By Christine Harrington

During my prospecting calls this week, I examined all the different touchpoints necessary to stay a priority in the prospect’s mind. I encourage you to do the same.

If you’re in sales, you have gaps. These gaps are the spaces and times between the initial prospecting call all the way to closing the sale. In these gaps you could be losing sales because you haven’t developed a clear strategy for becoming a high priority to the prospect.

These gaps are where trust and credibility are built – and where sales are won.

Say you’ve made the first contact with the prospect and she’s agreed to an appointment. The time between setting the appointment and going on the appointment is a gap.

When I ask my coaching clients what they’re doing during that gap, most say they do nothing! They just wait for the appointment. This is a wasted opportunity.

Think about your sales process. There are many gaps between the next steps – especially if you have a long sales cycle.

When you’re in these gaps – waiting for the next step, the next appointment, or to present, etc. – if you’re doing nothing, you are losing sales.

So what can you do to fill in the gap and remain a high priority to your prospect?

Here are a few ideas to start with.

#1: Send a handwritten note.

This morning, during a prospect phone call, he shared with me that he was in the process of sending out handwritten notes to his prospects!

Music to my ears! I told him I do the same thing. Instant rapport was built – we shared a common belief and the phone call ended by us taking the next natural step.

Handwritten notes are so rare these days that receiving one feels important, special. People remember the way you make them feel.

#2: Find a YouTube video or a podcast that will benefit the prospect. Send it to the prospect through a short email.

“I saw this and thought of you!”

Then give two short bullet points on how the podcast can benefit the prospect’s business.

#3: Make your own video on an idea you’d like to share that can help your prospect.

You have a video component on your smartphone…use it to deliver compelling information to help your prospect! It’s different and will capture your prospect’s attention.

Now, I’m not suggesting you bombard the prospect during the gaps…but don’t let it go longer than a week without a touchpoint.

Have a strategy to fill in the gaps with value-driven activity. It will position you as a valuable asset to your prospect. Instead of becoming a low priority, you’ll move up to a high priority – turning you into someone whose calls and emails the prospect will make a point to answer.

Christine Harrington is The Savvy Sales Lady. She is a facilitator for Peak Performance Mindset workshops and a personal sales coach who helps sales professionals develop and improve their sales performance.

The post How to Become a High Priority to Your Prospect appeared first on Sales 3.0 Conference.

I experienced my first MRI this week.

It’s a medical procedure for capturing an accurate picture of what the doctor is looking for inside of your body using magnetic resonance imaging.

It’s hell for people like me that are afraid of enclosed spaces.

You have to lie motionless while you are inserted via a mechanical bed into a giant iron tube containing super powerful magnets.

The magnets bang, buzz and whirr while the machine gets that picture.

Oh, yeah. And it takes 50 minutes.

Who knows where our fears come from – probably childhood, like everything else that seems to have no rational basis.

Whatever the source, our mind makes it real.

Your customers have similar fears. It’s the feeling of not being in control.

“What happens if this malfunctions?”

“Are you sure it will hold up to periods of peak demand?”

“Can I expect to recoup our investment when we sell it?”

Educating buyers throughout their journey with your business is a job that should not be taken lightly.

It requires a strategy that gets to the heart of what customers desire … and fear.

Had I known more about the MRI experience in advance I would have been OK, but I didn’t.

So I freaked.

It’s the not knowing that creates that feeling of entrapment.

This may sound completely irrational, but then you aren’t me.

You are also not your customer, but somehow you have to be. You have to plan the customer experience and execute it with empathy.

They have to trust you now and for years to come.

Embrace their irrational fears of entrapment because they are real to them.

Set them free with content marketing education, meaningful website copy, newsletters and social media that solve problems that may only exist in their minds.

Help your customers do more of what they want by taking action.

And empathy is an action.

Content shock and content saturation are real in the world of marketing. Even as far back as 2014, Mark Schaefer was discussing content shock and the repercussions. Content shock is “when exponentially increasing volumes of content intersect our limited human capacity to consume it (Source). Essentially, supply for content well exceeds the demand for content.

Now, the term content saturation is starting to make waves among the marketing community.

Both of these issues (shock and saturation) are to be blamed on marketers, businesses, and individuals who have lost sight of the purpose of blogging and content marketing. Content marketing is not the end goal, it’s a means to an end. We don’t blog simply because we enjoy it (well, unless you don’t plan on monetizing your ramblings). We blog and craft great content to help the end user achieve their goals.

While there is some great content (get it?) out there to help you deal with content saturation (see Mark Schaefer’s new article on content saturation), we are going to look at several B2B blogging trends we expect to die out in the (hopefully) near future.

Content Farms

These. Are. The. Worst. Content farms are the antithesis of crafting quality content that helps the end reader or viewer achieve their goals. They are websites that employ many freelance writers, and in some cases advanced AI, to create pages and pages of sub-par content simply to satisfy search engine algorithms. The great news is that search engines are catching on to these unscrupulous content farms and penalizing them for the poor quality content they create.

An alternative to content farms: Working with experienced, professional writers familiar with B2B blogging best practices and who have a clear understanding of storytelling and the needs of the audience.

Content Just Because

Doing anything “just because” is a terrible approach and often won’t meet any goals because no goals are set! We are looking forward to the demise of this “Everyone else, especially my competitor, is creating content so my company should too” approach to a B2B content strategy. Yes, we believe that content marketing for B2B companies is highly effective, however, there must be a strategy and a plan of execution with clearly defined objectives.

An alternative to just because content: Work with a seasoned B2B content marketing and blogging agency that understands your market, the pain points of your target market, and uses best practices for content creation.

Content Purely for SEO

Just like content marketing, search engine optimization is not the end goal. Ranking #1 for all of your search terms is garbage if you aren’t attracting and converting the right type of leads. Content created purely to satisfy search engines is already on the decline as search engines are starting to employ AI to understand what content is valuable to end users. Search engines want to serve up content that meets the needs of the end users and provides value. This is why your B2B blogging strategy should consider SEO, but focus on the end user.

An alternative to purely SEO content: Hire an SEO professional or a B2B agency familiar with SEO best practices who is also focused on conversions. It’s great to get traffic to your website, but if your content is meeting the needs of your target audience, they will never convert into leads and clients.

Crappy Content Creation

Not everyone is a great writer. They think they are, but they aren’t. Don’t get me wrong, there are wonderful, talented writers who create polished content pieces. However, there seems to be a surplus of really crappy content creators out there.

What makes content crappy? It’s poorly written, terrible grammar, lacks focus, never gets to a point, offers little substance, and/or has no new information for the target audience. When it comes to content creation, particularly for niche B2B marketing, you get what you pay for. If you want articles crafted at $50 an article – you get crappy content.

An alternative to crappy content: Seasoned, professional copywriters are out there. Enlist the help of a demonstrated writer who understands best practices for storytelling, speaking to an audience, creating an outline (FLOW MATTERS), interviewing experts, search engine optimization, etc.

Advertorial Content in Disguise

“Here is an educational blog post that discusses how to help you solve such and such problem…oh, and it happens to mention every single software product we sell, along with the features and benefits of each.” That’s not valuable content (unless it’s on a sales brochure), that’s an advertorial! We cannot wait to see advertorial content that masquerades as helpful, educational content die. B2B blogging strategies that center solely on product promotion are going the way of the dinosaurs.

An alternative to advertorials: Instead of listing the features and benefits of a product or service, focus your content on understanding the end user’s problem or pain point and give away information to help them solve or address it. Your B2B content marketing efforts should be represented by these verbs:

• Solve
• Answer
• Assist
• Help
• Reduce
• Minimize
• Educate

B2B Blogging Is for Your Audience

At the end of the day, your blogging efforts are not for the gain of your company, but for the target market. If your content is sub-par, your lead generation will also be sub-par. If you craft kick-ass content that solves problems, answers common questions, assists users in meeting their objectives, helps them with an issue, reduces their time on a project, minimizes errors, and educates them about their options – then you won’t be affected by content saturation and your target market won’t get content shock. Maybe include a sentence on what they WILL get (build trust, position themselves as a thought leader, etc.)

You can learn a lot about what makes a brilliant mind tick by looking at the books on their bedside table. Beyond reading research in their field, the most famous and successful scientists take the time to read books about every subject imaginable.

We compiled a list of book recommendations from a handful of illustrious minds by combing the web for quotes, checking out personal blogs, and just asking them directly. The picks below come from popular scientists including author and television personality Bill Nye, surgeon-turned-writer Siddhartha Mukherjee, and globe-trotting primatologist Jane Goodall.

The books they've recommended range from high fantasy, like Tolkien's "The Lord of the Rings," to canonical, like Plato's seminal work "The Republic." 

Here are 15 books that brilliant scientists consider must-reads:

SEE ALSO: The best books about science from the last 15 years that everyone should read

Jane Goodall: "The Lord of the Rings" trilogy by J.R.R. Tolkien

Jane Goodall is a big fan of J.R.R. Tolkien's "Lord of the Rings" trilogy.

Goodall famously read the books to her son while studying chimpanzees in Gombe, Tanzania in the late 1970s and early 1980s. She even named a precocious chimpanzee "Frodo" after the trilogy's main character.

She was also a fan of the movies and told W Magazine that "The Fellowship of the Ring" is one film that "really sticks with me." 

 

 

Carl Sagan: "The Immoralist" by Andre Gide

Carl Sagan, who died in 1996, was a famous astronomer and the host of the original "Cosmos" television mini-series. (Neil DeGrasse Tyson, whose book recommendation is also on this list, remade the series in 2014.) 

Sagan was extremely well read, even in college. The website Brain Pickings obtained a copy of Sagan's college reading list, which showed that the astronomer sped through a number of powerful works of fiction and nonfiction in his free time while studying at the University of Chicago.

Andre Gide's "The Immoralist" appeared on that 1954 reading list. The 1902 novel explores the life of a lapsed academic as he travels from France to French-occupied Algeria.

It's an artistic tale of colonization, impulses, and the human condition. Gide won the Nobel Prize for literature in 1947.

Carl Sagan: "The Republic" by Plato

Sagan also put Plato's "The Republic" on his personal reading list when he was a college student.

One of the world's most influential works of political theory, Plato's text is the foundation of much of Western philosophy (and a sometimes daunting assignment for many college freshmen).

Plato's book is written as a dialogue with Socrates and evaluates differing notions of justice and morality.

 

 

See the rest of the story at Business Insider

This brilliant pricing scheme extorts huge margins while simultaneously increasing customer loyalty.

Pricing is one of the most powerful levers we have to achieve our business goals. One can use pricing to improve top line revenues, gross profit or cashflow. If you are concerned about the overall market, it can help you to grow the market or increase your share of the market. In SaaS businesses pricing is increasingly being used to improve unit economics, such as the cost of customer acquisition (CAC), the lifetime value of a customer (LTV) or to reduce churn. All good things. But you can't use pricing to achieve all goals at the same time.

One of the challenges we often have at Ibbaka is that companies have:

• No pricing goals
• Too many pricing goals
• Conflicting pricing goals in different parts of the business

It is hard to say which of these is worse.

A surprising number of companies cannot answer the simple question "What do you want to optimize with your pricing strategy?" The price was set once upon a time, and has basically been left alone. Even if there was an intent back in the grey mists of time, it has been lost. But the pricing model continues, often under severe discounting pressure.

Then there are the enthusiasts, who love to manipulate their pricing, and are trying to use it for too many things. Pricing is a multipurpose tool, but it cannot be used to solve every business problem at the same time. Imagine you had every tool open on your Swiss Army knife. It would be hard to use it and you would likely cut your hand!

The worst situation of all is when different parts of the business are using pricing for different purposes, often without even being aware that this is the case. Sales get a bonus on top line revenue, so they use discounts to make sure they get the deal. Product marketing believes it has a premium product, and has set a price to reflect this. Customer success is responsible for renewals, and wants a pricing model that distributes revenues across the customer lifecycle. Finance needs cashflow, and wants pricing to bring in cash quickly. Like most aspects of business, alignment is critical.

One way you can check the alignment within your own company is with the Ibbaka Pricing Self Assessment Tool. This tool let's you check and see how you are doing on best practices for Pricing, and the closely related topics of Market Segmentation and Value.

 

To test alignment, have several people from your company take the assessment and then compare the answers. We recommend you have at least three, but preferably five to seven people take the survey. Make sure they come from different business functions. Gather the responses together. You may want to compile them into a spreadsheet.

 Once you have the results, ask the following questions:

1. Do we have the same score for Pricing, Segmentation and Marketing?
   If you do great, but go deeper.
2. Did we give similar answers to each question?
   Yes? Great. You are most likely in alignment.
3. Where are we most out of alignment?
   It could be pricing, segmentation or value. If all three are giving you a range of answers, start with value. Understanding how customers perceive the value you create is the foundation to market segmentation, and segmentation is the frame you should be using to design pricing.

We realize this is a clunky process. We will provide better support for this in the future. Until then though, this simple approach can give great insights.

I did this with a customer recently and they found they were in great alignment on how they created value for customers. (Do the customers agree? We don't know that yet.) Their answers on segmentation were more varied, with Product Marketing most confident about segmentation and Sales the least. It was Finance that was the most skeptical about pricing practices.

What to do with this data? The next step is to dig in and see what is behind the differences. Some of this will come out of an analysis of the answers to each individual question. Interviews will be important too. Get behind the data and probe, using the results as a way to question assumptions and easy answers.

Getting alignment on pricing is mission critical. Lack of alignment will undermine any market strategy you may have. Ibbaka can help you with this. We have data analysis tools that can help you see who is aligned and how. Our clustering and market segmentation software can be used on alignment data as well. Contact info@ibbaka.com to learn more about how we can help you get alignment on pricing. 

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Sales leaders and businesses are paying a hefty price for not developing the selling skills of their people. They’re not only selling less than they could be, they’re also being forced to sell at lower prices than they should be!

There are so few in sales who are truly professional sellers. It’s salespeople’s own approach, attitude, and behavior that is shooting their sales effort in the foot while causing buyers to perceive them as nothing more than vendors and commodity sellers rather than the professional problem solvers and value creators we so badly want them to be.

1. Living in Reactive Mode

Probably the most common and damaging driver of salespeople being perceived and treated simply as vendors is being late to a sales opportunity. Sales leaders allow their teams to spend way too much time operating in reactive mode. Sellers are waiting for leads, waiting for customers to raise their hands, waiting for beautifully teed-up opportunities.

Reactive sellers are often slow arriving to a new sales opportunity. By the time they’re involved, the buyer is far down the path. Buying criteria have been established. Even worse, these reactive sellers end up way at the back of the line.

Often, they find themselves playing catch-up to their more proactive competitors’ salespeople, who got there first, who were building relationships before the buyer started shopping, who were in what I call “Position A”: Sitting in the consultant’s seat, bringing value, sharing insights, and helping define the buyer’s requirements.

Can you see why being late to the opportunity often relegates your salesperson to vendor status? How hard is it to be seen as a value creator and consultant to the prospective customer who is already far down the path? Very hard.

It’s no fun selling from behind, eating the dust of your competitor who already has a relationship and earned a seat at the table because he was in the opportunity early. In fact, it might very well be that your competitor actually created the opportunity by proactively targeting the customer.

Unless your solution is so radically different from and superior to the competition’s, which I hate to tell you is rarely the case, it is very hard to come across as a consultative, value-creating salesperson when you’re tardy.

Typically, from that position, it takes a very low price to earn the buyer’s attention. And that’s a game we certainly don’t want to play.

2. Leading with Product

Adding insult to injury, after they’re slow to get involved in a potential sales opportunity, many salespeople further reduce their effectiveness by leading with their product or solution. Again, it’s untrained or poorly trained sellers who don’t know any better.

They put their product out front and make it the focus of the conversation when meeting with potential customers. What are the consequences of making the offering the hero of the story?

That approach communicates -- loud and clear -- to the customer that the salesperson is self-focused, more concerned with what he’s selling than with the customer’s issues, needs, and desires. Think about it. It’s a truly horrible message to send.

When salespeople lead with their product or service, it is impossible to be perceived as consultants or trusted advisors. It makes it as clear as day that the salesperson believes the relationship and sale are centered on his offering, not the customer and its needs.

It’s as if the salesperson is begging the customer to put his offering’s features and price on a spreadsheet to be compared against every competitors’ features and price.

The salesperson might as well show up wearing a company logo golf shirt embroidered with these words: WE ARE ALL ABOUT OUR PRODUCTS!

Hear me clearly: When you live by the product then you die by the product. Salespeople who lead with their offering are admitting that they bring zero value to the equation, and they’re essentially telling customers to commoditize the purchase decision.

3. Ineffective Sales Calling

Who’s teaching salespeople how to plan and conduct sales calls? If what I’m seeing is any indication, nobody is. So much sales training today is focused on macro theories.

Popular sales blogs and LinkedIn posts are filled with articles espousing the virtues of macro sales theories like social selling and insight selling. But there are few sales experts writing about how to better execute the day-to-day basics, the fundamentals.

Talking about sales call structure may not be sexy, but it has never been more needed, especially as sales managers are spending less time in the field coaching people.

Here are some of the most common sales call sins:

• The salesperson doesn’t establish herself as a professional or assert control by setting up the meeting, sharing her agenda, and getting buy-in from the customer.
• Sellers approach the sales call already in presentation mode and are too quick to jump to a demo or presentation.
• Salespeople talk way too much and listen way too little. It’s very hard to come across as a professional problem solver when you don’t discover the customer’s real issues. As I’m fond of repeating: Discovery precedes presentation -- always!
• Salespeople give off the vibe that they are there to “pitch at” the prospect, which creates an awkward, adversarial dynamic and often provokes a guarded, even cynical, posture from the customer.

Take some time now to replay in your mind the last dozen or so of your people’s sales calls that you observed. Were the salespeople coming across as consultative professionals or product pushers? Did they do more talking or listening? Was their objective to learn as much as possible as to improve the customer’s condition, or to launch into presentation mode as quickly as possible?

And, most important, if you were the customer, how would you view the salesperson -- simply as a self-interested vendor or as a true value creator, advisor, and trustworthy business partner?

Amateurish approaches doom the salesperson to vendor and product-pitcher status. You don’t earn a seat as the expert or consultant at the customer’s table when you’re viewed as a pitchman better suited to doing infomercials than to helping your customer address business challenges.

4. Avoiding Objections

Some salespeople bury their head in the sand whenever they sense their prospects have reservations or concerns. Newsflash: Refusing to discuss these anxieties doesn't make them go away. On the contrary, doing so means reps completely lose the opportunity to resolve them.

If a prospect seems less than enthusiastic about a specific feature or detail, ask probing questions. You might say, “What are your thoughts on [feature]?” or “What challenges or difficulties do you foresee around [aspect of deal]?”

It's also helpful to ask, “Are there any reasons you wouldn't buy?”

There are only two potential responses to this question. The buyer will say, “Yes, I'm concerned about X, Y, and Z,” -- in which case you've successfully brought hidden objections out into the open -- or they'll reply, “No, I think we're ready to move forward.”

Either way, the outcome is positive.

5. Doing Whatever the Customer Requests

When the customer or prospect tells a salesperson to jump, a majority respond with the traditional “How high?” and typically do so with great excitement. They think, what could be better?

The customer wants me to do something and I will show him that I’m the best, I’m the fastest, I’m the most compliant, I have the best attitude, I follow instructions better than anyone, I’m likable, I present better than anyone, and I’ll provide the most creative and in-depth proposal.

The harsh reality is that when the seller does whatever the customer asks and is more concerned with being liked than respected, it often lowers instead of raises the perception of the salesperson in the buyer’s eyes. Sure, that sounds counterintuitive, but it’s true.

In no way am I declaring that responsiveness is unimportant. It’s hugely important. And I’m not advocating that salespeople behave like obstinate unlikable jerks. Not at all.

But I am strenuously making the case that in today’s sales environment, where value is the yardstick by which all potential providers are measured, it is imperative that we think hard about how sellers are perceived by buyers.

Too often, the very likable, highly relational, super-responsive, overly accommodating salesperson gets blown out of the water when going up against a true sales killer who owns his sales process and isn’t afraid to push back against the buyer.

How do your people respond when a potential client they haven’t been working summons them to come in for a presentation or demo, or announces that he’s gathering his team together and wants their best dog and pony show? Do they get all lathered up, enthusiastically preparing for their big moment in the spotlight? Or do they raise one eyebrow, pause to think, and begin to wonder what prompted this prospect’s request? Do they run headfirst and blind into this premature presentation, or do they assert control of the situation and begin an important dialogue with customer?

Put bluntly, are they yes men (order takers) willing to do whatever a customer wants hoping to earn obedience points on the way to a sale? Or are they confident enough to push back on the request, professionally and respectfully informing the prospect that they’d loved to come in and present, but only at the right time, after having had the opportunity to meet various stakeholders, better understand what prompted the request, and learn more about the situation so they can then craft a relevant presentation? 

Let me close this post where we began. Ill-equipped salespeople are hurting sales and profit performance because they are consistently perceived by customers as nothing more than vendors.

Contrary to what many weak salespeople believe, customers are not looking for subservient order takers; they are seeking help and value. And it’s just about impossible to come across as a value creator when you’re late to an opportunity, leading with product, pitching instead of probing, and presenting and proposing prematurely.

Editor's note: This is an excerpt from the book Sales Management. Simplified. It is published here with permission. Purchase the book on Amazon.

Sales Management. Simplified. The Straight Truth About Getting Exceptional Results from
Your Sales Team by Mike Weinberg. © 2016 Mike Weinberg. All rights reserved.

Published by AMACOM Books www.amacombooks.org. Division of American Management Association 1601 Broadway, New York, NY 10019

 

The economy is strong, manufacturing sales are on fire, and the industry is making a comeback.

But while factories are humming along, the production side of things is only part of the story. In the increasingly competitive manufacturing environment, companies are more concerned about maintaining the channels that bring their products to market. In recent years, manufacturers have invested more in incentive programs for indirect channels, incentivizing contractors, distributors, retailers and resellers to promote their products.

In the fall of 2017, WorkStride partnered with Wakefield Research to survey 250 mid- to large-sized North American manufacturing organizations that go to market via indirect channels. One of the major findings in the study was that companies are spending more on indirect channel benefits, like sales incentives. In fact, 83 percent of organizations spent more on incentive programs in 2017 than they did in the previous year.

The Kinds of Promotional Programs

Of the various, and often creative, ways manufacturers choose to promote products in order to achieve a sales goal, the most popular include:

• Rebates. The intent here is for a reseller, distributor or partner to receive money back for reaching set sales targets, or to get discounts on volume purchases.
• Market development funds (MDFs). These are funds provided by the manufacturer that help the partner promote, market and educate their customers about the goods.
• SPIFs, or sales performance incentive funds. These reward individual sales representatives for selling a certain amount of a certain product.

The underlying goal of all these incentives is for partners to make larger purchases. Of course, the best way to increase sales is to have a product that sells and a team that is motivated to sell. That’s why personalized incentives are so effective.

Perhaps the most popular way of rewarding salespeople is through gift cards. In fact, according to the Incentive Research Foundation, in 2017, manufacturers spent $23 billion on name-brand merchandise and $24 billion on gift cards for their incentive programs.

While these might be the most popular rewards, the question many incentive program managers face is not about what the best incentives are, but how to widely distribute them so that a maximum number of salespeople are rewarded for promoting their product. The mark of a successful channel incentive program is based on its ROI; for every dollar spent on an incentive program, is the organization seeing 1X lift? 2X? 5X? If a company is investing properly in its program, the focus should not solely be about how much is being spent on the rewards for program participants, but on the end result of having an engaging program that drives sales and increases market share.

More Effective Ways to Allocate Rewards and Incentives

At some point in the last year, 80 percent of the surveyed manufacturers failed to meet their sales goals. This is a high number, and may have to do with how their incentive programs are structured. Year after year, it’s the top 20 percent of salespeople who get rewarded, which can drastically reduce the productivity and morale in the lower 80 percent of the salesforce. They are not recognized and hence do not have the same motivation to sell.

Unfortunately, many in-house channel incentive programs lack the tools needed to segment their programs and tailor them in a way that could get them closer to their sales goal. Because in-house programs also eat up a lot of resources, both in terms of time and money, many manufacturers surveyed expressed frustration with the costs in managing their programs.

To reduce program costs, lessen the administrative burden and have more control over customizing and segmenting programs, some manufacturers are taking advantage of the benefits of partnering with a third-party platform program.

Especially for those with over 250 employees, this alleviates many of the headaches with in-house programs, allowing larger manufacturers to edge out a larger space in an increasingly competitive manufacturing market.

NPS can be quite controversial. I’ve come across many that feel NPS isn’t right, especially in B2B environments where there are multiple persona in any given account, many touchpoints, and generally characterized by relationships more than transactions.

Candidly, we’re not big fans of the Net Promoter Score either, but companies are looking for KPIs to report top-line performance so NPS is often debated. The key question I’d ask those “Net Promoter detractors” is what specifically are they objecting to: Is it (1) the “recommend” question, (2) the use of 4 different groups (promoters / passives / detractors / disengaged) in B2B, or (3) the aggregation of data into the Net Promoter Score?

There are pros and cons to every KPI, and that fact shouldn’t slow down a company’s desire to improve. I suspect most of the objections around NPS are around the third item above (i.e. the overall score), which frankly is the least-important element and I generally have no heartache with giving that up (with certain caveats):

1. In B2B, much of the relationship-strengthening work happens at the account-level, not at the segment/aggregation level. This means that equipping account teams with the feedback so they can use it effectively to drive the right customer outcomes tends to be the fastest way to use the feedback, and gain from it. Aggregating feedback always must happen with caution, and NPS is no exception, just like CSAT, CLI, CES, or any of the other methods.
2. Any good researcher will recognize the need to measure the right outcomes as the dependent variable. So if those people that are opposed to the Net Promoter System have a better dependent-variable outcome in mind then I’d be all ears. I don’t see what’s wrong with using “recommend” as the dependent variable – B2B firms grow their business through word-of-mouth just like consumer business. We could create a question around “customer success” or more specific customer outcomes, but even that is one-step removed from a useful outcome for your company’s purposes. And I definitely would steer clear of things like “likelihood to renew” or “likelihood to buy more” because those smell like sales and not feedback. Also stay away from “satisfaction” and the like because it simply is not an outcome from action; it’s a sentiment (and one with a very low bar, btw). So if not “recommend” then what in its place?

Keeping in mind that “NPS” stands for Net Promoter System (it hasn’t focused on “Score” for at least 10 years), the primary idea is to put customer-contacts into the right groups so the company can drive the right treatment strategies. We use the NPSystem to categorize customer-contacts in 4 groups (promoter / passive / detractor / disengaged — don’t forgot those non-respondents, which in B2B environments are a C-R-I-T-I-C-A-L datapoint) that can then drive the right follow-up approaches for each. If “Net Promoter detractors” have a better categorization system then I suppose I’d listen. But since NPS is really an industry-standard, know that every minute of explanation about a new methodology or system steals a minute from driving improvements. Personally, I’d rather invest the time into doing the right work, not debating standards (and we all know, every standard in the world will have its detractors). This is especially true when considering point #1 above that relationship strengthening work happens at the account level. So if not NPS or Top 2 Box, then what outcome should be measured instead?

I’d enjoy hearing from folks that have a differing point of view. Perhaps I’ve misunderstood the objection, although if it has anything to do with better ways to aggregate data then I’m not sure we’ll be able to come to an agreement.

A smooth customer journey is the responsibility of the seller, not the buyer. There are many ways to create a pleasant buying journey, but it’s critical that each touch point along the journey is seamless.

Leaving a lasting impact and positive experience for the buyer begins with the discovery phase and communicating the value your solution can offer individual prospects. When a buyer sees that you are trying to help solve a problem they’re facing, the entire selling experience is more comfortable and rewarding. This step builds a relationship of trust and positions you as a business partner.

Leverage custom content that explicitly addresses how your product can improve their process. This consultative approach elevates the buying experience and benefits both you and the buyer. Studies support this assertion. When sellers provided ample relevant information early in the buying process, 95% of buyers choose their solution. Demonstrating the ROI resulting from a change is key to moving the buyer through their journey. Post-sale, it also helps to avoid buyer’s remorse. Proving the value of your solution is crucial to buyer satisfaction.

Examining the effect of a smooth customer journey in business success confirms the importance of having cadences in place for each customer. In this case study, Deputy’s Sales Manager for the Americas realized the impact of tailored cadences in the sales process when they adapted SalesLoft’s sales engagement platform.

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See Deputy’s full results here.

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The post Tailored Cadences Create Sales Success {Case Study} appeared first on SalesLoft.

Companies with more money are more likely to grow and succeed.

This may seem obvious, but according to a University of Toronto study, it’s also a key explanation for the persistent problem of why the Canadian innovation sector lags so far behind that of the United States.

Canadian companies take longer to get investor funding than their American counterparts, and when they do raise capital, Canadians tend to get less money.

These observations come from Class of 2008, a report released Thursday by Charles Plant, senior fellow at the Impact Centre at the University of Toronto.

The report studied the trajectory of 2,429 companies founded in 2008 in Canada, the U.S., France, Germany and the United Kingdom, with a particular focus on the 983 startups that got at least $100,000 in capital investment.

Compared with the other countries, Canada is fairly competitive, but when compared with the U.S., startups here are losing out.

“We fund them later, with less dollars, so they don’t grow as fast, so we’re not as attractive,” Plant said. “Canadians are learning that you need to apply lots of money in order to grow fast.”

• Canadian tech venture capital funding hits eight-quarter high thanks to AI
• Mavericks and Movers: The brains behind 2017's top-five venture capital deals

This is something that Plum Inc. CEO Caitlin MacGregor knows quite well.

Founded in 2012, the Waterloo, Ont.-based startup aims to use industrial organizational psychology and machine learning to help companies make better hires. MacGregor said the company has about $1 million in annual recurring revenue, with more than 100 customers, and is  looking for investor funding to help it grow.

If she were in Silicon Valley, she said, it would be a lot easier to find that money because there are many people who got rich from previous tech startups, and now are looking to put that money back into the ecosystem as angel investors.

“I can go to a party, talk about my idea and have people start writing cheques — if I was in the U.S.,” MacGregor said. “In Canada, when we go to the party, there’s nobody in the room pulling out their chequebooks.”

That shortage of early-stage funding has serious knock-on effects.

Plant said that cash-strapped Canadian companies wade in slowly, whereas American firms tend to have the money to make a big splash from Day One.

“(Americans) use more of their money to prep the market for the technology that comes out, either by understanding the market better, by having a product that fits better, or by actually starting to communicate with the market sooner,” Plant said.

“So when the products come out, they’re launched with a faster trajectory.”

Our slower pace leads to slower growth in Canadian firms, and when it comes to tech startups, if you can’t demonstrate huge growth numbers, you’re a lot less exciting for venture capitalists.

If there’s a silver lining, according to Alexander Munro, director of Capital Services at Toronto’s MaRS Discovery District, the gap has been narrowing between Canada and the U.S. since 2008.

“We are seeing a marked increase in talent coming into Canada, so that has been a quick surge in a lot of really good, high-tech startups,” Munro said.

“Generally, money follows talent, and for that reason we’re seeing that there is quite a wealth of capital that is pouring into Canada, particularly from the U.S. first, secondly from Asia, and thirdly I would say from Europe.”

Episode #9 of our interview series featuring women in sales

Follow & Share the Series [Links]: YouTube | Soundcloud | iTunes | All of Our Guests 

Julianne Gsell is the Director of MidMarket Sales at Databricks. Julianne was previously a Director of Enterprise Sales at Box, where she started her career as the company’s first SDR in 2009. Julianne studied Applied Science and Nutrition at California Polytechnic State University, where she also competed in NCAA Division 1A Cross Country. 

Julianne began her career in newspaper ad sales, learning about solution-selling to business owners, before moving to technical sales at Box.

Over the course of her time at Box, Julianne was promoted five times, having been an integral part of the sales team and in building out the sales process.

In this episode we delve into Julianne's amazing career trajectory. Julianne shares how empathy turns technical conversations into people conversations, and how to give feedback and coaching to sales reps in a way that is unique to their learning style and personality type.

If you want to close more deals faster, it’s important to make your buyer part of the solution. Confused about what this means, exactly? Let me explain. Primarily, they want to co-create the solution with you and be a part …
Read More »

The post Close More Deals With This Strategy first appeared on The Sales Leader.

To cultivate successful referrals that result in new business, make sure your website achieves these three things.

Video Transcription

Referral business, we all know how important that is in terms of driving growth in professional services. But one of two things usually happens, either we get the wrong referrals or we hear from our clients and referral sources that they are referring us, but we’re not getting any phone calls.

Well, our research shows that almost 50% of referrals who are referred to us never get our way because of one reason, they can’t understand what it is that we do and how we can help them. Where are they getting this information? Well, 8 out of 10 times, the very first place people who get referred to us learn about us, aside from the person who referred, is our website. 80% of professional services buyers check out our website first.

So in terms of getting referrals, the right referrals and getting them to call, your website needs to achieve three things. It needs to clearly articulate what you do, who you do it for, and why clients should choose you. Now this isn’t just about marketing copy. Marketing copy can say that, but what about proving it? That’s where educational content comes in. So I encourage you to think about when you’re using a referral strategy, think about how important your website is and how important educational content is to proving people should select you.

Now, educational content is not things like white papers that aren’t truly informative or syndicated content. It’s also not the marketing copy that I talked about, and you might be surprised that it’s not even in case stories or testimonials. All case stories do is while they’re interesting, they talk about what you did for a specified set of circumstances. So consider how important educational content is in terms of explaining the who you are, what you do, and why clients should choose you.

And finally, make sure that content is optimized. If it isn’t properly optimized, people won’t be able to find you in the first place when they’re looking for a firm who solves the problems that they have.

Sorry. Your next car probably won’t be autonomous. But, it will still have artificial intelligence (AI).

While most of the attention has been on advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS) and autonomous driving, AI will penetrate far deeper into the car. These overlooked areas offer fertile ground for incumbents and startups alike. Where is the fertile ground for these features? And where is the opportunity for startups?

Inside the cabin

Inward-facing AI cameras can be used to prevent accidents before they occur. These are currently widely deployed in commercial vehicles and trucks to monitor drivers to detect inebriation, distraction, drowsiness and fatigue to alert the driver. ADAS, inward-facing cameras and coaching have shown to drastically decrease insurance costs for commercial vehicle fleets.

The same technology is beginning to penetrate personal vehicles to monitor driver-related behavior for safety purposes. AI-powered cameras also can identify when children and pets are left in the vehicle to prevent heat-related deaths (on average, 37 children die from heat-related vehicle deaths in the U.S. each year).

Autonomous ridesharing will need to detect passenger occupancy and seat belt engagement, so that an autonomous vehicle can ensure passengers are safely on board a vehicle before driving off. They’ll also need to identify that items such as purses or cellphones are not left in the vehicle upon departure.

AI also can help reduce crash severity in the event of an accident. Computer vision and sensor fusion will detect whether seat belts are fastened and estimate body size to calibrate airbag deployment. Real-time passenger tracking and calibration of airbags and other safety features will become a critical design consideration for the cabin of the future.

Beyond safety, AI also will improve the user experience. Vehicles as a consumer product have lagged far behind laptops, tablets, TVs and mobile phones. Gesture recognition and natural language processing make perfect sense in the vehicle, and will make it easier for drivers and passengers to adjust driving settings, control the stereo and navigate.

Under the hood

AI also can be used to help diagnose and even predict maintenance events. Currently, vehicle sensors produce a huge amount of data, but only spit out simple codes that a mechanic can use for diagnosis. Machine learning may be able to make sense of widely disparate signals from all the various sensors for predictive maintenance and to prevent mechanical issues. This type of technology will be increasingly valuable for autonomous vehicles, which will not have access to hands-on interaction and interpretation.

AI also can be used to detect software anomalies and cybersecurity attacks. Whether the anomaly is malicious or just buggy code, it may have the same effect. Vehicles will need to identify problems quickly before they can propagate on the network.

Cars as mobile probes

In addition to providing ADAS and self-driving features, AI can be deployed on vision systems (e.g. cameras, radar, lidar) to turn the vehicle into a mobile probe. AI can be used to create high-definition maps that can be used for vehicle localization, identifying road locations and facades of addresses to supplement in-dash navigation systems, monitoring traffic and pedestrian movements and monitoring crime, as well as a variety of new emerging use cases.

Efficient AI will win

Automakers and suppliers are experimenting to see which features are technologically possible and commercially feasible. Many startups are tackling niche problems, and some of these solutions will prove their value. In the longer-term, there will be so many features that are possible (some cataloged here and some yet unknown) that they will compete for space on cost-constrained hardware.

Making a car is not cheap, and consumers are price-sensitive. Hardware tends to be the cost driver, so these piecewise AI solutions will need to be deployed simultaneously on the same hardware. The power requirements will add up quickly, and even contribute significantly to the total energy consumption of the vehicle.

It has been shown that for some computations, algorithmic advances have outpaced Moore’s Law for hardware. Several companies have started building processors designed for AI, but these won’t be cheap. Algorithmic development in AI will go a long way to enabling the intelligent car of the future. Fast, accurate, low-memory, low-power algorithms, like XNOR.ai* will be required to “stack” these features on low-cost, automotive-grade hardware.

Your next car will likely have several embedded AI features, even if it doesn’t drive itself.

* Full disclosure: XNOR.ai is an Autotech Ventures portfolio company.

Video marketing has been on the rise for the past few years. With 97% of marketers saying that video content has improved prospects’ understanding of their products or services and 76% indicating that it has helped increase sales — you can’t afford to ignore this content marketing format.

If you’re still on the fence, here are 6 powerful reasons why you need to add videos to your marketing toolkit:

1. Videos Drive Organic Traffic

Studies have shown that video content increases organic traffic from search engines by 157% while 62% of businesses claim that videos have increased the amount of traffic to their websites.

Using videos on a website can help increase engagement and dwell time, contributing to an improvement in SEO ranking so searchers are more likely to find your website.

Having a video on a landing page makes it 53% more likely to show up on the first page of Google search results.

In addition, posting videos on YouTube (which has over a billion users) gives prospects another way to find your content so you can drive traffic to your website.

To help search engines understand your video so they can rank it properly, don’t forget to include structured data markup about the video on the website page.

2. Videos Increase Conversion Rate

Besides driving website traffic, video content also helps convert visitors into customers.

It’s found that homepage videos help increase conversion by 20% while landing page videos can lead to an 80% increase in conversion.

Videos are particularly powerful for eCommerce sellers whose products have a high “touch and feel” value. In addition, demo videos and video testimonials are very effective in boosting conversion.

In fact, 57% of consumers say that videos give them more confidence to make an online purchase.

3. The Market Wants More Videos

Customers are watching more videos (e.g., explainer, how-to, demo) to help them find products and make purchasing decisions. In a survey, participants indicated that they watch an average of 1.5 hours of videos per day.

Videos enrich the customer experience and help you move prospects along the sales funnel more effectively.

In fact, 43% of people prefer marketers to use more videos. Meanwhile, 81% of businesses are already using video as a marketing tool and almost all will continue to do so.

Video content isn’t just for B2C marketing either. According to Forbes, 59% of executives prefer to watch a video than reading text, making it an ideal content format for B2B marketers.

4. Social Media Favors Video Content

Videos on social media are found to generate 1200% more shares than text and images combined.

Recently Facebook has doubled down on its investment in video marketing, making it imperative for brands to use videos in their marketing in order to get noticed.

For example, among other new video features such as 360 Video, Live Video, and Lifestage, Facebook also developed an ad format called Collection that allows advertisers to show 4 product images under a video.

Meanwhile, Instagram and Snapchat are adding video marketing features, such as shoppable videos, to increase engagement and conversion.

5. Viewers Take In More Information With Videos

Videos can help customers remember your brand and recall more information about your products or services.

Visual content communicates information much faster than text (in fact, it’s processed 60,000 times faster in the brain.) People are able to retain 95% of a message when viewing it on videos compared to 10% when reading it in text format.

Explainer videos are particularly effective in communicating how a product works. In fact, 98% of users have watched an explainer video to learn more about a product or service.

6. Videos Appeal To Mobile Users

It’s not surprising that the popularity of video is rising alongside mobile technologies as people like to watch videos on the go.

It’s found that 90% of consumers watch videos on their mobile devices. As the number of smartphone users grows, we can expect more people to be watching videos on mobile.

In addition, Google has found that mobile viewers are more likely to watch and share ads or content from brands. Such affinity also extends offline in the form of people sharing about a brand with others in person.

Make Video Marketing Work For Your Business

With 51% of marketing professionals worldwide considering video as the content format that delivers the best ROI, you can’t afford to leave it out of your marketing mix.

To get the most out of video marketing, you need well-thought-out and properly-executed commercial videos that represent your brand and effectively communicate your products or services.

It’ll help reinforce your brand positioning and effectively engage with prospects to build trust and relationships.

It’s a perennial fixture in any marketer’s calendar that, every so often, the boss will decide that it’s time to drop the proverbial gloves and go after the competition.

There are many, legitimate reasons for why it may make sense to mount a concerted, integrated campaign to target a competitor’s customer base: A competitor gets acquired. Their flagship product is being end-of-lifed. The company suffered a data breach. And so on.

Unfortunately, competitive campaigns tend to foster a kind of in-your-face, gloves off, no holds barred approach, and herein is where many of these same campaigns fall short in generating engagement, opportunities, and actual results.

There are 2 key truths to keep in mind when mounting a competitive campaign:

1. People don’t want to replace what they have (AKA Inertia beats Risk)

No matter how much someone might hate their current product/solution/vendor, bringing in a replacement can be a painful process, particularly for anything involving technology

2. People don’t want to be told they made a mistake.

Maybe there is a better solution out there. But telling the customer that he/she bought the wrong product will almost always backfire.

So what do most competitive campaigns do? They list every reason why one product is better than another, and what the customer can gain from making the switch.

Big mistake.

The key to success in any competitive campaign is to solicit dissatisfaction with the current solution without proposing that the solution be replaced.

Let’s say I hate my current office phone system. The thought of ripping out and replacing that phone system terrifies me. Do I want to know why your phone system is better than mine? No, I don’t. Do I want to be reminded of all the shortcomings of my current system, the one that cost me a tidy sum only two years ago? No thank you. Do I want to know how easy it is to implement a new phone system? Again, I do not.

So what are the alternatives? How about:

* a white paper on “10 Most Popular PBX Features (& Top 10 Pet Peeves)”

* a “Business Phone System User Satisfaction Survey” (with a free gift card for responding)

* a product comparison matrix or third party report comparing leading phone systems (“How Does Your Current System Rank?”)

The common thread is that these offers all serve to identify someone dissatisfied with their current system, or, at minimum, someone curious as to what else might be out there.

First rule of any competitive campaign? Don’t mention the competitor. By doing so, you put the customer on the defensive. You’re saying, in effect: you made a mistake. Instead, offer information of value. Not information on why he/she should choose your product, or why another company chose your product, but information that dangles the promise of a better, faster, cheaper, safer alternative without suggesting that the customer buy it.

The threshold for responding to a competitive campaign should not be: “I hate my current solution, and I’m interested in what you have to offer.” That’s too high a bar. The threshold should be: “I’m not happy with my current solution, and I’m curious as to what else is out there.” That’s the type of approach that generates engagement, leads, and sales conversations with people that have a genuine need for what you do. If that’s not demand generation, what is?

Photo by Bruno Aguirre on Unsplash

Did you know that only 0.75 percent of B2B leads generated from traditional marketing generate revenue?

A reason for this could be that traditional marketing tactics don’t take the time to identify who their audience really is. Generalizing prospects is not enough in the digital era. Customers now expect personalized marketing. If you don’t know who your customers are, then you most likely don’t know who your ideal lead or buyer persona is, and you won’t be able to tailor your messaging to meet their specific needs.

If you’re a B2B company, you’ve probably heard the buzz around account-based marketing (ABM). This tactic is a major shift from traditional marketing because the focus is on ongoing nurturing for a specific set of accounts that sales is working.

ABM is essential to the buyer’s journey because the buyer’s journey helps the marketing team identify where accounts are in the buying cycle and what content is appropriate to use at each stage. It’s time to hop on the bandwagon and invest in a strategic ABM approach. Doing your research and creating buyer personas will allow you to personalize your content and hopefully start seeing a six times higher transaction rate than generalized content.

To help you beat your competitors, let’s overview ABM and buyer personas and how they intersect.

What Is Account-Based Marketing?

ABM is becoming a standard among companies, as many are finding that customers and prospects are better served by this approach. In fact, according to a survey from Alterra Group, 97 percent of marketers said that ABM resulted in a higher return on investment (ROI) than other marketing activities. So what exactly is ABM?

ABM is a B2B strategy that focuses on both sales and marketing. For example, rather than a broad-reaching marketing campaign that touches a large pool of prospects, ABM focuses on an individual account within a specific market. The primary goal is to identify specific prospects at an organization and customize sales programs and marketing materials to meet the needs of the prospect at that company.

What Are Buyer Personas?

Buyer personas are fictional representations of your ideal customer profile. A buyer persona is more than a description of your buyer; it tells you what customers are thinking when considering their problems that your product or service resolves. By aligning your marketing messaging with each persona, buyer personas should help you attract similar buyers.

It’s common for a business to have multiple buyer personas, and it’s important that your entire organization understands these personas, because they are key to content creation, product development, sales, and anything related to driving and retaining customers.

How They Intersect

ABM and buyer personas are a perfect match because they help marketers understand who the people are within an account so that they can cater their messaging to provide those leads with high-quality content, specific to each stage of the buyer’s journey. ABM and buyer personas help marketers understand more than just a company name and titles—they allow them to work hand in hand with sales to develop persona-based journey maps.

With this method, buyers for each account become the centerpiece of ABM, providing marketing with a better ability to support the sales process. Overall, ABM helps build better relationships with target accounts. In this day and age, people don’t want to be sold to. ABM doesn’t push products or services onto a prospect, but provides education and value.

Marketing that Makes Sense

Buyer personas are essential for effective ABM because they help marketing content address individual buyer perspectives during each stage of the buyer’s journey. They also allow marketers to better understand a buyer’s goals, interests, and perspectives.

In order for ABM to be successful, both marketing and sales need to align with a target audience and understand how that audience buys. Building a buyer’s journey map is key to making this happen. By refocusing efforts on accounts and collaborating with sales, ABM and buyer personas are sure to help you reach a new level of interactions with leads and ultimately close more deals.

Photo by Denys Nevozhai from Unsplash

The modern consumer is much more self-directed because of the wealth of information they can get not only from the Internet but also from other people around the world through the various social media platforms. In fact, Forrester revealed in their survey that 74 percent of the B2B buyers conduct online research first before they decide to buy.

If buyers are doing this, how much more businesses? If customers are using the data they can find before making the purchase, companies should also use customer data in their IT lead generation campaigns. This approach is what we call data-driven marketing.

Data-driven marketing, however, is more than just using your customers’ information. It also means using and activating data in an automated or semi-automated manner, giving you more creative strategy.

Data is Power

Data gives you knowledge; thus, data gives you power as a marketer. Your marketing strategy becomes even more powerful if you have the right information in your hands. Armed with that information, you can create a scalable marketing process that can be repeated and can run on auto-pilot. As a result, you have more time in your hands, allowing you to focus more on testing and optimization.

Data also removes any guesswork that exists allowing you to target the right customers and create messages that are both relevant and valuable to your target audience.

The sad truth, however, is only a few marketers can use data effectively. A report released by TrustRadius revealed that there is a big disconnect between the vendor and the buyer in the B2B technology.

However, here’s the good news: there is always room for growth and improvement. So to help you fully utilize the people-first approach, we have prepared five creative marketing tips for your IT lead generation campaign.

#1 Provide customized and personalized hands-on experience

According to the report from TrustRadius, around 75 percent of the buyers said that demo products have a significant impact on their purchasing decision. Trial versions enable the customer to experience and evaluate the product before buying it. Data can help you create a more personalized demo or trial version that directly addresses that specific customer’s needs. Conversely, they do not want a trial version that seems biased or too general.

#2 Encourage customer participation

Make your happy customers feel more loved and valuable by allowing them to participate in case studies and testimonials. You can use the data from customer feedback as a reference for your product strategy or make improvements to your existing products and services. You can also make them a reference contact for other prospects, saving you money in marketing.

#3 Create valuable personalized content

According to the same report from TrustRadius, many customers think that most of the content created by businesses have only one goal – to convince them to buy rather than address their pain point.

Businesses should remember that for their clients, valuable means more than facts and figures. Instead, it should be something that helps them solve the problem they have at hand.

That can be addressed by creating more personalized content for each target. This strategy sends a message that you care enough about your customers because you had taken the time to study their needs and find a solution for that.

#4 Encourage customer review in third-party review sites

Encouraging your customers to review your product or service in other third-party review sites brings customer participation to another level. First, it sends a message that you are confident of your product. Second, you can use the data from those reviews to have honest feedback on the limitations and advantages of your product or service.

#5 Design a nurturing strategy for a more personalized experience

The TrustRadius report revealed that 89 percent of the buyers were influenced by the vendor to make the purchase. According to them, they feel the vendor is more of a strategic partner than just a seller. These businesses offered extended trials, conducted on-site visits, provided customization options and real data, and demonstrated ROI.

It’s Your Turn

Many companies are reaping the benefits of data-driven marketing and advertising. If it’s your first time, you can start with the tips we shared and develop your strategy as you go along the way. Just remember, this is not a one-time deal but a continuous effort to add more value to your customers

This article originally posted at The Savvy Marketer.

It’s inevitable.

You send an email to a seeming prospect. Something like this:

Hey Jane,

Still considering changing platforms? We just came out with some solid content, based on research, that I thought you’d enjoy.

Love to hear your feedback.

Talk again soon,

John

Jane isn’t a cold email lead.

She’s interacted with you and the timing wasn’t right when you first reached out. But she’s solidly in your funnel and churning through the buying cycle — maybe even above your average cycle time.

Then, things change.

You get an email from one of the following:

1. Jane’s supervisor
2. A direct report
3. Or the worst, a colleague that has nothing to do with what you sell.

They say something like this:

Hi John,

I regret to inform you that Jane has taken a position elsewhere and no longer works with us.

Best,

Somebody Else

While we all like to think that we’d take the news like a champ. Don’t lie — you’d react a little differently;

If you’ve been selling for a year or two, this scenario has likely happened. And depending on how many leads you have to generate, it could be happening to you a lot.

Here’s why.

2016 research shows that people leave their jobs after an average of 4.2 years. So, for every 100 leads you put in your funnel, 20-25 will likely leave within 12 months.

It gets worse before it gets better (but it’s going to get better :).

If you’re selling an expensive product or software, the buying cycle can be a year or more. Which means that people who may have otherwise bought (you know, for the brand they are currently at) — may not even be there when a deal could be made.

Obviously, that’s the bad news of this post.

Now, How to Find Prospects that Leave Jobs

In school, we’re taught that every action has an equal and opposite reaction.

In the case of leads leaving the current company you’re trying to close, it’s a bit more complicated than that (in a good way).

Here’s what I mean.

1. When someone leaves a company, that company (typically) hires a replacement.
2. The replacement (in the case of most decision maker roles) is someone who is experienced (i.e. they came from somewhere doing something similar).
3. Your lead that left went somewhere else (likely to do something similar to what they were doing at your current target brand).

Many of you see where I’m going. If not, keep reading, it’ll be clear in a minute.

People changing roles could seem like some simple HR inevitabilities. But if you look closely, one (seemingly) lost lead — just magically turned into three potential quality contacts.

If you’re having trouble, here’s a visual to help.

Now, all we have to do is figure out how to find prospects that switch jobs. Not to mention, all of that information for the others. Then, get to selling again.

The rest of this post is devoted to helping you gather this intel and reach out properly.

Here are the items that need to go on your to-do list:

1. Find Out Where Your Lead Went
2. Figure Out Who is Replacing Them at the Current Brand
3. See Where the Brand the Replacement Came From

But, Just for a minute

Imagine doing this for all of your leads that leave a brand. The (hypothetical) math is encouraging.

100 leads with 25 Job Changes =

• 25 New brands with an “In”
• Another 25 Current Brands that have heard of you
• Plus, 25 New brands to cold email

So, you start with 100 and end up with 150, with little prospecting to be done. See why you need to know how to find prospects that change jobs?

To-Do List: Find Out Where Your Lead Went

Head Over to LinkedIn and Check Your Notifications

One of the easiest places to find out where your leads went is to head over to LinkedIn (LI) and check your notifications. If you’ve been in B2B sales for more than 10 minutes, you likely know where that is, but for posterity, here’s a screenshot. Look in the upper right corner and click on “notifications”.

This will take you to a new screen with all of the happenings of your network.

Once you reach out to a new lead, especially when they respond (like in our scenario at the top of this post) you should reach out to connect on LinkedIn.

Key Point: Leads that respond to your outreach should be a part of your LinkedIn Network.

It should be an easy find on that screen. Look below to see some recent notifications on my own LI account. There were two in the first three results.

Leads that respond to your outreach should be a part of your LinkedIn Network.Click To Tweet

The best part, it shows where they now work. You just have to reach out to them, if their new position fits your product.

Here’s How to Get in Touch with Them

You say, “It’s been 3 months! I’ll never find it.”

Stay calm and keep scrolling. Look for your last email/phone correspondence with the lead and scroll back to that point.

Here are a few ways to reach out for the first interaction.

• Congratulate Them (Only if it’s recent): If you have to search back through 4 months of notifications, it may seem creepy to congratulate them. You troll.
• Send them a LI message: A message, on the other hand, could be quite welcome. How about: Hey, [First Name]! Saw you moved, figured I ‘d give you a (belated) congrats! You liking it at [Company Name]?
• Email Them: Not with a cold email sequence, but a message similar to the one above for LI. This would be preferred if the lead doesn’t seem active on LI.
• Call Them: If you were on a first name basis, closing in on the deal, it could be worthwhile to get them on the phone.

Now, You Can Start Selling (Almost)

Once the line of communication is open, it’s not quite go time. The person may be the same, but the business and possibly the role are different.

For example:

Laura is the Head of Marketing at McDonald’s and then becomes the VP of Marketing at Wendy’s. There are likely many similarities, but the differences could necessitate a whole new discovery conversation.

Objectives. Buying processes. Responsibilities could all be different.

The last thing you want to do is pick up exactly where you left off. Don’t treat them like a new lead, but do figure out if their pains are still the same and the use of your solution is as clear to them now as it was before.

What If You Can’t Find it On LinkedIn

Believe it or not, many professionals don’t update their profiles that regularly. Most companies will ask that decision makers proudly display where they work, others will want to show their new place of business and update it within a few weeks.

You’ll be tempted to email the person who let you know. That may not be a good idea.

Here’s why.

People Who Find Better Jobs are Happy. People Who Get Left are Often Not.

Likely, someone sent you the email letting you know that your certain someone is no longer there.

Kind of like this one I got recently;

So, given the screenshot, if I could NOT find Kim via LI, my next best chance would be to try the person who alerted me to her leaving, right? Wrong.

Warning: Most people aren’t happy that the person left. Notice in this real-life example, he says, “so I’m picking up a few of her outstanding emails.”

Kim didn’t retire. She (seemingly) left without tying up loose ends. Look for these characteristics when you are thinking about emailing the previous employer. You are risking a brand that you have a connection with if you do.

Consider yourself warned.

If they emailed and said that Kim was made an offer she couldn’t refuse and something to the effect of “we’re going to miss her” was written in the email. I MAY give it a shot.

Here’s what I’d say:

Hi Joe,

Thank you so much for letting me know! I know it’s a burden when someone leaves, sorry about that.

Kim was awesome. Do you happen to know where she’s at so I can say congratulations?

If not, no worries.

Thanks again, Joe.

Josh

Make sense? Good. Now, we’ve got to find out who’s taking there spot in the previous brand.

To-Do List: Find Out Who’s Replacing Them

For this one, you’ll need, you guessed it — LinkedIn research.

Here are the quick steps:

1. Go to your initial lead’s LI profile
2. Scroll down to their work history and click on the initial brand (the one your lead worked at before).
3. Click on it to be taken to the company’s LI page.
4. Look for the “See all XX employees on LinkedIn” section.
5. Scroll through to find the same title your lead had, or similar titles.

Here are all of those steps in the form of a gif using Rand Fishkin and Moz. Rand recently left Moz and has since started Sparktoro, which we’re excited to see happening BTW.

You Likely Know Their Email Already

You can then use a similar email structure to add them to your lead list and set up a personalized sequence to them.

For instance, if your previous lead’s email was j.doe@company, then your new prospect would likely be j.smith@company.

As far as the email outreach content, you’ll have to consider a few things.

• Did this person come from within the company or not?
• If so, did you interact with them?
• If not, how long have they been in the new role? Too soon may be a thing if they haven’t gotten settled yet.

Here’s a Very General Template

Subject Line: Congrats on the new role!

Hi [Name],

Wanted to say congrats on the new position! Been talking with [company name] for a while now and hope you’re settling in well.

I’m emailing because we recently created [resource name]. It’s specifically for [role] professionals in the [industry] market. Like you, [name]!

Would love to get your feedback. Let me know, [name]!

Best,

Josh

Some Quick Do-Nots

Do Not:

• Mention the previous person or your correspondence with them (except in rare cases that the new lead was an influencer that got promoted).
• Treat them as a “cold” lead. Use the fact that you have interacted with the brand without comparing your new lead with the one who left.
• Forget to follow up. Just because you have that connection, doesn’t mean they’ll email back. Follow up emails will be similar to a typical sequence.

Here’s a quick look at using LeadFuze to set up a sequence template to send out to all of the leads that take on the roles at brands you’ve already been dealing with.

To-Do List: Find Out Where That Person Came From

Fire up LinkedIn, because you’re going to need it. In very similar fashion to the previous step, you’ll need to start with the new person in the initial brand. So, if Jane Doe left McDonald’s to go to Wendy’s and John Smith replaced Jane — where did John come from?

Who took his place?

It may sound anti-climactic, but it’s the exact same as the last step (go back to the Rand Fishkin gif).

Reaching out to the new person is even less climatic. They’re a lead now. They weren’t and now they are. With one small difference.

You know they’re new. Here’s a slightly tweaked template from the one is the above step.

Template for New Brand/New Lead

Subject Line: Congrats on the new role!

Hi [Name],

Wanted to say congrats on the new position! I heard this position opened up and was filled and hope you’re settling in well.

I’m emailing because we recently created [resource name]. It’s specifically for [role] professionals in the [industry] market. Like you, [name]!

Would love to get your feedback. Let me know, [name]!

Best,

Josh

Again, make sure you follow the same “do nots” as above and remember to follow up with a few emails if they don’t respond to the first.

That’s it! Anything I missed? I’ll be monitoring and responding to all the comments. Know a rep who needs this? Please share if you think it will help.

Ready to take your digital marketing campaigns to the next level?

Have you been Googling for examples, templates, and/or case studies of great digital marketing campaigns? Or maybe you’ve noticed a lag in your growth/performance numbers?

You probably don’t need someone else’s creativity, but you might be able to benefit from a few expert pointers to help graduate your great idea to an outstanding digital marketing campaign. Consumers and buyers are inundated with digital messaging in the modern marketplace, so how do you stand out from the crowd?

We cornered a few of our own digital marketing experts here at Marketo and asked what key lessons they’ve learned about planning, launching, running, and reporting on effective, revenue-driving campaigns.

Graduate from Personas to Personalization

Here’s the truth about digital marketing: Today’s consumers have low attention spans, and competition for limited consumer attention is fierce. Earning attention requires targeted, personalized communications.

If you don’t know who you are targeting, or don’t have the right segmentation set up, how will your targeted message resonate? Sadly, it won’t. And when you’re spending money to run digital campaigns, every dollar spent needs to be targeted wisely for the most ROI. — Mike Madden, Sr. Manager, Demand Generation CoE & Strategy, Marketo

But you’re a savvy, experienced digital marketer, so this is not news to you. You’re constantly maintaining thorough buyer personas, using demographics and interest reports, and modern SEO research. And you have all five stages of the buying journey mapped for each of your key personas.

So do your competitors. This is 2018.

Digital marketing campaigns that stand out today need to move from personas to personalization.

Targeting includes both who you’re choosing to send or show your message to and crafting your message in a way that’s appealing to that audience. — Scott Minor, Online Marketing Program Manager, Marketo

There are two ways to do this. If your digital campaign is reaching specific targets, use case studies, stats, etc. that are in their same niche or industry.

If you’re focusing on a particular industry, use an example from a company in the same space, and definitely match their language where you can (e.g. maybe they talk about ‘clients’, not ‘leads’).— Scott Minor

If you’re fishing in a bigger pool, use the right bait—specific language, imagery, and other content elements that will primarily appeal to your target audience.

Different platforms have different strengths and weaknesses in terms of creating an audience. Take this into account when drafting your ad copy and appearance. For example, if a platform only lets you target by a topic/keyword, but firmographic data like company size is important to you, use your image and text to help your ad appeal primarily to the segment you want. — Scott Minor

Effective digital marketing campaigns deliver hyper-focused communications. It’s time to take targeting to the next level.

Define Success in Detail Before You Begin

Every digital marketer would say that metrics and analytics are important, but they can also be difficult. Because they haven’t taken the time to master the numbers, though, too many marketers plan their campaigns and try to save the metrics for later. It’s important to understand and be prepared for your key performance indicators prior to launching a campaign. If you aren’t ready to report on the campaign from the beginning, you are more likely to run into issues digging out the metrics that matter after the fact.

Create a list of goals, and work backward from those goals to define key performance indicators (KPIs) for each campaign, channel, technique, and initiative. And remember to make them SMART: specific, measurable, attainable, realistic, and time-bound. For each campaign:

• Define campaign goals, and map their connection to overall business goals. For example, if a business goal is to increase brand awareness, a related campaign goal may be to grow the number of people who follow the brand’s Twitter account.

• Identify specific metrics that will allow for measuring success. In this example, the specific metric to track is Twitter follower count.

• Set an attainable goal. If you currently focus a lot of effort on Twitter and only get 100 new followers each month, it’s probably not realistic to set a goal of gaining 1,000 new followers per month after launching a new campaign. A better goal may be adding 150 new followers each month.

• Seek opinions on whether or not the goal is realistic. It shouldn’t be up to one person to define goals. Solicit the opinions of employees and coworkers to make sure everyone agrees that established goals are realistic.

• Choose a timeframe in which goals should be met. To measure the effectiveness of campaigns, KPIs must be time-bound. Growing follower count increases to 150 per month can’t happen eventually. It needs to happen within a certain amount of time—say three months. If you haven’t hit the mark in three months, there’s solid evidence that the campaign is underperforming.

Once you have them defined, check the metrics throughout the campaign. Don’t wait for the finish line.

It’s important to check your metrics regularly. Sometimes, campaigns’ performances will surprise you (for the better or for the worse). If you don’t monitor their progress, you won’t be able to make adjustments and optimizations that can help you get the most out of your budget. — Scott Minor

Metrics and analytics aren’t just for the sunset review—not if your digital marketing campaigns are going to keep pace. Start them early and check them often.

Test Everything

First, test the experience. Once your campaign is ready to launch, take it for a test drive. Do your best to step out of your marketer shoes and just engage with the experience like it’s the first time you’ve seen it. (If this is hard, ask co-workers or friends to do it with you.)

Everything needs to work, of course, but if a digital marketing campaign is going to stand out, it needs to do more.

Does everything work correctly? Is the process as easy and clear as it can be? Can you eliminate a step to save your user time? Offer a bonus of some kind? You must deliver on the promise you made in your email/ad/message, but if you can also delight the prospect along the way, your chances for long-term success are even greater. — Scott Minor

Then, as the campaign launches, make sure it’s set up for A/B testing. (You really can’t get away with not A/B testing anymore.) And make sure the testing samples are appropriately sized.

When it comes to running A/B tests, the most common mistake [digital marketers make is] working with sample sizes that are too small. Imagine running A/B tests for two months only to find out at the end that none of your data is statistically significant because your sample size was never large enough from the start. — Mike Madden

Testing the user experience highlights opportunities to create a truly outstanding campaign. A/B testing key elements ensure the best results now and provide data you can use in your next campaign.

Create Standard Operating Procedures

Chance are, you have a fairly standard process for creating, developing, launching, monitoring, and wrapping up a digital marketing campaign, but it’s probably not documented.

Documenting the process gives you an opportunity to think critically about each step. Then, with each new digital marketing campaign, you can return to the documentation and make meaningful adjustments.

Every successful marketer needs a repeatable process. Think about your marketing campaigns like you would a sport. Did Steph Curry become the NBA’s best 3-point shooter because he just steps up and shoots a ball? No. The guy has a pre-shot routine, even though it may happen in a split second, where he follows a process, both mental and physical, to execute the best possible shot. We need to be like that. – Mike Madden

With the process documented, you can also more easily delegate and automate the simple, standard, and/or routine pieces — leaving you with more time for strategy and creative planning.

A Successful Digital Marketing Campaign Strategy

As the digital marketplace becomes more saturated, and MarTech becomes more sophisticated, digital marketing campaigns need to continue pushing the envelope in order to get noticed. Your competition has personas and mediocre metrics, so get ahead by jumping forward to personalization, mature reporting strategies, effective testing, and detailed process documentation.

Get started by identifying a small digital marketing campaign coming up, and see how many elements you can push forward. Take the communications to a new level of personalization, and/or make sure your team has metrics set up from the start, and see what it does for your ROI.

In your opinion, what does a successful digital marketing campaign look like? Tell me about it in the comments.

The post What We’ve Learned About Creating a Successful Digital Marketing Campaign appeared first on Marketo Marketing Blog - Best Practices and Thought Leadership.

Video has become a staple in digital marketing. When done right it can be compelling, engaging and convincing all at the same time. This is probably why video is gaining a monopoly on the time we spend online. The popularity of video is growing, plus we’re already spending at least a third of our time online invested in video content.

While 89% of marketers are already leveraging the power of video, there are still many businesses that aren’t using it to its full potential. Video is one of the most important marketing mediums, but if you’re not using it as a tool to generate more leads, then you’re missing out on some of the biggest benefits, not to mention a greater ROI.

Video is effective because it appeals to something that we all have in common – biology. Our brains are wired to prefer visual input. We’re programmed to take in the most information with the least amount of effort. From a biological standpoint it’s all about preserving resources, but from a marketing point of view it’s a way of turning the average viewer into a lead and moving them along the funnel with minimal effort.

Simply put, video works for lead generation and here are 4 reasons that you’re going to love it.

Video Establishes Trust and Authenticity

Lead generation is a crucial part of any digital marketing strategy. But in today’s digital world, consumers are bombarded to the point of overstimulation by marketing. It doesn’t matter if they’re checking their email or scrolling through their social feed, it seems that there’s always at least one business trying to appeal to them.

In other words, your potential leads are tired, and they’ve grown weary of sharing their information with just anyone that asks for it.

Not only does video provide value and content that’s easier to consume, but it’s also a major player in establishing trust and authenticity for brands. A business can’t hide behind video, especially if you’re publishing behind the scenes videos or putting your own face in front of the camera.

It’s Shareworthy

The truth is, there’s only so much traffic that you can generate on your own, and maybe you’re satisfied with the amount you currently have but consider the potential if you were able to exponentially increase your leads.

You can make this happen with a little help from your friends – meaning the people that follow you on social media. Video is highly engaging and shareable. In fact, video has the potential to generate 1,200 times more shares than images and text combined.

You Can Establish an Elite “Gated” Community

One of the easiest ways to generate leads with video is to set up an email gate. This is simply asking a viewer to enter their email address before gaining access to your video. Some businesses flinch at the idea, but let’s talk about why it works.

An email gate works best when the prospective lead has already moved a little way down the funnel where they’ve already shown some interest and invested a little time. This is a prime opportunity for sealing the deal and capturing the lead.

When presented with video content that requires an email address to access, you’re not only capturing a lead, you’re also establishing your authority and helping the viewer recognize the value of your content.

What you’re saying is that this is exclusive content, not what you typically share with just anyone. For example, if a viewer has been following a series of your videos on a specific product or service, a gated demo video that shows more details is the perfect place to capture their information.

More Powerful CTAs

Video provides a different platform to present your CTAs on, and it’s an incredibly effective one. According to Vidyard, who did their own trial on the effectiveness of videos with CTAs compared to those without, they found that the conversion rate was 21% compared to a measly 1%.

A CTA added at the end of a video gives engaged prospects the opportunity to act while you’re still on their minds.

Are you already leveraging video as part of your professional digital marketing strategy? If not, now is the time to start. Take the leap and try it, we promise that you’re going to be impressed with the power of video as a lead generation tool.

When it comes to business, the only thing that ultimately matters is whether or not you can close deals and customers. You can have the best marketing program, but if your sales team can’t sell your products, none of it matters.

And while the marketing world is constantly touting the benefits of video for your online presence, many companies have yet to embrace the power of video for sales. Well, if you believe that video is such an important investment for marketing, why wouldn’t that carry over to your sales team as well?

Why Video is Such a Powerful Tool for Sales

Watching videos has just become part of our buying process online. In fact, a Forbes Insights report found that 60% of business respondents are likely to watch a video on a webpage before reading any text at all. But video is also REALLY effective in driving business. HubSpot found that 81% of people have been convinced to buy a product or service and 69% of people have been convinced to buy a piece of software or application by watching a video.

They also discovered 76% of companies that are already using video as part of their sales process say it helped them increase sales. Video is about so much more than pretty moving pictures, it’s an essential way to establish trust, show expertise, and capture your the attention of your prospects to rise above the pack.

Sometimes, we get overwhelmed by the thought of creating a video, but not every video has to be an Emmy-winning theatrical production. Here are 6 simple, but effective, ways you can start creating videos that will help you close more business deals.

1. Introduction Video or Video Voicemail

If you are looking for a way to connect with cold leads or prospects, consider recording an introduction email. This is a short, pre-recorded video introducing yourself and why you might be able to help the person or company that you are emailing. In fact, HighQ found that simply including the word “video” in email subject lines can increase open rates by up to 19%.

Video voicemails work the best when they are personalized and tailored to the specific company. Give specific examples of how your product or service can help solve real problems, but be brief. Your goal at the beginning is not to tell your whole story, but to start building a relationship and help your contact start questioning the status quo.

Don’t think you have time to record custom videos? Make a generic version — “Hi, I’m Bill. I wanted to talk to you about ______.” If the text of your email mirrors the video with all the appropriate personalizations, they won’t notice that you didn’t actually say their name!

These videos don’t need a giant production budget and can probably be recorded easily with your computer’s webcam and a piece of software like Wistia’s Soapbox. We’ve got some tips on how to make them look and sound good, but we’ll get to that in a bit.

2. Video Conference Calls

Once you get on the radar with a lead, don’t stop using video. Leveraging video conference calling systems like Zoom, Google Hangouts, Join.Me, or GoToMeeting can help you take your initial introductions to the next level.

People have a hard time buying products and services from companies (and people) they don’t trust. These platforms help you garner trust much more quickly with your prospects. Not only will they have the connection of seeing your face, but they’ll also have a chance to read body language and get a better sense of who you are as a person.

You don’t have to spend a fortune to utilize this technology. Here’s a list of the best free and paid video conferencing tools.

• Google Hangouts (Free)
• Join.Me (Free + Premium)
• Zoom (Free + Premium)
• GoToMeeting (Premium)
• WebEx
• Skype (Free + Premium)
• Lifesize (Premium)
• HighFive (Premium)
• Blue Jeans (Premium)
• AnyMeeting (Premium)

As an added bonus, video conferencing helps you get their complete attention. Think about how you normally act when a salesperson gets you on the phone. It’s a harder to flip through notes, send texts, etc., when you’re being seen on a video call.

3. Share Your Best Success Stories

Storytelling is one area that video shines above all other mediums. So, when it comes to sharing your success stories, why wouldn’t you want to have your best ones captured and ready to be deployed in your sales conversations whenever they are relevant?

While there are ways to create simple video case studies and testimonials without a lot of production power, this is one area that I’d suggest spending the time and budget to get it done right. If they are well-produced, these stories can live in multiple places on your website, social channels and more — allowing several areas of your business to benefit from these success stories.

That doesn’t mean there isn’t a place for simple, DIY-type video stories. If you have a client that is really similar to a prospect, consider having them record a quick two-minute video specifically targeted around barriers and pain points that you’ve heard in your sales conversations.

4. Answer Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

Answering frequently asked questions can be a smart way to generate new online content that can live on for a long time and help save the time of sales and support teams. But often, there is no one better to answer these types of questions than your sales team. Think about who spends day after day answering these questions? Sales!

This is another situation where you might want to spend a little more money and video strategy power to get these videos produced. While a simply recorded video might do the trick for one prospect, if you know these are questions that your team is going to answer time and time again, creating a high-quality video is not going to be a waste of money.

And that doesn’t mean it has to cost tens of thousands of dollars, many companies can get several FAQ videos with just a half-day video shoot.

5. Personalized Demo Videos

Demo videos are for more than just software solutions. Create a personalized demo showcasing some work that you’ve done for a current client. Like a mini, behind-the-scenes case study, this type of video can help you prove that your work is quality and stands out from your competitors.

Don’t trust yourself to talk about the nuts and bolts of what your team does? Why not include other members of your team and help your prospect fall in love with your team as a whole!

Again, these videos don’t have to be really long, just enough to grab people’s attention and get them interested in the next step of your process.

6. Introduce Your Team

If you’ve got a prospect that is right on the edge of signing a deal with your company, one tactic to try would be to introduce your team. Consider creating a video that showcases all the team members that would be working on their project.

By having your team introduce themselves and talk about what they do every day, you can help establish the connection that will allow someone to finalize the deal with your team.

7. Send a Digital Thank-You Note

Simply saying “thank you” goes a long way to show your appreciation for someone’s time. Why send a simple email when you could record a video that would express the sentiment even better. Record a video of you or your team talking about key points, common connections or new ideas that will show that you are committed to success and interested in them as a human and not just another sale.

Tips for Getting Started

If you are ready to start diving into the world of video for sales, then there are a few things you should take into consideration before you start creating content.

1. What video player will you use? Sales videos are one case where simply uploading your video to YouTube might not be your best bet. More sophisticated video players, like Wistia or Vidyard, have the ability to integrate with certain CRMs. This intelligence will help you understand if and when your prospects are watching your videos.
2. Find your light. While every video doesn’t have to win awards for production quality, there are simple things you can do to get better lighting in your DIY videos. Position your computer so you are facing a window with natural light or get a bendable lamp to adjust the lighting to be as flattering as possible.
3. Consider the sound. Don’t record these videos in the middle of your big, loud, open-concept office. Find a quiet conference room or get a headset for your computer. Just make sure it’s easy to understand what you are saying!
4. Choose an interesting thumbnail. Your video thumbnail is like a CTA. Make sure you are choosing a screenshot that compels your audience to click on your video. If you can, get help from your graphics department to make something that truly stands out.

Conclusion

Video can be effective far beyond the marketing department. Look for ways that you can use video to enhance your selling experience. By using video as a way to establish trust, you can break down barriers, share your stories, and communicate more clearly with your potential clients. And hey, with some hard work and a little bit of luck, you just might close some new deals!

The post How to Manage Complex Sales at Scale appeared first on Sales Hacker.

One of the primary challenges a sales manager faces is finding time to effectively coach.  Coaching is one of many responsibilities in a sales manager’s job description.  Successful sales coaching requires managers to have processes in place that allow them to scale development activities.

Chris Olive, Enterprise SDR Manager at SalesLoft, is sharing 3 simple ways he utilizes technology to improve his coaching process. Incorporating a variety of coaching tools into his coaching methods allows Chris the time to provide effective and ongoing training for his sales reps.

Interested in taking a closer look?  Don’t miss our latest eBook, Effective Sales Coaching: How Experts Leverage Technology.

Hey, this is Chris Olive, Manager of the Enterprise SDR team at SalesLoft. Today I’m going to talk to you about three ways to scale your sales coaching.

Most managers have a time problem. You want to provide sales reps with the time necessary to help them improve in the areas that you’re focused on, but there’s only so many hours in each day. One of the most important elements of sales coaching is the preparation that goes into it.

Here are a few ways that I use technology to scale my sales coaching.

SalesLoft has an extensive app directory comprising of several technologies that improve the selling experience. One of these technologies that we use daily is Gong, a technology that allows us to review calls with our SDR’s to level up their performance. Because time is scarce as a manager, using Gong allows me to segment my time by identifying calls where I can help my team improve, as well as calls that highlight areas where my team is doing really well to share with the rest of the team. Because time is scarce as a manager, I utilize Gong’s search parameters that help me to organize calls to prioritize where I’m focusing my time.

An area that could be considered dead time would be my commute to and from work. On my commute, I listen to calls using these folders in Gong. It allows me to walk in the door knowing exactly what I need to focus on for the individual rep or the team as a whole. SalesLoft Live Call Studio allows reps to virtually raise their hand when they need help. I can listen and provide real-time coaching.

In Live Call Studio, you have three primary features. First, I can listen to a call without the prospect or rep knowing that I’m listening in. I can also speak to the rep in their ear. We call this whisper. The prospect can’t hear this, but I can help a rep if they’re struggling. Or if there’s an area where I need to get involved, I can actually join the call and help to elevate the buying experience for our customers. You really need to figure out what’s best for each rep on your team.

For some, I utilize Slack and message back and forth with them while they are on a call to help provide direction when needed. Just last week a prospect was asking one of my reps how they knew when I was on a call. I was able to join the call and demonstrate how our Live Call Studio helps to elevate that experience. Using Live Call Studio I was able to provide live coaching for my SDR and elevate the buying experience for our customers.

50% of the success is in the follow-up. I utilize a technology called Boomerang to help keep my reps and myself accountable after coaching sessions. I send this list of action items in an email using Boomerang, this bumps up that email the following week for us to review. This allows me to track success on the goals with the rep and prioritize areas that we need continue coaching on.

Thanks for watching. These are just a few ways that I utilize technology to scale coaching to add more time back in my day. Feel free to drop any questions below. Thanks for watching and have a great day.

The post 3 Ways to Scale Sales Coaching with Technology {Video} appeared first on SalesLoft.

A lot of companies think that in order to be effective in sales, they need a large team of young, inexpensive "Sales Development Reps" (SDRs) lining up emails, inmails and sales calls and talking customers into exploring their products & services. This model of sales started in Silicon Valley, and has been successful in expanding the reach of many SaaS and other technology companies.

In 2012, I had the opportunity to present at LeWeb in Paris. The theme of the conference explored the Internet of Things, where devices and things connect to one another to perform certain tasks and/or track activities to improve what we already do or make possible what we’re trying to do.

The Internet of Things is bigger than we may realize. We are experiencing a shift from a world of inanimate objects and reactive devices to a world where data, intelligence, and computing are distributed, ubiquitous, and networked. My fellow analysts and I at Altimeter Group refer to the Internet of Things (IoT) as the Sentient World. It’s the idea that inanimate objects gain the ability to perceive things, perform tasks, adapt, or help you adapt over time. And, it’s the future of the Internet and consumer electronics.

The number of things connected to the Internet in 2008, exceeded the number of people on earth. By 2020, it’s expected that there will be 50 billion things connected.

A network of things creates an incredible information ecosystem that connects the online and physical world through a series of transactions. In a world where data becomes a natural bi-product of these exchanges, developers, businesses, and users alike are faced with the reality that data isn’t only big, its volume and benefits are also overwhelming.

Did you know that the world creates 2.5 quintillion bytes of new data every day? According to IBM, 90% of the data in the world today has been created in the last two years alone.

Considering the relationship between the Internet, data, and devices, I can’t help but think about Marshall McLuhan’s ominous words, “The more data banks record about each one of us, the less we exist.”

With the Internet of Things, that data takes residence in the cloud with various devices and apps siphoning and funneling information in and out, requiring an incredible amount of vision and architecture to organize, analyze, and present it in a way that makes sense while also offering insight and utility. Instead of eclipsing our individuality, I believe the future may reveal the exact opposite. There’s a sense of empowerment and personalization that emerges and, along the way, we subconsciously and consciously begin to crave it. We become insatiable in our pursuit of personalized feedback and it may, in fact, define us.

The Convergence of Devices, Data and the Net

We’re starting to realize the magic of the IoT today in some of the most basic aspects of our lives. While at Le Web, the audience was introduced to Lockitron, a clever system that combines a mobile app, a household device that mounts to existing door locks, and the Internet to open and close doors remotely. I immediately thought of a partnership with Airbnb to give renters peace of mind in controlling their rentals.

Nest is disrupting the long dormant world of thermostats by connecting mobile devices to existing thermostats (heating/air conditioning) with the simplicity and elegance of an iPod. But it’s more than controlling energy and temperatures remotely, Nest learns and begins to adapt without input.

Square’s Jack Dorsey has disrupted the age old world of payment systems by transforming mobile devices into cash registers, connecting money, data, and the net into one frictionless transaction. It’s the data part that represents something so much more however. In that regard, Dorsey sees the real value beyond the transaction—where the swipe and the receipt ultimately become a communication medium. In his view, payments represent “a necessary transaction” to create a channel where merchants learn more about individual consumers and equally, consumers learn more about their behavior.

The Convergence of People, Devices, Data and the Net

When I marvel at the future of the Internet of Things, I can’t help but think about another often shared idea from McLuhan that, “the medium is the message.”

There’s more to smart appliances and devices than utility or remotely controlling our surroundings. The underlying current of this powerful information exchange are the experiences that surround and emanate from each transaction.

What if the medium wasn’t just the device, the medium was us?

At the center of the IoT and Big Data are the very people who fuel the constant exchange of information. At the same time, it creates a human network, where we become nodes and the information that ties together people and devices feeds new experiences and changes our behavior over time.

This is an era of which I refer to as the Human API, the idea that who we are, who we know, what we experience and do are important layers in the Internet of Things. While this may sound foreboding, we do in fact become part of the “machine.” I’m not referring to Skynet or Raymond Kurzweil’s theory of Singularity, however. I’m talking about how we open the door to a new generation of technology development that improves lifestyles and enhances relationships while unlocking aspirations.

If you’re unfamiliar with the meaning of API, it stands for application programming interface. Simplified, it’s an interface for programmers to develop upon a common platform where software can communicate with other software objects and also devices.

The Human API represents an opportunity for relationships and technology to be linked by an open source platform…you.

The Medium IS the Message

Revisiting McLuhan’s “medium is the message,” where the form of a medium embeds itself in the message, as a result, it creates a symbiotic relationship by which the medium influences how the message is perceived. The idea of the Human API sets the stage for devices to not only talk to one another, but also talk to us and affect how we process and adapt information to influence how we go through life every day.

If we intentionally program for the Human API, I believe we can design a complementary track within the Internet of Things where products combine utility, experiences, and outcomes.

Let me give you a simple example. Fitbit, makers of wireless trackers and scales, had a tremendous presence at LeWeb. Many speakers and attendees wore these wireless devices to track steps, distance, calories burned, and stairs climbed. At night, it measures sleep cycles, to help users learn how to sleep better. The intention is to motivate you to reach your goals by bringing greater fitness into your life. It is the social element and the corresponding activity that I also find fascinating.

Products such as Fitbit and also Nike’s FuelBand build upon the Human API by collecting the digital breadcrumbs of users and assembling them in a way that makes sense of daily activity and validates progress. Perhaps more importantly, these devices, the data they collect and present, and the social relationships linked by publishing this information in social channels drives the ongoing pursuit of goals, and brings people together to help one another live better. As these devices are connected socially, experiences become the epicenter of engagement and encouragement, inspiring people and networks of people through extended relationships along the way.

That’s the point.

Over the years, many developers have created specialized apps and devices that helped us accomplish things through creative “life hacks.” These hacks have given us a taste of what’s possible and are now about to become a way of life. To do so, they now require intentional design to create desired experiences and to change behavior and bring about thoughtful outcomes.

The Human API and the Need for Experience Architecture

Designing new threads within the Internet of Things around people, information, and devices requires architecture. Rather than exploring the deeper convergence of human and machine (“singularity”), the idea of solidarity seems more apropos here and now. I’m not referring to the trade union movement in Poland during the 1980s that inspired opposition to communist regimes across Eastern Europe. I think of solidarity in this case as a movement where individuals come together around a common interest to promote mutual support within the group.

Developing solutions that spark solidarity is only possible through experience architecture. This is where the next generation of visionaries and leaders will push us forward for they represent an emergent genre of experience architects.

This is where you come in…

The Human API opens up tremendous opportunities to develop devices, apps, and experiences that connect information, people, and aspirations to change behavior. This form of human interface design introduces the potential to create harmony in a world of digital chaos, making sense of noise and information overload to accomplish tangible goals or help people see or do things they didn’t or couldn’t before. In the process, we strengthen on our connections around common goals and interests.

This raises questions that experience architects need to consider:

1. What does all of this tell us about ourselves and those around us?
2. How do our devices better communicate and improve how we communicate and adapt?
3. How does the IoT bring people together around a purpose, outcomes, or aspirations?
4. How does it enable us to optimize the lives of our users and customers?

The future of the Internet of Things requires the balance of experience architecture and the exchange of human information between people and machines, and it is beautiful. And, it takes design.

Imagine what we—as users, entrepreneurs, investors, and enterprises—could do with all of this information. Imagine how we can improve connectivity, lifestyles, and relationships by constructing ecosystems that foster meaningful experiences and inspire changes in behavior.

This hyper-connected world will bring devices, systems, information and people closer together … to create new possibilities, all based on human APIs. As experience architects, the future is yours to develop.

What are your thoughts on the idea of the relationship between people, devices, the Internet of Things? Let’s keep the conversation going!

Below is video of my presentation at LeWeb on the Human API. I hope you enjoy it.

Brian Solis

Brian Solis is principal analyst and futurist at Altimeter, the digital analyst group at Prophet, Brian is world renowned keynote speaker and 7x best-selling author. His latest book, X: Where Business Meets Design, explores the future of brand and customer engagement through experience design.

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