open rates and 5% response rate — when done correctly.

Send them an email with an offer that is related to, but not explicitly what you’re selling. In some cases, it could be what you’re selling, but not usually. We’ve come up with 22 different templates in the LeadFuze app to send to leads. Everything from webinars to pitching a guest post.

Direct Mail

Sending a direct mail piece is coming back into style.

We’ve had clients that have used direct mail and email to really drive interest and schedule calls. One send a five dollars in a clear envelope and sent an email saying, “I’m the bloke that send you five bucks” (he’s Australian).

The result? 30% response.

If you still hear the phones calling to you, here are the 10 cold calling strategies.

Focused On Goals (The Basics)

Cold calling isn’t just about making that final sale. It’s about getting your foot in the door to even make the sale. A cold call is an effective way to set up an appointment, during which you can make your sale.

When setting up that appointment, ask for a specific appointment time. Rather than asking if you can speak at some fuzzy point in the future, ask if you can call at 10 a.m. on Thursday, etc.

Pat Cavanaugh of Inc.com recommends asking for only 10 minutes of your prospect’s time. Using those pre-call methods beforehand could warm up a cold prospect, as well.

If your company has a quota of how many cold calls you need to make a month, plan out your personal goals by week. That way you’re not spending the last week scrambling to get all of your calls in.

Strong Research Skills

An effective salesperson needs to be making their cold calls to the right person at the right time.

To utilize their time in the most efficient way possible, a good salesperson will use market research, focus on their target market, and get as much background on the decision maker up front.

An effective salesperson needs to be making their cold calls to the right person at the right time.

Connecting with the right person (the first time) can be a critical component of your cold calling success. Dig into the background of the company, the person you’re pitching to, and the industry in general.

Leverage Social Media

A good salesperson will look up the background of the person they’re connecting with and the company on social media.

A connection as simple as a shared LinkedIn group could give you a 70% increased likelihood of speaking with a cold called decision maker.

Be Prepared: Opening Statement

Successful salespeople are very prepared going into a cold call.

Not only have they researched the company, and the person they’re calling, but they’ve also prepared an opening statement and a script for the rest of the call.

To craft your own opening statement, make sure to include:

• Your greeting
• An introduction
• A reference point (remember those shared LinkedIn groups and connections?)
• A (brief!) synopsis of your product/service
• What problem/issue your product solves in their business/life
• And a prompt for them to ask you questions

Be Prepared: The Script

Just as you wouldn’t go into an interview empty handed, you shouldn’t plan to wing the rest of the call after the introduction.

Some points of interest have to be prepared, like:

• Benefits of your product
• How your service solves a problem in the industry or their business
• Why they should buy from your company and not your competitor
• Any (nicely worded) rebuttals they may have that you can counter

The idea of a script is not to just read a monotone, prerecorded-sounding list of your company’s accomplishments. The goal behind a script is to have prepared speaking points, so that you don’t leave something valuable out of your discussion, or spend too much time meandering.

Prepare open-ended questions, in which “yes” and “no” answers won’t suffice for an answer. You’d like to give room for a response from your prospect, and make them feel like an active participant.

Additionally, make sure you are prepared to answer in-depth product questions.

Pick the Right Time

When choosing a time to set up a meeting, be strategic about the when and how.

A quality salesperson will entice the prospect with an email, before setting up their actual phone call. And providing some information beforehand can give your prospect background on your company, and that can help to warm them up to you and (eventually) your sales pitch.

This technique can help transition you from a random stranger, to a work acquaintance they just haven’t quite met yet.

Tips for success:

• Never book an appointment a couple days before a major holiday
• Thursdays are usually the best days to reach decision makers
• Call early in the morning (before they’ve had a chance to be buried under work)
• …or in the late afternoon (once they’ve caught up on the day’s work)
• Your prospect might rather meet face-to-face, or via video chat, or phone call — see what works best for them, and adapt

Practice Makes Perfect

I know it may be awkward at first, but practice. Practice on your coworkers, your family, your cat or dog, your friends — it doesn’t matter who, but practice. Make sure to practice your opening pitch, practice your dialogue, practice how you ask for a client meeting.

Many people are uncomfortable with cold calling — but the more you practice, the more comfortable you’ll become.

And in the end, that will make you a better salesperson.

Practice ensuring your tone of voice is upbeat, and that you’re not speaking too quickly. 38% of verbal communication is understood just by tone of voice, so make sure you’re engaged, upbeat, and aligning yourself as an ally of the company’s success.

Don’t Give Up

Your cold call prospect is busy, you’re busy, we’re all busy these days.

Be persistent. 80% of sales are made after the fifth contact, according to MarketingWizdom.

Other relevant statistics:

• Percent of salespeople who give up after 1 no/1 contact: 44%
• Salespeople who give up after 2 nos/2 contacts: 22%
• After 3 nos/3 contacts: 14%
• And Percent of salespeople who give up after 4 nos/4 contacts: 12%

In other words, 92% give up after 4 contacts, and only 8% of salespeople as for an order or contact a 5th time. However, that 8% of salespeople are closing 80% of the overall sales — so tenacity pays off.

Don’t See Rejection As A Bad Thing

Rejection can actually be a tool to improve your cold calling skills.

Whether it’s learning what pain points you didn’t address, or discovering you didn’t do enough upfront research, or maybe your approach wasn’t quite right — whatever the reason for rejection is, try to view it as a launchpad for your next call to be even better.

Rejection can actually be a tool to improve your cold calling skills.

If possible, ask why someone doesn’t want to buy your product or service. Learn from your mistakes, and aim to do better each and every call.

Don’t see your first call as your only call — try to frame it as the beginning of a conversation. Plan a follow-up call in which you go more in-depth into your products or services.

Gather information from the prospect as much as possible so that, even if they pass on the first call, you can come back from there with a second call that more accurately addresses their needs.

Take A Break

Cold calling and rejection can induce nervousness. After every 10 to 15 calls, try taking a break. Stretch your legs, grab more coffee, or refill on snacks.

Play with a fidget spinner, if that’s your thing.

Just try to relax, and give yourself a couple of moments to mentally prepare for the next round of calls.

Are you a successful sales professional who cold calls? What are your best techniques? Let me know in the comments.

It’s no shock that more and more businesses are investing in referral marketing these days, but executing like marketers running the best referral programs out there is no easy task. Especially since numerous research has shown that a well-executed referral program has the power to fuel higher conversion rates than any other channel¹.

With so much data available to marketing leaders today, it is crucial to know the difference between acquisition channels and their impact on a variety of factors that impact brand exposure, engagement, conversion, and, ultimately, ROI. When you apply these learnings appropriately, you can create cohesive multi-channel strategies that embrace the strengths of each channel and amplify the likelihood of engaging, attracting, and acquiring new customers with greater efficiency.

For example, while referral marketing has a demonstrable ROI, it also tends to lower customer acquisition cost. By contrast, while email marketing also tends to generate a high ROI, its impact on customer acquisition costs tends to be static. Similarly, social media can be incredibly effective for driving brand awareness and engagement, but social traffic continues to convert at a relatively low rate.

So how can you best determine how referral marketing will impact your bottom line?

Don’t fret, we’re here to help with that.

Here’s a simple, three-step framework that’s designed to help both B2B and B2C companies calculate the costs associated with a referral program and compare those numbers against the expected return from referred customers.

Step 1: Compare Referral Program Cost Against New Customer Revenue

This is the easy step — and it’s the calculation that most marketers do.

At a high level, the goal here is to add up all of the “costs” associated with running your referral program. This might include investment in a referral marketing platform, headcount to manage your program, and incentives paid out for approved referrals. Here’s a quick breakdown of how to calculate the latter two factors:

The proportional cost of the person managing your referral program
Proportional is an important word here because most businesses don’t hire someone full-time to only run their referral program. So, the key here is to determine how much time someone spends managing your referral program and multiply that against their average hourly cost. For instance, if someone spends five hours per month managing your referral program and they cost you $35 per hour on average, it’s safe to estimate an annual cost of $2,100.

Referral incentives
This one’s easy. Let’s say you run an eCommerce company that offers $10 for every referral that results in a sale and you’re generating 1,000 of those per month, then the total annualized cost would add up to be $120,000.

While that second number might look large, there’s an important point to remember about referral incentive “costs” – they typically only cost you something when you’ve already closed new business.

So, if you’re a B2B company that sells solar power solutions and offers a $1,000 incentive for referred customers that install and pay for a $30,000 home solar system, then you’ll only pay the $1,000 incentive cost after you’ve already collected $30,000 in new revenue. This significantly limits your exposure to risk because it ensures that the vast majority of expenses will only be incurred if you’re actually converting and acquiring new customers.

Once you’ve calculated those costs and the new revenue they drove, generating a very basic ROI is simple: Add up total new revenue, divide it by total costs, and you’ll have your number.

Step 2: Factor in Average Customer Lifetime Value

While the calculation in Step 1 is the simplest way to calculate referral program ROI, companies that base ROI off a single purchase are leaving a very big variable out of the referral equation. Namely, the fact that referred customers tend to buy more, stay longer, and refer others — which means they’re often worth a lot more over time than non-referred customers.

One study of more than 10,000 customers over a 33-month period by the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School found that referred customers generated 25% higher profit margins and represented higher customer lifetime values (CLV) over customers acquired through other acquisition channels².

So, what does this mean for calculating B2B and B2C referral program ROI?

While the Wharton School’s final calculation that referred customers are worth 25% more may not apply to every business and every industry, the data does point to a clear truth: Referred customers are worth more — and by a significant margin. And that margin — and the total value of a customer over time — must be factored into your referral marketing ROI calculation.

Here’s a very simplified way to do it, based on the Wharton School’s estimate that referred customers are worth 25% more:

1. Calculate your average Customer Lifetime Value across all channels

To do this, take your average sale price and multiply it by the number of purchases an average customer makes. For example, if you sell subscription boxes and the typical customer buys $120 worth of merchandise an average of 2.5 times over their relationship with your brand, then your CLV would be $300 ($120 x 2.5).

2. Multiply your CLV metric by 1.25

If we assume that referred customers are worth 25% more in CLV (per the Wharton School study mentioned above), you can use that number to generate a more accurate calculation of referral marketing ROI. To do this, take your CLV, multiply it by 1.25 (a representation of the 25% higher margin), and you’ll have a new CLV number. Using the subscription box example above, this would equate to $375 ($300 x 1.25).

3. Multiply that CLV number by the number of referrals you generate and divide it by your referral costs

If you generate 100 referrals in a month and each new customer is theoretically worth $375 (per the calculation above), then your referral revenue will be $30,750. If your cost per referral (the incentive you offer) is $20, then you can divide that total cost ($20 x 100 referrals = $2,000) by the total revenue number to calculate ROI.

It’s worth noting that this calculation can be applied to both B2B and B2C businesses.

Just as a yoga studio customer is likely to buy from a business multiple times, customers buying business services are often worth more than just their initial purchase amount. In fact, the Wharton School study found that referred B2B customers spend more than non-referred customers and are 18% less likely to churn. Knowing this, you can extrapolate that data to develop a clearer understanding of the ROI of your B2B referral marketing program.

So, if you sell software that costs $12,000 on an annual contract and your data suggests that the average customer renews twice, then your CLV would be $36,000. If you apply the Wharton School’s numbers to that equation, then you can assume that a referred customer’s CLV will be $45,000 ($36,000 x 1.25).

That number is the real benchmark you should be using to calculate ROI because it paints the truest proportional picture of new revenue to referral marketing cost. Over time, you can use the analytics in your referral marketing platform’s dashboard to develop a more accurate idea of how much more valuable referred customers are than their non-referred counterparts. This will lead to an even more accurate and informative ROI calculation.

Step 3: Evaluate Referral ROI Against Other Acquisition Channels

While the previous two steps should give you a good idea of how well your referral marketing program is performing, the value of that information is limited without the context of how referral marketing ROI stacks up against other acquisition channels.

Thankfully, this is relatively easy.

In all likelihood, you’re already tracking the ROI of channels like paid advertising and email marketing. If that’s the case, simply evaluate those numbers against the ones you generated above. When you do, ask yourself these questions:

1. How would ramping up investment in one channel impact customer acquisition cost overall?

2. Is investment in a particular channel scalable?

3. If you wanted to ramp up acquisition efforts in that channel, could you afford to do so?

4. If you increased investment in one channel, how would it impact the performance of another?

5. If you increased investment in one channel, how would it impact revenue and ROI?

The Best Referral Programs Are Managed By Data-Driven Marketers

All too often, marketers tend to overlook the fact that each platform and tactic is unique.

Some tactics are better suited for brand awareness, others for increasing sales, and others for driving engagement. While trying to demonstrate ROI, it’s important to provide context for the specific value that each channel delivers to your broader business goals.

_{^{[1] eMarketer
[2] Journal of Marketing: Referral Programs and Customer Value}}

Over the past two decades, the Financial Times has transformed from a newspaper with 80% of revenue from print advertising to a digital service with 60% of revenues from subscriptions. This has been done while many newspapers have struggled to remain relevant, have lost readers and cut editorial staff. The Financial Times pursued a different strategy with an innovative approach to pricing. It has been able to maintain investment in editorial and improve the digital service and to fund this change from cash flow. It did not need to go outside the business for investment. How has it done this? We spoke with Financial Times Managing Director B2B Caspar de Bono who is part of the FT leadership team.

Caspar has kept a map of the key decisions they have made along the way and what the outcomes have been. The image below is a summary representation of this.

Ibbaka: Tell us a bit about your background and how you came up with the B2B pricing strategy.

Caspar: While I was doing an MBA at the London Business School I paid close attention to understanding pricing. Pricing is central to the identity of a business and is a core part of its positioning and strategy. We assume too much about why customers value a supplier and spend too much time describing the value of what we produce in terms that matter to us.

This was true in the newspaper business during the shift from print to digital. There was an assumption at the time that information should be free. I thought of this as a pricing choice. ‘Free’ is a price, not the absence of a price. Pricing was playing a fundamental part in the shift to digital. It was being driven by the desire of new entrants to gain market share not by customer need. There was a market for professionally sourced, reliable, independent news and expert analysis as well as low cost to produce, free news.

At the Financial Times, we had to move quickly and we made our choices based on our market segment. We did not set out to be a price leader for the sake of it. We went back to first principles: what business we are in, why we are in it, who are our customers and how do we get paid in the future? Given where the business was, and where we could see the industry going, we really had no choice but to act. Conforming was the bigger risk.

Ibbaka: How did you learn what you needed to know in order to make these choices?

Caspar: I joined the Financial Times in 1995 when we launched our first website. I started as a graduate trainee. I have moved around the business doing many roles. In 2004, I learned a relevant lesson while managing an FT subsidiary, a specialist magazine business. We had a market leading, advertising funded, trade publication for the 24,000 independent financial advisors (IFAs) in the UK. We found that the willingness to pay for online advertising to this audience was less than one-tenth what it was for the same audience in print and prices were falling. Advertising inventory was oversupplied and undifferentiated. This mattered; if advertising prices were going to fall to a fraction of what they had been then the specialist advertising business was in serious trouble. It would have been fantasy to assume we were going to expand the market. 23,000 out of the 24,000 IFAs in the market were already reading the publication. We could not easily expand internationally as the content was specific to the regulations and tax rules of the UK market. Volume would not make up for lower prices.

I was not alone in realizing this when I joined the FT board in 2007. We could see that specialist publishing would not be sustainable from advertising alone. At the same time, I became responsible for Intellectual Property licensing at the FT. This included the wholesaling of rights to republish FT content to news aggregators like Factiva, Lexis-Nexis and media monitoring companies. We also had a very small corporate newspaper sales team who started selling access to FT.com. However, we were told by prospective corporate customers  ‘We value the Financial Times, but as we get it via the news aggregators we don’t need to buy access to FT.com from you as well.’ The Financial Times was providing value, but we, the Financial Times, were not claiming that value. We were letting news aggregators claim it.

The go-to-market strategy for consumer focussed digital business was to give away the content for free, build an audience, and fund the effort through a VC and if possible, get other people and companies to provide the content for free. Many established media organisations were also keen to play this game. Including FT.com, which was free until 2001.

There was a popular saying promoted by big tech in the period ‘that information wants to be free.’ At the Financial Times, we decided not to follow this trend and to take a different path. We were considered out of touch with the way of modern media as a result.

We agreed on three important principles in this period. (1) Our work was valuable to readers and they were prepared to pay for quality. (For example, FT news stories have to be verified by two independent sources). (2) We had to have a direct contractual relationship with readers in a digital world. (3) That first party relationship would allow us to better understand customer needs, we would measure demand in a digital world and adapt our strategy in response.

We launched our first website in 1995. By 200,1 we had a binary model. Some web published content was always free; some was subscription only. This worked for a while but then plateaued at about 90,000 subscribers by 2005. We could see the ratio of subscription revenue to customer acquisition costs heading for zero. This was not a business that was going to scale. So in 2007, we did two things. We withdrew from the wholesale B2B rights market (licensing our intellectual property to others to sell). We introduced a metered model for consumers, where readers would initially get access to any articles but the quantity was limited per month, after which they would be invited to subscribe. We began to explore how we could be more creative with the way we licensed IP. Figuring out how to manage and price our IP provided a way forward in B2B markets. It also gave us the confidence to pull out of the App Store when Apple decided to replace the publisher as vendor of subscription products.

Ibbaka: Why were you able to see this and not others?

Caspar: There were many influences. Hearing customers talk about the value and strength of our brand and my experience with the IFA product. We knew that advertising would not be enough to carry the business. There was my own upbringing. I had been taught to think in a contrarian way and to look for ideas where other people are not looking.

Ibbaka: Is this a difficult skill to cultivate?

Well, it is my father’s view (Caspar is the son of the lateral thinker Edward de Bono) that everyone can develop this ability. We each make choices about how and where to focus our attention. I decided to spend time looking at what was not being looked at, to consider alternative possibilities. A linear supply chain is only necessary for physical goods. In a digital world, goods cost almost nothing to distribute and replicate, so why not create a triangular supply chain, in a similar way to software licensing?

Ibbaka: How did you go about building the team you needed?

Caspar: Many of the B2B team have worked on this from the beginning. James Mann, our B2B sales director was also dealing with the substitution effect of news aggregators in 2007. He is the the same person who went to talk to our customers and was told “Go away, we already get the Financial Times through Factiva.” As a result, he could give first hand evidence of what customers were saying and was a strong advocate for changing our relationship with aggregators.

We created a solution that would allow the customer to continue to benefit from the various services offered via multiple aggregators, while the Financial Times contracted directly with customers for the rights to use FT journalism on any platforms.

This was an adaptive response, one that gave customers what they wanted (aggregated search, multiplatform rights, transparency of usage and pricing) and the FT what we needed (a direct relationship with the customer).

Ibbaka: This seems to me an example of that Roger Martin would call ‘integrative thinking.’

Caspar: Yes. It can be more interesting to build a business under constraints. It means improvising with what you have in response to what you hear.

Ibbaka: Were you focused on new ways to create value?

Caspar: Yes and remember we made this change as the financial crisis broke. We did not have surplus funds to invest in this transition. We could not cut off the aggregators completely because customers valued their platforms and applications. They still play an important role in helping readers find and use articles in sector specific workflows. In fact, the FT is now available via 60 third party channels under this new model, compared with 7 when we wholesaled rights. This is because there is no cost for the channel to host FT content, as the customer pays the FT directly for FT rights. In setting out to achieve the goal of separating the value of search from the value of the content, we have opened up more possibilities for how the customer can use the FT.

The direct relationship with our customers meant we could respond better to their needs.

Let me give an example. Talking with business schools, we found that although they make extensive use of case studies, they found the case studies dated and US centric. Faculty and students were using the Financial Times to complement case studies with newer information and international examples. So we made it possible to annotate articles and share them more easily across an international network.

Ibbaka: What new needs are you seeing and how will these impact your pricing?

Caspar: We have a premium digital offer priced at £8.60 per week and a standard digital offer priced at £5.35 per week.

We are using customer insights to improve our premium offer. We could see from aggregated statistics that demand for content on two topics was outpacing our supply. So we moved our China research content into FT.com premium, it had previously been a separate business to FT.com. While our colleague in editorial created an M&A sub brand for Premium FT.com called Due Diligence. As a result, we have been able to increase pricing for the premium offer at about 5% per year and maintain renewal rates.

When we sell B2B, we start with the premium price but we don’t charge for everyone who might use the service. The price for a group subscription depends on how many readers are “engaged”. Engagement based pricing is based on observations of the behaviour of B2C subscribers (Engagement Score = Frequency x Square Root of Volume over Recency +1 see Lessons from the Professional Pricing Society Spring 2018 Conference). We can see from reading and purchasing behaviour that readers who are engaged are getting value from our journalism. It is worth subscribing. Our goal has been to help readers find relevant content consistently and thereby grow engagement. We share near real time and detailed usage statistics with our corporate customers on the utilisation of their group subscriptions. This empowers the customer to manage their licence and get the most out of our service. We demonstrate transparency by sharing the usage data so we can explain and evidence the connection between engagement and the value of the license.

Now we are exploring how we might add further value to our corporate customers and how to price these services. It has taken a while for us as an organisation to expand our definition of the customer. Our standard perception is that customers means individual readers as consumers. It is a persona we all relate to. However, we also have 5,000 organisations as the customer, for example, a consultancy or central bank. This will have to be based on the value we bring to the company or team as a whole and not just to the individual. We are learning about corporate needs that are not held by consumers and that creates opportunities to differentiate our services and invest where there is additional demand.

Ibbaka: What have you been learning from other industries?

Caspar: I deliberately look for inspiration outside of my own industry. RFV (to calculate engagement) is a concept we adapted from retail and catalogue direct marketing. Usage based pricing is borrowed from the software as a service industry; although, what I am seeing as a buyer of business software is “any usage is assumed to be valuable” rather than a threshold or type of usage that is aligned to customer value.

We are using engagement as a proxy to value. We are exploring how to get closer to value in the way that Rolls Royce has done with its Power by the Hour program (see the Wharton article ‘Power by the Hour’: Can Paying Only for Performance Redefine How Products Are Sold and Serviced?) We are searching for parallels to this. We believe our current ideas are the least worse so far. We expect to find better answers by asking customers, considering ideas from other industries, working creatively within constraints, and looking at the situation differently.

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Four Business Management Tools to Help Your Company More Profitable

When it comes to managing a full schedule while gaining new clients you need to be efficient as possible. By managing your projects and improving your tracking you can make more sales in less time. There are helpful resources that can help improve the process and keep your projects on track. Do you need to make your business more productive? Take advantage of these tools for entrepreneurs and small business owners, and let me know how these work for you!

1) Tap into hundreds of leads and influencers – NinjaOutreach

Find more prospects and open new doors of opportunity. NinjaOutreach includes powerful search and CRM that will enable your business to connect with leaders in your industry as well as ramp up your lead generation. Use their software to grow your blog, gain more guest blogging opportunities, promote your content, and much more. Easily track conversations and campaigns all from one simple dashboard.

2) Create, market, and sell courses online – Thinkific

If you are looking for more exposure for your brand through consumer education then you will love this platform. Thinkific helps your company create courses that can be fully customized with your own design. You control the pricing, student information, ect. The responsive support team is there to help your business make any teaching class a success.

3) Powerful visual marketing automation – Ontraport

Create highly converting campaigns in minutes. Ontraport is an easy to use online tool, which can improve your customer’s experience as well as drive up referrals and sales. Their visual reporting provides the information your business needs to help increase your bottom line and outreach. Their templates include per-designed sales pages, emails, and more.

4) CRM management for freelancers and business – Dubsado

Improve the client process and tell your branding story as well. Dubsado allows you to combine your tools into one place where you can better manage your customer base. This will enable you to give each one individualized attention while streamlining your marketing and budget at the same time.

Hopefully you will find these business tools useful to your productivity and growth. Are there any that you would like to add as well?

Listen, I can tell you about sales enablement and sales & marketing alignment until I’m blue in the face, but that doesn’t mean you’re going to believe me or listen closely. That’s fine, I am but a mere blogger just trying to spread my truths into the Universe, and whoever happens to listen and walk away more informed, then great.

But, what if I were to tell you that one of the most prestigious universities in the world conducted their own study to determine the impact of sales and marketing misalignment? You’re interested now, right? It’s fine, that doesn’t hurt my feelings. Not like this is my career or livelihood or anything.

Anyway, Harvard Business School conducted a study in which they attempted to find the results of sales and marketing misalignment. The researchers presented 150 B2B sellers with four situations that each had unique stressors on the alignment between Sales and Marketing.

The results, while not wholly groundbreaking (misalignment is bad!), provide some valuable insights into the softer side of misalignment. Rather than demonstrating the cold-hard facts of misalignment, this study highlighted how it affects team morale, goal accomplishment, and motivation.

Sales and Marketing Alignment Effects

The first result that the study notes is perhaps the most interesting. It also is the most straightforward of the findings. Simply put: a misalignment of goals is a strong demotivator. “When two goals are misaligned, it reduces the sales force’s perception that they can achieve their goal.”

Because only sellers were surveyed the results are oriented around the effects on sellers, but it’s easy to correlate their findings to marketers. An organization that does not have clearly defined goals for both Sales and Marketing—as well as shared goals—risks creating an unmotivated workforce. The study goes on to say, “The effect of the misaligned goals reduced hope… and created a defeatist climate.”

The study discovered a second, related danger to misalignment. This second finding states that misaligned goals have a compounding effect in terms of perceived difficulty and demotivation. “Misaligned goals are perceived… as more difficult,” the study says. “While difficult goals are not necessarily problematic, the challenge is when the sales force believes that the misalignment of goals is simply unnecessary, or that the goal combination makes it impossible to be successful.”

The respondents in the survey felt something that is common to all walks of life. Why should I push myself to meet a goal that I think is fundamentally wrong and arrived at by incorrect means? Executives at organizations need to be sure that the goals they set for their teams are realistic and in keeping with expectations. Obviously, there will always be disagreements, but it’s necessary to ensure that there is not an organization-wide displeasure with goals.

Many times, we talk about how sales and marketing alignment can be improved through technology. And it absolutely can be! But when discussing this topic, we also need to keep in mind the kind of self-imposed restrictions and roadblocks that an organization may be creating. Sales and Marketing may have everything they need at their disposal but if their goals are misaligned that can easily lead to an unhealthy culture and result in misalignment.

My experience has taught me that you win deals very early in the process. It’s also likely that you lose deals very early in the process, as well. You can also create enough of a preference to win a deal early in the process, only to lose it down the final stretch.

One of the things that allows you to position yourself and build value early in the process is differentiating yourself from your competitors. It also helps to differentiate your offering from your competitor’s offering. It’s especially important to do this if buying what you sell requires the client to make a more significant investment. Your higher price is a sword, not a shield. Price is an offensive weapon that demonstrates that you create greater value, and greater value always commands a more significant investment.

Differentiate Or Die

There are people, however, who never want to mention their competitor, and hope to differentiate themselves and their company without having to do so. They believe that by not saying anything about their competitors at all, they are seen as real professionals, above the fray. By doing so, they are leaving it to their client to determine for themselves how they are different, and if that difference makes any difference to the results they produce versus their competitors. Sometimes, this is what happens. Other times, the client either doesn’t recognize the differences, doesn’t value the differences, or believes that there are no significant differences at all. In that case, the opportunity to differentiate yourself has mostly been lost.

If you’ve ever handed your price to your prospective client and had them tell you that your price is higher than your competitors without having already done the work to differentiate yourself and your offering, then you missed the opportunity to do so. What happens now is that you decide to differentiate your offering from your competitors late in the game. Because you are defensive about your pricing and your differentiation, what you say in the context of a price conversation is not part of a discussion around value and outcomes.

Sour Grapes

Instead of sounding like a proactive, value creating, potential partner, you sound like sour grapes. You look like you are negative by trying to differentiate your offering and defending your higher value, but only because your client suggested your price was too high compared to theirs. The time to have separated yourself and your offering was early in the process when it was in the context of differentiating before it was a price contest.

Reasonable minds may disagree on how or when you should speak about your competitors. For my money, it’s always better to say something nice about them and differentiation very early in the process to establish the differences in the investment and the differences in outcomes before there is a price conversation. There is nothing you can do about your competitor’s pricing, so there’s little reason not to speak about the investment in differentiation early in the process.

Recent research from gong points to this being a better and more successful strategy.

The post Differentiate Yourself and Your Offering Early or Sound Like Sour Grapes appeared first on The Sales Blog.

Brian Tracy’s classic guidebook, “The Psychology of Selling: Increase Your Sales Faster and Easier Than You Ever Thought Possible,” is on the must-read list for every sales professional. It’s likely your boss has asked you to read it -- and you should. But in case you need a CliffsNotes version, here’s a quick-read book summary sharing some of its most valuable highlights.

Chapter 1: The Inner Game of Selling

Tracy begins his book by explaining why salespeople are important and how they can break into the top 20% of reps in any business.

He explains, “The only real creators of wealth in our society are businesses,” and “Salespeople are the most vital people in any business.” Tracy continues, “Without sales, the biggest and most sophisticated companies shut down.”

If that doesn’t get you fired up to head into the office today, I don’t know what will. While a vibrant sales team is crucial for success, not everyone is bound for greatness. The 80/20 rule was an eye-opener for Tracy, early in his career. He knew that in order to break into the top 20% of salespeople, he would need to abide by the “winning edge concept” which states: “Small differences in ability can lead to enormous differences in results.”

He believes if salespeople focus on getting a little bit better in key areas of selling, it accumulates into “an extraordinary difference in income.” These seven key result areas, or KRAs, are:

1. Prospecting
2. Building rapport
3. Identifying needs
4. Presenting
5. Answering objections
6. Closing the sale
7. Getting resales and referrals

Tracy also believes a salesperson’s “self-concept” is important to success. A bad self-concept in any one of these key areas means you’ll avoid it, make mistakes, and feel frustrated. If you have a positive self-concept about prospecting, Tracy argues, it will be no problem for you.

Every day is full of opportunity and your pipeline will likely stay full. If you have a poor self-concept, however, you’ll view prospecting as something to be fearful and anxious about.

Self-concept also impacts how much a salesperson makes. “If you see yourself as a $50,000-a-year person, you’ll continually engage in behaviors that keep your income at $50,000,” he says. But if you “reset your financial thermostat,” you can adjust your self-concept of worth and the value of your work.

By taking steps like this to challenge your self-limiting beliefs, you’ll boost your self-esteem and your sales performance. “Successful people control their inner dialogues,” Tracy says. A successful person thinks successful thoughts.

Chapter 2: Set and Achieve All Your Sales Goals

Are you goal oriented? Tracy argues the quality of goal orientation is associated with your levels of success. For example, a salesperson must know exactly how much they want to earn in a year in order to focus sales activities. Salespeople should have goals in the following areas:

1. Annual income goal - How much do you want to make in the next 12 months? To decide on this goal, take your highest income year so far and increase that number by 25-50%.
2. Annual sales goals - How much will you have to sell to achieve your income goal?
3. Monthly and weekly goals - Break down your income and monthly sales goals into weekly sales and income goals.
4. Daily sales goals - If your annual income goal is $50,000, divide that number by 52 to get the number you need to average per week. From there, it’s easy to divide that number by day to learn exactly what you need to earn.
5. Activity goals - Once you know how much you need to make every day, you can determine what activities to take to reach that goal. When you accurately record these numbers for a set period of time, you should be able to accurately predict which activities will make you successful.
6. Personal and family goals - Determine why you do what you do, and you’ll tap into immeasurable motivation to push harder and smarter.

Tracy recommends writing down 100 goals you’d like to accomplish in the years ahead. By writing them down, you’ll begin to visualize yourself achieving them. These goals don’t have to be big. If you visualize a prospect responding to your pitch in a positive, enthusiastic way, you’ll approach your meetings with more excitement and a successful attitude.

Chapter 3: Why People Buy

Every action a person makes is motivated by improvement. We buy because we believe it will enhance our lives. So, do you understand why your prospects buy? And why will they be better off by choosing your product/service over a competitor’s?

Tracy explains different actions give people different units or degrees of satisfaction. Your prospects want to receive as many of these units as possible with every purchase. They want to be better off physically, emotionally, and even spiritually. The more your product can satisfy your prospect, the more incentive there is to buy.

He recommends tapping into a few areas to help people make a decision -- and avoiding a few as well:

Do:

• Identify a prospect’s emotional values - Find out what your prospect values and how to emphasize that your product/service honors those values.
• Consider how it will make others feel - Before a prospect buys, they consider how their manager, colleagues, and clients will respond. Anticipate this, and alter your sales approach accordingly.

Don't:

• Focus on price and quality - These aren’t reasons to buy, so don’t use them as such when making a sale.

Tracy says the two main reason people buy or don’t buy are desire for gain and fear of loss. Prospects either want to add more to their lives, as mentioned above, or are afraid of making a buying mistake.

He cites a study showing desire for gain has a motivational power of 1.0, while fear of loss has a negative motivational power of 2.5. This means people are much more motivated by fear they’ll lose something by not buying. So, tap into that emotion when possible and appropriate.

Every prospect has basic human needs motivating them to buy. Identify which needs your product/service meets and convince your prospects it will meet those needs better than anything else on the market. The primary customer needs are:

1. Money
2. Security
3. Being liked
4. Status and prestige
5. Health and fitness
6. Praise and recognition
7. Power, influence, and popularity
8. Leading the field
9. Love and companionship
10. Personal growth
11. Personal transformation

By increasing buying desire, reducing fear of loss, and emphasizing the ultimate benefit you’ll make more sales and satisfy more customers.

Chapter 4: Creative Selling

Your level of creativity, Tracy argues, is determined by your self-concept. So, to increase your creativity, all you need to do is practice. The creativity you use to get around traffic is the same kind you need to handle surprises in prospect presentations and calls.

Still need some help stimulating creativity? Try these three tactics:

1. Have clear goals
2. Draw from pressing problems
3. Ask focused questions

Practice creative thinking while prospecting and uncovering buying motives. These areas test your intelligence and brainpower. If you’re able to find out what your prospects really want, you’ll be able to convince them they’ll get it by purchasing your product/service.

When prospecting, ask the following questions:

1. What are the five-10 most attractive features of your product?
2. What specific needs of your prospective customer does your product satisfy?
3. What does your company offer that other companies don’t?

And if you want to take a more strategic approach to selling, focus on these four areas to join the top 10% of earners in your field:

1. Specialization - Determine exactly what your product does for your customers. Be a specialist instead of a generalist.
2. Differentiation - In what areas are your products better than 90% of similar goods or services on the market.
3. Segmentation - Which customers can most benefit from what you do better than anyone else.
4. Concentration - Set clear priorities and concentrate single-mindedly on prospects who represent only the very best potential as a customer.

If you brainstormed 250 ideas every year, it would have a tremendous impact on your life. You’ll become one of the most creative and successful salespeople in your field.

Chapter 5: Getting More Appointments

The most important part of selling? Spending more time with better prospects. And how do you make the most of your time when you find these prospects? Abide by a few rules:

1. Break prospect preoccupation - When you place calls, say, “I need two minutes of your time. Is this a good time to talk?” Only when the prospect confirms they have the time should you launch into your pitch.
2. Sell the appointment, not the product - Never talk about your product or pricing on the phone unless you can close the deal directly.
3. Choose your words carefully - Your prospect is likely on the other end of the line looking at their email. Develop an opening line the equivalent of a brick going through their window. Keep it benefit-centered without directly mentioning your product/service.

You only have thirty seconds to get your prospect’s attention. During that time, your prospect decides whether or not to listen to you. If you do get through to them and their response is still, “I’m not interested,” it might mean your questions aren’t strong enough.

Tracy recommends saying, “That’s alright. Most people in your industry felt the same way when I first called. Now they’ve become our best customers, and they recommend us to their friends.” Your prospect will instantly start paying attention and you’ll get a second chance at their business.

Chapter 6: The Power of Suggestion

We’re all greatly influenced by the suggestive elements around us. A calm, confident, and relaxed salesperson is a powerful salesperson. By controlling your internal environment (your appearance, voice, and attitude), you can look -- at least on the outside -- like you’re one of the best people in your field. Here are a few more ways Tracy recommends making the most of your power of persuasion:

1. Dress for success
2. Practice your presentation
3. Upgrade your office
4. Work from a clean desk
5. Double your productivity

It’s also important to create an impression of value with prospects. Start by using positive body language. By sitting erect and facing forward, shaking hands firmly, and minimizing noise and interruptions during your meetings, you’ll give prospects fewer reasons to become distracted.

Chapter 7: Making the Sale

The first words out of your mouth set the tone for the rest of your sales process, and eventually, either a sale or rejection. Most prospects have “generalized sales resistance.” It’s normal and a form of self-defense. Instead of fighting it, understand it and work to break down your prospect’s barriers. There are two ways to deal with sales resistance effectively:

1. The approach close - This close gets the prospect to agree to making a decision after you’ve made your presentation. Instead of letting your prospect say, “Let me think about it,” or “I need to talk it over,” and that being the end of it, reply, “Relax, I’m not trying to sell you anything right now. That’s not the purpose of my visit.” Then continue, “All I ask is that you look at what I have to show you with an open mind, determine if it applies to your situation, and tell me at the end of our conversation if this product makes sense.”
2. The demonstration close - You can use this technique early in the sales conversation. Open with, “I could show you the best [product/service] on the market today, are you in the position to invest [price] right now?” The focus of the conversation is instantly shifted from, “Will you listen to me?” to “How much can you invest if I can hold up my end of the bargain?”

It’s also important to understand the various personality types of buyers. Tracy claims there are six basic profiles:

1. The apathetic buyer - Instead of trying to change this buyer’s mind, save yourself the time and move on to someone more likely to buy.
2. The self-actualizing buyer - They know exactly what they want. Make the most of these unicorn prospects and don’t try to talk them into anything they haven’t already set their hearts on.
3. The analytical buyer - This buyer is self-contained and task-oriented. Slow down and be exact with these prospects. Be able to prove -- on paper -- everything you say, and be precise with each benefit to make it easier for them to buy.
4. The relater buyer - This is a relationship-oriented buyer. They gravitate toward “helping” professions and like to be liked. To make the sale, focus on other happy customers, build a relationship, and don’t rush them.
5. The driver buyer - These buyers are direct, impatient, and concise. Get straight to the point with these buyers, because they’re busy and preoccupied.
6. The socialized buyer - This type of prospect is achievement-oriented. As soon as you reach an agreement, put it on paper and get a copy to them immediately.

Understand which type of personality your buyer has, and tailor your approach for a more successful close. As always, listen attentively, pause before replying, question for clarification, paraphrase in your own words, and use open-ended questions.

Chapter 8: 10 Keys to Success in Selling

In the final chapter, Tracy shares the 10 keys to success in selling:

1. Do what you love to do
2. Decide exactly what you want
3. Back your goal with persistence and determination
4. Commit to lifelong learning
5. Use your time well
6. Follow the leader
7. Character is everything
8. Unlock your inborn creativity
9. Practice the golden rule
10. Pay the price of success

When you follow these keys, your future is unlimited. As Tracy says, “You have within you, right now, the ability to be more, do more, and have more than you ever have in your life.” He continues, “By becoming absolutely excellent in your chosen profession of selling, you can achieve all your goals and fulfill all your dreams.” So, what are you waiting for?

• It is a time of great tech stagnation, in part due to the scandals that have rocked Silicon Valley over the last year. 
• Part of the stagnation, too, is that current technology is stalling out, and the next wave just isn't ready yet.
• After a decade-plus of the tech industry causing near-constant disruption and turmoil, the lull is offering the world a much-needed break to consider how technology is affecting society and to try to figure out what to do about it.
  

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Apple's WWDC developer conference this week marked the conclusion of the period each year when some of the biggest technology companies lay out their agendas for the future of their platforms.  

Compared with past years, the message from Silicon Valley was far more muted this time around. Last year, for example, Facebook, Google, Microsoft, and Apple were all focused on the next big things in technology, each in its own way laying the foundation for the inevitable death of the smartphone.

This year, by contrast, the companies focused on important but decidedly less flashy topics including security, privacy, and their responsibility to their users and society.

There are a variety of reasons for the tech giants' reduced ambition. Facebook, Google, and Apple each spent much of the last 12 months in various states of crisis and are now trying to patch things up. Growth in the markets for the technology products that led to the rise of the current behemoths is slowing down to a crawl. And the next generation of technology gadgets and services isn't ready for prime time yet.

That may sound depressing and disappointing. After all, much of the excitement surrounding the tech industry stems from the bold visions of the future it often offers. But from where I'm standing, this lull is a good thing for the industry and the world.

Technologies under development right now could lead to some potentially terrifying changes. This boring period in the industry gives us the time and the attention to hold the tough conversations we need to have about where the industry and society are heading.

It's clear from the past year's scandals in the industry that those conversations are overdue. Because there's growing concern about the tech industry's role in society.

Facebook was caught up in the Cambridge Analytica scandal, where as many as 87 million people had their data used improperly, and faced continuing fallout over its role in distributing Russian propaganda during the 2016 election. Google and its YouTube service saw criticism over their role in spreading hoaxes and conspiracy theories. And Apple dealt with a storm of criticism over Batterygate, its belated admission that it slowed down some iPhones with older batteries without informing users.

The future is slowing down

This concern is coming amid a transition time for the industry.

The first few slides of Kleiner Perkins investor Mary Meeker's newest State of the Internet report tell you everything you need to know, which is that overall, the growth in many of the most important tech products and services is flat-lining. Global smartphone shipment growth? Almost precisely flat. Global internet user growth? Flattening out, with a relatively meager 12% year-over-year-growth.

Additionally, both the PC market and the tablet market are declining.

Oh, sure, there are some bright spots in tech. Meeker's report estimated that the installed base for the Amazon Echo line of smart speakers hit 30 million users by the end of 2017. Other technologies, including streaming video, smartwatches, and cryptocurrencies, are also growing in fits and starts.

But as big a number as it is, 30 million Echo users is a drop in the bucket when you compare it to the more than a billion devices in use running Apple's iOS software, and the more than two billion gadgets in use that run Google's Android.

Likewise, the total value of all the bitcoin in circulation — about $131 billion — sounds like a lot. But it's still less than a tenth of the US dollars in circulation in the form of coins and paper bills. And its less than one one-hundredth of the M2 money stock, a measurement of the amount US dollars in use that includes those held in savings accounts and mutual funds as well as in the form of travelers checks and checking accounts.

That's not to say that some of these newer technologies will never replace the old. It's just that right now, even though many of the older technologies are seeing stagnating sales or use, the Next Big Things aren't close to displacing them.

In other words, things are changing super slowly, and what we have now is roughly what we'll continue to have for a while to come.

What's next isn't ready

We've already gotten glimpses at what the next wave of technology will bring.

Many companies are focused on technologies that will immerse us in digital images. Facebook has bet big on virtual reality. It's already been selling its Oculus Rift VR headset and is promising big things for the next iterations of it. Microsoft, which is betting on both virtual and augmented reality, is already offering its HoloLens AR smart goggles. Google and Apple are both working hard to incorporate AR features into their smartphones. 

At the same time, many tech companies are investing heavily in artificial intelligence and in trying to bring AI to consumers. Amazon and Google, in particular, have been going toe-to-toe with Alexa and Assistant, their respective smart voice assistants. 

The problem is that so much of this forward-looking stuff just isn't that useful yet.

Oh, I have no doubt that Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg is right that by 2027 or so we'll have smart glasses that are as thin and light as a pair of normal sunglasses. And I'd bet that Amazon will one day succeed in its quest to turn Alexa into the superintelligent supercomputer from "Star Trek."

But back here in 2018, those cutting-edge technologies are still lacking.

Using augmented reality on a smartphone means waving your phone around and looking silly. Trying to use AR via smart glasses means dealing with some significant technical limitations — and looking even sillier. 

Alexa and Assistant can be helpful at times, but they're not nearly as all-around useful as a smartphone or a computer.

Cryptocurrencies come with too many complications and too much overhead to be truly useful as a replacement for regular money.

And despite all of its own investment in AI, Facebook is staffing up with thousands of humans because artificial intelligence isn't nearly as good at detecting hate speech as good, old-fashioned people.

All of that stuff will probably get fixed one day. But right now, the result is that our older technologies are growing stagnant and our newer technologies aren't ready to replace them.

The scandals are good

Ultimately, though, this stagnation may prove to be beneficial. This slowdown in the tech industry has given the world a chance to take a breath. And we're already using that lull to consider the roll of tech in our lives.

The string of scandals at Facebook and Google were unequivocally bad, with user privacy and perhaps the fate of democracy itself put at risk by decisions made by those tech titans. But they've triggered real and important conversations about the role of these major technology companies in our lives. Even the companies themselves seem to agree that it's time for the broader society to play an active role in shaping how technology affects our country and the world, potentially even through government regulations.  

And with folks inside and outside the industry raising alarms about how our devices and apps are affecting us at a personal level — encouraging addiction-like behavior and even leading to depression among teens — there's growing discussion about "digital health." Companies including Google, Facebook, and Apple are starting to respond, giving us ways to measure and limit the time we spend with our various gadgets and services.

This is an opportune time to have those conversations. Because the next generation of tech devices and services could be even more dangerous.

When the smartphone dies and augmented reality devices replace it and we're all wearing our Apple AirPods all the time, the technology companies will have unprecedented access to our brains. When you wear a pair of Facebook's — or Apple's or Google's — smart goggles, you're going to be letting the company behind them determine what you see and hear. The company and the other tech giants will, in a very literal way, be controlling your perception of reality.

Now is the time to think through the implications of that control — and what could go wrong.

I'm hopeful. Now that we've started talking about how to fix our relationship with technology, I don't think we're going to stop the discussion anytime soon.

That's a good thing — as long as we all get on the same page before the next generation of tech is finally ready.

SEE ALSO: Apple's amazing AirPods are taking a baby step towards their full potential

Join the conversation about this story »

NOW WATCH: We spoke to Cookie Monster about bitcoin, cookies, and self-regulation

One of the most enlightening and personal sales operations exercises that any rep can do is to build their own sales velocity equation.

In fact, even before sellers join a company, it can be extremely helpful to ask your prospective employer about the current sales velocity of their organization. This way, you’ll understand what kind of “sales engine” you’re about to start driving.

If they don’t have a grip on this yet (many young organizations don’t) it can be a chance to impress your prospective team with your sales-meets-operations acumen and thoughtfulness.

What is the Sales Velocity Equation?

In short, sales velocity is the calculation of four major sales ops metrics to forecast how much revenue you stand to generate over a period of time.

It comprises these four metrics:

1. Average Contract Value (ACV)
2. Sales cycle length
3. Number of deals in your pipeline
4. Win rate of deals in the pipeline

There may be different acronyms or names for the four levers depending on the organization. These are the four thematic things that affect your revenue output. The equation looks like the following:

Source: Altify

Ideally, your CRM is set up to spit out each dof these four metrics regularly in your reporting for you as an individual contributor. If it’s not, then team up with your sales ops person or take it upon yourself to start reporting on these metrics regularly.

It’ll make life way easier when the going gets tough, and you need to figure out how to get going again!

What Does The Sales Velocity Equation Look Like In Practice?

One amazing thing about this sales ops exercise is that within an organization Seller A and Seller B could generate the same amount of revenue in a given quarter (in other words, they have the same sales velocity). Yet, they may have completely different ways of getting to this outcome.

Understanding sales velocity highlights what’s different about the means to their similar end. The example below shows different inputs, yet similar results: 

Enterprise versus SMB Sales Velocity

The example above is a classic scenario of an enterprise seller side-by-side with an SMB seller who both achieve the same sales velocity outcome, albeit through different approaches.

Often times in this situation, the SMB seller looks at the enterprise seller with ire, saying “If I got the chance to swing at deals as big as those deals, I’d be in amazing shape!”

On the flipside, the enterprise seller says “If only I had more deals to sell, I’d be flowing well and in great shape!”.

The two sellers are getting hung up on a constant reality when you put this equation to practice. Enterprise sellers and the pipelines that they work are always going to be fundamentally different than SMB sellers and the pipelines they work. This is part of the reason larger organizations specialize in lthe two roles.

The sales velocity components are different, and therefore the day-to-day workflow of each seller is different. But, the importance of Seller A and B to the bottom line is equal in this situation.

How to Improve Your Bottom Line: Next Steps

For starters, you can have an infinitely more thoughtful conversation with your manager.

Instead of coming to your weekly one-on-one or quarterly review saying “I’m just not hitting my number, I think you need to have an SDR pump more deals my way!”, you can dig deeper and get to the core of the problem.

A more thoughtful answer could be:

“You know, the number of deals I’m working is actually the same as last quarter, and in fact, I’m getting better at closing them. But, ever since we added this new product feature to the suite, my clients seem to get distracted and want to spend more time trying it out. The length of my sales cycles has significantly increased as a result.”

That’s just one scenario, but now we can at least focus on the right solution. You need to shorten your deal cycles, and maybe that means you need to get better at negotiating with your decision makers in this example.

1) When your ACV is plummeting, review value + ROI
2) To shorten deal cycles, get back to Negotiation 101
3) Start planning in advance if your pipeline velocity takes a hit
4) Aim for a 40%-60% close rate for a healthy pipeline

1) When your ACV is plummeting, review value + ROI

Deals that are too low in value compared to the average deal size of your company is usually the most glaring sign that your sales velocity is off.

If this is the case, some questions to consider are:  

• Do I have a clear understanding of the value metrics that drive the pricing of our products upwards?
• How do I converse on those comfortably with my customer?
• Am I able to determine who the true decision makers are in a deal?
• What are the main types of ROI they care about for their businesses?
• Am I actually going after ideal customer profiles that make sense?
• Are willing to spend serious money on my company’s product?  
• There are many considerations here, but these are some of the key things to think about.

2) To shorten deal cycles, get back to Negotiation 101

If your deal cycle is getting too long, this is due to a lack of negotiating power and setting expectations with your decision makers.

It can also simply be a matter of being unorganized and utilizing the wrongs tools to stay tight in your process. You can check out the best-in-class sales tools here.

3) Start planning in advance if your pipeline velocity takes a hit

This is a fairly obvious and noticeable problem too. You can feel it when things start to slow down. Be disciplined in reviewing how many opps you have in the sales pipeline, and set aside time (I like Monday afternoons) to prospect and tee up meetings for the week.

Too many opps in the pipeline usually leads to less time spent on each opportunity, and a decline in your close rate.

4) Aim for a 40%-60% close rate for a healthy pipeline

One of the most overlooked reasons for lower close rates is that you’re qualifying and letting the wrong deals into your pipeline.

Not only will this lead to your close rate dropping, but you’ll also waste precious time on the wrong deals Alternatively, sometimes your close rate can actually be too high, in my opinion. Think about all the other deals you could let into the pipeline and potentially take a shot at if you were a little less strict with who you’re qualifying into the pipeline.

You shouldn’t only add deals you feel 100% confident in closing to your pipeline. I like to aim for 40-60% close rate to maintain a healthy balance.  

Make the Most of Your Sales Pipeline Velocity Equation: Dos and Don’ts

Compare personal metrics w/ team metrics

You may find that you always have more deals in your pipeline compared to your peers, but your close rate is lower.

Perhaps your friend on the team has a killer close rate, but can’t seem to get as many deals in the pipeline. Now you can trade tips together to help each other out, or you can set a plan with your manager to learn to work fewer deals, but more efficiently.

This is a real example from a past company of mine, and my friend and I used to hang out for an extra hour at the end of the day to coach each other.  

Review these 4 metrics monthly and then weekly

As a second step, track these four metrics month over month for yourself, and once you feel confident in what they mean, start to track them week over week.

Put a reminder on your calendar to take 5 mins to check out last week’s performance early on Monday morning. Then you can set an intention for yourself for the week ahead to improve.

For example, if the number of opps in the pipeline are starting to dip below your personal benchmark, spend an extra two hours prospecting this week.  

Discuss your sales velocity w/ your manager

Finally, take some time during each one on one with your manager to talk about where your sales velocity is at.  Managers have the great privilege (and responsibility) of seeing things from 30,000 feet.

They usually know thematically how to solve most sales problem, but always need to put in an effort to identify the problem first. You can certainly help them help you (Jerry Maguire, anyone?) by identifying the true problem you’re facing.

That starts by breaking down your sales velocity and having a meaningful conversation around it. Ultimately this will increase your sales with less friction.  

Sales Velocity is your new sales ops weapon!       

The post The Sales Velocity Equation: Your First Personal Sales Ops Exercise appeared first on Sales Hacker.

Do you want to know the number one secret to good time management skills? It’s focusing your time on income producing activities. The problem is most people don’t know what those are!

How many times have you scratched your head wondering why you’re working so much and making so little? You feel like you’re doing everything and still nothing. Goose egg. Nada.

It’s probably because you’re spending your time on all the wrong things. For example, fixing your about page or obsessing over a logo doesn’t really get you paid. You don’t get paid for tweeting either. (Well, in some cases you can.)

Before we get into what the income generating activities are, we must first make sure you have the room for them.

How to Make Time for Income Generating Activities

As a business owner, the last thing you want is more on your plate. That’s why we need to make sure your time is set up in a way where you can focus on income generating activities.

Additionally, I want you to spend as much time as possible on income generating activities. That means you either need to delete or delegate. Here are some things you can do to prepare yourself to spend your time on these activities:

• Delegate tasks that don’t directly produce income to someone else. This includes social media, administrative tasks, accounting, etc.
• Stop accepting opportunities that don’t lead to more money in the bank.
• Drop clients that don’t pay you enough and are a pain in your neck. It’s likely that they take up too much of your time anyway.
• Invest in tools that help you automate and free up your time. This includes Facebook ads and a social media scheduler.

I know this looks like a lot. The good news is you don’t have to do them all at the same time, but you do need to do at least one of them immediately.

Furthermore, you need to set time aside where you prioritize your business. It’s too often that we put our own businesses behind that of our clients. That stops today. I personally dedicate Mondays to activities that grow my business.

Now that we have that out of the way, we can discuss the multiple income-producing activities you should spend your time on.

Email marketing

I can tell you most of my sales for my group coaching program are because of email marketing. I email my list almost every single day for the last year. You know what has happened as a result? My revenue increased by $30,000 in 12 months.

Coincidence? I think not.

The reality is if you’re not marketing yourself to your list, then you’re not making money. Most people will tell you to email your list once a week, but that’s not really going to cut it now is it? Not in a day and age when there is so much competing for their attention.

Of course, the emails need to be well written and make people move. Ben Settle and Russell Brunsun have some great stuff on how to do this.

Sales Calls

Next on our list of income producing activities is sales calls. If you’re not selling, you’re not making money. Period.

The easiest way to do this quickly is by offering free consultations. If the prospect is a good fit, you sell them. I have one friend who quit her job in December and was able to generate $6,000 sales in her business in a few weeks. It was all sales.

Getting good at sales does take time and practice. So the sooner you get started learning how to do it the better. This is something I teach my students how to do in my six-week group coaching program. Kendrick Shope also has great stuff on how to sell without selling your soul.

You can start by offering free consultations to the list you already have. And speaking of that list…

Prospecting and Growing Your List of Leads

In order to consistently make more money, you need to grow your leads. After all, sales funnels are called that for a reason. Essentially, you get all the leads and the top of the funnel, but not all of them are going to buy. As you go down the funnel, it gets thinner.

Basically, at its core, this is all a numbers game.

That’s why consistently prospecting and growing your list of leads is an excellent use if your time and energy as a business owner. Here are some ways to do that:

• Go to networking events and meet people.
• Run Facebook ads. (You can also hire someone else to do this.)
• Frequently promote your list building magnets on social media. This is the freebie you offer in exchange for someone’s name and email.
• Get more media! This includes getting interviewed on podcasts, talking to reporters and pitching the media to feature you.

Ultimately, you want to focus your time on the activities that grow your list of leads. The good news many of these can be automated or outsourced. However, if you’re not financially there yet, you can do it yourself and it’s still a good use of your time.

Pitching

Next up on our list of income producing activities is cold pitching! This includes email and phone. While I’ve never prospected anyone on the phone, I do hear that it works for some people so I’m mentioning it.

Here’s an example from my own business. I had my assistant pull of a list of financial tech and media companies. I’m now going to pitch my content marketing services to that list.

Follow Ups

In addition to pitching, another good use of your time that also produces income is following up. Most business owners fear follow ups because they don’t want to be annoying. But, similar to email marketing, people have a lot going on so you need to send them constant reminders.

After all, there’s a reason they say “the fortune is in the follow up.” It’s because it takes an average of seven points of contact before someone is ready to purchase. Yes, you read that correctly. SEVEN.

That means you’re leaving serious money on the table if you don’t follow-up. The good news is this can also be outsourced, but if you don’t have the funds to do that you can do it yourself.

Creating New Offerings

I saved the best for last! Up until now, everything I’ve mentioned can help you make more money now. But, if you want to make more money over time and build wealth, you’ll need more than that.

Millionaires have an average of seven streams of income. (Are you seeing a pattern with the number seven?) The last of the income producing activities is to create new offerings you can sell to your audience.

For example, I spent the first half of 2017 creating my six-week group coaching program. It’s been a hit! The next step is to create the upsell for the students. More offerings equals more money.

This does take time which is why I left it for last. But it’s up to you to prioritize the business and find the time to focus on it.

A few weeks ago I was speaking at the Utah Governor’s Economic Summit and another speaker was Mitch Lowe, the man behind MoviePass.He shared a great insight. He said, “When we remove friction, we increase consumption.”

Think about that line for a minute and now put in context with what he said about it.  His examples were how Blockbuster and the idea of renting a movie to watch at home made it easier for people to watch more movies.  Netflix in its original version would mail you DVDs of movies to make it easier than having to go to Blockbuster and once again consumption increased.  More recently, Netflix moved their delivery system on-line and again an amazing thing happened. The consumption of movies and video content increased.

The more I think about what Mitch shared, the more I am reminded to think about how we sell. I’m left wondering, “Do we create friction that in turn impedes sales?”

What can you do to make it easier for your customer to buy from you?  What can you do to have your customer see you more as a leader faster?  I use the line “speed sells.” To do this we have to be able to remove the friction from our sales processes.

For years if you wanted to buy a car in Detroit, you had to do it between 8 AM and 5 PM, Monday through Friday, because that’s what the unions dictated.  Their belief was as long as everyone played by the same rules, then there would be no loss of sales.  The idea was when you wanted to buy a car, you made time to do it during those limited hours, even though it meant taking time off from work.

Absurdity at it best if you were to believe that such limitations would have zero impact on the selling of cars.  Of course, fewer cars were sold. The friction created by the rules certainly impacted sales.

Friction in your sales process comes from legacy thinking and failing to go past what is the norm and failing to shift 100% to a customer centric model.  It’s what caused Blockbuster to fail. It’s what led to near devastation of the domestic auto industry.

Your goal is to assess your sales process and find those obstacles that are creating friction and remove them or, at a minimum, find a way around them.  Your customer may or may not even realize there is friction in the process. That’s your job — find it and remove it.

Sales leadership is not doing what’s expected, but rather going beyond. Back in the days of Blockbuster, we marveled at how we could visit a store and find a movie we could watch in our own home.  Back in those days, we thought that was awesome. We accepted the friction of the process and the time it took, let alone the stupid late fees we all paid. Today the friction is gone and we stream instantly any movie we want on any device we want any time we want.

“Remove the friction and you will increase consumption.” Mitch Lowe, CEO MoviePass

A coach can help you excel in your sales career! Invest in yourself by checking out my coaching program today!

Copyright 2018, Mark Hunter “The Sales Hunter.” Sales Motivation Blog. Mark Hunter is the author of High-Profit Prospecting: Powerful Strategies to Find the Best Leads and Drive Breakthrough Sales Results

Case studies are a great and necessary piece of content for your brand. They validate the value of your company and serve as a strong testimonial to prospects and leads. The best part? They’re relatively easy to put together! Outlined below are all of the components that make up a great case study.

Research

A great case study can’t exist without the customer’s input and story of how they got where they are. If you’re at the point in the relationship where your customer is willing to do a case study, I’m going to assume you already have a good amount of information about them, but it can’t hurt to do an interview to gather the remaining details you’ll need to execute a compelling case study. This is your chance to ask your customer for solid data and actual numbers that validate both their success and how your product helped them reach that success.

Bonus: This serves as a good reminder to your customer of why your brand is so amazing!

After you’ve gathered the information you need, it’s time to put together the case study.

Executive Summary

This is where you’ll provide a high-level overview of the entire case study. Who the cucstomer is, the problem and challenges they were facing before they found you, and what you did to make them a happy customer. Don’t include the nitty gritty details here, but provide enough information to entice your reader to read more.

Challenges

This section should be all about the specific challenges your customer was facing. This is the section that your reader will relate to the most, so make sure you’re speaking to your buyer and talking about their pain points the way they would talk about them. Go into detail as much as you possibly can, and remember that this section is all about your customer—your chance to shine is coming up!

How You Helped

This is your moment to brag about your accomplishments with your customer. This section should include the specific things you did to help the customer overcome their challenges, and the results they saw from those efforts. This is your chance to showcase your product/service/solution, but make sure you’re relating how your product/service/solution solved your customer’s needs.

Conclusion

Wrap it up with any final thoughts from you or your customer. This is a good section to include a customer testimonial and describe where they’re at today because, after all, you had a part in helping them get there!

Promotion

Now that you have a shiny, new case study, it’s time to let the world know! The type of promotion you do will depend on who you wrote the case study for and what stage they’re at in the buyer’s journey. Some companies like to promote their case studies on their website for all to see, while others choose to keep them strictly for sales collateral that the sales team uses to seal deals. Others incorporate case studies into lead nurture or social promotion and target the appropriate leads—a good way to loop people back in.

However you decide to promote your case study, you should feel confident. You have done well enough for a customer to not only buy from you and have success, but they also trust you enough to let you tell others about their story. Be proud of your accomplishment, and whatever you do, don’t let your hard work go to waste!

When it comes to successful marketing strategies, did you know email marketing consistently ranks as one of the best tactics? Studies show email has a median ROI of 122 percent; this is more than four times higher than other top strategies, including social media. In addition, HubSpot reports 86 percent of consumers want to receive emails from companies they do business with at least once a month.

As you can tell, research backs up claims that email marketing is worth the investment. In addition to the hard numbers, there are additional reasons this tactic plays an important role in your overall content marketing strategy.

As Forbes points out, email marketing can “fuel” your business’ strategy to increase website traffic and search engine optimization (SEO). How?

• It’s cost efficient.
• It provides a way to promote your blog posts, articles or other content.
• It increases link shares by making it easy for subscribers to share your content on their social pages or website.
• It encourages customer loyalty as well as brand awareness and reputation.
• It increases your social media follower base by offering another way to remind subscribers to connect with your social channels.

How can you include email marketing as an effective component of your content strategy? Keep reading to find out!

Before we move on though, I wanted to make sure you are aware of how the EU’s new GDPR laws may affect your business, even if you operate in the United States. As Erika’s article about how GDPR affects marketing explains:

While this law only applies to members of the European Union, it’s still going to affect those of us that do business on this side of the pond thanks to our global economy. In terms of your email marketing, if you have even one person on your list that is an EU citizen, it’s important you’re aware of the regulations. And if you don’t, it’s beneficial to be informed for good measure.

Make sure you check out her post for specifics about how to comply with the regulations.

How to Create Effective Email Marketing Messages

Before you begin your email marketing campaign, make sure you have a clear understanding of your budget and goals. Once you’ve clearly established them, you can tackle the question of how you’ll achieve your goals.

Effective Email Marketing Tactics

When it comes to the most effective email marketing tactics, Campaign Monitor reports the most important tactics are (in order):

• Personalization
• List Segmentation
• Automated Campaigns (see 15 examples of automated emails you can send on the Social Media Hat)
• Testing and Optimization
• Responsive Design

Entrepreneur backs up the importance of personalization too, sharing that, “More than half of consumers and 65 percent of B2B buyers surveyed were likely to switch brands if a company didn’t make an effort to personalize its communications to them.”

Whether you’re putting together an email marketing strategy for a small business, a medium-sized company or a major organization, personalization matters. How can you do this? As Entrepreneur recommends, “Get to know your subscribers better, and increase personalization by including polls in your emails. Not only is this an easy way for small businesses to learn more about their subscribers, it leads to more engaging emails and gives subscribers a chance to voice their preferences proactively.”

As you get to know your subscribers better, you can segment your lists better. Kissmetrics recommends separating them based on your target audience’s variables, such as:

• Demographics (e.g. age, gender, job title, etc.)
• Email Engagement (open rate and clickthrough rate)
• Geographic Area
• Past Purchases
• Amount Spent with Your Business
• Website Behavior
• Time Since Last Purchase

Once you have subscribers divided into specific lists, you can send more targeted, personalized emails based on their information. For example, if you have the lists segmented by geographical location, you could send an email letting one group of subscribers know about an upcoming event in their area.

Clearly, this can be a lot to manage. The good news is you can also subscribe to a third-party email marketing management platform (such as MailChimp or Constant Contact) to take advantage of tools and services they offer to assist with personalization, as well as list segmentation, automation, testing and responsive design.

Speaking of MailChimp, their blog shares a lot of helpful advice based on research into what’s worked well for their customers. In addition to the tactics above, the email marketing platform recommends:

• Using landing pages to provide, “A clear call to action and an easy space to make purchases.” This tactic has helped their customers increase their list growth rates by about 36 percent.
• Incorporating social media into your email marketing. MailChimp provides tools to incorporate Facebook and Instagram ads directly into your email campaign.
• If it’s appropriate for your brand voice, incorporate emojis into your emails.
• Rely on clear, high-quality visuals. As MailChimp explains, “What we do know is that when it comes to the relationship between click rate and the ratio of text to images in campaigns, keeping the amount of copy per image lower leads to success.”

Email Marketing Specifics: Creating Your Messages

Now that you have an idea of what tactics you want to include in your email marketing strategy, it’s time to get down to actually creating messages for your subscribers.

As Natalie Petersen shared in her recent post about content development, your e-newsletter should include these elements:

1. An enticing subject line. 64 percent of people say they open an email because of the subject line, so spend time on it and make sure it’s enticing.
2. A strong visual appearance. In addition to choosing colors and an overall feel that matches your brand, include high-res images throughout the newsletter.
3. Concise, helpful content. Make your email easy to read and provide something of value to your readers. If you want to share an article that’s more than a couple of paragraphs, post it on your blog and link to it from the newsletter. Also, a brief introduction at the top of the email is a fantastic way to give your readers a quick look at what the issue includes and infuse a bit of your personality.
4. Grammatically correct text. Text that’s rife with errors can be confusing, plus it makes you look less professional. If possible, have a co-worker or friend proofread the text for you and double check your work.
5. A call to action. What do you want your readers to do after reading your newsletter? Share it with their friends? Contact you to for a free consultation? Make it clear how you’d like them to respond – after all, if you never ask they’ll never do it!

What type of content should you include? The biggest key here is to know your target subscriber. What messages will they want to receive from you? How will you provide them value?

For example, if you have a younger target audience, research into millennials’ preferences will help guide your email content. As this infographic shares:

• 63 percent of millennials actually prefer to communicate with retailers via email.
• 59 percent will take action from emails containing a site-wide or product category-wide promotional offers.
• The majority of millennials want to engage with retailers via email for discounts and promotional offers.
• 71 percent will take action from an email containing their preferred content (e.g. discount codes and free shipping)
• The majority of millennials will pull up an email when browsing in a physical store to access coupons.

10 Common Email Marketing Mistakes

As you begin (or revisit) your email marketing campaign, make sure you avoid these all-too-common e-newsletter mistakes:

1. 

   How often do you review your email marketing analytics?

   You forget to look at the analytics. How will you be able to measure success without objective data? Each time a newsletter is distributed, take a look at how many recipients open it, which links they click, if they forward it, etc. As you look at this information, try to notice any trends you see emerging. Do your readers seem to like a particular type of content more than another? Is the open rate higher or lower when you send it in the afternoon as opposed to the morning? Pay attention to these tendencies and adjust your email marketing campaign accordingly.

2. Your emails aren’t mobile friendly. If your newsletter doesn’t load on mobile devices, or is formatted in a way that’s hard to read, readers won’t take your email seriously. Ensure images, email size and videos that you send are compatible with mobile devices so that potential customers can find your emails.
3. You lack consistency. Sporadically sending out emails to subscribers may frustrate them and then cause them to forget they asked to receive your messages and then unsubscribe when they see them. Instead, implement your email marketing on a consistent schedule and stick to it. You also want to be consistent with the content you share in your emails so subscribers will know what to expect and be more interested in opening them.
4. You over communicate. Your subscribers follow you for a reason, but if you spam them with too many emails they will unsubscribe. When you create your email marketing schedule, don’t over load it with too many messages going out too frequently.
5. 

   Do your email marketing messages fit your branding?

   You ignore design. While a generic template or no HTML at all can be tempting, ignoring a custom-design means you’re losing brand identity. Custom templates allow you to showcase your business in a unique way and make it stand out from the rest of the emails people receive.

6. Your headlines are dull. You want your marketing emails to be opened at the very least. Create a compelling subject line that grabs the attention of your recipients. Subject lines that lack pizazz can be easily categorized as spam to potential customers.
7. You forget to customize the preview text. This is the preview of what shows up in recipients’ inboxes. As HubSpot explains, “If your email client supports preview text, also known as pre-header text, you can optimize it for every email you send. Allowing this text to auto-populate is a lost opportunity to grab attention or delight your recipients.” Most email marketing platforms include a place for you to customize this space.
8. Your emails are too long. When it comes to email marketing, the shorter the content, the better. Each paragraph of your email should be about 3 to 4 lines at the most. Your potential customers are in a hurry and usually scan through emails. Ensure that your first sentence has the most important information so they won’t miss the crucial parts of your message.
9. You don’t repurpose content you’ve already created. There’s no need to reinvent the wheel every time you send a newsletter. Share your latest blog post or a fascinating article you shared on Facebook. Remember, it takes multiple impressions for consumers to remember a brand, so repeat your message in as many channels as possible.
10. You sound like a used car salesperson. Just because email marketing isn’t face to face doesn’t mean you can’t add a little personality to your messages. Avoid sounding like a used car salesperson by avoiding a full on sales pitch within your emails. Try adding a little humor, fun facts or anything else that may tickle the fancy of your potential customers.

Now you’re ready to get started with or revisit your email marketing campaign!

Everyone knows how powerful word of mouth marketing can be for a business. Often times it is the key difference between a struggling business and a thriving one. For a sales department, referrals are the gold standard in lead gen; highest close rate, best-fit customers, easiest to sell. The new customer already comes in the door warmed by someone they know, like, and trust.

So what’s the problem? Largely word of mouth is unpredictable. One week you can get a ton of new customers through referrals, the next is crickets. For most businesses, it’s like trying to catch lightning in a bottle. So how can one make it word of mouth referrals predictable? Plain and simple, a business should take a modern approach to word of mouth marketing strategies. An approach that utilizes personal connections and technology to drive referrals.

A short history on word of mouth marketing

Before we get into the way word of mouth marketing is done today, let’s talk about the history of the term “word of mouth marketing”. Word of mouth marketing was first established in the early 1970s. The earlier techniques stem from generating buzz and just people talking about your brand, sending sample products, and other grassroots approaches.

There are few main problems with this older way of word of mouth marketing.

1) Mainly suited for consumer product launches

2) It is still very unpredictable with a lot of upfront work

3) The ROI is hard to prove.

Today’s word of mouth marketing is a driven approach based on today’s technology instead of just waiting for referrals to happen.

Why word of mouth marketing is a fit today?

Easier than ever to connect – With the proliferation of social media and mobile, people are both more connected and more distracted than ever before. The cost of a consumer’s attention is higher than ever. Today’s word of mouth marketing strategies can use these connections to their advantage by making it super easy for consumers to share with each other. With personalized URLs and codes, all the activity is measurable.

Because the sharing is on a one to one or one to many bases, sharing from a friend can cut through the noise to grab a user’s attention by being from someone they know, like, and trust.

Data-driven – Gone are the days of spray and pray, where you can’t even attribute a referral to a specific campaign. Today’s marketing is all about data. As a proper data-driven channel, it should be predictable, repeatable, and most of all measurable.

From the data side, both a marketer and the individual sharing want to know how effective their sharing is. With the proper technology, today’s word of mouth marketing strategies can provide statistics, notifications, and nurturing reminders to keep all parties engaged.

Word of mouth marketing as a channel

Done properly, word of mouth marketing can be a channel for growth. Word of mouth is already happening for most businesses, but without the right tools to attribute the data and influence the outcomes, word of mouth marketing cannot be measured against other marketing channels. Once you can track sales and relate them to spend, word of mouth marketing can be a strong contributor to your business-wide marketing strategy.

Key advantages vs other marketing channels

Owned media channel – Word of mouth channels can be owned media. It’s based on the relationships with customers and partners. This is a channel you don’t have to pay to play (like PPC, and other advertising). Like an email marketing list, you have control and access to this channel no matter what. It becomes a true marketing asset.

Performance driven / Pay per sale – Today’s word of mouth marketing channels aren’t just for views, clicks and the hope of revenue dependent on the strength of your conversions. When the desired action happens (in most cases a sale/purchase) that’s when you pay. With true performance-based marketing, you can also make the incentives have alignment with your businesses cash flow. So an incentive can be unit based, percentage based, paid once, recurring payments, or paid out over time. Aligning incentives and their terms are very important to get right.

Scalable channel – Not every business these days can drive tons of leads through SEO and content marketing. As more and more businesses are online, paid ads are getting more expensive and unsustainable for many businesses. A business can hit a point where you are serving ads to the same potential customers. This is cannibalizing your own ad spend and competing with yourself. Inherently, the performance marketing/pay per sale you can’t cannibalize your spend since you are only paying for the single sale.

Potential to be a have network effects – The coveted >1 viral coefficient is possible, but largely a dream for most. Most of us aren’t Uber, Dropbox or Airbnb, and our product does not have quite the mass consumer appeal. Even without a true viral nature, word of mouth marketing programs like customer referral programs can have strong network effects. Referral programs often feed on your customer base, which comes from all marketing channels. So no matter what marketing channel the customer came from they are all being fed into a strong word of mouth program.

So what are these data-driven word of mouth marketing strategies?

Any good modern marketing strategy has to be data-driven. In a “what have you done for me lately” and show me the “ROI” demands on marketing budgets, the data has to be there. Some of the other important characteristics are predictability, repeatability, personalization, and ethicality.

These are the word of mouth marketing techniques and strategies that fit the key characteristics:

Referral Programs / Refer a Friend

This isn’t having a customer fill in old forms. Someone might not appreciate their information being given out by a friend filling in their information. This can also be bad for your social currency, as people will be less likely to trust you and your reputation could sour. Making it harder for people to want to share you. Meaning no word of mouth!

When you design a referral program, you need to consider the advocate’s journey, as well as the referral. As mentioned, no one wants to be signed up for something, without their permission. This can be accomplished by providing advocates with a referral link to share.

Key use case:

Evernote is a good example of a referral program. They make it easy for both the user and the friend to join and participate by having a good referral program promotion strategy. They use a double-sided referral reward. This further incentivizes both parties to participate and an extra push for word of mouth to happen.

A good referral marketing software can help you achieve an easy, seamless, and shareable program like Evernote.

Partner Programs

These types of programs are also often run by referral software. They, however, use a bit different terminology, often times called finder’s fees. A partner program is great for gaining access to client networks that would otherwise be difficult to tap into.

The premise of how to run a partner program should follow the same steps as a referral program.

Key use case:

Infusionsoft, offers a few different ‘partner tracks’ programs. Their Sales Partner program offers a 20% commission on all Infusionsoft app sales. On top of that hefty finder’s fee, they offer partners software, training, coaching, and a network of business experts to help them build their own business up.

Influencer Marketing

There is a similar trend if you can’t tell. Influencer marketing is another way of increasing word of mouth. Some would say this type of marketing is the modern day word of mouth marketing and focuses heavily on brand awareness. It, however, works best when celebrities, advocates, or top internet famous individuals are involved. So you can imagine, the reach is pretty impressive.

When set up properly, influencer marketing software can help you in creating a buzz about a brand.

Key use case:

Nike is a big brand, and aside from being a great product, it’s been backed up by several celebrity endorsements. From NBA players, fitness gurus, to famous musicians. Because these people are in the public eye, they easily influence their fan base in purchasing products they enjoy, like Nike.

Take Serena Williams. She is a well-known athlete and has a ton of fans. On Instagram, she has 8.2m followers. Which means she has a lot of influencing power. Whether she is asked to endorse or not, she is a great influencer for whatever brands she decides to display on her profile.

Affiliate Marketing

As you can see, word of mouth can travel through many types of channels. Affiliate marketing is one of them. This type of marketing is similar to referral marketing in that it primarily focuses on new customer acquisition.

Key Use Case:

Most affiliate marketing is done with affiliates who are known for their knowledge in a particular area. For example, a makeup brand may team up with a beauty blogger. Or, a fitness studio, may try to partner with a well-known fitness guru. In this case, Smile Direct Club enlisted the help of a well-known Instagrammer.

Reviews / Testimonials / Reputation Management

Reviews are another easy way to create digital word of mouth. Many review and reputation management platforms help not only keep a brand’s reputation afloat, but they also provide good word of mouth marketing too.

Though reviews and testimonials are often sought out by the individual, they are often playing a huge role in making the final decision about a product or service.

Key use case:

MailChimp is a well-known marketing automation platform. In fact, they have millions of customers. Even still, a new prospect will likely do a bit of research on them, and look through a variety of reviews.

This Capterra listing of MailChimp gives a prospect a pretty good idea of what to expect. A ton of reviews and pretty high star ratings make MailChimp very appealing.

How do you pick the best channel?

All these data-driven word of mouth marketing strategies make use of today’s connected consumers are an owned media channel, performance-driven, scalable and have potential network effects.

The best strategies utilize social currency to assist the word of mouth advocate and are ethically sound. Based on your product and business you can take different tactics and strategies to word of mouth marketing based.

Summary

As you now see, word of mouth marketing can stem from many channels. However, in today’s data-driven world, we want to make things more predictable. Because of this, businesses have begun to take a more modern approach. Now, word of mouth can easily be tracked by the use technology and different types of programs.

Poor pricing practices are insidious — they damage a company’s economics but can go unnoticed for years. Consider the case of a major industrial goods manufacturer that was struggling with low profit margins, relative both to competitors and to its own historical performance. It traced much of the cause to a mismatch between its sales incentives and pricing strategy. The manufacturer was compensating sales representatives based solely on how much revenue they generated. Reps thus had little motivation to hit or exceed price targets on any given deal, and most were closing deals at the lowest permissible margin.

Like this manufacturer, many business-to-business (B2B) companies have a major opportunity to improve their standing on price. To help companies understand the state of pricing capabilities and how they figure into performance, Bain & Company conducted a global survey of sales leaders, vice presidents of pricing, CEOs, CMOs, and other executives at more than 1,700 B2B companies. We gathered their self-rating of 42 pricing capabilities and outcomes.

Insight Center

Roughly 85% of respondents believe their pricing decisions could improve. On average, large capability gaps exist in price and discount structure, sales incentives, use of tools and tracking, and structure of cross-functional pricing teams and forums.

What Pricing Leaders Do Differently

To understand which capabilities matter most, we studied a subset of top-performing companies, as defined by increased market share, self-described excellent pricing decisions, and execution of regular price increases. While different pricing capabilities may be important for a particular situation, the analysis showed that top performers exceed their peers primarily in three areas. Top performers are more likely to:

• employ truly tailored pricing at the individual customer and product level
• align the incentives for frontline sales staff with the pricing strategy, encouraging prudent pricing through an appropriate balance of fixed and variable compensation
• invest in ongoing development of capabilities among the sales and pricing teams through training and tools

Our analysis also revealed just how much excelling across multiple pricing capabilities pays off. Among the companies that excel in all three areas, 78% are top performers, versus just 18% of companies that excel in none of the three. Let’s explore why these three areas have such a strong effect on pricing effectiveness.

Pricing to the Average Is Always Wrong

One-size-fits-all pricing actually fits no one. Yet it is not unusual for sales executives to admit that their ability to tailor prices at the customer and transaction level is rudimentary, or that they are not even aware of how much margin they make on deals.

By contrast, more-advanced companies tailor their pricing carefully for each combination of customer and product, continually working to maximize total margin. They bring data and business intelligence to bear on three variables for setting target prices:

• the attributes and benefits that each customer truly values, and how much value is created for them
• the alternatives and competitive intensity in the industry
• the true profitability of the transaction after accounting for leakage in areas such as rebates, freight, terms, and inventory holding

One North American manufacturer with margins that were highly dependent on raw material pricing suffered from an undisciplined approach to pricing. A diagnosis allocated costs at the product and customer level to determine true profitability. That diagnosis, which showed the manufacturer was undercharging in many cases, provided the support needed to raise prices where appropriate in subsequent contract negotiations, leading to an average 4% increase from that opportunity alone. The company designated an executive to be accountable for related profit margin opportunities and to track the status and effect of each price increase. As a result, the company improved earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization by 7 percentage points.

Bad Incentives Undercut the Best Pricing Strategies

Managers often criticize sales reps for losing a deal, but rarely for pricing a deal too low, so reps learn to concede on price in order to close the deal. Moreover, companies rarely reward sales reps for exceeding price targets, which means few reps take risks to push for a higher price. Misaligned incentives push deals down to the minimum allowed price.

The antidote is to align compensation with strategic goals. Incentive plans benefit from following a few principles:

• Clarify the objectives — be they revenue growth, share gains, margin gains, or others — and the behaviors that will help meet the objectives.
• Make it foolproof. Help sales reps understand the payout calculation, simplify the quota structures and supplemental incentives, and make the upside for outperformance meaningful.
• Ensure transparency. Sales reps should easily see the effect of a deal’s price on their personal compensation.
• Track the results through regular reviews that flag areas where frontline staff might game the system.

Returning to the case of the industrial goods manufacturer described earlier, the company also overhauled its incentive program to balance revenue and profit. It created a pricing tool to make the commission on each deal visible to sales reps — for instance, “If I raise the price by $2,000, I earn an extra $700.” Sure enough, reps began to close higher-margin sales. These changes led to a 7% increase in prices, which added almost 1 percentage point as part of a 3.5-percentage-point improvement in margin overall.

Training and Tools — Often Afterthoughts — Can Have a Big Payoff

Top-performing firms invest in building the capabilities of the pricing team through training and forums to share best practices. This runs counter to the norm at many B2B sales organizations, which give little or no formal training on price realization.

Further, most companies can raise their game by adopting pricing software tools. Based on the performance of historical deals, software solutions — whether in-house or from a provider such as Vendavo or Price f(x) — can provide frontline reps with real-time pricing feedback based on the characteristics of a deal under way. Using dedicated pricing software is associated with much stronger pricing decision making, our survey analysis shows. Yet despite the proven value of pricing software, only 26% of survey companies use it.

The value of developing capabilities became evident to a specialty chemical producer with lackluster margins. The company had hundreds of different products, each with different competitors, substitutes, and customer bases. Product and sales staff could not explain their pricing decisions, and often resorted to a rule of thumb summed up by one product manager as, “I estimate I can raise the price by four cents per pound.” Not surprisingly, she had raised prices by four cents per pound for four straight years, leaving money on the table.

By analyzing the various products and their markets, the chemical producer found pricing opportunities that enabled it to increase earnings before interest and taxes by 35% within two years. Just as important, the company set out to raise its game on pricing capabilities. It created forums for sharing best practices, trained product managers in doing fundamental pricing analysis, and trained salespeople on how to have better pricing discussions with their customers. New dashboards monitored progress toward pricing goals and flagged places where sales reps might be getting too aggressive, or weren’t getting aggressive enough. Finally, the CEO reinforced these measures by demanding that the product and sales teams report on pricing actions taken, as well as results, so that effective pricing remained a high priority. The company established itself as a pricing leader in its markets and continued to optimize margins, both by raising prices and, in selective cases, by lowering prices to drive the right balance of price versus volume gains.

Regardless of a company’s starting point in pricing, there is significant value in building out the capabilities highlighted by our survey analysis. The three areas discussed here have proved to be the most important for upgrading tools, resources, and behaviors. That said, companies in almost all industries have underinvested generally across pricing. The episodic “pricing project” approach leaves companies well short of full potential. With meaningful margin upside at stake, managers cannot afford to continue pricing by rules of thumb or by taking a one-size-fits-all approach to pricing across entire segments of their business.