Rnordman

Online retail and technology giant Amazon has been coy about its ambitions for growth in Vancouver, but the careers section of its Canadian website tells part of the story — more than 300 employment postings for skilled tech-sector jobs in the city.

It hints at a significant expansion of one of Vancouver’s bigger tech players, at the same time the city’s startup sector is gaining momentum and trying to draw the same types of skilled workers.

However, key voices in the sector view the signs of Amazon’s expansion as a welcome sight for the city’s overall industry, even if it increases competition for them.

“The reality is I would rather have Amazon setting up shop here than somewhere else,” said Shafim Diamond Tejani, president of startup incubator Victory Square Labs.

“Them being here and expanding their presence creates really good (well-paying) opportunities in the innovation ecosystem.”

The Seattle-headquartered corporate giant established its main Vancouver tech beach-head on several floors of the Telus Garden on Georgia Street in downtown Vancouver when the building opened in 2015.

Amazon did not respond to Postmedia’s request for an interview, but the positions the company is advertising for now, most of which have been listed since the start of this year, carry titles such as software development engineer, research scientist, data engineer and manager of database administration.

The roles explained in job descriptions relate to the development of Amazon Web Services’ cloud-computing business, operations of its fulfilment-centre warehouses and developing systems for its recruiting infrastructure.

A few of the salaries for jobs with those titles listed on the recruiting website Glassdoor range from $89,171 per year for software-development engineer I, $111,465 per year for a software engineer II to $155,553 for a senior product manager.

“This is the influx of a remarkable job engine and a remarkable business,” said Michael Dingle, an advisory partner with the consulting firm PwC.

Dingle, a former tech entrepreneur and PwC’s practice leader in technology financing, said Amazon’s interest probably comes from a couple of directions.

Canada is attractive to the behemoth as a marketplace, to start with, both for customers ordering books and clothes on Amazon Prime and businesses using its cloud-computing products through Amazon Web Services.

Amazon’s growth trajectory is no surprise to Vancouver Economic Commission CEO Ian McKay.

“Growth is the name of the game,” Dingle said, but growth that depends on CEO Jeff Bezos’ drive for constant innovation.

Amazon’s profit picture has appeared erratic over the past year. It posted a profit of US$197 million for its financial quarter ending June 30, compared with US$857 million for the same quarter a year ago.

The company’s revenue, however, continues an upward climb, hitting $38 billion for the first quarter, up 25 per cent from the same period a year ago.

Canada’s major cities, Montreal, Toronto and Vancouver, also have growing reputations as places to build technology companies, Dingle said, which is something else that draws big players like Microsoft and Amazon.

Vancouver’s geography and being on the same time zone as bigger technology hubs in Seattle and Silicon Valley outside of San Francisco also helps attract technology firms, said Ian McKay, CEO of the Vancouver Economic Commission.

And perched on the edge of the Asia-Pacific Gateway, with governments that have been willing to facilitate the migration of skilled individuals from abroad is another factor in the city’s favour, McKay said.

As for Amazon, McKay said outside estimates (the company doesn’t publicize numbers) have the firm at about 1,000 employees locally.

“The notion of 300 job openings (at Amazon) doesn’t surprise me,” McKay said. “This is a great signal to the rest of the world that this is a place people need to be.”

“And people don’t always stay with their original employers. Sometimes they reach a level then spin off and create startups. That’s nothing but good for a (technology sector) like ours.”

Tejani added that labour also tends to be cheaper in Vancouver than places such as Seattle and Silicon Valley, which can be a help to companies that can “build here in Canadian dollars, live in Canada, but still be able to generate (sales in U.S. dollars).”

Tejani acknowledged that the issue of high housing costs has emerged as a recruiting concern for some employers, but he looks at it as another challenge to overcome.

And Vancouver is still a cheaper place to live than other hubs such as Silicon Valley.

“I think we have all the check marks, other than affordable housing, of a great place to build a tech company,” Tejani said.

Vancouver’s tech sector still “punches above its weight, in every respect,” Dingle said, and Amazon’s hiring spree helps give it more critical mass.

“I can’t help but think of the concept of a rising tide lifts all boats,” Dingle said. 

depenner@postmedia.com

twitter.com/derrickpenner

With today’s B2B buyers completing nearly 60% of their sales journey before contacting a supplier, forward-thinking manufacturers are creating content that addresses the latest manufacturing trends to create successful marketing content.

Manufacturing Marketing Trend #1:

Create Marketing Content that Considers Pessimism about the World Economy

According to PwC, industrial manufacturers are pessimistic about the world economy. As a B2B manufacturing marketer in an uncertain economy, you should more closely consider how your content favorably positions your offerings to help your customers increase efficiency and productivity in this environment. If you haven’t already, now is the time to more precisely map out your customer journey and identify the key challenges, objectives and hesitations at each step.

According to Content Marketing Institute, only 33% of manufacturers are clear on what an effective content marketing program even looks like. If you’re part of the 33%, this is a remarkable opportunity to press on the gas pedal of your content marketing program and separate yourself from the pack even further.

Manufacturing Marketing Trend #2:

Create Marketing Content that Considers Advanced Manufacturing and Automation

How does your content leverage your customers’ needs for better accuracy and productivity beyond what humans are capable of? Most new equipment or technology is integrated with data capture and processing capabilities. Machines are talking to one another and making decisions based on these communications. Plus, your customers are in the process of reducing inefficient manufacturing jobs and creating new jobs for a differently trained workforce.

Consider how your content favorably positions your business and offerings as helping your customers achieve these objectives faster. By better addressing your customers’ key and significant challenges, you will outpace your competition.

Manufacturing Trend #3:

Create Marketing Content that Considers Value Pricing

As manufacturers leverage technology advancements to gain deeper insights into their plants’ and business performance, traditional pricing models are changing. As a B2B manufacturing marketer, consider focusing more of your content on performance-based pricing and value models. Your customers are increasingly expecting suppliers to share in the risk and reward of their performance – leading manufacturing marketers will use this trend in their content marketing program and communicate how their offerings provide a higher and more predictable ROI.

Manufacturing Trend #4:

Create Marketing Content that Considers Talent Development and Retention

The manufacturing industry currently has more than 350,000 manufacturing vacant jobs and according to recent Deloitte research, more than 3.5 million job vacancies will occur in manufacturing over the next decade. By helping your customers address this talent shortage, you will create a distinct and more concrete competitive advantage for your company.

Manufacturing Trend #5:

Create Marketing Content that Considers the New Role of Marketing

Today’s B2B buyers have more control over the buying process than ever before. Forward-thinking manufacturers are creating content that helps drive leads, educates customers and channel

partners, and establishes differentiation. In fact, 85%of manufacturing marketers are currently using content marketing. And of the 15% of nonusers, 53% say they plan to launch a content marketing effort within 12 months.

Manufacturing Marketing Trends in 2017 and Beyond

Merely continuing to churn out blog posts about your newest product or latest company announcement isn’t going to cut it. Your competitors are creating content that takes into account your customers’ needs and identifies insights for addressing them. If growth is a key objective for your manufacturing business, developing a sophisticated digital marketing and content marketing roadmap is critical to your success in the short- and long-run.

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PR is a tough nut to crack—but you understand its value. You go to your team and propose adding it to the strategy for the next year and you are met with opposition. You learn that one member of your team has worked with an agency before and “it failed miserably.” Another member has the perception that PR is a “waste of time and money.” Your request seems to fall on deaf ears.

What your team may be trying to say is that PR is more difficult to measure than marketing. True. PR is less controllable than advertising. True. And, PR is less predictable than other strategic efforts. True. But that does not mean that it isn’t necessary or that it isn’t a valuable tool when it comes to boosting visibility, increasing credibility, and promoting thought leaders.

PR results can be unparalleled and the rewards can surpass expectations, if done properly. After all, a strategic plan is not truly comprehensive without it. Though budget has an impact on everything that a company does, when it comes to PR and marketing, it should not be an either-or decision. Here are 5 questions to ask regarding your company’s less-than-stellar PR results. The answers may shed some light on what was done and what can be done to get your team back on the PR train.

1. Was your plan personalized?

It’s easy to understand your current company landscape and where you want to go, but is it possible that the PR strategy was treated as if one-size-fits-all? Maybe you knew that you wanted to do interviews. But was it pre-determined as to what you would talk about? Was your messaging clearly understood? Were your areas of expertise clearly defined? Did your messaging fit with the audience that you were targeting? Your company is unique; therefore, your plan should follow suit.

2. Was there leadership buy-in?

When thinking about PR, the desired result is often where the attention goes. But what goes into getting that result? Were the thought leaders available when it came time for an interview? Was your team able to answer follow-up questions from the media in a timely manner? Were the proper resources made available for your PR team, from photos to supplementary information that was referenced in an interview? After all, if you mention it, you need to be prepared to send it—and quickly. The bottom line is this: If your team is pitching the media, are you ready and available (on their timeline) when they bite? It is extremely important to deliver to the media what you say you will deliver or a bridge may be burned—and in PR, if you don’t have relationships, you have nothing.

3. Was there flexibility for change?

A plan that can’t be adjusted will not be successful. The reality is that things happen in the world, and in business, that aren’t always anticipated. Change keeps things fresh—and your PR team on their toes—but it needs to have a process that can keep all of that in check. What if a breaking news story comes out that your organization can add comment and expert insight to? Did your plan allow for a way to be spontaneous? If not, this would be chalked up to a missed opportunity. If you have enough of those, the perception can be that the plan didn’t work when really it was just a lack of flexibility. Though you need a big-picture view, you also need a short-term glimpse. If your agency didn’t use a 90-day plan that could be tweaked, it would keep your program at status-quo—even when things around you were changing.

4. Was it an investment over time?

PR results are not an overnight—or over a week, or even over a month—thing. The more time, the more consistency, the more energy, and the more investment made in creating relationships, the better the outcome will be. Was your company looking for a quick fix to an internal problem? If so, the PR program may have been doomed right out of the gate. After all, when you are looking to pull a rabbit from a hat, a lot must go on behind the scenes. Everyone wants the “ahhhh,” but with time, preparation, and relationship-building, good things will come.

5. Were the expectations realistic?

If you pitch the media, a story will result. Maybe, but it’s not always that easy. However, if you don’t pitch you will get exactly that—nothing. Did your company have clear expectations regarding PR? If not, this is a problem from the beginning. You can bring a camel (the pitch) to water (the media) but can’t make it drink (write an article). That is reality. That doesn’t mean that your PR team is not doing their job; it means that a degree of the process is out of their control. However, eventually, if the water is good and the camels are thirsty enough, they will drink. They may even remember where the water is the next time. Did your PR agency guarantee a set amount of results? Did your PR agency guarantee a specific outlet would bite? Though a PR agency wants this as badly as you do, and you have to have goals, it is unethical to make a guarantee of something that is, at least to some degree, out of their control. Shoot for the moon. Try to get more results next month than you got the previous month—but be realistic. When an exceptional story is published, mentioning your organization, the wait will be worth it.

Public relations can feel like a leap of faith for some organizations and the lack of control can be a factor against public relations for others. The bottom line is that PR should be a consideration for any company, B2B or consumer. It should not be about whether to incorporate PR or not.

Maybe the question should be, what components of PR should be part of the strategy? If your organization has used PR in the past and the results were not what you had in mind, it’s possible that personalization was not considered, leadership was not as available as originally anticipated, there was no platform to allow for change, a fair amount of time was not allotted, or the expectations were not realistic. Or maybe you just had the wrong agency. Regardless, PR can take your company to the next level. It can work side by side with your marketing efforts and it can generate interest that would not be there without it.

So you've done the preliminary research on a prospect and it looks like you could really help their company. The next step is to get them on the phone.

There will be times when you connect with them on your first try. More often than not, however, you have to try very hard to stand out from the rest of the people interrupting their day.How do you break through inbox clutter and the black hole that is voicemail? And how do you toe that fine line between persistence and harassment? Use these tips for following up with a prospect without bothering them.

1. Choose the right channel to reach out.

Whether you choose to first reach out to a prospect via email or the phone is up to you and your sales organization. Some salespeople start with an email; others prefer to just get on the line and talk. There are pros and cons to both approaches. Let's start with the "shooting over an email" approach.

Email

Email is visual, allowing time for a prospect to think through what you're saying. It can be bookmarked, tied to a label like "follow up later," and forwarded along if the prospect feels like someone else in the company would be a better fit to talk to you.

But think about the number of emails you get in your inbox each day. How many of those do you actually read? Any messages from someone you can't immediately identify is probably going to get a quick subject-line glance followed by a trip either to the archives, or the trash. Chances are that you're not going to get a response from your first email -- inbox clutter is all too common, so be ready to send multiple emails if you use this approach.

Phone

A call can grab a prospect's ear more quickly and immediately establish you as a human, versus a spam-bot. If you're comfortable jumping to a phone conversation, you could get to the coveted connect stage sooner, and get a follow-up call on the books.

However, you should also always be prepared to leave a voicemail -- your prospect won't be near his or her phone at all times. And even if you do leave a voicemail, it doesn't mean it'll be heard, or receive a response. Often, voicemails go in one ear and out the other. This is, of course, the downside to the phone method of communication.

The best solution to getting in touch with your prospects, then, is to use phone and email as a complement to one another. One popular method (if you're looking for one) is Jeff Hoffman's BASHO Sequence -- it follows a series of four voicemail/email touches, starting with introductory, to persistent, and then, if the prospect hasn't responded after the first three attempts, to a break-up.

2. Use less formal channels to build rapport.

Phone and email are often the default methods for connecting with new prospects -- they're direct, and they work. But there are other ways to get in touch with prospects that allow you to be persistent, yet still unworried about crossing over into being too persistent. Here's what you can consider if you're interested in pursuing some other tactics:

Social Media

There are several ways you can get into the peripheral vision of a prospect if he or she isn't responding to your voicemails and emails. Interacting on social media also allows salespeople to build up little bits of rapport to nudge a prospect towards speaking with you.

Referrals

Sometimes, you'll never get a prospect to pick up the phone or respond to email. They might not be social media users, either. Many salespeople do generate big business by asking for referrals.

When working target accounts, smart salespeople are willing to talk to anyone to find out about the goals, challenges, and priorities of those accounts. Talking to that company's salespeople is often the best way to learn about how the internal company works -- they're easier to reach, and often open books about how their organization works, who does what, and who doesn't do a very good job. Often, salespeople have a lot of influence in an organization, too, so a referral or introduction from them is often well received when it's made.

3. Get your prospect's attention with a brief and clear email or voicemail message.

Whether you choose to reach out via email or phone, your message should be concise and attention-grabbing -- with something that's tailored to what they actually need. Try to get three components in every message:

1. First, why you are contacting the prospect, which focuses on him or her
2. Second, why you are contacting them now, which ties into your company
3. Third, you should ask for something you want that is easy and quick to complete, such as a short pre-scheduled call at a specified time, or to be referred to a person you'd like to speak with within their organization

So if you're on a sales team at, say, a content creation agency, your sales team might open with:

"I noticed you've been posting a lot of great content to your blog. I also see that you downloaded our ebook on lead generation, but don't have any calls-to-action on those great blog posts of yours. Would you be interested in discussing how you could increase leads from your blog by doing it a bit differently? I have times available at 8 a.m. and 1:30 p.m. tomorrow, or 9 a.m. or 3 p.m. on Friday."

In a few sentences, you've let a prospect know that you've done your homework, that you have something of value that can help with a problem he or she is facing, and that your intention is to not talk at them but rather, start a conversation with them.

Then, immediately follow up with an email letting the prospect know that you left them a message, what it was about, and an open-ended question to encourage further conversation. Be personable. Avoid mentioning what you're trying to sell -- it's about the prospect, and nothing will turn him or her off faster than leaving a sales-pitch in the inbox or voicemail.

4. Be persistent ... for a reasonable amount of time.

If you don't get a response from your first voicemail/email combo, wait at least 48 hours and reach out again, this time repositioning the value you're offering slightly differently.

Start with a quick reminder that you reached out before, mentioned that you had checked out their company's ebook/recent blog post/new product, and had suggestions for helping them better achieve their goals. End the message with another open invitation to connect.

Still no response? Wait another 48 hours and then reach out again. The third message should reiterate that you've tried twice before (but not in an irritated tone, of course), and offer a bit more information. Let the prospect know you've been trying to reach them, and outline the value you could provide in a bit more detail. In your follow-up email, send one or two relevant materials from your own company's content, such as a long-form content resource or recent blog article that addresses a challenge that you think they might be experiencing. Make it clear that you're available to speak about their goals and that you have expertise in specific areas that matter to them.

5. Know when it's time to call it quits.

After the third attempt, you may want to consider sending a "break-up" email. You're letting the prospect know that you've tried to get in touch with them, and that since this might not be the best time to connect for them, you don't want to bother them if there's no fit.

In other words, use the break-up email as a way to remind the prospect one last time that you've been trying to get in touch. Ironically, this is the email that gets the highest response rate for many of the salespeople I spoke to when researching this post.

Why?

Prospects are busy and they often do want to talk to you -- they were just busy when they read your initial emails and listened to your voicemails. But, those messages left a positive impression and they are interested in speaking with you about how you can help them. They were relying on you, like every other salesperson, to keep trying to get in front of them.

6. Work the company, not the prospect.

Depending on how complex your sale is, multiple people at your target account might be involved in the buying decision. Reaching out to all of the influencers and decision makers involved through prospecting not only increases your connect rate with a target account; it also increases your eventual close rate.

In Sharon Drew Morgan's book Dirty Little Secrets: Why Buyers Can't Buy and Sellers Can't Sell, she talks about the importance of understanding the change management processes required before sales can happen, and how to become the facilitator of that process right from the first conversation. Before you can start that process, you must map out your target account's org chart and attempt to connect by prospecting multiple stakeholders. The more relationships you can build, the better chances you have of connecting and helping them understand how you can help them.

7. Stay unemotional, and remember that prospecting is a numbers game.

There's a whole slew of reasons why salespeople aren't able to connect to prospects. Some prospects are eager to talk; some will never pick up the phone. Salespeople often give up too soon or blow their chances of connecting by not taking the right approach. Some salespeople also have a serious fear of rejection which makes it hard for them to just pick up the phone over and over again. Regardless, it's the salesperson's responsibility to be pleasantly persistent with the right number of prospects.

Reach out, and make it clear that you are here to provide value. And also understand when to back off. Most importantly, pick up the phone enough times to call enough prospects. Every salesperson has a quota -- work backwards to figure out how many prospects you need to call in order to hit that quota. Do the math. Calculate the number of connects you need to close a sale, and then multiply that by the number of sales you need to make.

Sales coaching sessions can help your reps secure bigger deals and tackle common obstacles to buying. Coaching can lead to a 28% higher win rate and an 88% increase in productivity.

In this guide, I’ll walk you through everything you need to know about sales coaching. We’ll also go over the model, techniques, tools – and so much more.

Table of Contents

• What is sales coaching?
• What does a sales coach do?
• Examples of Sales Coaching
• Benefits of Sales Coaching
• Sales Coaching Models
• Sales Coaching Techniques
• Sales Coaching Best Practices
• Sales Coaching Desired Outcomes
• Sales Coaching Plan
• Sales Coaching Tools
• Sales Coaching Tips

Effective sales coaching is iterative, individualized, and inclusive. A sales coach empowers employees to feel they can grow, contribute to team success, and take accountability for their performance.

Becoming an effective sales coach comes from experience, so I spoke to experienced sales coaches who share their key coaching techniques. For those who want to improve sales coaching, there are also sales coaching programs that can help you learn how to build successful teams that consistently exceed quotas.

What doesn’t fall under the sales coaching umbrella?

• Telling salespeople exactly what to do (rather than giving them the end goal and letting them figure out the specifics).
• Giving the same advice to every single person.
• Ignoring individual motivators, strengths, and weaknesses.

Examples of Sales Coaching

To get a better sense of what sales coaching looks like, here are a few examples:

• Reviewing a call with a sales rep and discussing what went well and where they could improve
• Offering inside sales training and tips
• Reviewing remote selling techniques and tools
• Scheduling weekly check-ins with reps to discuss objectives and areas of the sales process they’re less confident in
• Shadowing a rep’s meeting or phone call with a prospect
• Reviewing a rep’s email conversations with prospects throughout different points in the buyer’s journey

Benefits of Sales Coaching

Sales coaching goes beyond its positive impact on your bottom line. See common benefits that follow sales coaching programs.

1. Sales coaching improves employee retention rates.

Rep turnover is a notorious problem in sales, and lack of development is a top reason why sales personnel leave companies.

Ignoring coaching can exacerbate the problem. Fifty-eight percent of workers are likely to leave their company if they don't receive professional development opportunities, according to 2022 research from the Conference Board.

While burnout or a bigger salary elsewhere will always be a temptation, professional development opportunities will motivate many others to stay.

Faster Capital suggests that coaching enhances performance and increases motivation. These two benefits alone are likely to improve staff retention.

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2. Sales coaching allows you to share best practices.

When you notice one rep is using a strategy to great success, you can immediately teach the rest of your team to do the same thing.

For example, one HubSpot sales rep found success via video prospecting — a best practice that spread throughout his team.

Think of sales coaching as a rising tide that lifts all boats.

3. Sales coaching maximizes your investment in sales training.

Companies spend billions per year on sales training. However, 2019 research from Gartner found that B2B sales reps forget 70% of the information within a week of training. Up to 87% of information will be forgotten within a month.

Effective sales training relies on consistent, long-term reinforcement, which the sales manager can achieve through sales coaching.

George Donovan, Chief Revenue Officer at Drawbridge, cites the Five Principles of Modern Learning as a tip for continuous learning. In particular, Donovan mentions “Bite-sized. Snackable chunks.”

Bite-sized learning may help with retention. Bite-size learning is effective because it reduces the cognitive load and increases learning. People learn more effectively when they can take a break.

4. Sales coaching increases empathy.

Human connection is crucial in sales. In fact, 89% of sales leaders rate human relationships as the most important part of selling.

According to Maya Sasson, coaching can increase empathy and other soft skills that improve the sales process. Sasson says, “A well-trained sales team is better prepared to excel in fostering strong bonds through effective communication, active listening, and empathy.”

Empathy has many benefits for sales. It helps build human connection, but it also helps sellers decipher the best route for their prospects. According to Jonathon Ilett, Head of Sales at Cognism, not every prospect wants rapport building, and it’s up to the sales rep to use their soft skills to know when a rapport is right and when it’s not.

5. Sales coaching allows reps to practice in a safe environment.

During the sales coaching process, sales reps might have time to practice critical tasks and real-life circumstances, like cold calls, demos, rejection, and more.

This training can take the form of roleplay, which allows reps to practice in a safe environment where they can be comfortable and get used to everything involved in the sales process.

The hands-on experience is effective because it can help sales reps get used to the job and, at times, override the intuitive emotions associated with rejection.

Anthony Nicks, Founder and CEO of Transformative Sales Systems LLC, advises that sales reps must develop a resilience routine that helps them accept rejection. The best way to find a solution that works is to practice. Nicks warns, “It’s not about avoiding rejection but learning how to recover.”

Sales Coaching Models

A quick search will reveal hundreds of sales coaching models, emphasizing that there is no “one-size-fits-all” approach. What works for one team might not work for another.

If your sales rep team uses specific methodologies in their work, you might consider a sales coaching model that adapts to those methods. If your sales team employs several different sales processes, you might look for a more flexible sales coaching program.

If you aren’t sure if a coaching model is a good fit, ask your team. To get their feedback, consider using an employee feedback tool or conducting an internal survey.

Now that you have a better understanding of what sales coaching is and why it’s important, let’s look at some sales coaching techniques you can implement.

Sales Coaching Techniques

These commonly-used coaching techniques are applicable to all types of sales teams. Don't be afraid to incorporate some (or all) of them on your team.

1. Use sales data.

It can be overwhelming to figure out where to focus your sales coaching. That’s where data comes into play. Rather than using your gut to guide you, do what high-performing salespeople do: use your HubSpot CRM or sales software to identify where your team can improve.

In HubSpot’s State of Sales report, it was found that 19% of top-performing salespeople are more likely to analyze their data to optimize the sales process and 17% more likely to describe their CRM as very important to the sales process

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To effectively use data, keep track of monthly conversion metrics. This will help you identify the performance of individual sales reps, the team’s average performance, and areas of improvement.

For example, you notice deal velocity is increasing, but close rates are decreasing. If that’s the case, you should examine your reps’ email-to-meeting, meeting-to-demo, and demo-to-close rates to understand where they’re moving too fast.

Use the data to guide how you want to effectively implement sales coaching.

Shane McEvoy, Managing Director at Flycast Media, provides an example where analyzing sales data is effective, “Many deals get stuck when customers have objections; we can teach our sales reps better ways to handle these objections. By looking at data, we can focus our coaching on specific problems and help our team improve faster.”

2. Use conversation data.

Conversation data allows for nuanced, targeted training for specific circumstances or reps. SuperBee’s leadership team has committed to listening to at least one call recording each week.

Antoinette Jackson, creative director and founder, says, “[Listening to a weekly sales recording] has become a weekly tradition that ensures we deliver specific call coaching as opposed to just spot coaching on particular opportunities. For example, in the first week of the month, we focus on a discovery call, the second week is a demo call, the third week is a pricing/negotiation call, and the fourth week is a wildcard.”

“This approach is vital because, from our experience, 46% of reps didn’t originally plan to go into sales. We often have to train them from scratch, recognizing that they might not have a natural inclination toward sales or conventional sales career aspirations. That’s why we make it a point to talk to our reps and tailor our coaching to their individual goals and skill sets.”

You can track conversation data using HubSpot’s Conversion Intelligence. Conversion Intelligence brings your customers’ voices into your CRM. The AI can transcribe the voices and conversations and analyze the calls. With this data, you can identify coaching opportunities, spot areas for improvement, or even find quantitative data about what works for your prospects.

3. Mix up your sales coaching styles.

Selling requires a variety of skills and techniques, so make sure your coaching incorporates multiple styles.

Director of Sales Enablement at Brainshark, Mike Kunkle, recommends varying between:

• Strategic coaching or big-picture guidance. That includes topics like selling to a specific market, navigating a complex buying process, working with customer champions, etc.
• Tactical coaching or nitty-gritty suggestions on starting a relationship, qualifying, etc.
• Specific skill coaching or helping salespeople improve their communication, questioning strategies, rapport-building abilities, remote selling, etc.

4. Get buy-in.

Most salespeople are fairly independent — that’s why they’ve chosen to work in sales — and don’t respond well to being ordered around.

You’ll have far more success if you involve them in the improvement process. That means asking them how they think they performed, what they can do to get better, and which metrics can help them measure their progress.

5. Leverage your best sales reps.

Salespeople can learn just as much from each other as you. Use that to your advantage. If one person on the team is crushing it, ask them to share their learnings with everyone else.

During your next team meeting, ask these reps to present their winning strategy. Your other salespeople will be motivated to imitate them, and the group will potentially find an even more effective way to execute this play.

Sales Coaching Best Practices

In addition to implementing common coaching techniques, leveraging best practices can maximize the impact of your sales coaching.

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Consider the following when creating your sales coaching program:

• In addition to data-driven areas of improvement, ask your sales reps which skills they would like to develop. This provides your team with a sense of ownership over their professional development.
• Incorporate call recording or sales performance management software. These tools allow you to highlight specific missteps and reinforce high-performing sales techniques.
• Pair coaching discussions with training materials. Would your employee benefit from watching a certain webinar? Are there videos or training guides they should refer to? Follow-up sessions with tangible resources for your reps.
• Include remote employees in coaching sessions. According to Revenue.io, 45.2% of sales development reps and account executives report receiving less coaching while working remotely. Make sure you meet with your remote workforce as frequently as your in-office team.
• Spend over an hour each week on sales coaching. Of companies with effective sales coaching programs, 61.4% spend more than an hour per rep each week on coaching.
• Track representatives’ performance data after coaching. This will help you quantify outcomes from sales coaching.

Sales Coaching Desired Outcomes

Specific sales coaching outcomes vary based on your company’s coaching goals. However, these are common desired outcomes of sales coaching:

• Sales reps are accountable, take ownership of their daily activities, and know when to ask for help.
• Targets are consistently met and exceeded. The business is on track to meet revenue goals.
• Pipelines are filled with qualified, relevant leads.
• Deals have a higher win rate.
• The sales cycle length is not too exhaustive.
• Retention rates for sales reps are high.

Sales Coaching Plan

If you’re looking to implement or formalize sales coaching on your team, start by building a sales coaching plan. This document should include the following three elements.

1. Onboarding Plan: This includes everything reps should know about joining your sales org. Explain the training schedule, introduce key internal players, and train your reps on the resources that will help them succeed.
2. High-level Goals: Outline what is expected of sales reps in their current position. This can be broken into goals to be met monthly, quarterly, or after a determined period of days.
3. Check-in Schedule: Let reps know when you will meet with them to assess their progress toward meeting those goals.

Below, we'll provide a sales coaching plan template that can be customized to meet your business needs.

Sales Coaching Plan Template

The following free template will help you create personalized sales coaching plans for your reps. To get the most success from a sales coaching plan, encourage your sales reps to follow the plan from day one and throughout their time with your team.

The image below highlights a section of the goal template where objectives are broken down month to month.

Sales Coaching Tools

There are many tools you can use to improve or simplify your sales coaching techniques. These tools include software and educational resources you can use both individually or with your team.

1. HubSpot Sales Coaching for Managers

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HubSpot Sales Coaching for Managers is a free program for coaching and supporting your reps. The lessons focus on coaching reps to hit their goals and helping your team positively impact the business’ bottom line.

2. LearnUpon

LearnUpon is an LMS that enables your team to build a sales training academy that onboards and continuously develops your salespeople. Combining powerful management and delivery features with engaging learning experiences, you can equip your sales team with training that sharpens their skills and helps them close more deals.

3. TalentLMS

TalentLMS is an LMS for growing businesses, allowing you to effortlessly train your sales teams. With an easy-to-use interface and an interactive AI content creator, it empowers you with all the tools you need to deliver sales training that sticks. Its library of ready-made courses, TalentLibrary, features bite-sized sales courses authored by experts, tailored to meet your salespeople’s every need.

4. Chorus.ai

Chorus.ai provides a simple way for you to use sales enablement practices to coach reps. The software's AI capabilities simplify the creation of your coaching plans while pulling from real rep conversations, data, and interactions with leads. You can also use this tool to measure the success of your sales coaching tactics.

5. Gong

Gong provides a unique look into rep interactions with your customers by using the product’s conversation intelligence capabilities. As a sales manager, this feature will make it easy to identify and replicate the actions of your best. Gong also gathers the conversations your reps have with prospects on the phone, email, or web conference, making reviewing performance simple.

6. Showpad Coach

Showpad Coach, formerly known as LearnCore, allows you to review analytics related to each of your reps. With this feature, you can identify which people need what type of support and coaching. You can also create and share coaching videos with your reps.

7. ExecVision

ExecVision is a conversation intelligence program ideal for coaching large teams of reps. The software allows you to easily identify coachable moments in every rep‘s process. It transcribes sales calls and highlights key moments in every rep’s workflow. Then, you can coach the reps in the areas where they need support.

In addition to sales coaching techniques and tools, here are some tips to keep in mind. These sales coaching tips will help you effectively develop reps to ensure your team’s productivity.

1. Focus on the middle 60%

According to Brent Adamson and Matt Dixon, authors of The Challenger Sale, most sales managers tend to spend most of their energy coaching the “very best and very worst” salespeople on their team.

Managers feel compelled to help the bottom 20% to get their team to quota. They want to help the top 20% because it’s rewarding.

Consequently, the middle 60% gets the least amount of attention. But Adamson and Dixon explain, “The real payoff from good coaching lies among … your core performers.”

After all, the worst-performing salespeople (who are consistently underperforming, that is) usually aren’t right for the role. You should replace them, not try to train them up.

And the stars on the team show little to no performance improvement from coaching. So, when thinking about which reps to focus your attention on, think of the middle of the pack.

2. Share your vision

Sales reps want to feel they’re contributing to the company’s success.

Come up with a mission for your team that goes beyond “sell X amount of business.” This goal should be specific, actionable, and exciting. Think “break into A market,” “become known internally for doing B,” or “break the company record for C.”

Periodically, throughout team meetings and one-on-ones, share the overall team's progress toward this objective. Point out the people who have made significant contributions.

The side effects of a shared vision are paramount. Sales teams with a shared vision can expect to enhance their understanding of customers, streamline communications, and increase efficiency.

3. Learn each salesperson’s drivers

Everyone is motivated by different things. Even if the majority of your reps are motivated by making money, their specific goals probably vary widely. Understanding your sales reps' motivations will help you tailor your coaching style to each sales rep.

To identify how you can engage your reps, former HubSpot Executive Dan Tyre recommends asking what they want to accomplish in their personal and professional lives.

“This will not only show you the type of person they are but also give you insight into what things will motivate them the most,” he explains. Tyre asks these questions:

• Are you motivated right now?
• What motivates you long-term?
• What can you do to motivate yourself?
• How will I know if you are not motivated?
• What do you want me to do if you don’t appear motivated?

Having these insights will help you better engage with your reps and their personal visions.

4. Use incentives effectively.

Sales contests and incentives should change behaviors, not reinforce existing ones. That’s why offering $100 to the first rep to make a sale that day isn’t very helpful.

Instead, figure out what your salespeople aren’t doing that you’d like to implement. Design your contest around that action.

To illustrate, maybe your reps are focusing too heavily on product A because it requires less technical knowledge than product B. You might give a bonus to every salesperson who sells more than X units of product B.

Incentives can create competition within sales teams. Matt Lopez, CEO and Founder of Revenue Nomad, describes salespeople as having an insatiable drive to succeed and a competitive spirit.

The good news is that competition isn’t always a bad thing. Nick Beltramo suggests that with the right tactics, sales leaders can create healthy competition within the team. Beltramo recommends establishing KPIs, coaching with data, and challenging sales reps as effective ways to foster friendly competition.

5. Give personal rewards

Instead of assuming what your team might appreciate, ask. You may want to provide options.

Individual prizes should be tied to a specific rep’s goals. For example, if a rep is working on increasing their call-to-meetings rate, you might say you’ll take them to a nice lunch once they improve by X%.

Not sure what to offer as a prize? Here’s where knowing every salesperson’s motivators is handy. You can also directly ask them, “What can I give you as a prize for achieving [objective]?”

Rewards are hugely motivating for teams. Sam Harris, chief marketing officer at Rippl, an employee rewards platform, knows the benefits of financial rewards.

Harris says, “Financial rewards are great for sales teams, but it’s important to balance these simple rewards with personalized efforts.”

Sales teams using Rippl earn points that can be exchanged for vouchers for popular brands chosen by the individuals themselves. “When this personalized approach was adopted at Rippl for an automotive client targeted to sell car accessories, they found an average 42% uplift in sales when personally incentivized with rewards,” Harris says.

6. Prepare and practice with multiple coaching scenarios.

Your team is bound to evolve — either because of increased skills or rep turnover. Keep your coaching effective by preparing for different scenarios. With your preparation and training plans already complete, you’ll be able to teach reps with different needs at any time.

If you notice there are several members of your team who need the same type of coaching in a specific problem area, you can prepare information and training around the topic to share with your group.

This sales coaching tip can be implemented using roleplay. On roleplay, David Rubie-Todd, co-founder and marketing head at Sticker It, says, “[Roleplay] allows [the sales team] to practice their pitch, objection handling, and negotiation skills in a safe and controlled environment. It also provides an opportunity for constructive feedback from their mentor and other team members.”

7. Leverage your entire sales team.

Some sales reps learn best by example. Ask your top performers to lend a hand and allow members of your sales team to listen in on a few successful sales calls (or sales call recordings). Later, debrief and discuss why the sales calls were successful, what could be improved, and how each rep would have handled the call themselves.

Shane McEvoy, managing director at Flycast Media, recommends shadowing so junior sales teams can watch senior team members and learn. McEvoy says, “[Through shadowing], new reps see how the pros handle real sales situations. Afterward, we give feedback to help them improve their skills. This way, new reps learn by doing and seeing, which allows them to get better at their job quickly. It also helps build a supportive team where everyone learns from each other.”

Shadowing is a powerful coaching method. Nidhi Kala credits this training method with helping teams learn pre-sales rituals, understand processes, and develop soft skills such as tone of voice awareness.

8. Have the hard conversations.

Many sales reps struggle to meet their potential because of the inevitable prospect push-back ... and the dreaded word “no.” But most reps work their way through this discomfort with practice.

With the sales reps you’re coaching, role-play some uncomfortable scenarios and hard conversations. During this training exercise, practice some common objections. Once reps get more comfortable hearing those objections and responding, they’ll be better equipped to face them on real sales calls.

9. Provide more positive than negative feedback.

For each piece of constructive criticism, give more positive reinforcement. Not only does this help maintain morale, but it also allows sales reps to recognize what they're doing right — and hopefully encourages them to repeat and build on that behavior.

Positive reinforcement is likely to aid the relationship between the sales coach and the sales coachee.

When it comes to giving criticism, it turns out that there is a golden ratio, and that’s five (almost six) positive comments for every criticism.

A study by Emily Heaphy and Marcial Losada found that the highest-performing teams received 5.6 positive comments for every negative one.

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Positive comments are more natural than you might think, and negative comments may be more common than you’d like. An example of a positive comment would simply be, “I agree with you,” or, “Great idea!”

Negative comments can include a simple “I don’t agree.”

It goes without saying that negative comments can reach derogatory levels, but the point is it may be easy to make harmful comments without realizing. On the flip side, a sprinkling of positivity can make criticism easier to take and positively impact team performance.

10. Ask questions.

Instead of jumping into your training with advice or direction, it can be more empowering to ask questions.

Scott Williamson, vice president of sales at R. Williamson & Associates, shares an anecdote where asking questions was more effective.

Williamson says, “I once had a team member who was struggling to meet deadlines. My first instinct was to prescribe time-management tactics. Instead, I asked him to walk me through his process and identify where bottlenecks occurred.”

Through this dialogue, the employee pinpointed issues himself and came up with ideas to improve efficiency. The result was a sustainable change driven by his insights, Williamson notes.

“Guiding people to their own ‘aha moments’ through inquiry is a coaching skill that unlocks potential. The solutions that emerge are far more powerful than anything imposed from the outside. In my experience, it's a technique that brings out the best in any team,” Williamson says.

Williamson believes that the right questions help people tap into their own wisdom, strengthen critical thinking skills, and take ownership of solutions. When an employee discovers an answer for themselves, they are intrinsically motivated to take action.

Ayisha Amatullah, a sales coach, shares Williamson’s sentiment. Amatullah explains that powerful questions help coachees to think bolder, dig deeper, think more broadly, and discover new possibilities.

11. Train sales team members at every level.

It’s easy to assume that beginner sales teams are the only ones who need training, but David Rubie-Todd, co-founder and marketing head at Sticker It, recommends that training be a continuous development for all members.

Rubie-Todd says, “For me, coaching isn‘t about correcting mistakes or striving for perfection; it’s about continuous improvement and growth. What I tell my team is that—everyone, regardless of their experience level, needs to consistently refine their sales skills and strategies to stay effective in a dynamic market.”

It’s fair to say that the world of sales has changed a lot in recent years, especially with the rise of AI tools in sales.

While the foundations of sales are as true today as ever, AI is changing the landscape. It’s a new addition to the sales process that needs to be understood by all team members. In fact, according to HubSpot’s State of AI and Sales report, it was found that 81% of respondents say that tools having AI are important or very important in their tool buying decisions.

Training on sales trends, new software, and AI is a must for all salespeople.

12. Consider individual training needs.

Each member of your sales team will have their own strengths and opportunities for development.

Lindsay Martin, co-CEO at 4Tech Solutions, recommends that sales coaching be delivered in an empowering way, rather than dictated to the sales teams. Martin describes focusing on individual strengths as her “secret weapon.”

Martin says, “Focus on individual strengths and tailor coaching to bridge skill gaps. Imagine a rep struggling with cold calls. Role-playing-specific call scenarios hone their communication skills.

According to Martin, “analyze successful calls within the team—sharing best practices fuels motivation. This personalized approach builds confidence and unleashes each rep's full potential, leading to a high-performing sales force.”

Done well, sales coaching can upskill the team and bring them together. Martin says her training fuels motivation.

13. Conduct peer reviews.

Similarly to the above, Juan Carlos Munoz, co-founder of CC Creative Design, recommends peer review.

According to Carlos Munoz, “Peer reviews are also beneficial. Team members review each other's work, fostering continuous improvement and collaboration. This process brings diverse perspectives and constructive feedback, enhancing the quality of our design outcomes.”

Carlos Munoz notes that hands-on learning and involving new team members in real projects from the start is another key technique. “This immersion helps them quickly adapt to our workflow and standards, accelerating their learning curve and ensuring meaningful contributions to client projects early on,” he says.

Done well, peer reviews provide a safe space for each salesperson to open up, discuss challenges, and set goals. If sales leaders know what each team member needs, processes and coaching can be implemented in the most helpful and efficient way.

Several peer reviews may help identify opportunities for team training and team building or opportunities for coaching that impact most team members.

Put Me In, (Sales) Coach

From speaking with sales experts, I’m learning that sales coaching is both an art and a science. It’s one of — if not the — most important components of sales management.

What I learned is that the art of coaching requires knowledge and skill shares from senior members, but the knowledge shared isn’t everything. Sales managers must find a way to deliver the coaching in a way that works for the coachee. Coaching must build confidence, empathy and other soft skills. The latter requires a lot of self-awareness from the coach.

Coach well, and your team’s results will speak for you. So, begin incorporating the various sales coaching techniques, tools, and tips to help your team close more deals, boost revenue, surpass quota, and grow better.

Editor's note: This post was originally published in August 2017 and has been updated for comprehensiveness.

This past June we released the results of a survey of more than 500 marketing leaders covering marketing metrics, demand gen channel strategy and its effectiveness, tech stack, organizational structure and more. The respondents ranged from seed to growth stage executives, but the vast majority were expansion stage software leaders.

This crucial stage is where many companies either hit their stride or hit a wall.

So what determines down which path a company will head? Taking a deeper look at our survey results, we uncovered key attributes shared by respondents from the fastest growing companies – among which revenue grew by more than 50% year over year.

So what exactly did we find? These companies were statistically significantly more likely to:

• Leverage attribution to track marketing spend
• Implement lead scoring based on two or more attributes
• Run continuous marketing experiments

Attribution

Attribution – identifying a marketing campaign’s impact on customer acquisition – is the key to unlocking smart growth. The fastest growing companies are 30% more likely to leverage attribution models to understand the effectiveness of their spend. Any company can recklessly grow by paying for their acquisition, but doing so is simply unsustainable. Attribution, instead, lays a foundation to help you understand what you can afford to acquire new customers so you can scale in an economical way. As you scale and test new marketing channels, ROI of marketing spend only becomes more complicated. Defining your attribution structure and your goals around CAC and payback in the expansion stage are paramount to scaling your business and aligning your teams around common goals.

Lead scoring

Lead scoring is almost always born out of necessity. At the expansion stage, as companies shift from product development to customer development, they experience a surge of leads, but have limited resources to move these leads through the funnel. The companies that are able to implement effective lead scoring deploy their resources in a way that becomes easily repeatable. Over 70% of the fastest growing companies use lead scoring based on to two or more attributes to prioritize their leads sales such as industry, employee size or role.

When first getting started, lead scoring doesn’t have to be complicated. There are some quick methodologies you can leverage based on insights from your historical data and understanding of your target customers. Over time, as your scale warrants, you can deploy more sophisticated models such as predictive lead scoring.

Marketing experiments

The majority of the fastest growing companies we surveyed have run at least 3 marketing experiments in the past 3 months. The takeaway here isn’t that 3 is the magic number (although some marketers may argue it is). The point is, the fastest growing companies adopt a ‘test and learn culture’. At the expansion stage, you’ve achieved enough scale where sample sizes become less and less of a constraint. You should be testing across not just marketing, but pricing, product and sales. Companies that continue on the high growth trajectory are willing to fail fast and let the numbers heavily weigh into their decision making.

Attribution, lead scoring and marketing experiments are just a few of the forces driving the fastest growing software companies. This is by no means an exhaustive checklist. But these three strategies demonstrate that fast-growing companies are able to accelerate scale through systematic growth. They are focused on a data-driven approach to ensure that both the marketing dollars they spend and how they leverage their resources across their leads are continually optimized.

The post How the Fastest Growing SaaS Companies Approach Marketing appeared first on OpenView Labs.

Great news!

Searching through one of your LinkedIn connection's network to find a certain type of person just got much easier—and this applies to you whether you have a free account or you're paying to use LinkedIn.

If you're like me, you really appreciate receiving referrals from people in your network, but it's not easy to ask the open-ended question,"Who in your network could help me find a job, customer, etc.?"

And rather than putting all the pressure on your connection to come up with the right people, why not use LinkedIn's newest feature to find the right people all by yourself.
.

How to search your connection's network

Follow these simple steps, and you'll quickly discover who might be able to help you achieve your goal.

Put your cursor in the big, white search box in the top toolbar and select Search for people with filters from the drop-down menu.

On the right side of your screen, under Filter people by, go to the Connections of box and type in your connection's name. When his/her name appears in the drop-down menu, click that entry.

Then use any of the other available filters to narrow the search to people at the right company, location, school attended, title, etc.

Review the list that LinkedIn provides for you. If you find people who look interesting to you, check out their profile, and then ask your connection how best to approach the people (through a LinkedIn connection request, phone call, email, in-person meeting, etc.)

Caveat: If your connection has chosen to hide his/her first-level network from his connections, you'll only be able to see people to whom both of you are connected.  

Here's an example of how my search filters would look if I wanted to find out whether my connection Bob Hill knows any presidents or CEOs in the marketing and advertising industry in the Milwaukee area.

I know you'll be as excited as I was to see that LinkedIn has brought back this feature, and your network will appreciate the homework you do before asking for a referral.

If you'd like me to show you other hard-to-find, "can't miss" LinkedIn features, help you formulate your personal LinkedIn strategy, plus provide an in-depth critique of your LinkedIn profile, sign up for a one-hour, one-on-one consultation with me for the significantly reduced rate of $175. (This is a limited-time offer.)

Book your personal session today at https://calendly.com/waynebreitbarth/special1on1linkedinconsult.

The post Trust Me, You’ll Love This New LinkedIn Feature appeared first on Wayne Breitbarth.

A deceptively simple device invented at the University of B.C. is saving lives in the world’s most impoverished places.

Called the Phone Oximeter, it clips onto a person’s fingertip and is connected by wire to a smartphone’s audio port. By measuring blood-oxygen levels and heart and breathing rates with unprecedented simplicity, portability and affordability, it’s enabling easier diagnosis of illness in Mozambique, Pakistan and Uganda.

How it came to be at UBC reveals the magic of universities.

Fifteen years ago, electrical engineer Guy Dumont, an expert in creating “intelligent” automated systems, met Mark Ansermino, an anesthesiologist who wanted to improve measurement of vital signs during surgery. From that first encounter between two complementary faculty members, a string of inventions followed.

The Phone Oximeter’s genesis at a university was no accident. UBC, like so many of its peer institutions, attracts experts in diverse fields. Brought together into a larger community, they sometimes share ideas and wind up doing things they could never achieve — or even dream of achieving — on their own.

But when that lightning does strike, it’s often by accident or the result of occasional get-togethers. If only we could make such interactions a regular feature on our campuses, imagine the ingenuity that would spring forth.

Now we are now doing just that, with UBC’s latest creation: a school of biomedical engineering.

This new cluster of faculty and students, a joint venture of the faculties of medicine and applied science, will break down antiquated academic boundaries. We want to replicate many times over the genius of the Phone Oximeter — applying an engineering mindset to disease prevention, diagnosis and treatment.

That could mean medical devices like the Phone Oximeter. But it also means extending engineering into realms that most people have a hard time grasping: the splicing of genes, the rearrangement of proteins and the cultivation of stem cells, which can be coaxed into repairing or even replacing damaged tissues or organs.

This is a squishier world than many engineers are used to. But it’s governed by the same physical principles that all engineering students must master. And it’s just as yielding to their quantitative approach and creative design skills, which offer new solutions to society’s major health challenges, including cancer, neurological disease, cardiovascular disease and diabetes.

UBC is the first university in Western Canada to recognize the importance of this burgeoning field with a school of its own. And we are doing it at a propitious time, as B.C. diversifies its resource-based economy by cultivating a vibrant tech sector, and as the province joins the University of Washington in creating the Cascadia Urban Analytics Cooperative, emulating the success of such regional tech hubs as Silicon Valley, North Carolina’s Research Triangle and Boston’s Route 128 Corridor.

To fulfil even part of that tech-based vision, higher education must position itself several steps ahead by preparing students to readily enter that economy from the moment they graduate, and to play leading roles in both established companies and new ventures. Playing catch-up isn’t an option — we need to cultivate the talent now or risk having that vision wither for lack of local talent.

The Phone Oximeter, invented at the University of B.C., clips onto a person’s fingertip and is connected by wire to a smartphone’s audio port. By measuring blood-oxygen levels and heart and breathing rates with unprecedented simplicity, portability and affordability, it’s enabling easier diagnosis of illness in Mozambique, Pakistan and Uganda.

Clearly, there is a demand for such training. The faculty of applied science started offering master’s degrees and doctorates in biomedical engineering a mere seven years ago, and applications have increased steadily to almost 200 in 2016.

The new school will provide those students — expected to number about 90 this year — with a distinct, high-profile “home,” signalling to future students our commitment to be a leader in this field. In the years ahead we hope to extend the talent pipeline even further by offering bachelor’s degrees in biomedical engineering as well.

That higher profile will also help attract the most promising or sought-after biomedical engineering faculty. In fact, it already has: Peter Zandstra, most recently of the University of Toronto, has joined UBC to become the school’s first director.

Zandstra won’t need much help finding his way around — he spent five years at UBC earning his doctorate in biotechnology and chemical engineering. But we recruited him for his ingenuity in growing stem cells, his mathematical modelling to predict how stem cells behave and how they can be controlled, and his success in generating human tissue for drug testing or treatment. On top of all that, he has proven leadership skills, honed from his experience steering large academic research groups and startup companies.

Joining him in the months and years ahead will be seven other new faculty members, along with 20 current faculty members jointly appointed from their current departments, including electrical engineer Tim Salcudean, who has proudly ignored the obsolete divisions that once separated him from his medical colleagues.

Salcudean is advancing two innovations that have already transformed patient care: magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and ultrasound. He is making those technologies more revealing by bringing digital analysis to images that are now mostly “eyeballed.” He is also making them more useful by superimposing MRI and ultrasound images onto magnified images of a surgical field, so surgeons can see underneath the tissue on which they’re operating, and thus spot patches of cancer that would normally be hidden.

These aren’t an academic’s theoretical musings. Thanks to UBC’s partnerships with the province’s health system, Salcudean has been able to team up with UBC urologist Peter Black to successfully test ultrasound and MRI image-guided techniques on 27 patients with prostate cancer. Based on those results, there are plans for more.

We can’t simply leave those kinds of advances to the random happenstance of the occasional symposium or accidental meeting. The stakes — in terms of lives saved or quality of life — are too high.

Our new school of biomedical engineering will bring health scientists, clinicians and engineers together on a daily basis and provide them with the space and the tools to collaborate. Just as important, it will bring graduate students and medical students into that collaboration — to learn from it, emulate it and, we hope, take it in directions that we haven’t yet imagined.

Dermot Kelleher is dean of the faculty of medicine and James Olson is interim dean of the faculty of applied science at the University of B.C.

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Is there more to this story? We’d like to hear from you about this or any other stories you think we should know about. Email vantips@postmedia.com.

There are a number of reasons that an opportunity may need to be marked as “Lost.” Maybe the account is in another contract, going through changes in management, or they “just can’t make it happen right now.”

Whatever the reason, it doesn’t mean you stop your pursuit of the sale. If you stopped pursuing all the accounts that went dark or put you off, you’d miss out on a majority of your quota. Even cold, lost, or unresponsive opportunities can be turned into serious revenue with a persistent nurturing program. An entire multi-billion dollar marketing automation industry was founded on this belief.

But you can’t wait around for marketing or management to build these nurture campaigns for you. After all, you know your customers better than anyone. Fortunately sales engagement platforms like SalesLoft allow you to create nurture campaigns on your own and on the fly. Before you jump into the nurturing deep end, here are a few important principles to keep in mind when nurturing your opportunities.

Take it Slow

After an account has been lost, it’s very likely that the prospect you spoke with will put your product out of their mind soon after your last conversation. This creates a very narrow window for continued engagement without creating an uncomfortable dynamic with your prospect. You need to give them space, while still keeping lines of communication open. This means it’s on you, the sales rep, to stay on their radar with a systematic and consistent nurture process.

Your goal is to nurture, not to nag. Your ideal nurturing process will send just enough messages over a period of time to keep your product at the top of your prospect’s mind.

Set up a cadence specifically to re-engage your prospects. Mathew Sweezy with Pardot recommends sending your emails between 6 to 45 days apart. By spacing your messages over time, your prospects will be kept in the know at a rate they won’t find irritating. But by continuing to send messages out your prospects can easily reenter the sales cycle when they’re ready.

Offer A Reason To Reengage

Just because the nurture journey is automated doesn’t mean your messages shouldn’t be compelling. If you are going to reengage dark accounts you’ve got to craft your messages with care.

According to TOPO’s 2017 Sales Benchmark, 43% of high-growth sales leaders recognize value-selling, or the ability to communicate value to a prospect, as a top strategy. Incorporating value-selling into your nurture campaign can connect the prospect’s needs to your solution.

Write emails that will deliver value with just the right kind of message. You want to help your prospects in there day-to-day. If possible, align with your marketing team to provide good and relevant content to your prospects. The better content you have available, the more value you can provide that will prompt your prospect to reengage.

Leverage Previous Conversations

While most sales start from square one with qualifying information, lost opportunities are unique since you’ve previously communicated with the account. You’ve already gathered information about the needs and pain points, in addition to whatever reason they didn’t purchase your product before, that can all be put to use during your nurture.

You can use this data to execute nurture cadences by segmenting them depending on factors like person or the reason a company didn’t purchase. This way your messages will be sent at scale within the cadence, but the prospect still receives the personalization they crave.

Your most optimal nurturing involves a solid balance between well crafted messages and authentic automation. But by melding the two together you can your opportunities from “Closed Lost” to “Closed Won.”

Download a copy of the ebook today to take your account executive team into the modern sales era.

The post Nurturing Strategies to Take Your Prospects From Cold to Close appeared first on SalesLoft.

See more on the Ibbaka Event Page

Established companies and venture investors all depend on innovation to drive future business. Most companies now have targets for the percentage of revenue to come from new offers over the next five years. Take this little pop quiz to see what our readers are thinking on this.

Go to quiz

There a many drivers for this change. Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence are being commoditized and finding their way into virtually all software. The Internet of Things is turning many physical products into hybrids of software and hardware. Data and systems of all kinds are being connected in new ways leading to many emergent behaviors. Demographic change is rippling through society changing basic assumptions about economic growth and human needs. We are living in a complex shifting environment where what works today will not necessarily provide value tomorrow. Innovation is the new normal.

So most companies are investing heavily in new offers. But there is a question hanging over all of early stage innovation. How will we set prices?

Pricing is central to innovation. Price is central to how the value of new innovations is communicated. It is how the innovator captures part of the value created. Without value capture there is no ongoing innovation. And with the rapid expansion in the range of data and tools to understand the data, new pricing models are emerging daily. Pricing itself has become a locus for innovation.

Many innovation teams struggle with pricing. They don't need to. There are now well understood frameworks for pricing innovations. At our November 30 workshop we will work through them with you. The seminar will cover market segmentation and customer targeting, pricing strategy, pricing architecture, price setting and how to manage discounting.

After participating in this workshop you will understand how to

• Segment your market and which segments to target
• Connect data models for usage-value-pricing
• Choose a pricing metric
• Build a pricing architecture
• Set prices
• Manage discounting

This workshop is designed for the people responsible for

• Product and service development
• Driving revenues from innovation
• Making investment decisions

Register here

Early bird discount in effect until Nov. 19.

Contact us at info@ibbaka.com 

• Many people want to retire early, but few are taking the steps to get there.
• Early retirement only requires three things: earning, saving, and investing.
• The key to reaching your early retirement goal is making those three things a priority.

Millennials aren't known for following the rules, especially when it comes to money matters.

In addition to straying from traditional banks and putting off homeownership, nearly two-thirds are hoping to quit their job and retire before age 65, according to a poll from our partner, MSN.

But early retirement may be a pipe dream for many. That same poll found nearly half of millennials are saving 5% or less of their income — far less than is needed to enjoy a 40-plus year retirement.

Chad Carson, a 37-year-old real estate investor, is spending a year in Ecuador with his wife and two daughters living entirely off of passive income — he calls it a "mini-retirement."

In a post he wrote on the personal-finance blog Budgets are Sexy, Carson explained that his "messy, mistake-ridden climb towards early retirement" taught him there are only three things anyone who's trying to become financially independent needs to focus on — and yes, that includes saving.

Here they are:

1. Build a strong source of regular income

If you don't have a way to earn money, there's no chance you're going to build wealth. The first step to financial independence is finding a regular source of income so that you are able to save and invest.

For most people, this means holding down a 9-to-5 desk job, for better or for worse.

Carson's "regular income" came from real estate properties he bought for a low price, fixed up, and flipped for a profit with his business partner. To many people, this may seem risky. After all, there's no guaranteed paycheck. Eventually, Carson had steady income flowing in from renters.

2. Save a large portion of that income

Once you have regular income, the key is not to spend it all. Learning how to live below your means when you're young will benefit you for the rest of your life.

First, take advantage of one of the easiest ways to save money: Sign up for your employer's 401(k) plan. Contributions are automatic, meaning the money is taken out before you even see it. The effort is minimal, but the eventual payoff can be huge.

You can also save money on the front-end by reducing your housing expenses so that they equal no more than 30% of your income. Carson used "house-hacking" and "live-and-flips" to live cheaply and make money at the same time.

Or you can try your hand at the "starve and stack" method: instead of subsisting on dual incomes, you and your partner limit your total spending to an amount that can be covered with just one income. Then, between the two of you, save an amount equal to 100% — or as close to that mark as you can get — of the other income. This will set you up early on with a cushy nest egg to invest.

3. Invest the savings in assets that will grow or at least not lose value

Saving a lot of money is nice, but where you put that savings can make all the difference in your path to early retirement.

Carson's investment of choice is real estate, an asset that he says generates passive income without much overhead. It's a good strategy, since he bought the 90 properties he now owns with the intention of renting them out, rather than living in them and paying the mortgage himself.

If you're not interested in real estate, the stock market is a great place to put your money — and it's not as risky as you may think. In fact, there's almost no chance a young investor will lose money in the stock market over a 40-year period.

"The beginning of any path towards financial freedom starts by deciding it's important," he wrote. "Then, with a combination of persistence, frugality, and trusted investing tools like real estate or other favorites (like stock index investing), you can reach amazing heights in your finances and your life."

SEE ALSO: There are 2 primary types of retirement savings accounts — and people don't realize you can use both

DON'T MISS: If you want to retire early, follow these 6 savings life hacks from people who actually did

Join the conversation about this story »

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Recently I took part in a think tank for a SaaS product group that was struggling with pricing issues. The issue at hand was that the product team was having a hard time getting users to opt for what they identified as the best offering out of three possible package tiers for their users.

The product’s standard tier package was originally priced at a fixed cost of 10USD/mon plus additional usage based costs. Further on down the road they added a lower tier with limited features. The usage cost for the lower tier was set at almost fifth of the standard tier price.

With time, as user needs to scale grew, a third premium tier package offering was added. This time, for technical reasons, the price was set at a monthly fixed price of 700USD. Not an unusually high price but in comparison to the two other packages, this was presented as 70(!) times the original standard tier offering. The new premium package offered robustness for high system load, and while the two other tiers did deliver, it was agreed that the new offering was the best offering for the users.

The problem: given three choices, users were opting for the lower tier package and the standard and premium tiers were seldom used even though they were both in fact much better offers (the standard tier for low volume users and the premium tier for high volume users) with better features at a great value for money.

Before reviewing how to untangle this issue, let’s review the things you need to consider when approaching pricing of SaaS products.

Evaluating different pricing models

Here are the 4 most common pricing models:

1. Flat rate – paying a fixed price for all the product features. Typically, this will be monthly or annually based. This model is simple and is rarely used as it doesn’t give much room to capture a broad customer base. Simply put, it’s an offer they can refuse.

   

2. Pay as you go – a usage based pricing tier. This pricing model has its appeal to customers, they can moderate their payment according to their growth, and the fact that they can scale down and cut costs if they hit a rough patch can be a good selling point. On the other hand, this pricing model might cause a headache when trying to forecast your company’s revenue, as any bump on the road for your customers directly affects your earnings. Plus, your engineering team will also find this challenging as they will need to have a robust scaling strategy that can grow and shrink to cut your infrastructure costs (remember, your customers do not pay for what they do not use).

   The best successful examples for this model would be the big cloud providers – Amazon web services and Microsoft Azure. They are big enough to use the competitive nature of this model and still stay profitable.

3. Flat rate + Pay as you go – This fine combination of the two models above is self-explanatory. I like it because it creates a predictable safety net to the pay as you go model.
4. Tiered – Usually averaged at 3.5 offerings (that constitute a combination of all of the above), in this model, we want to appeal to a broader audience and have a safety net in the form of a mid-price in case our premium price deters users.

   On the con side, the tier model planning is the most complex as it does not only consist of your cost plus profit. This model entails strategy, psychology and understanding of elements of the “game theory”. It’s important to decide what features should be included in each tier and how to price it correctly. The SaaS product team understood that they were not playing this game correctly. Let’s now break down what went wrong and learn from it.

Pro Tip: Frog Boiling: It’s not uncommon to also add a basic or even free tier that will constitute a honey trap to convert the users to paying users. Christopher Penn from the legendary podcast “Marketing Over Coffee” talks about a “frog boiling” method in which companies create incremental declines to their free offering over time. Through this method companies offer a free package and then degrade the license to a point it’s not worth having. That way the free package keeps getting less and less effective and the pay now button (and ads) get bigger and brighter. The message: “here’s the paid alternative if you want to do better”. If such companies just flipped the switch overnight they would be pushed back – the trick is to keep turning the dial down a little bit at a time.

The core elements to consider when building your offering

• What model is most suitable for your product. When possible I always advocate for the tier model but don’t force a model in cases where there’s no justification. The product team realized their usage of the tier offerings at the early stage where there were only two offerings was actually leading people to opt for an offering they didn’t want them to choose. At that early stage of the product, a valid alternative solution would have been to offer one winning flat rate + pay as you go model.
• The alternatives out there. How are your competitors packaging and pricing their offerings? What is your USP and how can you stand out and make your offering appealing? Even if you’re aiming to be conceived as more expensive than your competition, make sure to make that a conscious decision (and no, no matter what you do, you’re always part of a competitive landscape and choosing to pay you is always on account of not paying someone else).
• The value of the product. It’s a given that the bottom line price can make or break the conversion of demand into a sale. You want to help the prospect make the right choice and select the best most relevant product for him. In a world of numbers, “bottom line” pricing is considered a form of art, where there is no ultimate right or wrongs but it is the difference between make it and brake it.

  “Pricing is actually pretty simple…Customers will not pay literally a penny more than the true value of the product.” – Ron Johnson

  Although this is an over-simplified statement (I would add that customers will not pay a penny more than the conceived value of the product), it does convey one truth – we have a job to convey the value of the product to the customer and help the customer feel that the price is a fair and reflects that value – it’s important to keep that in mind when choosing a pricing offering. Ask yourself – is there a correlation between the price you are charging and the value you’re offering? Make sure to do your market research.

  The SaaS product team was offering great value and their current pricing offerings were not reflecting that, which made users opt for packages that were not optimal for them. Consider this, people think they’re rational but they’re not. Decide what tier that you want to aim for and structure your pricing in a way that will help them choose.

  The Decoy Effect

  The SaaS product team decided to add more expensive offerings, users were able to choose amongst 3 premium packages priced at 700USD, 1400USD and 2800USD. The introduced a new price perspective, will you take the cheap 10$ offering for your high-performance system?

• Your list of features. This goes hand in hand with the value of the product. Simply put, longer is better. Here’s how to go about this:

  1. Make a list of everything you can offer. Write down everything you know and everything you can think of.

  2. Get specific. Don’t overlook differences such as limited vs. full warranty – each should be a separate item.

  3. List the features you’d like to offer to your best value tier and then add or subtract to the other offers. Consider the perceived value to your users and work that into your structure. Make sure to be as quantitative as possible. The SaaS product team was offering shared computer resources for the standard tier and a dedicated resource for the premium tier. Most users would ask, “I know that dedicated is better than shared, but is it 700USD better?” The solution was to add another feature to the list. While the first feature was still stating shared/dedicated resources per tier, the second feature detailed how much compute power will be dedicated to the user. That sort of quantitative information is such that the user can assign value to and rationalize.

  4. Make sure the length of each tier’s list correlates with the perceived value (premium should be longer than basic etc). The SaaS product team’s lists of features were all the same length, that’s confusing for the user.

How to present your offering

In the traditional world, you we have display counters, salesreps, and cash registers – the customer is already inside your store and we have time to complete the sale, and maybe even upsale. SaaS doesn’t have that luxury, the point of sale is usually limited to one page, so you really need to plan how to display your products. Here are a few tips:

• Carefully choose your copy. “Best for small business that are aiming high”, “For people on the go with no excessive time”, “Idle for beginners”. Help the users help themselves by understanding what best suits their needs. Clarify what each tier/ model is best suited for (i.e “recommended for development”, “recommended for low throughput systems” etc). Consider that the easiest decision is made when I know that “people like me” selected this offering.
• Draw the eye. For this purpose, make sure to schedule a meeting with the bearded heavy glasses flowery shirt and flip flops dude from the designer studio. Get his help figuring out how to make your selected offer pop up. Bigger, in color, “best value” flags are a good place to start, but can we you take this to the next level?
  Your goal is to draw the weight of the page towards the selection you’re aiming for.

  

Mailchimp calls you a lamb if you select the free tier.

Final thoughts

Pricing is an art and as such we do not know what will make our users decide one price over the other. When approaching your SaaS pricing it’s important to take into consideration:

• the most suitable model for the product
• conveying a clear value
• the alternatives out there
• applying best practices that will influence the use to opt for the price they are aiming for

Go make them an offer they can’t refuse..

cocoparisienne / Pixabay

It wasn’t that long ago that marketers could easily plot the journey a buyer took from initial contact to purchase. The customer may have visited a couple websites to learn more about your product, called your sales team to discuss their options, and asked a friend or two for their recommendations. That was about the extent of it. Marketing controlled the message and the channels.

Today, your buyer is in the driver’s seat. Traditional marketers and the companies they support are being left behind. Some of the causes for this dramatic shift include:

• A highly competitive marketplace with multiple vendors using similar marketing messages.
• Comparable products that are almost indistinguishable from one another.
• The growing use of social selling and relationship building.
• The breakdown of corporate silos resulting in additional people involved in the decision-making process.
• Longer buying cycles.

Define “Journey”

What is a Journey Map or Customer Experience Map? It is a written representation of the steps that a buyer goes through as they learn about your company and do business with you over time – from initial contact through a completed sale and beyond. It includes every experience a buyer has with different departments within your company, on your website, through your social media networks, and any other interactions they may have.

A well thought out and designed journey map can help you and your management team gain insight into how your buyer moves through the sales process from visitor to lead to marketing qualified lead to sales qualified lead, and ultimately, to customer. It can help uncover points at which processes and programs can be improved as well as areas where you are excelling. It will also enable you to deliver the right messages at the right time using the right format, and ultimately increase conversions.

Mapping Your Buyer’s Journey

Because the IT industry is highly competitive, there are more people in decision making roles resulting in longer buying cycles, and customers are looking to develop relationships with brands before they buy, it is critical to understand their needs, what triggers them to action, and what messages and marketing materials resonate with them.

Here are 4 key steps in mapping your buyer’s journey.

Step 1: Establish the People to Map

The first step is to work with members of your management team company-wide (not just your sales team) to establish your target customer based on your company goals. You may already have a deep understanding of who your target customer is and may have even created a formal buyer persona for them. If not, take a look at your customer database to gain some insights. Who are your most profitable customers?

Don’t assume that your largest customers will naturally be your best customers. Customers with the highest revenue impact, which close most quickly, may not be the largest customers with the most employees. They may be companies in a specific industry.

Alternatively, industries like healthcare, legal or financial services, where protecting electronic communication and client data is critical, may have the highest close rate but their sales cycle may be doubled because they do more due diligence to ensure that the solution they select will help them meet regulatory requirements.

But, selecting your target customer at the company level is just the first part of the equation.

The next step is to review each of those companies and determine who the key players – including researchers, influencers, and decision-makers – and what their motivations are.

An MSP, VAR, CSP or other IT provider that sells technology products and services to enterprise clients will most likely interact with a prospect’s IT manager, director of IT or CIO. Although they are all technical professionals, it is important to remember that they each have a different stake in the outcome of the purchase and they should not be lumped together with the same marketing messages.

There are also mid-size companies that may have a small IT team of two or three people on staff but no CIO. In this case, it is quite common for these IT professionals to actually report to the company’s CFO.

The CFO may ask a member of his team to research appropriate IT solutions that will meet their needs. When that research has been completed and there is a short list of providers, the CFO will then be brought in to make the final decision.

In this example, it is important to understand that although the IT professional has done the initial research and used his technical knowledge to narrow down the list of technology providers, it is ultimately a business person rather than an IT person making the final decision. Not only is the CFO joining the buyer’s journey later in the process but, if all product features are equal, the CFO’s decision is going to be based on business and financial motives, not technical ones.

So, before you begin to actually map your buyer’s journey, it is important to have an understanding of both your target company and the different stakeholders within the organization.

Step 2: Outline the Buying Behavior for Each Stage in the Buyer’s Journey

Outlining the buying behavior of your customers should be done both internally with your organization as well as externally with your customers.

An Internal Review:
Bring together and review all of the components of customer data from within your organization. That could include mining reports from marketing automation tools like HubSpot, Marketo, and Oracle Eloqua, reviewing your CRM system, customer surveys, website data, listening to sales or technical support conversation your teams may have recorded, and other resources that would give you insights into your customers’ experience at different stages of the buying process.

At the same time, work closely with the key stakeholders within your organization to collect internal insights. This would include interviews with representatives from not just sales and marketing but technical support, and any team that interacts with customers, to get each of their individual perspectives.

Once that’s done, create a written set of assumptions made by reviewing the different resources you collected and talking with your team. Different groups within your organization often have very different ideas about who your customers are, what they care about, and how they perceive interactions with the company.

An External Review:
The next step is to determine if these initial assumptions you made based your internal review really stand up to scrutiny. This is done by reaching out to customers directly to get their actual perspective. This can be done by sending them surveys, conducting phone interviews, bringing them together for focus groups, monitoring your social media networks and more.

Don’t forget that this review can include insights from current customers as well as prospects who selected a competitor, choosing not to become a customer of yours. If you have an opportunity to talk with these former prospects who ultimately chose a different solution, they can provide a great deal of insight into what you should be doing differently.

Step 3: Determine the Preferred Channels, Touchpoints, and Content Needed to Engage Buyers at Each Stage

So, with the actual data in hand – internal data from teams across your company and external data directly from customers – you can now create a journey map. This journey map will include how customers interact with your company today, what they are looking for from each interaction they have with your company and what is missing. It will show you where the different steps in the journey are going well and where they are not going so well, which will enable you to develop a list of actual resources, marketing channels, and messages needed at each stage.

Here is an example of what a very simple journey map may look like for an MSP or CSP offering SaaS, cloud, or other IT services.

IT solution providers spend a lot of effort developing materials like e-guides and introductory videos that benefit prospects in the research phase of their journey. However, they often have significantly fewer materials available when the prospect has made their decision and is trying to convince other stakeholders within their organization. This may require new customer case studies, or education of your sales team on how to help a prospective client who is technically knowledgeable but unable to reposition his pitch to a CFO or other executive for whom the business or financial benefits are more important than a bulleted list of technical features.

The final list of preferred channels, touchpoints, content and other resources you require will be unique to your business based on the specific needs of your customers. There is no one master list you could download online or a one size fits all option.

Step 4: Implement and Synchronize Those Touchpoints Throughout the Buyer’s Journey

Once the journey map is completed and a list of tactical action items have been created to fill the gaps and enhance your buyers’ experience throughout their journey, the final step is to execute on that plan and integrate your marketing materials, sales messages, and other resources where appropriate.

Key Customer Journey Mapping Take-Away

It is critical to realize that the traditional linear marketing and sales process is a thing of the past. No longer do customers progress from point A to B, C, D and E without taking a few detours along the way. Not only is understanding the movement through their journey important but also understanding how they feel during the process and the value that your company provides at each touchpoint. Getting to know your buyers in this deeper way will drive improvements within your organization, produce happier customers and drive steady sales growth.

About the Author
Lisa Masiello is an award winning tech industry marketing strategist, start-up advisor and founder of TECHmarc Labs. She writes on B2B growth, channel management, marketing strategy, customer experience, and CMO success. Chat with Lisa by email at Lisa.Masiello@TECHmarcLabs.com. Connect with her on LinkedIn.

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It’s no great mystery why thought leadership should be so enticing for asset managers.

In a sector riddled with regulation, where product differentiation often borders on the impossible, thought leadership provides a medium for clear, insightful, thought-provoking content that clearly distinguishes you and your company.

At least, that’s the idea.

In fact, “thought leadership” is among the most inescapable – and misused – buzzwords in the industry. Yet used well, it remains a particularly effective tool for marketing in asset management. But before we address why and how, it behoves us to ask:

What is thought leadership?

For all the term’s vagueness, thought leadership is, or at least should be, distinct from other forms of marketing content.

Mitch Fraser-Jones, head of investment communications at Woodford Investment Management, says, “Thought leadership is about providing content that makes people think about things in a new or different way.” The notion of challenging received wisdom is echoed by Anne-Marie McConnon, CMO international at BNY Mellon, who says, “Genuine thought leaders get noticed by offering some information, insights or ideas that are different.”

If we accept that influencing or challenging thought is the central tenet of “real” thought leadership, it becomes easier to distinguish it from other types of marketing content.

But is the distinction important?

In fact, terminology does matter. As we’ll see below, thought leadership in asset management can influence buyers’ decisions – for good and ill. If a company consistently produces “thought leadership” that is actually the most generic, inoffensive market analysis or white paper, cynicism toward the term, and toward the company itself, could grow. Conversely, thought leadership that regularly includes sharp, thought-provoking insights could serve to convey a company that is transparent, honest and does what it says.

(By all means, promote your other products and do market analysis. Just don’t call it “thought leadership”!)

So, if our basic definition of thought leadership is “content that challenges received wisdom, thereby provoking or leading thought”, we can work around some rules that make this more likely.

To provoke thought and challenge received wisdom…

Thought leadership shouldn’t:

• Just be news, regular market analysis or marketing spiel.
• Be explicitly self-promotional.
• Be reckless or pointlessly provocative or contrarian.
• Follow the herd.

Thought leadership should:

• Be original, with a clearly stated point of view.
• Be timely.
• Be credible, based on the asset manager’s expertise, specialties and extensive research.
• Be highly relevant, appealing and accessible to its intended audience.
• At least aspire to shift accepted wisdom on some level, and take the conversation in a new direction.

Why thought leadership matters

In a survey from last year, involving more than 1,600 interviews, NMG Consulting discovered that asset managers in institutional markets consider thought leadership to be the most valuable activity for promoting understanding and improving perceptions among clients.

More recently, LinkedIn and PR agency Edelman undertook a highly revealing joint study that canvassed the opinions of both content creators and decision-makers. Intriguingly, the study demonstrated that creators of thought leadership content greatly underestimate its impact on reputation and business generation.

Among its key findings:

• While just 17% of creators believed that thought leadership would lead to more RFP opportunities, fully 41% of C-suite executives said they had invited companies to submit proposals after having seen their thought leadership.
• Just 20% of creators credited their thought leadership with helping to close deals, while 45% of business decision-makers said it had made a difference.
• 59% of creators believed that thought leadership enhances their company’s credibility, compared with 88% of business decision-makers who said it does so.
• On a more chastening note, 35% of C-suite executives said that poor thought leadership had prompted them not to award business to the relevant company.

Clearly, if executed well, thought leadership can be hugely valuable to asset managers in driving business.

Which begs the question, just how is it done well?

Tips for getting it right

Be forthright…but not overly provocative or contrarian

Of all the elements of successful thought leadership, surely none is as important as a clearly defined point of view that challenges the status quo. While this may seem obvious, it’s striking how much “thought leadership” fails this basic test.

But for wealth managers who do this effectively, the impact can be profound.

In 2009, with global markets still reeling from the financial meltdown, many notable observers held – in line with economic orthodoxy – that the crisis could be paving the way for a new, long-term bull market in risk assets. Into this fray stepped PIMCO founder Bill Gross, with a keynote speech at the Morningstar Investment Conference. Citing new structural realities such as vast debt piles and lower global demand, Gross challenged the idea that better times were inevitably ahead. Low interest rates and low returns, he said, could be a “new normal”.

Although, in his implicit support for fixed-income markets, Gross could certainly be accused of being self-serving with this view, it was nothing if not bold, wide-ranging and credible. The fact that it was wrapped in an instantly memorable soundbite only added to its impact.

Now, there’s clearly a fine line between outspoken and overly provocative. In the wake of the UK’s momentous Brexit vote, some commentators may well have crossed it – not least this fellow, whose opinion can be divined from the headline “Brexit. Turkeys Voting For Christmas.”

The writer of this piece certainly doesn’t shirk from expressing an opinion. His arguments are forceful and lucid. But is his combative tone likely to win over many converts? More to our point, was a withering screed about Brexit’s economic failings really going against received wisdom in the asset management industry? The answer to both was very probably no.

Be timely, but don’t follow the herd

In making sense of the world, investors need to know about things that are important now. Brexit negotiations, central bank musings, election results – these are huge events that have enormous real-world financial consequences. But if reams of cookie-cutter fund manager analysis are rushed out in the hours following one of these momentous occasions, does it qualify as thought leadership? By definition, almost certainly not.

First of all, on a practical note, if you want to generate attention around your take on a big overnight event – an election, say – sending out your “thought leadership” sometime the following afternoon almost certainly isn’t going to cut it. Media outlets are desperate for expert opinion on such events, but only if they can get it quickly, early and/or first.

Of course, it’s not always possible to crank out insightful, long-form analysis in line with the news cycle. So for those times, to qualify as something that challenges or leads thought, a fresh outlook will be required.

That perspective could be historical, as was The Economist’s absorbing essay on “The slumps that shaped modern finance” – which was intended every bit as much as a lesson for regulators today as it was a dive into the history books. It could be somewhat contrarian, like “The truth about the Fed and inflation”, BlackRock’s response to the Fed’s rate rise in June. Or it could be educational, like MarketWatch’s “6 reasons to think twice before moving to Canada”, released just after Donald Trump’s victory in the US elections.

Again, not all of these options are going to be feasible – or desirable – for every asset manager. But the option of adopting an original perspective on current events always is.

Promote your view, not your product

You just know that your strategy and your team are best placed to deliver excellent risk-adjusted returns. What better way to convey this than in a stirring “thought leadership” piece about your segment of the market and why your fund is especially well-equipped to prosper in current conditions?

The problem, and an easily forgotten lesson in asset management, is that it is extremely difficult to maintain credibility while pushing your own product.

Thought leadership is not an exercise in altruism or academic navel-gazing. It is, at its core, marketing, and thus ultimately designed to sell you and your company. But if your aim is to “provoke or lead thought” and position yourself as someone whose expertise can deliver returns for your clients, what is more likely to achieve that? Thinly veiled shilling for a product? Or bold, impartial ideas that show genuine breadth of vision?

One leading asset manager that understands this is Aviva Investors, with its new AIQ magazine. Published in a modern, eye-catching format, and employing rigorous editorial standards, AIQ eschews product push, explicit or otherwise, in favour of expert long-form content produced by internal and external experts. The latest, tech-themed, issue includes features on AI and big data, along with analyses of the potential impact of an end to monetary easing.

Aviva Investors’ impressive new AIQ magazine – not a product push in sight.

While not everything in AIQ could lay claim to being thought leadership, the rejection of product push instils genuine credibility in the magazine’s opinion pieces. For readers, that nagging voice asking, “but what is this article selling?” can fall quiet, making them much more receptive to having their thoughts provoked or challenged.

Find your niche

Say M&G, and thoughts turn to Bond Vigilantes; Vanguard, and ETFs spring to mind.

For these reasons, when someone from the former talks fixed income, or a Vanguard manager discusses ETFs, markets listen.

Despite this, many asset managers attempt to cover all their bases with their thought leadership, a course of action almost certain to result in a vast expenditure of effort for minimal return. This certainly isn’t to say that asset managers shouldn’t market their lesser-known products. But if the intention is to produce memorable, insightful and impactful thought leadership, securing a niche is a massive step in the right direction.

Consider Rabobank. By retaining a central focus on the unsexy but indispensable sectors of food and agriculture, the bank has gained global renown as an expert in those fields, producing detailed, in-depth research that has made it a go-to source for agricultural expertise.

Rabobank – a leader in food and agricultural research.

For larger asset managers, a practical way to achieve this is finding specific sub-areas within asset classes – ideally aligning with the specific interests and knowledge of the fund managers – and focusing thought leadership efforts there. So if the broader goal is to be known for ESG, a good starting point is establishing expertise in, for instance, renewable energy or corporate governance structures.

If this niche credibility can be established and maintained – think Warren Buffett for buy-and-hold investing or Neil Woodford for UK income equities – it can, almost by definition, elevate much of what a manager says to the status of thought leadership.

Perfect the format

We’ve all heard the old philosophical conundrum of, if a tree falls when no one’s around, does it really make a noise? To this, we could add, if someone produces thought leadership, however brilliant, in a format that no one reads, is it really leading thought?

If, for instance, an asset manager wrote a study on how millennials can take their first steps into investment, but published it in a 20-page white paper in PDF format, such a glaring disconnect would immediately undermine any claims the writer had to understanding his audience.

And this certainly doesn’t only apply to millennials. Investment marketers churn out a blizzard of lengthy PDFs, text-heavy commentaries, and conventionally presented analysis to readers who won’t have anything like enough time (or inclination) to read it.

But for some financial services companies, this penny has definitely already dropped.

One success story in this area has been BNY Mellon Investment Management, which has transformed a rather staid, conventional marketing operation into a vibrant news-driven one. Lengthy reports have been broken down into bite-sized posts, and market analysis has been recast as an infographics blog.

Another formatting trailblazer is Morgan Stanley, which recently launched its Ideas podcast. Eschewing the well-trodden format of panel Q&As with industry experts, Morgan Stanley asks questions with broad appeal, in a professionally produced show, with guests from across the board. (The inaugural episode, Why Do Pro-Athletes Go Broke?, featured retired NBA star Antoine Walker.)

Morgan Stanley’s captivating new podcast series, Ideas.

Though not every infographic, video or podcast could lay claim to bringing about a major shift in the debate, presenting quality content in formats specifically designed for your target audience is a key component of establishing credibility as a thought leader.

The takeaway

If thought leadership were easy, everyone would be doing it (properly). Creating content that triggers real “aha!” moments in the minds of readers is undeniably tough, but the rewards, as the surveys above indicate, can be great.

If you provide:

• Forthright, fresh insights
• In a timely yet distinct manner
• While eschewing product push
• And occupying the right niche
• With the right format

Your thought leadership could be one of your most powerful sales tools.

It is a fact that search engine optimization (SEO) can be a great way to generate leads for your business. However, for some marketers, SEO might be their only means of lead generation.

This can be risky for your business!.

You need to look for ways to diversify your lead generation process and not rely solely on search engine optimization. Otherwise, if there is a change in Google’s algorithm, it may fail and this can lead to the end of your business.

In this post, we will be looking specifically at five strategies that you can use right now to start generating targeted leads to your business without using search engine optimization.

Let’s get started!

1. Facebook Lead Ads + welcome emails

Facebook lead ads was introduced in 2015. It is a tool you can use to collect leads for your business through the most popular social media platform in the world i.e. Facebook. With Facebook’s 1.71 billion monthly active users, you have the opportunity to reach a vast pool of potential leads with targeted offers.

The ads show up in between posts in your newsfeed on Facebook. They contain advertisement for a product or a business, an image and a button for users to click on. Check out an example below:

When a user clicks on the action button (i.e. sign up, submit, download, etc), the Facebook lead ads form comes up. It is pre-filled with user’s data (Name, Email, Phone number etc) extracted from their profile on Facebook. It is easy to fill. In most cases, all the user needs to do is to confirm the information, and then click the action button without having to leave the Facebook page.

Below is a sample Facebook lead ads form of Eversify.

With Facebook lead ads, you can target different types of audiences and also create personalized messages for them.

The leads detail is stored in a CSV file and is available for download. Facebook does not provide an option to import your leads to your CRM or Autoresponder like Aweber or MailChimp.

However, there is a way out.

You can use one of the many different software presents on the web that it. It allows you to synchronize your entire leads library into your CRM/autoresponder.

2. LinkedIn Lead Generation Forms

LinkedIn is a powerful tool for lead generation for your business. The platform has more than 400 million users all over the world that can be your potential leads.

Lead generation is made easy on the platform by the use of LinkedIn Lead Generation forms. It is a free tool that works with sponsored content campaign to collect leads’ information.

It is especially useful because of its mobile-friendly design. With LinkedIn, 80% of engagement with sponsored content takes place on mobile devices. Also, 57% of LinkedIn users visit using a mobile device.

LinkedIn Lead Generation forms are easy to fill. It is auto-filled with details from user’s LinkedIn profile. This help to reduce the extra effort that comes with filling opt-in forms manually.

When someone clicks on the ad, it shows the in-app pre filled form with information from their profile. All the user needs to do is to confirm the information and submit. Below is a sample LinkedIn Lead Generation Ad with the form.

Once the form is filled, you will have the contact of the user i.e. the name, email, company name, job title, location etc. You can also include a thank-you message after the form is submitted.

You can manage the leads detail through your LinkedIn’s dashboard. You can also download and integrate them into your marketing automation software.

3. Google Adwords landing pages

Google Adwords is the most popular form of paid advertising platform online. Millions of businesses are using it to generate leads and sales for their businesses.

It helps you to reach new customers and to grow your business based on building campaigns, bidding on targeted keywords and matching your ad to a landing page.

However, Google is strict when it comes to landing page designs. With Facebook, you can get away with ‘thin’ landing pages, but not with Google Adwords. If you try it, you can get your ads disapproved or get outright ban on your account.

This is why you need to pay attention to your Google Adwords landing page design. It is very important to the success of your campaign.

In designing your landing page you need to take care of two issues i.e. landing page experience for users and Google’s site policies.

The landing page experience involves making your landing page relevant and useful. It should contain original content that is transparent and trustworthy. The page must load fast and be easy to navigate.

The landing page must deliver on its promise. You must provide accurate information to let the audience know what you are offering. Below is a sample Google Adword ad of Sprout Social Scheduling tool.

When you click on the ad, it leads to the landing page below:

When you follow Google’s policies to design your landing page, it will be approved. The next thing you need to do after approval is to advertise it on YouTube, Google Display Network, and the Google Search network.

These two networks will enable you to target your campaigns to your audience directly. This way you will get targeted leads for your business since 64% of people click on Google Ads when they are ready to make a purchase.

4. Guest Blogging + Retargeting

The primary objectives of a guest post have been to get a backlink to a website. However, apart from link building, you can also use the guest post to generate quality and targeted leads for your business.

The first step you need to take when thinking of generating leads from guest post is to search for websites that have similar audience to yours. For instance, if you are into marketing, you can search Google for top marketing blogs that accept guest posts.

You will see a lot of websites or posts that list marketing website that accepts guest post. Check out a couple of the websites and gather them together. Check out their rank, website traffic, engagement rate, social media followings, comments per post etc. These metrics will enable you to focus on those websites that will generate result for your business and weed out those that are not relevant.

A website with a lot of traffic, social media following, comments will give your post more views, shares, links and potentials for leads.

When you are done with selecting the right website, you need to search for topics that will benefit the audience. You can use the Buzzsumo tool to search for popular blog post that has generated great result for the website in time past and then create something similar to that.

Make sure you create exceptionally useful content that will enable the audience to engage with your content. Don’t forget to link to appropriate content on your website in your guest post.

In your author bio, make sure you include your website URL and your social media networks. This way readers can follow you back to your website.

Now, you can set up retargeting campaign on your website using Facebook pixel. By doing so, you’ll be able to quickly retarget your audience as soon as they get to Facebook from your website. It will show them relevant ads when they are still hot, thus, helping you to increase your leads and sales.

5. Quora Answers & Ads

Quora is a large question and answer website with a reach of about 100 million monthly users. The platform users are professionals from different industries, who are available to help users answer their questions. Quora is solely built for knowledge sharing, it is not really a lead generation platform.

However, brands are allowed to engage with users with the intention to help them answer their questions. This way, several businesses have invested in building their authority on Quora, thereby generating leads to their businesses in return.

There are opportunities for businesses to create a niche for their brand and use it to build awareness for their products and services on the platform.

There are two ways to generate leads on Quora. You can answer questions and promote your product or service in the content or use Quora ads.

To generate leads by answering questions on Quora, you need to create a good looking profile. Your profile should show who you are, the company you work with and your social media network links. Once you have sorted out your profile, you need to start searching for questions which are relevant to your industry. Answer questions that have a sizeable number of followers (at least 5-10 followers) and those that lack quality answers.

When you answer questions on Quora, make sure that they are detailed, structured and packed with links to various content and resources on your websites. When users read it and it meets their needs, they will click on the links to read more on your website or to purchase your products or services.

Secondly, you can use Quora ads to generate leads and sales for your business. It has low CPC, high conversion rate and it is easy to set up. You can use the ad to promote your product and services. At the moment, they offer text ads with a 65 character headline and 105 character body copy.

Check out a sample of Quora ads below:

In Leadsbridge, we use Quora to drive people to our blog. Check our channel here.

Conclusion:

It is risky to rely on Search engine optimization only to generate leads for your business.

After reading this post, you should be familiar with the different strategies you can use to get leads for your business.

The strategies include Facebook lead ads, LinkedIn Lead Generation form, Google Adwords Landing pages, Guest post and retargeting and Quora and its ad platform.

Whether you use one of these strategies or you use all of them together, your business will get more leads than you have ever experienced before.

What is your experience when it comes to lead generation without using search engine optimization (SEO)?.

So many articles are written about buyer personas that it might be overwhelming for the entrepreneurs and marketers who are just starting. For this blog, I have read many recent articles and I will list the most important information here. This way, you know what a buyer persona is, why creating buyer personas is important, how you can create them, and where you can get information without having to read all those different articles.

The definition of a buyer persona

As Bridget Deutz explains, a buyer persona is a fictional character that represents your ideal prospect, lead, or customer. Buyer personas are not customer profiles but a research-based representation. They are most successfully utilized when they encompass goals, behavioral patterns, and needs you see in your customers. A buyer persona lays out the ins and outs of what your customers are really like: their goals, challenges, pain points, common objections to products or services, personal information, demographic information, and other unique attributes.

Why buyer personas matter

Why would you need these buyer personas? Well, they help build and shape your business with your customer’s needs and best interests in mind, Deutz says. Once you have completed buyer personas, you and your team can better understand the motivating factors that influence your customer’s buying decisions.

Within inbound marketing, buyer personas provide insight that can help marketers gain a more thorough understanding of customers, buying behaviors, and where in the buyer’s journey their leads might be. They can shed light on what types of questions prospects are asking, when they are asking them, and what kind of answers you can provide to better nurture them along.

Effective and successful inbound marketing builds its foundation on strong, well-written, relatable content. Buyer personas help shape the content that needs to be created to target these audiences in a powerful and purposeful way.

Jonathan Chan agrees that, regardless of whether you are hoping to optimize or build the customer experience, create better content, or develop more sales, it all starts with understanding your audience. Having a comprehensive understanding of your customers is crucial to meeting your business goals.

Loyalty and trust

Chan focuses on customer loyalty and trust. Customers today just are not as loyal and trusting of businesses as they were a few years ago. With the internet available for everyone to use, it is much easier to research a brand before you ever consider doing business with them. On top of that, social media has given people the power to rethink and share their purchasing choices.

Today’s customers are more unique, diverse, and challenging as the digital market has worked to amplify niche segments of different industries. In other words, if you want to get ahead of the competition, then you will need to know who your customers are.

Learning about the type of people you are interacting with, from their psychological behaviors to their demographics, is crucial to creating an experience that relates directly to them. That is where buyer profiles come in. Simply put, they help you to design an image of your ideal customer, so you are not just trying to appeal to a crowd, but you are focusing on offering a message to a specific type of person.

How to create buyer personas: market insights and research

Buyer personas sound really handy (you are right, even essential) in marketing, but it does seem like much work to create them. Apparently, that is the case, given the vast amounts of articles on this specific topic. I have tried to go through them and sort the process so that you do not miss out on anything important while not having to read everything.

Chan claims that the strongest buyer personas are almost always based on a combination of market insights and research. Small businesses might have one or two personas, whereas larger enterprizes might have dozens. To start off with, when you are defining your buyer personas, you will need to go broad. Once you have those broad groups in mind, you will be able to break them down further.

Examine the details to get to your buyer personas

Chan wants you to assess the following essential elements:

• Location
• Age range
• Interests
• Education level
• Job title
• Income level
• Language
• Buying motivations
• Buying concerns

As a translator, I am happy he mentions languages because not that many authors even consider this. I think localization is important!

Where to get this information

Chan suggests the following ways to get the information you need to develop your personas:

• Examine your contacts database for trends about how certain customers and leads consume or find your content.
• Use form fields on your website that can capture important information about your customers, such as where they are located or what their job title is.
• Speak to your sales team and ask them for feedback on the type of customers they are interacting with most often.
• Interview your prospects and customers, either online or in person to determine what they like, and dislike about your product or service.

Tyler Hakes adds the following ways:

• Keyword Research
• Online Communities
• Social Listening

Role – understanding their position

Hakes focuses on roles as a dimension in the research but also considers goals and worries. He says that although they may seem like simple dimensions for defining a person, they turn out to be remarkably flexible and insightful when employed correctly.

The first set of characteristics you want to define regarding your persona, Hakes says, is their role within an organization, within the world, or within a group.

A person’s role can be interpreted to mean many things and this is what makes it powerful according to Hakes. The aspects of this person’s role should be defined as they relate to your specific product, service, or market/industry. How you define each dimension should maintain a lens toward the ultimate business objective.

Understanding a person’s role allows you to start to get inside their head and consider what responsibilities they have. From there, you can start to understand their goals and worries.

Goals – understanding their desires

Hakes urges you not to think of goals in terms of specific metrics or responsibilities placed upon someone within a company. After all, there are also personal goals that many of us carry, which are useful for understanding audiences at a more personal level or for defining a persona within a B2C audience that may not be pursuing professional achievements. Having these goals in mind will give you a strong understanding of what this particular person is interested in achieving and how you can help them by providing relevant content.

Worries – solving their problems

Finally, Hakes finds it useful to consider what worries a specific persona has. What keeps this person up at night? These worries can take many different forms, such as worries about their rank or accomplishments at work or worries about a specific product or service. Think through these worries and create a list of trouble areas for your persona. This will give you much insight into how you can best serve their needs by helping them solve their problems.

Ask many questions

In the end, it boils down to asking many questions. Here are some example questions you can ask. The first ones are from Deutz:

• What is his/her role within the organization and/or family?
• What are his/her personal and/or professional goals?
• How do they prefer to overcome challenges or pain points?
• What challenges do they deal with?
• What motivates them?

Justin Kerley also has some good questions:

1. What does your typical day look like?
2. What are the biggest challenges you face?
3. How is success measured in your role?
4. Where do you get your industry information?
5. How does my company/product/service fit in?

Local buyer personas

Now, I hope that helps you create the buyer personas that you need for growing your business. If you want to read how some buyer personas fail and why, you can read my blog The Intelligent Blog about Buyer Personas. Have you already created buyer personas? Do you need to write content in a specific foreign language to reach those types of customers? We should talk!

One of the benefits of the digitalization of information is the huge amounts of new data to which experts have access. Today, analyzing the success of your social media marketing campaign is far easier than ever before.

With just a few clicks, you’d be able to know the engagement rates of each one of your posts, the sentiment of your audience and most importantly, the performance of your competitors.

Nevertheless, surrounded by all those numbers, we often forget that at its core marketing and advertising haven’t changed. At the end of the day, whether through a newspaper, the radio, television, a website or on social media, a marketing campaign is still a way to present your service, idea or product to the people that might have interest.

To take a step back from all the numbers and appreciate marketing better, we decided to take a look at some of the most amazing marketing minds of all time. Marketing as a study has changed, evolved and transformed over the years. Yet, there’s still a whole lot we can learn from the pioneers of advertising.

Without further adieu, here are some century old marketing strategies that still hold true for social media.

Sex Sells and There’s Nothing Wrong with That

The fact that sex sells is often perceived in a negative manner. Yet, the reason for this is mostly due to the oversexualization in marketing and advertising in the past couple of years.

While racy material is rarely successful in social media, as this year’s Mr. Clean sexy commercial shows, when an advertising campaign is done with a certain level of acknowledgment and awareness of the audience, the product and its own sexiness, it can be highly successful.

With that in mind and going back more than a century, we can trace the beginnings of Eye Candy marketing to its founder George Wilkes. A journalist, Wilkes is infamous for being the founder of the first pin up magazine, the National Police Gazette, back in 1845. Primarily targeted towards law enforcement, the magazine quickly attracted new audience due to its engravings and photos of scantily-clad women.

Wilkes is often considered as the pioneer of eye candy advertising, due to the fact that such racy pictures were often placed facing advertisements in the magazine. At the time, the ads themselves weren’t that creative or engaging, but once advertisers learned the benefits of eye candy advertising, it quickly became popular.

Entertain Your Audience to Sell your Product/Service

If there’s one thing that all social media marketers should be aware of, it is that entertainment leads to sales.

Increasing your engagement and reach via engagement through media content is at the forefront of what makes inbound marketing so successful. But, as with almost every other advertising strategy, its roots go back to as early as the 1900s.

Granted, we are still a few years off from this tactic becoming a century-old one, but in 1923 John R. Brinkley was the first man to successfully implement entertainment with the promotion of his service. Known as the father of broadcast advertising, Brinkley is also infamous for his fraudulent medical practices.

Thinking that the spam e-mails you receive for pills that claim to cure male impotence is a problem of today is just naive. And the story of Brinkley will prove you wrong!

Claiming to be a medical doctor without having an actual medical education, Brinkley performed and promoted a procedure of transplanting goat testicles to males as a means to cure male impotence.

Despite being criticized by medical professionals and scientists alike from the very beginning, with his medical diploma purchased from a diploma mill, the “goat-gland doctor” was extremely successful.

In fact, he operated clinics and hospitals in multiple states, until he was stripped from his medical license in several states. Beloved by many, he even tried to run for governor of Kansas two times with one of his campaigns being nearly successful.

And while his fraudulent medical procedures were highly illegal, what John R. Brinkley did for marketing and advertising is undeniable.

Back in the early 1900s, radio was nothing more than a cultural asset, free of commercials. However, Brinkley single-handedly transformed the way we engage with entertainment when he built his own radio station in 1923 for the sole purpose of promoting his procedure.

The reason why he was beloved by many even after his procedure was proven to be fraudulent was due to the success and the entertainment value that came with his broadcast advertising.

The quack physician didn’t simply sell his services. Instead, he booked and played some of the best country music acts of his day, performed bible readings and even had his own catch-phrases with the most memorable one being “You’ll be a ram-what-am… with every lamb.”

Of course, quackery and snake oil weren’t anything new under the sun. Nevertheless, the way he managed to transform the media in the form of the radio to an all-round brand promoting platform is highly similar to what brands on social media do today. Granted, at least most brands promote honest products and services.

At times, the history of advertising and marketing might seem rather vile and immoral. And for the most part, that’s true. People striving to achieve a quick profit while disregarding the very thing that makes us human are often the ones that beat the system and think outside of the box.

And while we can’t support fraudulent practices, we can use the tools and strategies used by Brinkley in a moral manner to make our content more humane and engaging.

Celebrity Endorsement is Key as Pioneered by Lily Langtry in the 1900s

Today, we often take celebrity endorsement and social media influencers for granted.

Having a person with a following introduce your product or service to their audience is a highly beneficial tactic used in almost each and every industry on social platforms today. Yet, back in the 1900s, this was unheard of until the strategy was pioneered by Lily Langtry.

While the name Lily Langtry might sound unfamiliar to you today, a century ago, she was much like the Madonna of her time. Establishing her reputation as an actress and a producer, Langtry was constantly in the public eye for her numerous sex scandals and relationships with noblemen.

Using her persona to boost her personal brand, Langtry was one of the most popular actresses of her time. But she was also a great marketing pioneer.

Understanding the value of her persona, Langtry added her name to a line of cosmetic products. As the diva she was, instead of money, she preferred getting paid in gold. In fact, she charged the cosmetic firm the fee of her weight in gold bars for her celebrity endorsement.

Of course, today things have evolved and transformed in various ways. While direct endorsement is still popular, promotion via social media tends to be a preferred ways for brands to promote their services and products. Plus, social platforms have made it possible for normal people to gain an audience, resulting in the rise of the social influencer. Whatever the case might be, we have to thank Langtry for pioneering this amazing marketing strategy.

Learning from the Past to get Inspired to Think Outside of the Box

The above stories are dubious in nature. As a whole, the marketing industry is much like a coin. On one side, we have the immoral individuals that take advantage of human emotions, while on the other the honest and helpful advertisers truly shine.

Whatever the case might be, it’s true that those who manage to think outside of the box are truly successful. And as mentioned in the very beginning, marketing evolves for a reason.

While advertisers had the chance to lie and deceive people, in the informative age we live in, this is harder for them to do. People are becoming more aware of the different practices used by advertisers. What’s more, with the sheer number of similarities in such advertisements, people start to be more ignorant towards them.

Social media and inbound marketing are increasingly popular for a reason. They let people learn more and be more trustworthy of brands, while the social platforms allow marketers to be more honest, open, direct and engaging to their audience. Social Media Marketing promotes honesty, creativity and outside of the box thinking. Yet, this doesn’t mean that we should ignore the past. Quite the opposite.

We should learn from the pioneers of marketing and use this knowledge to the best of our abilities. And of course, when we are uncertain of whether or not a social media strategy works, we can always take look at the stats.

Agile Marketing holds the power to transform your company in 2017.

Agile is a technique that has been enthusiastically adopted organizations of all sizes and across every industry. No matter where your business currently stands with its goals, Agile Marketing can give your business the ability to use small tests to quickly understand what new tactics are most effective.

Don’t let 2017 end without understanding the following four Agile Marketing tenets. Once you put them to work for your brand, you’ll see why this methodology has become so popular all over the world.

1. Small, Strategic Goals Are Better Than Big Ones

As the name suggests, Agile Marketing gives marketers a lot of freedom to roll with the punches. This is possible because you set small, strategic goals. You then observe your team’s efforts to reach them and adjust accordingly.

Neil Patel recommends small goals as a “hack” that can transform your business. According to the world-famous marketer, you should attack big goals by turning them into little ones. Using the traditional Agile approach, you can then constantly check back on your progress and make changes to your efforts as necessary.

For example, your “big goal” may be to bring 100,000 unique visitors to your website every month. You may decide that the best way to do this is by investing in PPC banner advertising. As such, your marketing team produces the ads and pays for the space in volume.

Unfortunately, if this plan doesn’t work, and you’re not taking an Agile approach, it could be weeks or even months before you’re sure it won’t work. At that point, you’ve already wasted a lot of time and money

An Agile approach would mean looking at a much smaller goal. How many visitors could you hope to attract in just a month starting from your current baseline? Maybe it’s just 15,000. In that case, you’d take your PPC approach and aim at 15,000. Within a month, you’ll know if this approach is going to work, or if it’s time to try something new.

2. Quality Is King

Marketers are fond of saying that “content is king.” While content is central to marketing, there is more to it than that.

Agile Marketing stresses the importance of balancing speed with quality. One without the other will result in poor content no one wants to read or view – much less share. While it’s important to publish content regularly, a company’s marketing efforts will suffer – immediately – if they’re not publishing quality content.

This becomes exacerbated when using Agile Marketing techniques. Since speed is key in this methodology, marketers need to ensure the content that is being published will give them the best chance at understanding whether their hypothesis is true or false. For example, a marketers may want to create a sprint to test whether video content on their landing page will increase conversion rates. The quality of that piece of content is as important to the learnings as is defining what metrics will define success. Without using the best possible piece of content, marketers will never truly know if the strategy will increase conversions or not.

3. You Need a Central Agile Marketing Plan to Follow

An effective Agile Marketing campaign needs a flexible plan. According to the Harvard Business Review, this means a central plan that allows you to quickly adapt to new challenges in your environment.

This also means your plan can’t rely too heavily on current trends. Those trends can change, so your Agile Marketing plan must be ready to change with the market.

At the same time, once you’ve arrived at a concrete goal, you need to plan out the content you’ll use to reach it. Adaptability is still important, but without a goal, you don’t have a way forward.

4. Always Be Ready by Producing Content Beforehand

With an overall content goal, your company can begin crafting smaller pieces, whether that’s social media posts, blogs, videos, brochures, etc. – anything that helps bring your business toward this larger goal.

Always ready with numerous small pieces of content, so your company can jump on any opportunity arises. They also warn that any topic that is already popular doesn’t matter, so this kind of content production needs to be done with an eye toward the future.

This isn’t to say that you’ll have content ready to publish the second an opportunity emerges. However, if you have a large collection of pieces to choose from, it will be far easier to develop them and take advantage of any new trend or opening the market.

Stay on Top of Marketing Trends in 2017

A number of marketing trends in 2017 could hurt or help your company. However, by leveraging Agile Marketing methods such as setting small goals and creating quality content, you’ll be prepared to turn every one of these trends into opportunities and make the most out of each of them.

Thanks to Megan Totka for sharing advice and opinions in this post. Megan is Chief Editor for Chamber of Commerce. As a small business expert, Megan specializes in reporting the latest business news, helpful tips and reliable resources, as well as providing small business advice. She has significant experience with the topic of small business marketing, and has spent several years exploring topics like copywriting, content marketing and social media.
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For the multi-tasking solopreneur, one email address is never enough. But setting-up and managing multiple accounts is a time-suck you could live without.

With Gmail, you can have your cake and eat it too.

How to Create Unlimited Addresses in Gmail

Use your domain-based email addresses (i.e., you@yourdomain.com) for business. For everything else – road-testing software, registering for free webinars, you name it – use a Gmail address.

When one isn’t enough, add a “+” sign and then add other characters after the “+”.

For example, if your regular Gmail address is yourname@gmail.com, use any of these…

• yourname+test1@gmail.com
• yourname+softwaresubscription@gmail.com
• yourname+whatever@gmail.com

To Gmail, these are all the same. To any site where you have to sign up or register, they are all different. Why is that so great?

It’s particularly useful when signing up for free offers…

Put a company’s name (ex., “supersoftware”) after the “+” to find out if it spams. When you see email coming from a business that you don’t know, and if they are sending it to yourname+supersoftware@gmail.com, you know that “supersoftware” sold your account! Report it to…

• abuse@supersoftware.com (or whatever their domain is)

• the FTC

The beauty of this approach is that you can create an infinite number of addresses and have them all arrive in your Gmail inbox!

Another important use? Use them as disposable addresses to take back total control of your email..

You Can Also Filter Unwanted Messages!

Finished testing that software? No longer want to receive messages from that company? Most folks click the “Unusubscribe” link. But what if they don’t obey? Or what if you later change your mind and want to catch up on missed emails?

“Gmail Unlimited” offers you many useful options. For example…

To stop receiving email from “test2” (an account you set up to test a product), set up a filter to direct these messages to the trash (or anywhere you like). Here’s how…

1) Open your Gmail and click on the down arrow in the search box at the top…

2) Add the customized email address (yourname+test 2@gmail.com) to the “To” box, then click “Create filter with this search”…

3) Select the action you want Google to take (“Delete” in this case) and create the filter…

If you figure that you may want to catch up on posts by a blogger at some point, choose to store these in a folder instead. The options here make “Gmail Unlimited” super-useful!

Bottom Line Takeaway?

Time is the most precious resource you have. Don’t waste it on needless tasks like managing multiple email addresses. Instead…

1. Set up a “Gmail variation” whenever you need a different address.
2. Filter it (usually to the trash) when you’re through.

Oh, and if you’re worried about what Gmail thinks of this hack… they suggested it on their official blog!

Since time is the commodity you have the least of when operating as a solopreneur, be diligent about freeing more of it up. Use these 3 simple hacks (in addition to the email hack above) to create more time for your business.

Free-Photos / Pixabay

Writing is writing, right? And compelling copy always converts, no matter the audience, right?

No, not really.

There’s a massive difference between writing for B2C and B2B audiences – because the audiences themselves are quite different.

Here are just a few ways how:

• B2B audiences are less varied – in terms of preferences, demographics, desires, and pain points. B2C audiences can come from anywhere, but B2B ones are usually purchasing decision-makers in an organization.
• ‘Fun’ isn’t as important in B2B – B2C audiences respond to humor, fun and creativity. With B2B, the message is more important than the humor.
• B2B audiences have fewer channels to find your message – B2C audiences are happy to take a look at content on social media, radio, TV and a multitude of channels. There’s evidence, however, that B2B audiences still tend to be hard to reach, relatively time-poor, and clustered around membership networks and online communities.
• B2B audiences purchase less frequently – You need to be aware that ther e is a process of consideration, comparison and due diligence to get through. There are few impulse purchases in the B2B world, so a play to emotion isn’t going to work.

With this in mind, let’s jump into some easy ways that messages can be tailored to gain valuable B2B eyeballs, and spark better conversions.

What’s the Pain Point?

This is the right place to start your investigation. Find out why B2B audiences want to buy your product.

What problem are they suffering that your brand can alleviate?

Once you’ve figured out what problem your audience wants help with, knit answers into your copy. If you’re writing about air-conditioning disinfecting technology, don’t lead with “Cutting-edge technology.” Instead, try something like “20% fewer sick days for your business – proven.”

Takeaway: B2B audiences are motivated by specific pain points, not by the desire to consume.

What Benefits Are You Bringing to the Table?

This is an extension of the last point. B2B audiences are focused on benefits.

There’s no such thing as an impulse buy here: Examine what makes your value proposition unique.

Is it the customer service? The reliability? The fact that it streamlines business processes? List those benefits clearly, loud and proud.

Takeaway: B2B audiences are buying to boost their business. So let them know how you can help in your copy.

Keep it Simple

Remember how we discussed that B2B audiences tend to be time-poor? They don’t have the bandwidth to wade through reams of clever copy. So let’s get to the point without too many twists and turns along the way.

If you’ve written five great paragraphs, see if you can shrink that message into one power-packed paragraph instead. Simplicity is the one trick to higher conversions.

Something along the lines of “Want to bring down logistics costs? Truber puts you in touch with truckers in the area for fast and efficient road haulage with full tracking and transparency.”

Get their attention fast, and move them to the next step.

Takeaway: B2B audiences are time-poor. They’re not going to wade through text. Convince them early.

Understand Their Language

Good copywriters hate jargon. They’re not alone.

Jargon tends to obfuscate and confuse. It complicates simple statements. I actively encourage writers to not hide behind a wall of linguistic excess.

But jargon is also a shared language for B2B audiences. It helps them speed up internal communication, and refer to very specific things easily.

Using terms we consider jargon is how they speak on the job – and how they’ll search for your client’s product on Google. Not knowing their language will make your words seem unconvincing.

Worse, it might mean that your client’s website just doesn’t show up in search results, and your words are never seen.

There’s a fine line between too much jargon, and not knowing how your audience speaks. Learn how they refer to key products and services, and speak a little like them.

Takeaway: Too much jargon is bad. But not knowing the specific language your B2B audience relies on can leave you out in the cold.

Remember Mobile

“Businesses don’t buy on mobile,” goes popular advice. Maybe, but many B2B buyers will search for solutions on mobile first, while they’re away from their desk.

The average time spent on mobile has hit around 3 hours a day. Increasingly, people are treating mobile phones as their primary platform. Yet, B2B conversion rates are low.

Yes, there are barriers to B2B conversions on mobile – forms, payments, registrations and so on are all difficult on a smaller screen. But better copy for smaller screens can help.

The trick is to get your potential client to make the transition from mobile to the desktop at work. And clever copy can entice them to do that.

To do this adeptly, keep your copy short, succinct, and easy to read on smaller screens. Go the route of more bullet points and breaks, and fewer dense chunks of text.

Follow up with a great call to action – perhaps a demo sign-up, or a reminder to schedule a call when at work – to seal the deal.

Takeaway: Even if B2B audiences don’t buy on mobile, they’re likely to encounter your copy on mobile first. Make your text mobile-friendly.

When I read startup news, it pits every one of us against growth. Companies are getting described based on growth in funding, growth in product, growth in customers, growth in hiring, growth in partnerships…

And this makes complete sense. As Paul Graham reminds us: “A startup is a company designed to grow fast. Being newly founded does not in itself make a company a startup. Nor is it necessary for a startup to work on technology or take venture funding, or have some sort of “exit.” The only essential thing is growth. Everything else we associate with startups follows from growth.”

I, and most of you reading this – I’m sure, have been mesmerized by this phenomenon of growth. And by mesmerized, I sometimes mean paralyzed, intimidated, or scared.

This year we celebrate 5 years working on Lessonly. And after a half-decade, I feel more urgency than I ever have to grow faster, but feel less baggage and more clarity than I’ve ever had.

I’ve wrestled with the topic of growth with my best friend and CEO, Max Yoder. I’ve philosophized with my wife, gotten inspiration from our team, all trying to understand why? Why go for growth? While I acknowledge that there’s a lot of answers to that question, one realization in particular has become an especially motivating force for me. Lately, I’ve wanted to be sharper and win and grow faster than I ever have. And thankfully, it’s not headlines. It’s not recognition. It’s not awards. And it’s not because we’re a startup and it’s what we’re “supposed” to do. It’s all internal.

The realization I’ve come to is that company growth means we all get the opportunity to hand-select a team that brings us pride. We’re constantly drafting talent and culture that we think will make us better and challenge us. At every new stage of the company, we get to keep adding. When done carefully, drafting the absolute best team has been an incredible thing.

My athletics brain may tarnish this perspective, but a team that is driving to accomplish great things, together, ends up creating transformation for each individual. I venture to say, five years at Lessonly have changed me drastically for the better, and will continue to do so. For the folks who’ve dedicated significant chapters of their lives to Lessonly, my dream is they would all would say the same. We will look back, and we will believe these chapters shaped us.

The key ingredient has been to continually challenge. “We challenge ourselves,” is a core value at Lessonly because when you collectively challenge, you learn and grow faster. Winning feels more meaningful. You’re better at work, and you’re better outside of work to the people you love.

So keep growing. Not because it’s what you’re supposed to do. Do it because you are inspired to keep drafting the most incredible team. One where you come in as one person, and leave as a different one. Win and learn from losses. And keep going. Because when you reach the finish line, you may be tired and you may feel beaten, but you won’t regret the team and the experiences that changed you.

The Lessonly team is growing this year. Let us know if you think you’d fit in!

The post A Growth Manifesto appeared first on OpenView Labs.

The retail scene in Africa has undergone a rapid transformation. A few years ago, many staple Western goods were hard to come by in some markets. Now, branded items — from luxury cosmetics to fast food and fast fashion — are becoming widely available at the glittering new shopping malls scattered around the region’s fast-growing cities.

Take the new Two Rivers Mall in Kenya’s capital, Nairobi. Completed in February 2017, it is eastern Africa’s largest shopping venue, housing grocery chains, restaurants, and luxury boutiques. But visit Two Rivers on a weekday, and the vast complex is empty. Why? Locals will tell you the mall is inconvenient to get to, and despite poverty levels in the region falling amid strong economic growth and foreign investment, the products sold there are too expensive for Nairobi residents to afford.

Nairobi’s New Two Rivers Mall Is the Largest in Eastern Africa

(Author’s Photo)

The problem points to a larger conundrum facing multinational corporations (MNCs) that had hoped to tap Africa’s one-billion-strong population and its much-vaunted “middle class“: Sales and profits in these markets have not lived up to businesses’ expectations. (Note: When we use “Africa” in this article, we’re referring to the 49 countries south of the Saharan Desert, not the five countries to the north of it, which have different cultural and economic dynamics.)

While the region is home to some of the fastest-growing economies in the world, and while consumer spending power in Africa has risen (from US$ 470 billion in 2000 to over $1.1 trillion in 2016), some MNCs are finding that their business in the region is underperforming. In a survey of 20 senior executives working in Africa whom we work with, six said they struggled to hit revenue targets last year. Others also mentioned disappointing results, in some cases prompting them to deprioritize Africa in their global strategies, while others are keeping their heads down in the hope that business conditions will change and make it easier to hit their targets.

Yet neither of these approaches addresses the real problems at play. Our research shows that MNCs are making three mistakes in Africa:

• Companies set unrealistic targets due to misunderstanding the drivers of consumer spending power.
• Companies underestimate the extent to which local factors determine how, where, and why consumers make purchasing decisions.
• Companies are not considering how the consumer class (which we define as those living on US$ 3.90 and above per day, the point at which people can spend beyond mere survival) is changing across the region.

Realizing the opportunity in Africa demands that businesses rethink their strategies. Despite some markets slowing because of the commodity price downturn (for example, Nigeria), we nevertheless forecast total annual consumer spending in the region to reach US$ 2.5 trillion by 2025. Regarding the first mistake companies make, our analysis uncovers two adjustments they need to make:

Do not rely only on headline economic indicators. Companies’ estimates of the consumer opportunity in Africa tend to be based on GDP and demographic growth data. These are misleading because they do not reflect how wealth trickles down through the economy. In many of the fastest-growing African markets, average purchasing power is very low because economic growth has not created well-paying jobs, but instead has created a small elite class and a large poor population with little spending power. As a better measure of purchasing power, we created the Consumer Class Conditions Index (CCCI), which ranks markets according to how easily wealth filters through society. This tells us whether a broader swath of consumers are able to make purchases on a regular basis. The ranking is based on thousands of aggregated data points, such as a country’s rate of formal job creation, education levels, and welfare provision.

Do not overlook the informal economy. Doing so leads to misunderstanding what drives consumer spending power. For example, our analysis finds that over 50% of working adults in Africa earn their incomes from informal activities that are not reflected in official income statistics, with most earners combining multiple informal incomes. While this means spending power is likely higher than official data indicates, it complicates the task of predicting shifts in consumer demand.

Proxy indicators can help companies better understand people’s dominant sources of income — and forecast sales more accurately. For instance, in markets such as Ethiopia, where farming is the main income source for 80% of people, rainfall quality is a reliable predictor of fluctuations in consumer demand because it determines the quality of harvests, and thus the income people receive.

The second area MNCs need to rethink is what ultimately drives consumer decisions. Here we find that companies’ product, pricing, and marketing strategies are often informed by myths:

Myth #1: Africans are conspicuous consumers. African consumers are often depicted as shoppers interested in luxury brands, a narrative driven by media stories of, for example, rising champagne consumption in Nigeria and Angola. This perception leads MNCs to overestimate demand for status-enhancing products. After all, the average consumer allocates most of their spending (75%) to basics such as food and transportation. Our research also indicates that consumers are generally conservative in how they allocate their money: They value saving and education, and prize durability over flashiness when buying higher-cost items.

Take Kudzai, a hairdresser living in Harare, Zimbabwe, who told us she needed to save for months before being able to afford a microwave. When she eventually could, she made sure to avoid the cut-price models sold at the new Chinese stores popping up in the city. Instead, she opted for a more expensive Japanese brand because she could not take the risk of investing her savings in a product that might break down.

MNCs need to ensure they are connecting with these priorities and offering products and services that align with local consumers’ values and needs. Companies cannot assume economic growth will automatically create demand for flashy goods, or that poorer consumers will accept lower-quality products.

Myth #2: They are adopting Western habits. There is a common belief that as Africa develops, it will become increasingly Westernized. While consumers are acclimatizing to some products that were uncommon only a few years ago (cheese, for example), our ground research points more to continuity than to change. For instance, even middle- and upper-middle-income consumers continue to prefer shopping for staples in open-air markets rather than in malls, believing them to be fresher and to offer better value.

Similarly, traditional ties between individuals and large family networks remain a major feature of life in Africa. Take Kofi, a public relations executive in Accra, Ghana, whom we interviewed: He earns a good monthly salary but sends 20%–30% of his earnings at the end of the month to support relatives living in his home village. While these transfers mean he has less to spend on himself, they increase the spending power of his family members in his rural village. Consumers like them (who tend to lack job opportunities) consequently have more to spend than MNCs typically assume, but they are often overlooked as a target segment. This local reality of pooled and shared resources is often not reflected in standard employment and incomes data. MNCs thus need to refine their assumptions about who their customers are and what their purchasing power is.

Finally, companies need to let go of the idea that Africa will see a China-style consumer “revolution.” While the consumer opportunity is large, growth in the consumer class will be modest. We forecast that the size of this group across Africa as a whole will increase by 4.4%, on average, by 2020, growing the customer base from 250 million people to 290 million — a steady but certainly not revolutionary expansion — by the end of the decade.

Each of the countries in Africa will evolve in diverse ways. Some, such as the Democratic Republic of Congo, will continue to perform poorly on our CCCI and see limited consumer class growth, because wealth is poorly distributed throughout the population. Others, such as Kenya, will keep performing well, though consumers there will continue to spend cautiously due to cultural attitudes prioritizing saving and support for extended family networks.

In short, to succeed in the continent, MNCs need to understand how these markets are changing, expand access to broader groups of consumers, and provide offerings that are tailored to specific countries.

Anna Rosenberg, Director of Sub-Saharan Africa Research, and Matthew Kindinger, Analyst, contributed to this article.

Living in the city offers great opportunities for fun, relaxation, enjoyment, and sightseeing. City life can be quite expensive sometimes but there are ways to live and enjoy your city without emptying your bank account. You can always live below your means and save money on food, energy bills and whatnot. If you want to also enjoy yourself from time to time, you can do so by taking advantage of some clever and cheap opportunities that can sometimes prove to be more fun than if you had gone somewhere expensive.

A Walk Around Town

Several cities around the world offer various attractions blessed with beautiful artworks and architecture. Taking a walking tour of these places can a thrilling and enrichening experience. Some cities have streets with beautiful lights, trees, and high-class shops that can be a great experience at night, with all the crowd clamors.

Budget Accommodation

Accommodation costs in many cities across the world can be a serious issue. Ditch the expensive hotels and consider vacation rentals that offer a kitchen or cheap restaurants, so you can save even more money. Other affordable accommodation options in your city may include homestays, religious housing, short-term room rentals, hostels, or camping.

Take the Train

Moving around the city in a cab will cost you. Train fares are stable and train traveling is flexible, and you can move around with more luggage, less hassle and less stress. Also, trains are clean, comfortable, charming, and there is no traffic. If you live in a smaller city, then buses are usually an affordable means of transportation.

Tall Buildings Offer Amazing Views

If you live in a city with tall and beautiful buildings, find your way to the top of the tall building and enjoy the magnificent view. Seeing the city from rooftops can be rather thrilling.

Visit Parks and Gardens

Most cities are endowed with at least one beautiful park or open garden. Visiting parks and gardens actually has health benefits. You get to burn fat during activities and while you engage in casual exercise. Visiting parks can help you reduce stress, improve your mood, and bond with family members. While you are at the park, you can socialize with other people, engage in activities, and burn some calories.

Beaches and City Pools Are Fun

If your city has beautiful beaches, you should consider taking some time off from work and enjoy the sand, the waves and the fresh air. Just like parks, beaches offer amazing health benefits including relieving stress, improving your immunity, and helping you sleep better at night. If you don’t do beaches, you can go for city pools instead.

Dine at Local Restaurants

Big restaurants in the city centers are interesting and offer amazing dishes, but at a very high cost. If you don’t have a kitchen you can try out the smaller restaurants. Skip drinks, be your own server, consider a combo or split a meal to help you save money.

Consume Public Art

Public art has an intrinsic and instrumental value which is connected to health benefits and economical values. Research some of the best public art locations in your city and schedule time for a visit.

Find Karaoke Nights and Free Concerts

If you love music, you can enjoy electrifying musical performances and live bands without paying, if you know the right place to look. Find karaoke nights and free concerts in your city and bring your friends or colleagues. Karaoke nights offer an opportunity for you to express yourself, socialize, and improve your inner emotions.

Become a Tourist in Your City

Assuming the role of a tourist in your city can be fun, exciting, and very affordable. Here are some ideas you should consider.

• Get yourself into a hotel or motel lobby
• Get a friend to show you around
• Take photos in front of tourist posts
• Visit local attractions
• Book a tour

Attend Local Festivals

Community festivals attract thousands of people from far and near. Participating in festivals helps you relieve from the monotony of life. You get the chance to participate in activities that promote cultural harmony, and encourage you to embrace love and friendship.

Cross Bridges

When was the last time you crossed the bridge in your city? Crossing bridges offers great experience that adds emotional and positive vibes to your life and existence. You also get to meet people and it’s an excellent opportunity to move your legs a bit.

Explore Rivers

Take a ferry ride and enjoy the water bodies in your city. Ferries can reach were cars, buses, planes, and trains can’t take you. Ferry travel is comfortable, educative, and there is no traffic.

Stay In Another Part Of Town

Staying in one place for a long time can make your life boring. Book a hotel on the other part of town for one or two days. Take advantage of public facilities and mingle with new people.

Visit Local Museums

Improve or update your knowledge of local history by visiting museums in your city. Connect with other people, get inspired, and open your mind to new experiences.

Living in your city doesn’t have to be expensive. All you need is a bit of wisdom and research to find the right places you can spend your time. Enjoy your city on a budget by taking a ferry, attending local festivals, and locating free public cinemas, karaoke, and concerts. Dine at local restaurants that serve delicious and affordable meals.

Take the train or bus instead of a cab, and challenge yourself to meet people that will inspire you. That’s not to say that the advice is limited to your city only. You can do all these things in a city that you’re not accustomed to. Just make sure to do your research to see what’s hot and cheap in town, book a cheap flight in advance and set a fixed budget that you can stick to.

Kevin Monk is a financial advisor with a bachelor’s degree in Mathematics and also the founder of RetireBy37.com, a site that contains financial advice and tips on how to better evaluate yourself in order to take more advantage of your potential.

If you’ve checked out your LinkedIn groups lately, you may notice that LinkedIn groups are not what they used to be.

As much as I had hoped that LinkedIn’s changes to groups would have a positive effect, not much has changed in the user experience. LinkedIn is no longer prioritizing its investment in LinkedIn groups and has even closed down the LinkedIn Group Moderators Community, a nail in the coffin for many LinkedIn group managers and owners.

What has not changed? Professionals still want to share ideas, have discussions, and network with each other inside communities.

And, that’s where Slack is capitalizing on the opportunity, that opening in the niche social media market that no other channel has filled.

INTRODUCTION TO SLACK

Slack calls itself a messaging app for teams to make their working lives simpler, more pleasant, and more productive. Sound like a social channel? A replacement for email? Or, simply an instant messaging app?

Slack is all of those, and more. Slack is a hybrid of instant messaging, social media, and Skype.

Slack may go to market with one strategy: be less busy by helping teams cut down on email. But how its users choose to use the tool could differ from its creator’s original intent. That’s the beauty of a well-designed tool, one that has the power to disrupt the industry.

THE OPPORTUNITY

Not only are professionals using Slack to engage with their teams at work, they are also open to joining other Slack communities to join.

And, here’s the opportunity for savvy companies willing to experiment with alternate ways to connect with professionals. According to Slack, 77 of the Fortune 100 companies now use Slack. Your target audience may already be on Slack because it’s already the go-to platform for startups and remote workers, and it’s becoming more mainstream for working professionals.

Because your audience likely is already on Slack, you minimize the switching cost for potential community members. There’s no need to add yet another social channel to their bookmarks bar. They simply engage with your community in Slack. Unless your audience does social media for a living, they enjoy using only one major social network or hub. Slack is a hybrid. It’s not technically a social channel, but it’s not all-work-no-play either.

HOW SLACK IS DIFFERENT FROM LINKEDIN GROUPS

COOL FACTOR. It’s a hip tool to use. We may be a bit ashamed about our Facebook addictions, but using Slack is considered to be a productivity-booster. It is not yet attached to those “social media shaming” connotations.

TARGET AUDIENCE. If your target audience is within the technology or startups world, they are already on Slack. There would be no switching cost. Users could easily just add your team (i.e. community/group) to their Slack apps. If your users are barely on LinkedIn, then don’t try Slack. They will most likely not be ready for Slack until it goes mainstream.

CHATTER. The tool is not intended to be a link-sharing tool, as opposed to LinkedIn groups, which feel like newsfeeds. It has the feel of a forum and group messaging tool.

SEARCH BAR. Everything within Slack is searchable—files, links, conversations, hashtags, keywords. No more scrolling through LinkedIn groups to try to find something of interest to discuss.

CHANNELS. You can separate conversations within a community by topic and private channels. For example, a social media marketer may join a sales and marketing group, but that person can opt-in to only the channels of interest vs. every single topic.

DIRECT MESSAGING. There is unlimited direct messaging between members in a Slack community, unlike LinkedIn’s limitation of 15 direct messages per month.

BETTER MOBILE APP. The Slack app is slick and integrates well with every device and works well on every operating system. LinkedIn’s groups app is very clunky and only available on iOS.

CUSTOMIZABLE NOTIFICATIONS. Members can be notified when and how they want to be notified about a community’s activity. No unnecessary emails filled with discussions that are not of interest, like LinkedIn. This is one of my personal favorite features.

HOW SLACK IS SIMILAR TO LINKEDIN GROUPS

LINK SHARING. Members can share links in both Slack and LinkedIn Groups. Members tend to use LinkedIn groups as a social sharing platform, but Slack is geared towards actual engagement (not link-sharing).

DISCUSSIONS. Members can engage in discussions around topics, though it’s much easier to do on Slack than LinkedIn. LinkedIn simply groups comments differently than Slack.

ONE-ON-ONE CONNECTION. Members are able to make connections with other group members. On LinkedIn, they can become “officially” connected, but it’s much more casual inside Slack. No official connection requests are sent. Members engage with whom they want, unrestricted.

Are companies so focused on early stage B2B demand generation that they’re missing big opportunities to drive revenue in other key moments across the customer lifecycle?

Whenever marketers and salespeople are aligned on something—anything!—our natural tendency is to hail it as a victory—a rare moment of concord between two not-always-friendly factions.

Findings from a new Corporate Visions survey provide a snapshot of marketing and sales “alignment” that provides more questions than answers. Why? Because sometimes “consensus” actually has a downside. Sometimes the extreme alignment of priorities that marketers and salespeople appear to share could actually imply a missed opportunity.

We asked marketers and salespeople to rate a) which area of the customer lifecycle had the most impact on driving revenue; b) which area they dedicate the most resources to; and c) which area they need the most help with. The responses reveal that marketers and sales pros agree that early stage demand generation matters most across all these areas. Meanwhile, key post-purchase discussions, such as “ensuring ongoing renewals” and “expanding lifetime value,” finished near the bottom across all measures, often by significant margins.

The charts below shows just how closely the responses from marketers and salespeople track with each other in the questions we asked them. The trend lines were remarkably similar across all questions.

Seeing the Same Thing, Missing the Same Thing?

The overwhelming emphasis on early stage demand generation makes you wonder: Are marketers and salespeople so focused on the same thing that they’re also missing the same thing—in this case, the opportunity to ensure revenue growth by adding more messaging strategy to other key moments across the customer lifecycle, such as customer retention and expansion efforts?

Put another way: If everyone in the commercial operation is focused on the front-end of the business, who is making sure you’re driving profitable growth from existing customers and giving them a compelling reason not to leave.

Blind spots: Detected 

The heavy emphasis on early-stage demand generation is clear. The question is, what blind spots is that creating around other major opportunities to maximize growth?

• Blind spot #1: A one percent increase in price gains a 9 percent increase in operating margin. That finding, from McKinsey & Company, is especially relevant to two pricing-sensitive moments that are potentially being neglected: maximizing deal profitability and expanding lifetime value. As far as maximizing profitability during the deal, this stat underscores the importance of using specific messaging techniques that allow you to expand the scope and size of your discussions. For salespeople in deal-stage negotiations, that means introducing unconsidered needs to create pricing uncertainty, which expands the value of—and need for—your solutions. As it pertains to expanding lifetime value, this finding speaks to the importance of communicating price increases effectively—in a way that’s supported by research and that responds to how buyers actually behave in the moment when you’re trying to convince them to pay more.
• Blind spot #2: A five percent increase in renewals increases profits by 25 percent. Bain & Company determined this impressive statistic, demonstrating that customer renewals are not an area you want to take lightly from a structure and strategy standpoint, particularly as many companies evolve to more of a products-as-a-service experience. This puts more pressure on securing the next agreement to drive growth and increase profitability. Unfortunately, skimping on the messaging rigor appears to be the norm when it comes to customer retention as four out of five companies say they want more strategy and structure around price increase messaging, according to a previous Corporate Visions industry survey.
• Blind spot #3: Acquiring a new customer is anywhere between five to 25 times more expensive than keeping an existing one. Cited in a Harvard Business Review article, this stat isn’t so surprising when you consider that high startup and support costs can mean customers have to be an active account for months, even years, before they become fully profitable. Does this mean your budget needs to be allocated to better match the emphasis you want or need to place on the various moments in the customer lifecycle?

Marketers and salespeople may be in lockstep when it comes to perceiving the importance of early stage demand generation efforts. But don’t undermine those efforts by taking an ad hoc approach to some key growth-driving moments that occur later in the customer relationship, as that will only make it harder to retain customers and drive more value from your partnerships.

For more insights into what it takes to add more structure and strategy to the key moments highlighted above, check out our State of the Conversation Report.

The post A Marketing and Sales Blind Spot? appeared first on Corporate Visions.

Cleverpix / Pixabay

You know those emails you’re actually excited to see in your inbox? Wouldn’t it be awesome to know how you could write emails like that for your own business? Well, good news! We asked five marketing experts to share their best email writing tips for increasing engagement. Now, you can boost your email performance with some pointers from the pros. Here are the top tips from top writers:

Try asking questions in your subject line

Amy Schmittauer, Savvy Sexy Social, YouTuber and Author

“I often use my emails to connect my viewers to the latest videos I’ve shared, but the subject line is the critical space that determines whether or not the email gets opened. I’ve been excited to see high opens and click-throughs on emails that promoted videos based on the customization of the subject line, often with a question that they really wanted to answer about themselves. Question marks in subject lines can be a powerful move.” [bctt tweet=”“The subject line determines whether or not the #email gets opened.” -@Schmittastic” username=”aweber”] Here’s an example of how Amy used a question in one of her subject lines:

Key takeaways: Relate with the reader: address the questions they’ve been asking!

But remember that every audience is different

Michael Port, Heroic Public Speaking, Author and Marketing Consultant

“Check patterns to see which emails your audience opens (and which ones get clicks). Currently, the ones with practical advice tend to outweigh any shock value or wit. And so that’s how we connect with our audience (while consistently testing to see if/when the pattern changes).” [bctt tweet=”“Check patterns to see which emails your audience opens.” -@MichaelPort ” username=”aweber”] Your own audience is different from other people’s audiences. So test to see what works for your own subscribers! Key takeaways: Test, test, test!

Add a human touch

John McIntyre, McMethod, Copywriter and Marketing Consultant

“Telling a simple story from your own life about something you struggled with is one of the best ways to connect with your audience. Granted, this won’t be appropriate for every type of business, but if you have a personality-focused business like I do, it can work wonders. Tell people about how you almost died once, or your worst fear, or what makes you uncomfortable. You’ll know if you’re doing it right if you’re feeling really uncomfortable. The more uncomfortable you feel about revealing something about yourself, the better the email (in most cases).” [bctt tweet=”“Tell people about how you almost died once, or your worst fear.” – @JohnMcIntyre_ #EmailMarketing” username=”aweber”] Catch your audience’s attention and engage them with an interesting story at the beginning of your email. Once you have them hooked, they’ll be more likely to read the rest of your email. Below is a portion of an email that John sent to his subscribers to engage and connect:

Key takeaways: Don’t be afraid to be vulnerable and, well, human!

Build community in your emails

John Corcoran, Smart Business Revolution, Business Advisor

“A couple of months ago, I sent an email saying, ‘I want to introduce members of my community to one another. I’m going to put together a blog post where I’ll share your website and your business. So send me an email with your website, what line of work you’re in, the name your business and your contact info and I’ll draft up a blog post, and share it. And you can do business together or refer business to one another.’ I just got the most tremendous response back: incredibly high engagement and open rates and people emailing me back saying they were crying when they read it. They couldn’t believe the generosity to it. And anyone can do this. You can do this even if you’re just building your email list now. Go to your Linkedin connections, email clients or past clients. And just say, ‘Hey, I want to help you out by getting more traffic to your website.'” How can you replicate this? Let’s say you’re a food blogger. Put a sign up form on your blog, and try sending this community-building email to that list. Key takeaways: Be a friend. Offer the help and advice your subscribers have been seeking!

Use social media to connect

Amy Schmittauer, Savvy Sexy Social, YouTuber and Author

“I absolutely love including my Twitter handle or a Click to Tweet link in emails so that people take action in a social environment with me based on the conversation we have through email. For instance, on the confirmation page for joining my email list, there is a Click to Tweet that is automatically drafted for them to say hello as a new email member through Twitter.” To do this, head over to Click to Tweet’s website. Just type in your copy and use the custom generated link as the hyperlink in your email! Key takeaways: Don’t just build community within the emails themselves ― reach to new platforms!

Don’t be afraid to ask your audience what they’re thinking

John McIntyre, McMethod, Copywriter and Marketing Consultant

John’s most important welcome email trick? “I ask one simple question (What is your most important questions related to X?). Over time, the hundreds or thousands of responses to that question have become a wealth of knowledge and data about my market. I can go into my email account at any moment and look for that email, and spend hours scrolling through the responses. Everyone knows they should do more surveys and ask their market questions more often. But we rarely get around to doing it. That’s what’s great about asking a question like this in your welcome email. You’re collecting data on autopilot, assuming you continue getting people to join the email list.” There are two simple ways to ask questions in your emails: ask subscribers to respond directly to your email or direct subscribers to a survey link. In the example below, we ask for feedback on our What to Write in Your Emails course using a link to a survey:

Key takeaways: Ask your subscribers questions early on. This way, you’ll ride the wave of new-subscriber excitement, and can benefit from the higher engagement that welcome emails see.

Remember the goal of your promotional email

Michael Port, Heroic Public Speaking, Author and Marketing Consultant

“An unscientific 80 percent of all of our email promotion stresses the specifics of what our audience will gain out of a program or opportunity – something that will make them want to click. Email promotion is the lifeline of our business. Sometimes the entire purpose of an email is to get the reader to click to go to the webpage where the sale can occur. After all, the job of the email is to get potential buyers to click. The job of the web page is to get them to buy. Don’t confuse the two.” [bctt tweet=”“Email promotion is the lifeline of our #business.” -@MichaelPort” username=”aweber”] Key takeaways: Make your emails work hard for you, but remember that they don’t do all of the work.

Don’t leave your list hanging

Addy Saucedo, The Podcast Planner, Podcaster and Speaker

“A key to growing and keeping an audience is the speed of implementation.” Make sure you constantly nurture your list and deliver in a timely manner. In order to keep your current audience happy and reach new people as well, always work to deliver value. [bctt tweet=”“A key to growing and keeping an audience is the speed of implementation.” -@PodcastPlanner” username=”aweber”] Key takeaways: Work effectively and efficiently.

Want more expert writing tips?

The content experts at AWeber have compiled their best email writing advice and more than 45 email copy templates into our What to Write in Your Emails guide and course. All expert-approved. Get it for free now. Happy writing!

Welcome to Selling the Sandler Way, with your host Dave Mattson, the president and CEO of Sandler Training. He is a five-time bestselling author, speaker, trainer, and consultant to hundreds of international organizations. In this show, he talks to other Sandler trainers about the Sandler selling system.

“But … I’m on the phone all day. I don’t even have time to know what Twitter is!” I believe you. Just take a second to hear me out about why following sales experts on Twitter is so important.

The biggest takeaway? It will make you better at your job.

By following sales experts on Twitter, you can quickly and easily tap into some of the best minds in the business right when you need them the most. Plus, you can seriously impress your boss with relevant, insightful watercooler talk.

Here are a few of the top sales influencers on Twitter. They’re active, they’re engaged, and they’re sharing tons of advice, motivational quotes, and timely information that will have an immediate impact on your work.

25 Sales Leaders You Need to Know

1) Mike Weinberg, 22K Followers, @mike_weinberg

Who He Is: Mike is a consultant, speaker, and the author of two best-selling books, New Sales. Simplified and Sales Management. Simplified.

Observing salesperson make #Prospecting calls. So important to be aware whether our language is self or others-focused. #sales

— Mike Weinberg (@mike_weinberg) July 11, 2017

What He’s Tweeting: You’ll find Mike tweeting industry podcasts and articles, and anything Porsche-related -- for when you close that really big deal.

2) Jill Rowley, 37K Followers, @jill_rowley

Who She Is: Jill advises startups and teaches the strategy behind successful social selling.

Don't work for the CFO who asks this question; work for the CEO who answers this way!! Invest in YOU. #SalesMachine pic.twitter.com/bmZ6YEfGfR

— Jill Rowley (@jill_rowley) June 16, 2016

What She’s Tweeting: Jill is a great person to follow to keep a pulse on the latest happenings in social selling and the sales industry as a whole. You’ll find articles on cutting-edge trends like AI in sales, motivational quotes, and coverage of hot industry events in her feed.

3) Jeffrey Gitomer, 111K Followers, @gitomer

Who He Is: Jeffrey is a sales coach, professional speaker, and the author of 12 books including Little Red Book of Selling and Sales Bible.

Self-image Determines More than Sales. https://t.co/qMdomeY9oT

— Jeffrey Gitomer (@gitomer) July 14, 2017

What He’s Tweeting: A prolific writer with a sage perspective on sales, you’ll be most interested to read his original articles that he shares almost every day along with pick-me-up quotes and announcements on where he’s speaking next.

4) Brian Tracy, 391K Followers, @BrianTracy

Who He Is: Brian is a giant in the sales profession. He’s CEO of Brian Tracy International™ and the author of many books including The Psychology of Selling: Increase Your Sales Faster and Easier Than You Ever Thought Possible.

When you #visualize your #goals, you become that much closer to #achieving them. pic.twitter.com/btLD6EGLQL

— Brian Tracy (@BrianTracy) July 12, 2017

What He’s Tweeting: Come to Brian’s Twitter feed for inspiring sales quotes you never knew you needed to hear and stay for entrepreneurial advice that will have you dreaming big. Brian also uses Twitter to share his latest downloadable content and information-rich blog articles.

5) David Hoffeld, 103K Followers, @DavidHoffeld

Who He Is: David serves as CEO and science-based sales trainer at The Hoffeld Group. He’s also the author of The Science of Selling.

The Science of Selling: 5 Proven Sales Strategies @DaveKerpen https://t.co/78kEnfjtRz via @Inc

— David Hoffeld (@DavidHoffeld) July 11, 2017

What He’s Tweeting: You guessed it: David primarily shares scholarly articles on the science behind sales. His passion for the subject is infectious, and his ability to transform science-based sales research into easily implementable tactics is simply amazing.

6) Lori Richardson, 21K Followers, @scoremoresales

Who She Is: Lori is CEO of Score More Sales, a company that coaches, trains, and inspires salespeople and sales leadership to success.

Only 8% of Sales Leaders Coach Effectivelyhttps://t.co/UyeZO59bHi#Sales pic.twitter.com/yMQfst2Y20

— Lori Richardson (@scoremoresales) July 14, 2017

What She’s Tweeting: Lori’s feed is a great daily roundup of actionable industry articles and podcasts. From sales leadership strategies to avoiding the dreaded sales rut, you’ll find a curated variety of blog posts that will have an immediate, positive impact on your day.

7) Grant Cardone, 413K Followers, @GrantCardone

Who He Is: Grant is the best-selling author of If You’re Not First, You’re Last: Sales Strategies to Dominate Your Market and Beat Your Competition and the founder of Grant Cardone Sales Training University.

#LifeIsMoreBeautifulWhen you take responsibility for it#QuoteOfTheDay pic.twitter.com/FZ4QqS5U7Z

— Grant Cardone (@GrantCardone) July 14, 2017

What He’s Tweeting: Follow Grant if you need tips on how to shift your performance into high gear. He also shares insightful advice from himself and other heavy hitters in the industry -- all in 140 characters or less.

8) Anthony Iannarino, 74K Followers, @iannarino

Who He Is: You’ve probably read his writing on The Sales Blog, the popular online publication he runs. He’s also a public speaker and the author of The Only Sales Guide You’ll Ever Need.

The Fear of What If https://t.co/hh83JaHsuj

— Anthony Iannarino (@iannarino) July 14, 2017

What He’s Tweeting: Follow Anthony for a steady stream of well-sourced articles about sales leadership and how to close more deals. Anthony’s feed is also an easy way to stay up-to-date on his latest posts and podcasts for The Sales Blog.

9) Michael Port, 15K Followers, @michaelport

Who He Is: Michael is the New York Times best-selling author of six books including Book Yourself Solid and Steal the Show.

Find out how to use hostage negotiation skills in business on #stealtheshow as I interview Chris Voss. https://t.co/WHcBkPQLmJ pic.twitter.com/KiXoVAEyce

— michaelport (@michaelport) February 20, 2017

What He's Tweeting: He shares new episodes of his weekly podcast, Steal the Show, as well as tips on and trainings for public speaking and sales leadership.

10) Jeb Blount, 123K Followers, @SalesGravy

Who He Is: Jeb is the founder of Sales Gravy, a sales enablement consultancy, and author of Fanatical Prospecting and Sales EQ.

#sales How Millennials Can Convert Boomers into Customers https://t.co/6d5VPQ1Kcr

— Jeb Blount (@SalesGravy) July 13, 2017

What He’s Tweeting: Jeb shares a broad mix of important industry articles (including those from the widely read Sales Gravy Blog). He also shares coaching opportunities and success stories from sales teams and companies Sales Gravy has helped.

11) Bob Burg, 111K Followers, @BobBurg

Who He Is: Bob is a speaker and the best-selling author of The Go-Giver, Endless Referrals, and Adversaries into Allies.

In order to lead well; in order to sell well; one must be willing to serve well.

— Bob Burg (@BobBurg) June 27, 2017

What He’s Tweeting: Head to Bob’s Twitter for the latest installments of his Go-Giver podcast where he interviews impressive entrepreneurs and other sales thought leaders. His feed is also peppered with quick, snackable tips for salespeople and advice from other industry legends.

12) Andrea Waltz, 23K Followers, @GoforNo

Who She Is: Andrea has built a career helping people overcome fear of failure and rejection in the business world. She’s an accomplished keynote speaker and co-author of the best-selling book Go for No!

pic.twitter.com/re51M0yTU6

— Andrea Waltz (@GoforNo) July 14, 2017

What She’s Tweeting: You’ll find quotes, tips, and strategies to help you move past your fear of rejection and close more sales.

13) Dan Waldschmidt, 248K Followers, @DanWaldo

Who He Is: Dan leads a company called The Edgy Empire. In their own words, Edgy gives anyone who wants it, “the kick in the pants they need to pull themselves out of the muck of mediocrity and achieve outrageous success.” You’ll often see him retweeted by many of the other sales experts included on this list.

#ICYMI Getting started is the hardest thing you’ll do. >> "THE WONDER OF GETTING STARTED" https://t.co/KcbTW0YWgZ #business #success

— Dan Waldschmidt (@DanWaldo) July 14, 2017

What He’s Tweeting: Follow Dan for a first look at the hottest podcasts, videos, and articles about sales. Dan shares tons of great resources on finding success and doing away with the excuses that are keeping you from achieving great things.

14) Gary Vaynerchuk, 1.5 Million Followers, @garyvee

Who He Is: We couldn’t have this list without Gary Vee, right? Gary is the CEO of Vaynermedia. He’s also a prolific vlogger, podcaster, and author. Gary made a name for himself as an early investor in Twitter, Snapchat, Uber, and Venmo, but he built the Gary Vee empire from pure hustle.

And again - https://t.co/Wsx3tCVemC pic.twitter.com/mPpZefchvW

— Gary Vaynerchuk (@garyvee) July 11, 2017

What He’s Tweeting: Quotes, advice, articles, and, of course, The #AskGaryVee Show are just a smattering of the offerings you’ll find on his Twitter feed. Working against a huge goal this quarter? This is ground zero for motivation.

15) Jill Konrath, 40K Followers, @jillkonrath

Who She Is: Jill is CEO and chief sales officer of Jill Konrath where she helps salespeople speed up new customer acquisition and win bigger contracts. She’s a regular speaker on the conference circuit and the best-selling author of several books, including Agile Selling and More Sales, Less Time.

The best way to avoid getting stuck in our ways is to ask new, challenging questions. https://t.co/fxzN1EayVr

— Jill Konrath (@jillkonrath) July 13, 2017

What She’s Tweeting: From tips on capturing your prospect’s attention to the latest relevant studies from Harvard, Jill’s Twitter feed is a treasure trove of immediately actionable information.

16) Daniel Pink, 384K Followers, @DanielPink

Who He Is: You may recognize Daniel from his TED Talk on motivation or because you’ve read his popular book, To Sell Is Human. Or maybe you’re a fan of his bi-weekly podcast, Pinkcast. Or perhaps you tune in to his monthly video series, Sell Like a Human. As a salesperson, you should be familiar with Daniel Pink in some capacity, and his Twitter feed is a good place to begin.

Don’t want to do something? Make a deal w/ yourself to do it for 5 minutes. You’ll end up doing the whole thing. https://t.co/zLh3q9CZIi

— Daniel Pink (@DanielPink) June 9, 2017

What He’s Tweeting: Articles about productivity, fostering a better workplace, and scientific findings about sales and marketing are just a few of the topics Daniel covers in his feed.

17) Matt Heinz, 112K Followers, @heinzmarketing

Who He Is: Matt serves as president of Heinz Marketing, Inc., a B2B marketing and sales acceleration firm with serious industry clout.

From Our Archives: How to do a Proper SDR to AE Handoff https://t.co/2sRNxp2QBx

— Matt Heinz (@HeinzMarketing) July 14, 2017

What He’s Tweeting: Follow Matt if you want to keep a pulse on what’s new in the sales industry. You’ll also learn a lot about sales enablement, inside sales effectiveness, and the latest technology that’s pushing the boundaries of success.

18) Jim Keenan, 16.1K Followers, @keenan

Who He Is: Keenan is CEO and president at A Sales Guy, Inc. You’ve probably shared, liked, or read one of his articles on the A Sales Guy’s Blog -- because (rightly so) everyone else is.

Key to #Success is to #Learn! #Entrepreneur #Leadership https://t.co/sP9b5JqUrt pic.twitter.com/rNyTRIuBH8

— Keenan (@keenan) July 9, 2017

What He’s Tweeting: Keenan’s Twitter feed is a convenient way to keep track of his latest posts. You’ll also find a steady stream of actionable sales articles from reputable industry voices. From overcoming prospect objections to questions every sales manager should ask, you’ll find something valuable here every day.

19) Don Cooper, 66.8K Followers, @DonCooper

Who He Is: You might know Don better as The Sales Heretic™. He’s a sales trainer, keynote speaker, and coach for salespeople, business owners, and professionals.

How to Determine Your Ideal Prospect: https://t.co/wMVSLG6zel #Sales #SalesHeretic pic.twitter.com/hON6frC4Q5

— The Sales Heretic™ (@DonCooper) July 14, 2017

What He’s Tweeting: Want tips on crafting better sales presentations? How about a list of things every buyer wishes for? Don curates this type of content and more. Plus, if there’s an industry conference happening he’s probably there tweeting about it so you can watch his feed for live updates.

20) Greg Alexander, 45.7K Followers, @GregAlexander

Who He Is: Greg is CEO of Sales Benchmark Index, a management consulting firm specializing in sales and marketing.

Don't Wait for the "Right" Sales Talent. Develop It. https://t.co/nYZHjjG2ow by @makingthenumber #developtalent #strengths&weaknesses pic.twitter.com/U14V3pfjD0

— Greg Alexander (@GregAlexander) July 13, 2017

What He’s Tweeting: From sales training tips to what revenue attribution can do to your brand, follow Greg for an easy way to learn something helpful and new every day.

21) Nancy Nardin, 27K Followers, @sellingtools

Who She Is: Nancy is the founder of Smart Selling Tools, a company that advises on how to build strategies for enviable sales growth. She’s also a Forbes Top 30 Social Selling Thought Leader.

"10 Bucks Says Your VP of Sales Asks ‘Why’ More Than Your 3yr Old Does." https://t.co/LD6MixtRN6 by @TheMichiMouse @AvisoInc pic.twitter.com/MgR8XsVVSd

— Nancy Nardin (@sellingtools) July 14, 2017

What She’s Tweeting: You’ll find helpful webinars, infographics, and killer articles in Nancy’s feed. She specializes in sharing educational content that’s geared towards increasing sales, handling rejection, and, of course, highlighting the latest tools in sales technology.

22) Mark Roberge, 15K Followers, @markroberge

Who He Is: Mark is a senior lecturer at Harvard Business School and the former chief revenue officer at HubSpot. He’s also author of the best-selling book, The Sales Acceleration Formula.

My article: How Sales Comp Plans Impact Customer Churn https://t.co/V8mXWlV3nV pic.twitter.com/D03ErC0LpX

— Mark Roberge (@markroberge) February 7, 2017

What He’s Tweeting: Mark shares a healthy mix of customer success and sales articles about a broad range of topics, from jumpstarting stagnant business growth to sales mistakes that can kill your SaaS business.

23) Shane Gibson, 37K Followers, @shanegibson

Who He Is: Shane is a professional sales instructor at Langara College and the author of Closing Bigger: The Field Guide to Closing Bigger Deals.

Great #sales quote by @shanegibson: pic.twitter.com/EoZJ2ZDyQS

— Mike Aoki (@mikeaoki) July 12, 2017

What He’s Tweeting: Shane is an active guest blogger around the web, so following him on Twitter is a great way to keep track of his latest work. You’ll also find quotes that will keep you motivated and articles all about maintaining a competitive edge.

24) Trish Bertuzzi, 22K Followers, @bridgegroupinc

Who She Is: Trish is president and chief strategist at The Bridge Group, Inc., an inside sales consulting company. She’s also author of The Sales Development Playbook: Build Repeatable Pipeline and Accelerate Growth with Inside Sales.

“Every time we try to do two or more things at once, we’re simply dividing up our focus & dumbing down all of the outcomes in the process.”

— Trish Bertuzzi (@bridgegroupinc) May 24, 2017

What She’s Tweeting: Follow Trish for honest, pull-no-punches advice and tactical articles you might not find anywhere else.

25) Mark Hunter, 47K Followers, @TheSalesHunter

Who He Is: Mark is a veteran salesman who has 15-plus years experience with Fortune 500 companies. Today he’s a professional speaker, consultant, and the author of two books, High-Profit Selling: Win the Sale Without Compromising on Price and High-Profit Prospecting.

RT @srtpshow: "It's about handling the opportunities right." - @TheSalesHunter #business #marketing #opportunities pic.twitter.com/g205DoE2Mu

— Mark Hunter (@TheSalesHunter) July 12, 2017

What He’s Tweeting: Mark shares smart articles about being a great sales manager, avoiding mediocrity, and achieving long-term success.