Until a few years ago, “growth marketing” was a rather obscure term, known and practiced by only a handful of people.
That isn’t true anymore. More and more businesses have growth teams whose sole responsibility is to – you guessed it – accelerate growth. Building an integrated, scalable growth machine is truly one of the biggest competitive advantages your business can have, especially if you work in technology. This data-driven, process-focused approach to marketing can unlock exponential growth at any stage of your business’ existence.

I’ll show you how to build this growth machine here.

Master the Growth Mindset

If you want to build a growth machine, you have to first adopt a growth-focused mindset. At the heart of this philosophy are three core beliefs:

1. Process over tactics

Growth is seldom the result of a single great hack or idea. It is usually the culmination of several good ideas. Slack didn’t become big just because it had a clever sign-up process; it became big because it did multiple things right – sign-up, onboarding, etc.

When you focus on tactics, you essentially rely on one-off “hacks” that may or may not work for your business. You see the trees, but you miss the forest. A process-driven approach, however, is scalable and modular. You don’t have to rely on a single great idea because your process will naturally yield multiple tactical opportunities.

2. Accountability and freedom

The most successful growth teams eschew conventional management structures in favor of freedom and individual accountability. While they might report to a growth manager, each team member should be free to work on his own ideas (as long as they result in growth).

At the same time, the growth team should have freedom to access any resource or data across the organization. Growth marketing depends on rapid experimentation. You can’t do this if the growth team has to seek approval to create the experiment or access data. In other words, your growth team should be able to move across departments and should be accountable to itself.

3. Data-driven experimentation

Experimentation lies at the heart of any successful growth machine. This essentially means that you test out ideas rapidly, gather data and use the learnings in future experiments. While there is room for intuitive experimentation, much of your testing should be data-driven. This data can be either quantitative or qualitative. Once you understand the growth hacking mindset, you can move onto figuring out your goals and brainstorming ideas, as I’ll show below.

Figure Out Your Goals

A successful growth machine is goal-oriented. You don’t just start off by saying that you want to run a few experiments. You have to have clear objectives and a timeframe in which to meet those objectives.

Here’s a two-step process you can use to create a goal-oriented growth machine:

1. Identify your growth objectives

Your growth objective is not necessarily the same as your business objective. The latter is aimed at meeting business targets while the former is focused on scaling growth. For example, a SaaS business might have “increasing MRR” as its business objective. The growth objective, however, might be “increasing activations.” The implication is that scaling activations can lead to higher MRR.

To identify your growth objectives, ask yourself: “What can we do to maximize our growth? What metrics will lead to the biggest impact on our growth curve?”

Segregate your objectives into two categories:

• Macro objectives: Broad metrics that impact growth, such as traffic, activations, page views, etc.
• Micro objectives: Narrow metrics related to macro objectives. For example, if your macro objective is “traffic,” you might have “organic traffic” as a micro objective.

2. Set a timeframe to achieve objectives

Growth marketing campaigns are deadline-focused by design. Without aggressive deadlines, you might carry on experiments for too long (or cut them too short) to have an impact.

For each objective, set a timeframe for measuring results. This should be between 30 and 90 days. Shorter than that and you likely won’t have enough data to measure impact. Anything longer is too slow to be worth your time.

Of course, some objectives, such as “increasing organic traffic,” will require a longer period of experimentation to yield results. Use your own judgment and previous data to set this timeframe.

Brainstorm and Prioritize Ideas

Once you have a list of objectives and a timeframe in which to achieve them, you can start brainstorming experiment ideas.
Here are a few things you can do to make this process easier:

1. Maintain a central repository of ideas

Create a spreadsheet to store all ideas and store this sheet company wide. This is your central “idea bank” and anyone within and outside of the growth team can contribute to it. You’ll be surprised at the number of ideas that come from people outside of the marketing department.

This idea bank should include past, current and prospective experiments. For each experiment, list:

• Idea
• Expected results
• Expected timeframe
• Resources required
• Actual results (for completed experiments)

You can refer to this idea bank when you’re brainstorming new experiment ideas. It will also be valuable for creating playbooks for employees joining your team in the future.

2. Brainstorm ideas

To brainstorm ideas, use the following:

• Qualitative data: Any learnings from surveys, customer interviews, etc.
• Quantitative data: Hard data gathered by your analytics software.
• Secondary data: Data from case studies and experiments conducted by others.

For example, suppose your analytics data shows that customers coming in through a particular keyword have a very high activation rate. You could use this to brainstorm ideas for improving rankings for similar keywords.

When using secondary data, it’s important to focus on general takeaways rather than specific tactics. For instance, if a case study shows that changing the CTA color to orange increases conversion rates, your takeaway should be to change CTA design (and not necessarily to make it orange).

Dump any and all brainstormed ideas into your idea bank.

3. Prioritize ideas

After a serious brainstorming session, you’ll likely have a long list of ideas. Prioritize these ideas based on:

• Chance of success: How likely is the idea to succeed based on existing data from similar experiments? If you don’t have data, use secondary data from publicly available case studies.
• Resources required: The amount of resources (design, programming or marketing) required to develop and test the idea.
• Timeframe: The amount of time it will take to develop the idea.

Understand that we have a tendency to underestimate the amount of time it takes to develop an idea and to overestimate its impact. Be realistic when estimating the above figures. All time and resource-intensive ideas should be low priority. At least initially, target quick wins – high-impact, low-resource ideas that you can deploy quickly. Based on this, divide your ideas into three categories: “low,” “medium” and “high.”

Run Experiments

After you have a prioritized list of ideas, start running experiments. Attack high-priority ideas aggressively, making sure to stick to the established timeframe. Follow an MVP (Minimally Viable Product) model for your experiments. You don’t have to be perfect; you just have to be effective. Depending on the size of your team, you can have multiple experiments running simultaneously.

Analyze Results

Once an experiment has run its course and you have meaningful data, analyze your results. Focus your analysis on two things:

• Results: What was the impact of the experiment on your target metrics? What was the impact on secondary or even tertiary metrics?
• Prediction accuracy: How accurate were your experiment predictions? A high degree of accuracy means that you can prioritize ideas better in the future.

Besides these, conduct a deeper analysis to understand why the experiment succeeded (or failed). Come up with multiple hypotheses based on your own and others’ data.

For example, suppose you’re running a conversion experiment where changing a CTA color improves sign-up rates. You might hypothesize these reasons for the experiment success:

• New color stands out against existing background.
• New color aligns with customer expectations for this CTA type.
• New color uses color psychology effectively.

Store these hypotheses in your idea bank. Use results from similar future experiments to corroborate/refute each hypothesis. As you do this on an ongoing basis, you will develop a better understanding of your audience.

Implement and Scale

Implement the experiment if it’s a success (i.e. it meets your stated objectives). If it’s not, take it back to the idea bank.
To scale your growth machine, create a detailed document for each experiment where you list the following:

• Experiment idea
• Predictions/estimations
• Stated objective and timeframe
• Experiment assets and resources used
• Time and resources taken to develop idea
• Experiment result
• Prediction accuracy
• Result hypotheses

Use these documents to create in-depth playbooks that others can follow and learn from. These playbooks should state what you currently know about your audience, what kind of experiments work (and what don’t), and best practices.
These playbooks will help you scale your growth marketing.

Creating a scalable, integrated growth machine isn’t an overnight process. It requires resources, commitment and the willingness to follow an experiment-focused, process-driven approach to growth. Start off by following the framework I’ve shared above. It might not work for every organization, but it’s a good place to start for any organization – and if you need help, a reputable digital marketing agency can get you started.

The post How to Build and Scale a Truly Integrated Growth Machine appeared first on OpenView Labs.

raphaelsilva / Pixabay

Yes, you can schedule tweets through Twitter.

Unfortunately, you can’t schedule from your main account, such as your profile or home feed. Instead, you need to follow a step-by-step process requiring access to your Twitter advertising platform.

The How-To Guide

These are the steps to take if you want to schedule tweets through Twitter itself. After this guide, I offer alternatives to using the Twitter platform to schedule your tweets.

1) Select “Twitter Ads” from the drop-down menu you access via your profile icon.

2) Select “Tweets” from the Creatives menu option above your Twitter ads dashboard.

3) Select “New Tweet” from the top right of your tweets dashboard.

4) Select “Scheduling” from the tweet creation box.

5) Create your tweet and choose the scheduling options you prefer.

6) Schedule your tweet to see it appear in your tweets dashboard.

Those are the basic steps to scheduling tweets. It’s more complicated than ideal, so I have some suggestions for third-party social scheduling tools…

Social Media Management Tools

Buffer

Buffer offers a free plan that allows for 10 scheduled tweets at a time. If you need more than that, you can sign up for one of their affordable plans. I use their free plan, which is sufficient for my needs, but I highly recommend investing in a paid plan for access to more features and getting rid of the restrictions from the free plan.

A bonus to using Buffer is that the tool allows you to pick any time you want. It can be 1:24 or 9:38 or whatever you’d like. They don’t limit you to every five minutes like other tools do.

Hootsuite

With Hootsuite, you can schedule as many tweets as you’d like for free. The free plan restrictions don’t affect that. They offer paid plans if you want to upgrade, but you honestly don’t need to invest if all you want to do is schedule tweets.

The only negative with Hootsuite is that you can’t choose to schedule at any time. They restrict you to every five minutes. If you want more freedom to your timing, you might want to switch to Buffer or…

Tweetdeck

Twitter does offer its own social management platform, Tweetdeck, which gives you the option to schedule tweets. It’s a free tool, and it offers the ability to schedule at any time. If you’re looking to use Twitter to schedule tweets, Tweetdeck is your closest option.

The other tools mentioned are useful if you want to do more than schedule tweets. They offer more features than you might need in this case.

— — —

Did this guide answer your question? Or, do you have another question? Leave a comment with your input, and your question might be featured in a future FAQs post!

If you’re making this common (and easily avoidable) mistake on LinkedIn, you’re costing yourself clients and customers as a result.

Having spent the past 60 months studying every possible element of LinkedIn lead generation, I’ve discovered one conversion-killing mistake that keeps popping up over and over again.

Every single day, without fail, I wake up, turn on my computer, and scream out loud in frustration.

Every single day, without fail, doing so wakes up Rosie (our Wheaten Terrier) and sees her jump about three feet into the air as a result.

Are You Making This Massive LinkedIn Mistake?

Here’s what is happening: People I’ve just connected to on LinkedIn have decided, without asking for my permission, to add me to their email autoresponders and/or mass email distribution lists.

As a result, I get home listings from real estate agents in Atlanta, Georgia. (I live in Minnesota.)

I also get offers to attend “local B2B networking events” in Sydney, Australia. (Again, I live in Minnesota, roughly 9,000 miles away.)

Finally, I get offers, pitches and content related to topics, industries and services I have no need for or interest in.

Do You Like This?

Let me ask you a question: Do you enjoy getting interrupted?

Do you love when someone knocks on your front door during a family dinner to try and sell you new windows or financial planning services?

Do you wait in eager anticipation every evening for a stranger to call you while dinner is burning and the kids are screaming to ask if your small business is looking for a loan at a competitive interest rate?

Of course not.

Nobody (and I mean nobody!) likes being interrupted with unsolicited, irrelevant marketing messages and sales offers in real life.

So why do people think it’s a good idea to do online?

On behalf of all that is sacred, and (more important) on behalf of my sleeping dog, please stop adding your new and existing LinkedIn connections to your email lists!

What You Should Be Doing Instead

If you’re guilty of this mistake, I want you to stop interrupting, aggravating and annoying people online in the hope that they will pay attention long enough to listen to your pitch.

Instead, I want you to try and earn their time and attention.

One simple way is to create free, valuable content that solves a problem or meets a specific need for your target audience.

You can create and then offer this content (it could be a webinar, a free eBook, a free video training, etc.) in exchange for a person opting into your email list.

And, in a logical fashion, if someone opts-in to get your free eBook or video series on Topic XYZ, he or she is likely open to hearing more about that topic, and thus he or she is going to be more open and receptive to further communication about it.

How To Market in Today’s Online World

Instead of interrupting, you must “buy” the time and attention of your prospects online by creating high-quality, high-value and entertaining content that helps people solve their biggest professional or personal problems.

Also, instead of just “claiming” authority or expertise online (I’m looking at you, “Gurus,” “Ninjas” and “Wizards”), we first demonstrate it via a blog post, podcast, webinar, YouTube video or other piece of content.

Again, we must earn the right to pitch someone our product or service!

And we can only do this after we’ve proven our value to that person, and after that person has indicated he or she is interested in hearing more about home listings in Atlanta or local B2B networking events in Sydney.

To do otherwise is to both waste your time and a surefire way to alienate prospects online.

Look At This Face

The next time you get tempted to take your hundreds (or thousands) of LinkedIn connections, export them and mass-add them to your email auto-responder, I want you to look at this face.

Think about Rosie, think about me screaming in frustration and think about her jumping into the air in terror as a result of being woken up yet again.

Instead of interrupting, go out, create great content for a specific, target audience using a medium you love (audio, video, written word, etc.), and make sure it brings legitimate and real value to that target audience.

If you do, you’ll not only earn more customers on LinkedIn, you’ll also let sleeping dogs lie!

No matter what industry you’re in, you’ve likely received some form of, “Why should I do business with you?”

When most salespeople hear this question, they go into tap-dance mode and immediately list all the reasons why they’re great: “Our company is the best, our service is outstanding, we’ve been around for 100 years, and we have the best quality.”

Of course, your prospect expects you to say this, because your competitors are using this same response.

Think about it -- everyone claims to have the best quality and service, even if it isn’t true. Read on to learn how you can switch up your approach, dominate the competition, and capture your prospects’ attention when they ask, “Why should I do business with you?”

1) Start by saying, “I’m not sure that you should.”

Again, your prospects are expecting a tap dance, so this response will completely catch them off guard. It may be unexpected, but it’s also the truth: You’re never sure a prospect is a fit until you’ve had a thorough conversation. Not only is this response more genuine, but it also boosts your credibility. After all, no doctor claims to have the answer until they fully understand the problem at hand.

To learn more about this approach, check out the video below:

2) Explain, “I’ll need to know more.”

This shows prospects it isn’t a lack of confidence making you unsure whether they should do business with you. Instead, you’ll come off as the expert who never rushes to make a judgment. While most salespeople swear they’re a solution to everything for everyone, you’ll show that you take a prescriptive approach.

3) Ask, “Would it be okay if I asked you some questions to determine whether I can actually help you?”

This critical question flips the entire interaction on its head. Instead of your prospect grilling you while you perform, you’ll be the one asking the questions -- with their permission. This relieves any pressure to pitch your product or service, instead letting you focus on fully understanding whether there’s a fit.

4) Prompt them by saying, “Tell me about the biggest challenge you’re facing right now.”

This simple prompt allows you to engage your prospect on the real issues they’re facing. At this point, your conversation is no longer about your offering and is instead centered around what the other person hopes to accomplish. This is how to start a value-based conversation with any prospect -- and it’s radically different from the typical conversation that begins with the challenge, “Why should I do business with you?”

To get more insight into improving your sales approach, take this free one-minute sales strengths-finder quiz.

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Telensa, a manufacturer of smart streetlights, saw its revenues double year-over-year, according to The Register.

Further, the company announced that it will move production of its smart streetlights from Asia back to Wales later this year, which is where the firm's corporate headquarters is located.

The company's streetlights can be remotely controlled and monitored by cities that deploy them. They can be connected via Sigfox or LoRa networks — two popular low-power wide area network (LPWAN) standards specifically designed to connect IoT devices.

This news gives some insight into where Telensa thinks future smart city growth will be:

• Developed markets like Europe have thus far been the driver of smart city adoption. While the North American market has been slow to progress, European cities have been among the world leaders in adopting smart city solutions, largely thanks to an EU initiative. That includes cities such as Barcelona, Copenhagen, London, and Vienna. That also means the European market was likely the region driving Telensa's revenue to double year-over-year.
• Moving production back to the UK might suggest Telensa expects that this trend will continue. Telensa could be moving its production back to Europe to be closer to the bulk of its client base. And while the production location may not matter for some goods, it could matter for smart city products that are bought by local governments, which are often cash strapped and want to test out the products before buying them in bulk to see if their value to the city outweighs their often expensive cost. 

Smart cities are cities that leverage IoT devices like sensors, smart lights, and smart meters to gather data that can be analyzed to gain new insights regarding their infrastructure, population, and public services.

The smart cities segment has enormous potential as a market for IoT solutions, but it is also an inherently slow-moving market. However, many cities are starting to address these challenges, and smart city development around the world is accelerating.

Jonathan Camhi, research analyst for BI Intelligence, Business Insider's premium research service, has compiled a detailed report on smart cities that:

• Details the different types of smart cities technologies and applications that have become most prevalent in different markets around the world.
• Provides examples of some of the top smart city projects in different regions that address transportation, energy, crime, and other issues.
• Explains how unique social, political, and economic factors are impacting smart city development in different regions.
• Details factors that could help jumpstart smart city development in the Americas, Africa, and other parts of the world that have lagged behind comparable markets.
• Explains the unique barriers to smart city development in different parts of the world, such as data privacy concerns in Europe and lack of support from the federal government in the US.

To get the full report, subscribe to an All-Access pass to BI Intelligence and gain immediate access to this report and more than 250 other expertly researched reports. As an added bonus, you'll also gain access to all future reports and daily newsletters to ensure you stay ahead of the curve and benefit personally and professionally. » Learn More Now

You can also purchase and download the full report from our research store.

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This post from Jeff Immelt, chairman of GE, originally appeared on LinkedIn. He shared it with employees on July 31, his final day as CEO. Immelt succeeded GE's legendary previous CEO, Jack Welch, taking over on Sept. 7, 2001, four days before the terrorist attacks. He also led GE through the 2008 financial crises.

I shared the following blog post with GE employees. It’s about the lessons I learned as CEO of the company. Tomorrow, I will pass the baton over to John Flannery, who I know is the right person to lead GE into the future.

Today is my last day as CEO of GE. Tomorrow, John Flannery takes charge of the world’s premier digital industrial company. I’ve known John for 20 years. He is a thoughtful, disciplined and inspiring leader. Our teams and customers respect his judgment and his global focus. He is the right person to lead GE into the future.

As I transition, I will be working closely with John and key stakeholders. However, this is my last blog to you. I thought I would offer some of the lessons I learned while leading GE. Leadership is a “one-act play,” and I’m sure John will do the job his own way. On the other hand, learning is a part of the DNA for all good leaders. I never stopped learning, and I know John will keep growing.

1. Set purpose with high standards. You must always conceptualize the future; have a point of view. Set a high bar and hold people accountable. Be willing to fight in the alley to preserve reputation. “Be on watch” every minute of every day. Be respectful and motivating; be a competitor. Always focus on the important stuff.

2. Make the really tough decisions. These are the ones that no one really wants to do: cut the dividend, sell NBCU, buy Alstom. As CEO you must not fear judgment or criticism. Remember, every job or decision looks easy until you are the one on the line. And, always take the high road. I learned (the hard way) that you can’t control events; you can control yourself. But good leaders choose to take the high road.

3. The future comes. Never apologize for investing in it. The long term is about more than a series of short terms. It is about ideas. The Industrial Internet and Additive Manufacturing will define GE in the future. Don’t give up. Our best GE businesses have had a “True North” to build the future. Sometimes our owners have a different time horizon or value metrics more than the process. Good business people value the journey as well.

4. Keep perception and reality in sync. This is not about candor; that is the easy part. Facts without context isn’t truth. Sometimes people want to “unload everything on their mind” and call it candor. They feel better, everyone else feels worse. Always be transparent, but bring solutions. Remember that facts are a path to progress, not a way to pass judgment. Truth telling requires facts and context.

5. Act big and small, long and short; keep a lot of thoughts to yourself. The best leaders are versatile thinkers. Must be comfortable with strategy and details. Must have a world view that is 10-20 years out; and quarterly. Leave a few things “unsaid,” so that others can have the last word.

6. Deputize others. Trust your team. We move fastest when teams are purposeful and empowered. Our winning initiatives … global, digital, Ecomagination … all had strong teams that could move quickly and leverage our scale. Organization power should be distributed.

7. We win in markets, not conference rooms. It is easy to get trapped inside the company. I truly believe that customers determine our success. Surround yourself with “scouts” who will negotiate for the future. You must listen to them. Be willing to experiment and fail. But winning requires doing and not talking. GE has a record high backlog and market share that will pay off over time. Leading in markets must be existential, like oxygen.

8. Like the work more than the title. I worked for you and the investors. Every day away from the central task … at conferences, external councils, etc. … is a day off of mission. I never cared that much about being a CEO, but I loved the multitude of tasks that a CEO did. No job was ever beneath me. At GE, purpose and commitment matter.

9. Never give up. Mike Tyson said, “Everyone has a strategy until they get punched in the nose.” I know we can get better. Leadership is a deep journey into yourself. How fast can you learn? How much can you change? What do you want to give? What will you put up with?

10. Lead in the moment. Give fully of yourself… always appreciate work, workers and jobs. Every minute I was with the GE team … they were the most important thing in the world to me. I have never met someone more dedicated to what they do than an engineer who works on an aircraft engine or a piece of healthcare equipment. You must build personal relationships. Top performers -- in any field -- want do work that matters, and they want to be part of something bigger. Leading GE requires an ability to focus on each person, helping them do their best work together.

GE today is a global infrastructure powerhouse. We have re-imagined our strategy and culture, building a deep, focused portfolio with leadership in the world’s most important industries. We are also who we’ve always been: a company of dedicated, driven people with a deep sense of mission. We are a meritocracy with the highest standards. We stand up for our global teams and customers and embrace diversity in all forms.

We’ve come to this historic company for many reasons. Mainly, we’ve joined GE to do something more, to be a part of something bigger, and to make a difference for the world we serve. Today -- and tomorrow -- that work continues.

SEE ALSO: How a laid-off woman in her 50s learned to code and launched a whole new career

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NOW WATCH: Inside the exclusive multimillion-dollar San Francisco street that a couple bought for $90,000

tpsdave / Pixabay

At this point, many of us in B2B space have realized that focusing on leads as individuals and qualifying them one-by-one to hand off to the sales team no longer works.

The B2B lead handoff process is broken. Research shows that upwards of 80 percent of leads generated by marketing are neglected or never acted upon by a sales rep. On one hand, sales teams don’t have enough contextual data to figure out how to effectively follow-up with leads or determine what content or personalized message to send to key contacts. On the other hand, marketers lack visibility into why deals move slowly or lose momentum after the handoff. This leads to trouble in predicting pipeline and lost revenue down the line.

In the face of these problems, many organizations are shifting towards an account-based approach to marketing and sales. These marketing and sales teams have made a commitment to work in tandem to drive engagement with multiple stakeholders within target accounts and create a seamless experience for their target accounts.

To make this vision into a reality, organizations need to revamp their intelligence gathering strategies. Marketers and sellers both need much more contextual information on their target prospects and accounts to ensure that outreach is on-time and relevant to each individual and their account.

To execute a successful ABM program, marketers need on-demand access to data that helps them:

• Define and identify high potential customers and accounts
• Focus outbound efforts on highly targeted prospective customers
• Personalize and contextualize engagement

Meanwhile, sellers need data that helps them increase sales velocity and opportunities. When going after target accounts, sales reps need data that helps them:

• Increase their understanding of the account
• Expand and refine opportunities
• Relate to individual buyers
• Act quickly on news and trends that affect the opportunity

The role of intent data in Account Based Marketing

Intent data is any time-based information that give you clues about individuals’ and organizations’ interests and impending purchases.

Broadly speaking, there are two type of intent data. There’s data generated through people’s engagements with your owned digital content, such as the pages on your website a lead visits, the emails they open, the e-books they download and the links they click on through your social media posts. But most marketers only have this data on a small portion of the contacts in their database. Internally at Socedo, we found that only 7% of our marketing prospects were making it to our website or engaging with our emails.

Then, there’s data generated through people’s engagements with content on the broader web (third-party). These actions include reading articles on industry publications (i.e. CIO.com, Marketingland.com), watching webinars on business or technology topics in B2B-focused online learning communities (i.e. BrightTalk.com), reading software reviews on a site like G2Crowd and discussing key topics with peers on social media or following influencers in your space on social media.

At this point, there are data providers who are providing insights into the “footprints” prospects leave behind throughout their digital buying journeys. Vendors typically use one of three methods to collecting this behavioral data to determine intent: analyzing activity on social networks such as scanning posts; analyzing content consumption across a publishing network and analyzing engagement with display advertising across the public Internet. In all cases, intent is established by matching keywords relevant for the seller’s offering to the content the prospect engaged with.

With intent data, you can turn four common ABM challenges into advantages.

1 – Finding the right time to contact prospects

Under an Account Based Marketing approach, sales reps are given a list of target accounts and key decision-makers within these accounts. Unfortunately, without access to additional data on the prospects’ behavior, reps still have no idea on whether these accounts are in a buying cycle or if they have an immediate need your company can fulfill.

Using third party intent data, you can identify the target accounts and prospects to focus on right now. Here are the signals of intent to look out for:

1. When someone reads articles and/or views content on your product category in your space on reputable third party sites/content communities.
2. When someone engages with your corporate social media accounts. Social media actions including follows, mentions, replies, shares, and clicks on posts all signify different levels of interest and should be weighed in your lead scoring model.
3. When someone creates and/or shares content on social media on key topics in your space
4. When someone creates and/or shares content on social media on popular industry conferences or events in your space
5. When someone follows, or engages with industry influencers or brands/technologies that are complementary to yours
6. When someone follows, mentions, or replies to your competition on social media

In today’s market, intent data providers including Bombora and 6Sense have developed portals / UI where you can go see a list of accounts that have recently been reading content on topics you care about. Salespeople can then focus their outreach on these accounts.

Other intent data providers can sync intent signals at the individual contact level into your sales reps’ native habitat. For example, Socedo can push Twitter-based intent signals onto lead records as new fields into marketing automation platforms such as Marketo or Oracle Eloqua. From there, this data can be synced into Salesforce CRM or an Account Based Marketing automation & orchestration platform such as Engagio.

With this level of granularity, a sales rep now has a lot more insights to be able to craft a personalized and relevant message to engage a prospect. This information can also help sales reps re-connect with contacts who have not responded to their recent messages.

2 – Finding the right people to talk to within a target account Is hard

A lot of times in larger organizations, it’s challenging to figure out who are the decision-makers and stakeholders for a potential purchase. As companies grow and evolve and people take on responsibilities outside the original scope of their position, role and job titles change. When you are as likely to run into a “Chief Happiness Officer” as you are a “Head of HR”, job titles can no longer be relied on to help you find the decision-maker within a specific account.

Using intent data, you can find the right target accounts and the right person to speak to at those accounts based on the topics they are interested in, and not just their job titles.

Here are a few ways this data can enrich your target account profiles:

• Keywords in your lead’s own social media posts can give you an indication of what their main priorities are, which will better inform you of their main responsibilities at your target company.
• Certain data providers who require user registration to view content on their sites can give you a list of individuals who recently consumed content that match your keywords.

3 – Figuring out what content will resonate with your targets

Making sure that your content resonates with your target audience is one of the toughest parts of B2B marketing. By tracking the topics and keywords your target prospects care about, you’ll be able to group accounts and leads into the right campaign tracks and figure out what content to create based on people’s interests.

For example, if you knew that some portion of your target prospects are following a certain influencer or brand on Twitter, you may decide to invest in developing joint content with that influencer or brand. If you found out that a number of targets are talking about Topic X on social media but you have no content on that topic, it may be time to invest in new content on how your company is thinking about the topic and helping people solve a problem.

4 – Identify risks and opportunities on your existing customer base

While account managers should always be in tune to a customer’s needs, customers are not always open to sharing until there is a problem or until you’ve missed an opportunity. That’s why 87% of companies using account-based marketing say it provides significant benefits to retaining and expanding existing client relationships.

Rather than focusing just on your point of contact within a target company, you can maintain a view of the entire account. By tracking your client account’s content consumption patterns and social media activities, you can identify cues on when a current account is ready to grow or might be at risk of churn.

Conclusion

For an Account Based Marketing strategy to work, companies need to focus on three initiatives:

• Continually improve communication between marketing and sales
• Create an organization-wide awareness of who their target accounts are and their pain points
• Develop a robust data acquisition and intelligence gathering strategy

Organizations need to support these initiatives with Account Based Marketing software such as DemandBase, Engagio, Terminus and new data sources. By adding third party intent data into their systems of engagement, organizations can greatly improve the effectiveness of their ABM program.

kaboompics / Pixabay

Salespeople have a tough job. They have to be personable and engaging, convincing and empathetic, knowledgeable and patient… all while keeping track of a whole host of metrics and best practices in their space.

The concept of sales enablement can help your sales team achieve all of the above and more. Here’s how.

What is sales enablement?

The core idea behind sales enablement is to empower salespeople to sell more efficiently. In order to do this, sales enablement leverages technology, processes and content.

Technology – Sales automation and CRM tools are useful for sale enablement, as they help salespeople streamline their process and eliminate manual, repetitive tasks. This allows them to focus more on building relationships and closing deals.

Processes – Every aspect of your sales process should be oriented towards enablement, from onboarding new reps to refreshing content on a regular basis.

Content – Content is possibly the most important piece of the sales enablement puzzle. Using content as a selling tool, reps can be much more effective at engaging with prospects. They can provide them with information that is valuable, timely and compelling in order to move them closer to a sale.

Why is sales enablement so important?

When an organization is focused on sales enablement, all activities will align with the goals of closing more deals. Each salesperson will be given more (and better) content and resources from the marketing team which they can then use to educate themselves and engage buyers.

Some benefits your organization could see by taking a sales enablement approach include:

• A more knowledgeable sales team
• The democratization of your sales team: each member now has access to the same resources so you’re not relying on a handful of superstars to make all of the sales
• More, and more targeted, content being created for both your sales and marketing programs
• Better word of mouth and more chances for social sharing from prospects
• Longer lifetime values from buyers

Sales enablement tips and tricks

If you want to implement a sales enablement program in your own organization, here are some ideas to make it possible:

• Clearly define the goals and tactics of sales enablement for your organization. If you want to help your sales team to sell more effectively, for instance, will you do this by producing more white papers? Scheduling customer feedback calls? Creating sales brochures or presentations?
• Conduct a content audit to determine what pieces are most valuable to your buyer.
• Work with your marketing team to develop a schedule for regularly producing new content that will support sales efforts.
• Have a plan for onboarding new reps so that they are aware of your sales enablement philosophy and have access to all of the tools and content from the start.
• Consider selecting a small number of reps to pilot the project first, especially if your sales team is very large.
• Develop a training and/or coaching program to get all of your reps up and running as smoothly as possible.

We’ve written before on the importance of brand research. But today, I want to help you understand exactly how it gives your firm an advantage in the marketplace.

What specific points of leverage does a firm that conducts research have that it didn’t before? Let me begin by explaining what I mean by the term “brand research.” Brand research is a process that firms can use to measure their reputation and visibility in the marketplace. But it is more than a benchmarking tool. It also can help a firm understand how it is perceived by prospective clients and what untapped opportunities exist for growth.

Below is a little chart I love to show clients. It’s based on research Hinge did to reveal the relationship between research and business growth.

While firms that conduct frequent research correlate strongly with the highest levels of growth, those that do even modest levels of research tend to perform well above average. But what’s behind this relationship? How do brand insights turn into competitive advantage and growth?

Let’s check out some answers.

1. You’ll Know Where You Stand

Brand research can give you a clear picture of your marketplace. To be more specific, it can reveal how clients and prospects perceive your firm — and how they see your competitors.

If your research partner has compiled data on your industry, they may be able to benchmark your results against firms similar to yours. That means you’ll be able to compare your practice to competitors across a range of metrics. This knowledge is useful because it will give you a read on the health of your marketing — where you are strong and which parts of the business need work.

Here’s a key point. Having empirical evidence, untainted by your team’s natural biases and assumptions, is so important. It gives you the tools to make critical strategic decisions, such as how to position your firm (more on this in a moment) and where to put your limited marketing dollars.

At Hinge, we use brand research to measure a client’s brand strength. This metric consists of two components: 1) visibility, and 2) reputation.

Naturally, a firm that scores well in both of these categories has a strong brand. It is both well-known and highly regarded. Now, if you have a great reputation among your clients but low visibility, you know right away where you need to focus your resources — on activities that make you better known in the marketplace. If you have good visibility but a low reputation, you may need to work on operational aspects of your business, such as client service, quality assurance and training.

Research exposes a host of other invaluable insights, as well. For instance, our clients almost always discover that buyers in their market identify a very different set of competitors than they do, themselves. On average, there is only a 25% overlap between the two lists. That means you probably have no clue whom you are really competing against. Research can heal that blindness.

2. Adjust Your Positioning

Perhaps the most powerful thing you can do with brand research is assess and adjust your positioning. If you have never done brand research before, chances are you’ll be positioning your firm for the first time — and what a tremendous difference it can make!

Taking your firm through a differentiation and positioning exercise will give you a whole new way of talking about and selling your services. Finally, you will have a compelling story to tell about your firm, one that separates you from the rest of the crowd.

You may even find yourself compelled to make changes that sharpen your advantages. For example, you might specialize in a particular area of strength. If you have positioned your firm in the past, brand research allows you to reassess your differentiators and positioning. Is everything airtight? Or do you need to adjust to changes in the marketplace?

It’s not unusual, for example, for a new competitor to emerge that challenges your positioning. You may need to address the challenger head-on, ignore them if you determine the challenger poses little threat, or reposition your firm. Just like everything-marketing, you’ll want to consistently measure and adjust to stay on target – which takes us to…

3. Discover How Clients’ Needs Have Changed

It’s just common sense: the more you know about your clients and what specific services they need, the better you can serve them. And yet firms can be remarkably out of touch with the marketplace.

Clients’ preferences change, new pressures arise, unexpected threats appear on the horizon. But many service firms assume that it’s always sunny in Client Land.

Since many professional services firms don’t do any regular brand or market research, they often don’t notice gathering clouds. Brand research provides an opportunity to get a weather report on your target audiences. How’s the economy affecting the industry? What’s their biggest fear? What services would do they most want right now? How about six months from now?

Monitoring issues like these can give you a tangible advantage over competitors. You’ll have the intel you need to calibrate your messaging and services to the conditions on the ground.

4. Learn What Your Target Audience Looks for in a Firm

Pretend for a moment to close your eyes. What if you could know what clients were looking for when searching for a new firm? And what if you knew what factors would tip a tight, competitive bid in your favor?

Would you have an unfair advantage? Sure you would. And brand research can answer these very questions. When we conduct research for our clients, we ask their clients and prospects a series of questions designed to unwrap the mysteries around firm selection. Their answers provide a blueprint you can use to retool your firm — to become a sort of platonic ideal of a professional services firm.

In our own client research, we find common themes across engagements — most buyers are looking for specialized expertise and a good reputation, for instance — but the details vary greatly from market to market. Brand research will uncover competitive gems all your own.

Research is only as good as what you do with it.

Brand research can be rich with insights, but you have to act on them to reap the benefits. And this is where many firms fall down. They become paralyzed by the possibilities, or they simply don’t get around to making the changes they need to act on the information. If your firm is serious about growth, you need great intel about your brand and your target clients. But your team also needs to be prepared for change.

A certain flexibility — a willingness to adapt as circumstances evolve — is a hallmark of long-term business success.

Being assigned a new sales territory is a lot like exploring new land. Think Captain Cook or Marco Polo. Sure, all this vast, uncharted territory is full of opportunities and excitement, but the thought of jumping headfirst into the unknown is also pretty scary, if we’re being totally honest.

Well, the good news is that you’re actually not alone. We’ve compiled these three proven tips to help you start getting the lay of the land, charting your team’s path and putting down some roots. Let the adventure begin!

Identifying Your Ideal Prospect

We all want to believe that our company’s solution is the silver bullet for every business out there. But the reality is that leveraging your product or service is not everyone’s number one priority – and that’s okay. What’s not okay is failing to identify who these people are and planning your lead generation and outreach strategies accordingly.

To do this, if you’re dealing with a brand new sales territory, start by looking at closed deals within the closest existing territory. If you’re taking over an existing region, start with the deals that were previously closed there, both won and lost. Segment them by various lead profile dimensions, including:

– Lead source
– Contact title
– Company size
– Company industry
– Number of decision makers
– Solutions already in use

Do you notice any trends? Are deals within a particular industry being consistently lost? Is going up against a certain competitor a sure win? To help give your new territory a head start, immediately prioritize accounts with “winning” qualities and seek out these relationships.

Continue to do this exercise as you close more business in this new territory, as you will likely notice distinct differences between this and other regions that can help better target your approach. For example, perhaps a particular title indicates a decision maker in the east, but actually has a different set of responsibilities in the west.

Defining Meaningful Activities

No one ever hit quota just by thinking about it – it’s the actions that reps take in effort (or lack thereof) to achieve this goal that make or break their performance. So how do you know which activities and how many actions will help your new territory hit quota?

Again, using either your territory’s most recent metrics or those from the region closest to yours, start with your sales goal, and ask yourself this series of questions to work backwards toward the activities you need to succeed:

1. How many new customers do you need to hit your sales goal?
2. How many deals do you need to reach this number of new customers?
3. How many new leads do you need to hit this number of deals?
4. How many demos or meetings do you need to set to generate this number of leads?
5. How many calls, emails or other activities do you need to make to secure this number of demos or meetings?

Once you have this final number, set goals that will keep your team on pace to complete the volume of activities needed to ultimately achieve quota. It’s important to also keep in mind that simply making a certain number of dials doesn’t mean that they were productive or successful. As such, you must also focus on the outcomes of these activities. Only then will you be able to continuously iterate your team’s approach and optimize performance.

For example, if you’re noticing that an excessively large percentage of your phone calls is being bucketed under “not interested,” it could be in your best interest to provide the sales team with a prospecting script. Or, if a large percentage of calls are being marked “no answer,” email may be the best channel for this region, and you should focus rep efforts on this activity.

Priming Your CRM for Adoption

Just as target prospects and activity metrics can differ from territory to territory, so can your pipeline and sales process. Is your company’s CRM or sales platform structured in a way that facilitates the capture of the data that you need to maintain visibility and move your org forward? If it’s not, CRM adoption is sure to suffer, further limiting your ability to make data-backed decisions.

To make sure that your CRM is primed for adoption and ripe with actionable insights in your territory, consider these tactics:

– Consider adding an additional sales pipeline built specifically to reflect the flow of sales cycles in your region and capture the nuances within your territory’s sales process.
– Audit your CRM to make sure that there is a clearly labeled field for your reps to capture and easily find each of their most important data points. For dropdowns and pick lists, make sure that the appropriate options are available.
– Add relevant tasks and automations for your territory’s workflow to help grease the wheels of your sales process and keep reps on track and on target.
– Make your CRM a cornerstone of every 1:1 and sales team meeting to set a good example for reps and ensure that your sales platform is being utilized in the most effective way possible from day one.

These are all great places to start if your company already has a sales platform in place. But if it doesn’t then you will have to start all the way back at square one and find a CRM that meets your team’s needs and unique requirements.

Ramping Reps Quickly

By the time new reps reach the output and success rate of seasoned sales vets, most companies have forgone more than a handful of wins. To help bring new reps up to speed and capacity faster, it helps to compare their performance with that of top performers. What are these reps doing that can be emulated by new team members and reinforced in the training process?

One way to do this is to schedule syncs between reps within your new territory and top performers across the company. Another, more scientific strategy is to segment closed/won and closed/lost deals first by the dimension of sales rep, and then by a secondary dimension like competitor or industry.

Doing this will allow you to see certain areas where particular reps excel compared to the rest of the group. For example, maybe one rep closes every deal when dealing with a particular type of decision-maker or company size. You can then have your team borrow from these reps’ playbooks to help your territory start producing as quickly as possible.

Ready for Adventure?

Ramping and running an entire sales territory is a big responsibility, but eventually taking a step back and seeing what you’ve built is extremely rewarding.

B2B lead generation can be a complicated process that requires a large amount of skill in addition to a deep understanding of how marketing, sales, and customer service works. B2B lead generation is a process that really shines when the right combination of activities is promoted to a prospect or customer at an opportune time. But how can you find and optimize that delicate balance? These lead generation tips can help.

The Basics of Lead Generation

Lead generation, whether it involves B2B transactions or arrangements with individuals, should be done with long-term goals in mind. Lead generation is never a “one and done” tactic; it requires building relationships, consistent action, and steady strategies to locate and keep highly qualified leads. Though it is a complicated process, it can be broken down into an extremely simplified set of steps.

1. At this point, it is assumed that your business already has an established product or service to offer. This product or service should be able to help customers or other businesses solve a problem they have. Your first step should be helping your prospects understand why they have the problem they are experiencing.

2. Your second step is then alerting your prospect as to the ways in which they can solve their problem.

3. Taking step 2 a bit further, step 3 includes sharing a specific way in which your product or service can facilitate solving your prospect’s problem.

Keep in mind, this is an exaggeratingly simplified way of going about building leads, but it is the basis for all prospecting and lead building interactions.

Top B2B Lead Generation Tactics

Lead generation relies heavily on smart, dependable, and interactive marketing strategies. Consistently, the strongest marketing tactics that help find and build leads are cold calling, email marketing, social marketing, and content marketing. Bear in mind, however, that these tactics only work if you are using them correctly. Your execution of these marketing strategies directly correlates to how effective they are.

Cold Calling
While cold calling may not be everyone’s cup of tea (Thankfully, there are companies who can do this for you!), it is an effective way to generate leads. When cold calling is done incorrectly, however, you can easily annoy or turn off a prospect. Avoid any mishaps by not pressuring your prospect to buy or make a deal on the first call. You have to be in it for the long haul, so don’t be afraid to get a “no” on the first try. There’s a change you called at a time where your prospect didn’t have the funds to make a purchase, or at a time when they didn’t need your product or services, but situations change. You can further the success of a cold call by ditching any script you might have. People can tell when you are regurgitating something you’ve said a thousand times before, and it makes your call feel robotic and impersonal.

Email Marketing
Email marketing has stood the test of time and remains one of the most reliable ways to garner B2B leads. Not only can it lead to higher engagement, but it contributes to more lead conversions as well. Strong email marketing campaigns require carefully cultivating email lists. You can’t just send an email to everyone in your contacts in hopes that someone will read it. You have to select your targets based on the information you will be sharing. After all, there’s no sense in sending an lawn mowing business information about your company’s carpet installation deals. Following that, you want to make sure you are including a subject line that will grab people’s attention without being spammy. And finally, you want your email’s content to be useful to those you are sending it to.

Social Marketing
Being on social media networks doesn’t matter much if you don’t have a following that you consistently interact with. Think of social media as an opportunity to build social relationships, not to self-promote. If you are only sharing or posting content about your business or the services or products you offer, people will lose interest quickly. Instead, share ideas, pictures, stories, and other content your audience can find useful. Your goal is to become an information source, not just a spambot. Just don’t forget to share links to your website so leads can find out more information about what you offer.

Content Marketing
It seems like everyone has a blog these days, but if you think about the blogs you read that are actually captivating, educational, or fun; you can probably count them on one hand. Powerful content marketing requires blogging with intent; you can’t just churn out material because you think you’re supposed to. Strong blogs find a balance between quantity and quality, and publishing content relevant to the audience (customers) they want to attract. Other useful content marketing ideas include creating original and informational infographics, videos, and eBooks to share with your prospects and current customers.

Finding and attracting B2B leads is only the beginning of a successful B2B lead generation strategy. Once you have your leads, it is important to nurture them. Send your prospects regular communications (without being annoying!), check in on them, follow up with them, and make sure your current customers are happy with the products or services you have already provided them.

There's a simpler way to learn new sales techniques than cracking open a dusty sales book. Whether you want to dive into B2B advice or interviews with business leaders, here are the best sales podcasts that every rep should listen to.

The next time you're walking the dog, commuting, or exercising, pop in your earbuds and press "Play." You’re well on your way to learning from sales leaders and experts.

1. Conversations with Women in Sales

• Hosts: Lori Richardson, B2B Sales/Revenue Growth Strategist at Score More Sales
• Length: Approximately 30 minutes
• Listen on: Apple Podcasts | Stitcher

Dedicated to becoming the best resource for female sales professionals, Lori Richardson's podcast is a platform for female sales leaders to share their stories. Episodes highlight leadership, career management, overcoming adversity, and more — all featuring female executives.

Notable Episodes:

• Bet on Yourself and You'll Always Win, Amy Franko, which helps listeners learn how to champion themselves.

2. Surf and Sales

• Hosts: Scott Leese and Richard Harris, Co-founders of Surf and Sales
• Length: 35-45 Minutes
• Listen on: Apple Podcasts | Spotify

Looking for a podcast with actionable advice? Look no further. Richard Harris and Scott Leese offer insight into what they see sales reps do right and wrong. No need to make mistakes when you can learn from the best!

Notable Episodes

• People are the biggest problem — and the solution with Nick Larson: You'll learn how to deal with people, who are the heart and the hurt of sales enablement.

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3. B2B Growth Show

• Hosts: Benji Block, Sweet Fish Media Community Manager
• Length: Approximately 20 minutes
• Listen on: Apple Podcasts | Stitcher | SoundCloud

This daily podcast is geared toward helping B2B sales executives achieve growth. Learn about sales team management, creative business development strategies, time-saving sales tools, and more.

Notable Episodes:

• It's Time for a New Marketing Scorecard, with Myles Madden: In this episode, Observe.AI Senior Demand Generation Manager Myles Madden talks about how to evaluate marketing.

4. The Advanced Selling Podcast

• Hosts: Bryan Neale, Sales Trainer and Author, speaker; and Coach Bill Caskey
• Length: 10-25 minutes
• Listen on: Apple Podcasts

This podcast focuses on tactical tips and techniques you can implement immediately. One week, Caskey and Neale discuss lead generation; the next, they talk about communicating value or resolving objections about price.

You can get even more out of this podcast by downloading its app, which will give you access to bonus content and the ability to ask the hosts questions. Listeners can also join the LinkedIn group for the opportunity to connect with other sales professionals and swap advice.

Notable Episodes:

• What Does Your Sales Culture Look Like?: In this episode, Caskey and Neale talk through what internal sales culture can look like and how that can impact the broader organization.

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5. Women in Tech Podcast

• Hosts: Espree Devora, Producer of "The Girl who Gets it Done," host of "WeAreLaTech.fm," "Uniting LA Startups," and, of course, "WomeninTech.fm"
• Length: 20-60 minutes
• Listen on: Player.fm | Apple Podcasts

Get inspired by the top female executives in tech. You'll discover tips on how to excel in your career, promote diversity and inclusion in the workplace, empower yourself as an independent business owner, and more.

Notable Episodes:

• Dalana Brand of Twitter, Diversity and Inclusion as a Competitive Advantage: Twitter's Vice President of People Experience and Head of Inclusion and Diversity shares why D&I is not just the right thing to do — but an imperative for the future of your business.

6. Sales Gravy

• Host: Jeb Blount, Author of People Buy You
• Length: 5-60 minutes
• Listen on: Apple Podcasts | Stitcher

Excited about the idea of podcasts, but not sure when you'd have the time to actually listen to them? Try the Sales Gravy podcast. Most of its episodes are around five minutes, so you can easily fit them into your schedule.

Blount consistently shares practical and inspiring advice on everything from overcoming your fear of rejection to doubling your callback rate.

Notable Episodes:

• Be Indispensable to Protect Your Job in a Volatile Economy: Changes in the economy can be uncertain and unsettling for employees. Jeb offers insights into how employees can become indispensable at their jobs.

7. The Salesman Podcast

• Host: Will Barron, Founder of Salesman.red
• Length: 30-45 minutes
• Listen on: Apple Podcasts | Overcast

If you're eager to learn more about the role of influence, body language, and psychology in sales, subscribe to this almost-daily podcast. Sales professionals at all levels will find value in Barron's interviews. He has a knack for asking questions and letting his guests take center stage.

Along with sales leaders like Dave Kurlan and Trish Bertuzzi, you'll hear from former FBI agents, Stanford University professors, and startup CEOs. Barron's questions are designed to elicit tactical advice you can implement right away.

Notable Episodes:

• This Is the Future Of Sales — Don't Get Left Behind: Sales is a rapidly shifting industry. This interview will help you keep pace with changes and stay ahead of the trend.

8. Sales Success Stories

• Host: Scott Ingram, Account Director at Relationship One
• Length: 45-120 minutes
• Listen on: Apple Podcasts

This podcast features interviews with the top 1% of sales professionals. Scott uncovers everything about the best sales leaders, including their favorite sales books, habits, routines, and tips.

Scott not only continues to produce a continuous stream of interviews with top performers but has also built the Sales Success Community to help listeners connect with like-minded sales achievers.

Notable Episodes:

• Stepping Outside Your Comfort Zone & Achieving Astonishing Results & A Touch of Personalization with Semrush’s Sean McLean: Ingram and McLean discuss career paths, challenges that one can anticipate in a career in sales, and how to bet on yourself.
• HubSpot's Top Account Executive — Nora Edmonds: Edmonds and Ingram discuss what it takes to be a top sales rep at HubSpot, taking a customer-first approach to sales, and the importance of truly believing in what you sell.

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9. Sales Game Changes

• Host: Fred Diamond, Institute for Excellence in Sales Co-founder
• Length: 20-30 minutes
• Listen on: Apple Podcasts

On this podcast, sales expert Fred Diamond interviews well-known sales professionals from both B2B and B2C companies. The topics run the gamut from social selling and sales automation to balancing your priorities and eliminating excuses.

Every guest provides a fresh perspective on sales, making this show a great choice if you want to expand your knowledge.

Notable Episodes:

• Sales, Confidence, and Leadership Excellence for Women in Sales with Melahni Ake and Shelly Bays: This episode offers advice to women in sales on how to empower yourself through confidence and advocate for yourself.

10. Self-Help(ful)

• Host: Kevin Miller, CEO of Free Agent Academy
• Length: 30-75 minutes
• Listen on: Apple Podcasts | Stitcher

This top-ranked business podcast is focused on self-improvement. Each week, Miller spends roughly 30 minutes to an hour exploring new ways to improve your career.

Most of the episodes are inspired by Kevin Miller's philosophy; however, they're not explicitly focused on sales topics. To give you an idea, past subjects have included positive peer pressure, meditation, and purposeful procrastination.

Notable Episodes:

• Reboot & Upgrade Your Mind & Capacity: Similar to how technology needs upgrades and reboots, Kevin talks about how the mind can use the same restart to unlock more creativity and power.

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11. The Sales Evangelist

• Host: Donald C. Kelly, Sales Coach and President at The Sales Evangelist LLC.
• Length: 9-36 minutes
• Listen on: Apple Podcasts | Stitcher

Enjoy tips and actionable wisdom from a B2B sales pro who knows how to hustle in this daily podcast. Sales trainer Donald Kelly interviews experts in sales, business, and marketing, so you can learn how to take your career up a notch.

Notable Episodes:

• Rethinking the Way You Sell: Sales expert Jeff Bajorek talks about salesperson-centric versus customer-centric selling, the power of connection, strategies for scaling, and more.

12. Value Builders

• Host: Dave Duke, Co-Founder of MetaCX.
• Length: 25-35 minutes
• Listen on: Apple Podcasts

This podcast focuses on the unique challenges of startup sales. However, its tips are applicable whether you're working at a young company or a large-scale enterprise. The podcast is an ongoing conversation about the evolving role of value creation in business relationships.

Notable Episodes:

• Cassie Young of Primary Venture Partners on using customer success fundamentals to catapult a venture portfolio to success, why retention is the cheapest form of growth, and why the CCO is on a trajectory to be the new CRO: Get practical suggestions on building, organizing, and managing your customer retention, as well as advice for customizing your sales process to different situations.

13. Sales Enablement

• Host: Andy Paul, Speaker, Sales Strategist, and Author of "Zero-Time Selling: 10 Essential Steps to Accelerate Every Company's Sales"
• Length: 18-49 minutes
• Listen on: Apple Podcasts | Stitcher | Spotify

Six times a week, Paul interviews sales giants like Jeffrey Gitomer, Robert Cialdini, and Jill Konrath. You'll learn strategic insights to generate value for your customers and advance your career.

Notable Episodes:

• Challengers Don’t Settle for the Status Quo: Jennifer Allen, Chief Evangelist at Challenger, demystifies the five sales mindsets and focuses on how to best optimize them.

14. Get in the Door: Sales Prospecting Strategies & Tactics

• Host: Steve Kloyda, Founder of The Prospecting Expert
• Length: 10-35 minutes
• Listen on: Apple Podcasts

“Get in the Door” is a podcast that focuses exclusively on helping you connect with new accounts. During each episode, host Steve Kloyda interweaves practical suggestions with examples and stories from his own sales career. Kloyda believes strongly in serving the customer and thinking about the "why" behind your goals.

Notable Episodes:

• A $250,000 Sale In Fifteen Minutes: You’ll learn how to work with objections, instead of "handling" them — and how this approach can help you win huge deals.

15. The Sales Babble Podcast

• Host: Pat Helmers, Creator of Selling With Confidence
• Length: 15-35 minutes
• Listen on: Apple Podcasts | Android

This show features selling tips for small and medium businesses and entrepreneurs. Helmers explains sales concepts in easy-to-understand, plain language.

The topics range from broad (prospecting, setting the right mindset, winning referrals) to specific (selling new or unproven products, selling to government institutions, and more).

Notable Episodes:

• How to Sell Big Clients and Win Tremendous Deals, with Melinda Chen: Sales executive Melinda Chen shares her tips for targeting the right big accounts, gaining access to hard-to-reach decision makers, and framing your value proposition.

16. The Jordan Harbinger Show

• Host: Jordan Harbinger, Social Interaction Expert
• Length: 5-80 minutes
• Listen on: Apple Podcasts

If you can't form genuine connections with your prospects, you'll probably struggle. But all hope isn't lost if you're not naturally charismatic. Harbinger says he was lacking the social skills he needed to advance professionally — so he decided to learn them. Now, he shares his insights with his podcast audience.

Each episode features several fresh, research-backed tips from guests like Simon Sinek, Nilofer Merchant, and David Burkus.

Notable Episodes:

• Why Success and Happiness Aren’t Mutually Exclusive: Shawn Achor, a leading expert on the connection between happiness and success, talks about why you'll perform better if you help others operate at their best.

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17. Sell or Die

• Hosts: Jeffrey Gitomer, Author of Little Red Book of Selling, and Jennifer Gluckow, LinkedIn and Networking Expert
• Length: 5-60 minutes
• Listen on: Apple Podcasts | Stitcher

Together, Gitomer and Gluckow have created a podcast that centers around the art and science of selling. They invite leaders in sales, marketing, and personal development to join the conversation on each episode. Listen to lively discussions on dealing with rejection, artificial intelligence in sales, and more.

Notable Episodes:

• The Power of Language in Life & Sales: Gitomer interviews the founders of Enlifted, Mark England and Adam Chin, as they talk about the power of language.

18. Sales Pipeline Radio

• Host: Matt Heinz, President of Heinz Marketing
• Length: 22-30 minutes
• Listen on: Apple Podcasts | Stitcher

Have you caught the latest wave in sales growth? Industry favorite Matt Heinz is here to help. Each episode features an expert in B2B sales or marketing.

Learn about driving greater volume, velocity, and conversion of sales pipelines — from demand gen to lead management and more. The goal? To help you find, manage, and win more business.

Notable Episodes:

• Real Talk with a Successful B2B Sales Rep: Morgan J. Ingram, a sales development manager at Terminus, talks video, social selling, and ABM.
• Stories and Data: 3 Proven Methods for More Accurate Sales Forecasting: HubSpot's very own director of sales, Michael Pici, shares how he got his start in sales and his thoughts on sales forecasting.

19. Make It Happen Mondays — B2B Sales with John Barrows

• Host: John Barrows, founder of JBarrows Sales Training
• Length: 30 minutes
• Listen on: Apple Podcasts

This sales podcast is recorded live on Facebook every Monday and covers everything in the sales cycle from calling to closing, along with career growth and success topics. Each episode features actionable takeaways and anecdotes from John's career.

Notable Episodes:

• The Queen of Automation: Is the future of sales automated? Self-processed “Queen of Automation” Lisa Catto believes so. Catto shares her insight into the new age of automation.

20. The Sales Podcast

• Host: Wes Schaeffer, CEO of The Sales Whisperer CEO
• Length: 25-90 minutes
• Listen on: Apple Podcasts | Stitcher | Spotify

Host Wes Schaeffer answers questions about growing your sales, inbound selling, and the entrepreneurial mindset. Looking for a straightforward, practical take on sales? This is your podcast.

Notable Episodes:

• Michelle Weinstein is the Pitch Queen: Shark Tank veteran Michelle Weinstein shares her tips on adding value on top of value, anticipating and addressing objections in your pitch, and her secrets for practicing.

21. SaaStr

• Hosts: Jason M. Lemkin, Founder of SaaStr, and Harry Stebbings of The Twenty Minute VC
• Length: Approximately 30 minutes
• Listen on: Apple Podcasts | SoundCloud | PodBean

Hear weekly interviews of the most prominent operators and investors on how to attain success in the world of SaaS. You'll learn how to get from $0 to $100 million annual recurring revenue (ARR), how to scale, and how to hire. Sales, investing, and entrepreneurial tips meld effortlessly in this industry-favorite podcast.

Notable Episodes:

• Why It Is Harder To Go Enterprise Down Than SMB Up: SaaS exec Paul Albright discusses what an efficient sales and marketing engine looks like, how to build it, and why it's harder to go SMB up than enterprise down.

22. Conquer Local with George Leith

• Hosts: George Leith, Chief Revenue Officer of Vendasta
• Length: 25-30 minutes
• Listen on: Apple Podcasts | Google Play | Soundcloud

If selling to local businesses is your game, this weekly podcast is chock-full of tips and strategies that make it easier. In each episode, George Leith interviews sales leaders and talks about his own 30 years of experience in the industry.

Notable Episodes:

• Rand Fishkin: Startup struggles & sales strategies: In this episode, George sits down with Rand Fishkin to talk about his experience growing Moz, and what he learned as an entrepreneur and CEO.

Image Source

23. The Failure Factor

• Hosts: Megan Bruneau, Therapist and Executive Coach
• Length: Approximately one hour
• Listen on: Apple Podcasts | TuneIn

For salespeople, fear might look like worrying that if you miss your quota again, you'll lose your job. Fear is part of a salesperson's career, and therapist Megan Bruneau has strategies to help you do more than cope with it. She shares how listeners can capitalize on their failures to achieve fulfillment and success.

Notable Episodes:

• Alchemy 43 Founder and CEO Nicci Levy on Seeing “No” As a Starting Point and No One Knowing Your Business Better Than You Do: Nicci Levy, founder and CEO of Alchemy 43, talks about empowering wisdom for taking risks and persevering through challenges that she learned along the way.

24. The Sales Hacker Podcast

• Host: Sam Jacobs
• Length: Approximately 50 minutes
• Listen on: Apple Podcasts | Stitcher | Website

The Sales Hacker Podcast is carefully designed to give you tangible, practical insights about B2B sales. Every Tuesday, top vice presidents of sales, investors, and founders gather ‘round the sales roundtable to break down sales strategies, make you think, and help you deliver a gut punch to your sales goals.

They also have a shorter Friday Fundamentals episode each week. Learn actionable selling techniques and tips. Plus, brush up on important basics every Friday with Sam and his guests.

Notable episodes:

• How to Move from Feature Selling to Gap Selling, with Keenan

• John Barrows on The Secrets to Being a Successful Account Executive

Roughly one in five U.S. adults say they're monthly podcast listeners. If you're not already one of them, the shows on this list might convert you. For more sales resources, listen to our playlist of motivational songs next.

Once you’ve onboarded your referral partners, you’ll need to find ways to keep them engaged and referring. As I discussed in Step 3 – How to enable referral partners you’ve got to make it easy for partners to make referrals and give them full transparency into their progress. This is the foundation for engagement, but let’s build on that with ways to keep the productivity high.

Here are 7 activities to keep referral partners engaged:

1. Regular status update communications
2. Regular program and success story communications
3. Involvement of sales to drive referral activity
4. Special promotions – both internal and external
5. Coaching programs – to improve performance of struggling partners
6. Escalating incentives to encourage repeat referrals
7. Non-monetary recognition

1. Regular status update communications

You can have the best portal in the world, but unless you are getting the attention of your referral partners, they’ll forget to visit. Automated email communications alerting them to status changes in their referrals is a great way to stay top of mind with little effort. Typical statuses to alert on would be when a referral lead is accepted by sales/qualified, when it becomes an opportunity, when it hits the various opportunity stages and of course closed won. In addition, you’ll want to notify them when they have earned their reward – which might be at closed won or after a retention period.

Simple, automated emails on referral status can keep them involved to influence the referred opportunity, but also reminds them of your program and how they can earn more. Links in your emails drive referral partners back to the portal to keep referring.

2. Regular program and success story communications

Not all referral partners will always have a referral in the pipeline to get status notifications on so you need to also provide regular communication on the program. A monthly newsletter can be a great way to do this, but make sure the content adds value to them and isn’t just “hey, remember us, we have a program”. Instead, focus on how you can make them a better referral partner. Give them fresh content on the target buyer and tips on how to make referrals. More importantly, showcase success stories of other referral partners.

This can be a simple as giving kudos to top performers, but the real value is in telling their story. How did a partner get 10 successful referrals in 1 month? What is the advice of your top referring partners? What is the key to their success? Take a few hours each month to interview a partner or two and highlight their story. I guarantee it will help to motivate and drive activity from your referral partners.

3. Involvement of sales to drive referral activity

If your direct and/or channel sales teams are not involved in recruiting referral partners and sourcing referrals from them – they should be! This has been proven as the most effective way to drive referral success.

To get them involved, make sure there is sufficient motivation in place. This doesn’t have to be compensation. For a direct sales team, consider breaking lead assignment rules so that every referral lead that comes from a partner they recruited goes to them. For business development, ensure your compensation plan accounts not just for partner recruitment, but also for the production of referrals from those partners.

You’ll also need to ensure sales has the right tools to input and track their activity. Enable sales with:

• A one-click invite in Salesforce for partners who aren’t yet in the program
• Ability to input verbal referrals in Salesforce
• Ability to “own” partners – sales leadership can then track with reports in Salesforce to drive activity and sales ops can use to route leads
• No hassle – everything tracked and automated so they can focus on selling/biz dev versus rewards.

4. Special promotions – both internal and external

Sometimes you need to do something special to get people to take notice and take action. Some of the most successful referral partner programs have big bang promotions to drive a ton of activity in a short period of time.

This can be a promotion internally to sales where there are special incentives for the latest tech gear, special trip, or whatever motivates your sales team. Get buy-in from sales leadership that during this day or week period that they spend the majority of their time filling the pipeline with leads from referral partners buy getting in front of them and asking.

The special promotion can also work going direct to your referral partners and adding a bonus incentive for referrals made during a short period of time. That incentive could be a higher bounty or percentage of revenue, but it could also be time with the CEO or training that they would normally have to pay for.

5. Coaching programs – to improve performance of struggling referral partners

Some referral partners will struggle. They may have signed up to become a partner thinking they were going to make a killing, made a ton of referrals only to have none of them make a purchase. You’ll also have some referral partners who are tentative to refer. Run reports each month on these under performers and make a point to have marketing or sales reach out and have a coaching session with them. Find out what their issue is. Some typical issues are:

• A lack of understanding of the target buyer and persona profiles – meaning they aren’t referring the right people/companies.
• Not making one-to-one referrals – blasting in social media is not the way to drive referral leads. A specific ask done in a direct digital or verbal conversation is the way to initiate interest.
• Not sure when to make the ask – some partners may be leery on the best time to recommend your product to their network.
• Not sure how to properly message the value of your product or service – hopefully you’ve got a lot of this baked into your referral methods, but even so, make sure your partners are solid in the value propositions that drive interest with your target personas.

6. Escalating incentives to encourage repeat referrals

Many referral partner programs work because you can go broad with volume of partners and even if they only make a few referrals a year, it can drive significant revenue. If you can increase the average number of referrals made across your referral partners, you can make a big impact. One of the best ways to do this is to provide increasing incentives attached to achievement levels.

This could be increasing percentage of revenue based on the number of successful referrals during a year period. Alternatively, you can bump a referral partner to a higher incentive level if their referrals move quickly through the sales cycle or if they played an influential role in the process. And certainly, there could be a bar at which the partner relationship could expand to a reseller.

Whatever your achievement bars, make partners well aware of them so that they can set goals and work to achieve them. Send them regular communications on how they are doing toward reaching the next level (this can be part of those automated status emails). This will keep partners engaged and referring throughout the year.

7. Non-monetary recognition

Of course you have referral fees for your partners, but there are additional ways you can recognize them for their efforts. Mentioning them in the monthly newsletter with their success story is a great way to make them feel engaged. Additionally, you can offer special meetings with the CEO to top performers A call from your Channel Chief thanking them for their effort can also go a long way. From the marketing side, you could show some love by helping to promote their business through your social feeds.

Fundamentally, you’ll want to identify top performers, make them feel appreciated and encourage continued productivity.

In the next article in the series, I’ll cover the key metrics to collect for referral partner programs and the final article in the series will cover how to use those metrics to grow your program.

Transcript of An Entrepreneur’s Journey to Success written by John Jantsch read more at Duct Tape Marketing

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Transcript

John Jantsch: On this week’s episode of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast I get to visit with a true entrepreneurial success story. Speaking with Landon Ray, the Founder of ONTRAPORT. I’ve known Landon for about a dozen years and I’ve really watched the evolution of Landon and his buddy starting a company going out there trying to figure out how to sell it to now a hundred people in the campus in Santa Barbara with a piece of software that is really second to none in the marketing automation space. It’s really great to hear his story. I think you should check it out. Hello, welcome to another episode of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast. This is John Jantsch. My guest today is Landon Ray. He is the Founder and CEO of ONTRAPORT, an award-winning web-based sales marketing and business automation software platform. Landon, thanks for joining us.

Landon Ray: Yeah, thanks for having me, John. It is my pleasure.

John Jantsch: You have always been the CEO of an award-winning web-based sales marketing and business automation software platform so give us your story.

Landon Ray:  No, I definitely have not. How far back should I go?

John Jantsch: Let’s start with your … You and I go back at least ten or twelve years, let’s start with your first four into an online business in general.

Landon Ray: Yeah, that would have been 2004. I actually started a completely separate business with a buddy of mine and I didn’t have any idea what I was doing. I’ve never made software before or even a website. He had a little local web development agency which is making websites for random people. He thought he can build a piece of software and we got this idea which I won’t bother getting into unless you want to but it was a different idea altogether. We pursued that and since I didn’t know anything about the web, we kind of split up duties and I took sales and marketing and he took web development because we’re building a software product. I didn’t know anything about sales and marketing so I just started researching and learning and going to conferences and trying to figure it out and of course this was the early days of online marketing still real early days looking back on it.

I had to learn not just web marketing but really just the fundamentals of marketing in general, the ideas behind direct response marketing and the basics like follow up with leads, generate leads instead of going directly for the sale, stay in touch over the long-term and follow up, split testing, the whole concept of testing your marketing was new to me, tracking your lead sources was new to me. The idea of just being relevant to each individual or at least each individual source which is about as good as we could do at the time was new to me. We gathered all these ideas. We’re spending quite a bit of money.

I had some money to invest from a previous career that I had and so we’re really going for it and I pretty quickly realized that we needed a bunch of software tools to run our own business, this marketing and sales effort that I was building but they didn’t really exist or at least I couldn’t find them or at least I couldn’t find them for a price I was willing to pay. There was some enterprise tools out there that were charging ridiculous amounts of money going after salesforce.com customers but they are way out of our range and so we decided to start building these tools internally.

Within about I don’t know, 12 or 18 months, I got so excited about these tools that we’re building and sharing them with my friends that I made at these marketing conferences that I decided that … The opportunity to turn these tools into a product that I can sell. It was more interesting than the business that we actually started so I kind of left that initial business and pivoted completely to selling these tools. It took us quite a while to figure out how to do that but eventually it worked out.

John Jantsch: I wonder how many times entrepreneurs have said that I couldn’t find the tools so I built it myself. It seems to be a recurring theme. ONTRAPORT today in its current model and feel free to share whatever you’re comfortable sharing. How big is ONTRAPORT today? How many people? Whatever you want to talk about. Where are you today?

Landon Ray: We’re a private company. We don’t really share revenue numbers but we do pretty well. We’re over a hundred people now internally. We have been in business as ONTRAPORT for 11 years, coming up on 12 here and yeah, growing very well, profitable, have been profitable for almost all of our history since 2009 with one year exception and growing bootstrap basically. We grow the business out of our own revenue the old-fashion way which has been challenging but wonderful also.

John Jantsch:  I had the pleasure recently of visiting your campus there in Santa Barbara, lovely Santa Barbara and everybody looked happy.

Landon Ray: Yeah, we do have a happy bunch. We focus a lot on, one of the things that’s a real opportunity about starting a business that employs people is that you get to make a difference obviously for your customers but you also, in our case, our customers are all over the world. We chat with them online but we don’t get to hang out with our customers that much except for once a year with our annual event, ONTRApalooza but we do get to hang out with our employees. The opportunity to make a difference for these hundred and change people that work for us is a really profound and important part of what we’re up to here.

We take it pretty seriously so we do a lot to make working at ONTRAPORT a real positive in our employee’s lives and that investment is definitely kind of paid off in spades and also really like you said, it shows just around the campus. We end up getting the best people to work for our company and really doing their best and they’re happy to be there and that really has worked out for us.

John Jantsch: I’m sure this has changed of course but if somebody were going to ask you today what’s still hard about where you are now, what’s the hardest part about business for you particularly in the stage it’s in?

Landon Ray: Let’s see, what’s hardest, advertising and making paid marketing work. Most of our business comes from word of mouth and we decided that a couple of years ago that we should add another way of getting customers. We’ve been pretty successful. We’ve gone from 0% marketing generated sales to about 40% marketing generated sales now, which is a pretty big transformation for business like ours over maybe 18 or 24 months but still it’s a real challenge. Man, marketing is a battle. It’s just a hard project. That’s one thing that’s hard.

You know, managing all the spinning plates of a hundred and whatever people just it’s a lot of projects, a lot of work gets done, keeping all that stuff on track is always challenging. I’d say that writing software is hard but really we’re getting pretty good at that now. It’s not one of the biggest challenges. We’ve had a lot of challenges that we’ve overcome, for example, hiring and retaining an engineering team when we were a tiny little company, it was hard to get a high quality engineer to come bet their career on you.

John Jantsch: Unless they [serve 00:08:39] of course.

Landon Ray: What’s that?

John Jantsch: Unless they [serve 00:08:40].

Landon Ray: Exactly, yeah. That’s not nearly the challenge that it once was. An engineer now walks into our scene and as you saw, it looks like a good bet.

John Jantsch: As I listen you talk about that, I know what you went through in the early days, you took out the trash as well, right, like all CEOs do. What does your job look like now? What is your role, I should say, look like now as a CEO of a hundred person firm?

Landon Ray:  Let’s see, honestly I have it really pretty good. The primary reason I have it so good is because I made a really extraordinary hire back in 2010 right after we started getting traction. Lena Requist who is our president and she basically runs, I mean she built and runs the whole company with the exception of engineering and product. I literally don’t have anybody except for product and engineering reporting directly to me. It’s like three people that report to me anymore and that’s a pretty good situation. Also, engineering, we have Pin Chen, our CTO is in place and he basically runs the whole engineering team so really I just talk to him and make sure that they’re working on stuff that’s a good idea.

My primary duties actually remain in product. I spend probably half my time designing the software which is what I love to do and it hasn’t been that way always. I definitely used to have to do a lot more other stuff and my time was more divided but yeah, I get to spend a lot of my time now on the stuff I like which is awesome. Then, the rest of my time is basically doing the stuff that you would expect, emails, meetings, speaking with money folks and looking at books and spreadsheets and putting together the longer term strategy of the business. It’s a lot of product and then just the basics, meetings and emails, man.

John Jantsch:  Yeah, so turn those damn notices off.

Landon Ray: I’m going to do that. Let’s see how to do that exactly, I think I just did it.

John Jantsch: All right, it was just perfect that those were going off.

Landon Ray: Exactly. People chat me.

John Jantsch: This is a perfect segue I’m going to ask. You’ve been adding to ONTRAPORT and making it better but I’m sure there’s still something missing. Not necessarily from your software but if you could say the perfect thing that we still need to add, what would that be in the category of marketing automation for marketing software.

Landon Ray: The roadmap remains long. We have an interesting history in terms of the product, instead of taking this traditional model where you make a minimum viable product, make a feature and then add on to it over time, we did it backwards because remember, our products started as an internal tool. When we launched, it already was extremely robust set of features. Although, our challenge was less around features and more around like scalability because we just didn’t know early on customers came so fast that we ended up having to spend quite a long time rebuilding the foundation of the platform from the ground up and really creating a system that will be scalable for the long-term.

We made that investment, it took years and millions of dollars but we have kind of completed a lot of that at this point. It’s been a lot of time of polishing what’s already there. Now, in terms of the next features and stuff like that, I think that we have some gaps around stuff like invoicing. I think our people would really like, we’ll probably eventually end up doing something more shopping carty so that we can take care of people who have more and more products. Right now it’s more like check out forms and subscription management and payment plans and stuff like that. We don’t really have add to cart button sort of system.

That will be something we’ll take on but we have a lot of little things also that we’ll continue to improve. We’re about to redo the entire way that our system does accounting which seems kind of boring but when you really get into running an actual business, getting that stuff to work just right is important. There’s not very many systems out there that do that right including ours today but we’re about to release a complete revamp of our accounting system which is going to be great for our customers and for us because we use our system as well.

John Jantsch: I had years ago when his first book came out, I had Jason Fried, the founder of 37Signals, right and Basecamp.

Landon Ray: 37Signals.

John Jantsch: I remember him saying when they design software that actually the hardest part of it is what to leave out because they get so many requests and every single person has one little thing that they wish it did so how do you make that decision so that it doesn’t just creep into this thing that’s no longer manageable?

Landon Ray: That’s some great question and here’s the answer, it starts with the philosophy behind what we’re up to. The big idea here is that you’re a small business owner, you have customers, your customers are like us, they are human beings and all of us today are so dramatically inundated with input and people tugging on our attention that we become expert at ignoring everything. We ignore advertisements of all kinds. We ignore spam and emails. We ignore the phone. The last time I picked up the phone from a phone number that I don’t recognize was I don’t even know how long ago. We tune it out and we’re really, really good at that.

That’s a challenge if you’re a marketer, right? If you’re a business that needs to attract customers, you need to not be tuned out. How do you not get tuned out? You got to ask the question, what do people pay attention to? The answers are obvious, they pay attention to what’s interesting to them right now and so if people pay attention to what’s interesting to them right now then it’s your job as an entrepreneur to be interesting to them right now. How to do that is to figure out what they’re interested in and talk to them about that. It’s the basic principle of marketing about being relevant. Right? Except for today more than ever if you’re not a super highly targeted and relevant then you’re just ignored.

The bar has been raised dramatically to where you can’t just be talking about your product when somebody’s maybe in the market for your product. You need to be talking specifically about the particular features or the particular objections or concerns or the particular specific problem that your specific market is looking to solve or you’re getting ignored. You need to figure out how to get relevant. That is the fundamental problem that marketers face and the project the marketing is and how you do that is you figure out what people are interested in. How you know that is two ways, you ether ask them and they tell you and they can tell you on the phone to your sales people, they can tell you by filling out a form, or they can tell you.

You can ask them or you can interpret their behavior. You can watch what pages they’re clicking and what emails they’re opening and what advertisements they’re responding to and you can interpret and infer what they’re interested in based on that behavior. You need to have that kind of data, all that data in one place and then you need to use that data to communicate in a way that is relevant. That’s the big idea around here. Most entrepreneurs unfortunately start out and they get an email system over here and a payment processing system over there and a website system over there and what that ends up with is data all over the place.

When it comes time to figure out what each individual customer or prospect is into and talk to them in a relevant way, you can’t do it because your page visit data is in one system, and your email click data is in another system, and your purchase history is in another system, and your notes from your sales person is in another system. Then, taking that information and aggregating it and analyzing and doing something with it is a project that’s dramatically too big to actually take on. ONTRAPORT of course is the solution to that problem and so what we’ve done … Your original question is where do we draw the line, where we draw the line is around that stuff, around that of the tools that generate the data that you need to get relevant. Does that make sense?

For us, that means email marketing because you need to have that open and click data, it means marketing tracking because you need to know where people are coming from and what they click to come around. That means payment processing so that you know what they’ve purchased, and what they returned and stuff like that. It means CRM so that obviously you can hold all that data in one place but also so you can have your sales people if you have sales people engaging with your folks and letting you know what happened on those calls, taking notes, stuff like that and so on. That’s the critical stuff and so we’re going to continue to improve the features and product in that kind of area but will we do automated webinars, no we won’t because it’s not actually that crucial to know.

We can already tell you if somebody attended your webinar or not because we got the click data and the page visit data. Now, if you want to get like super crazy, some of our customers they like to know what percentage of webinar they attended or what percentage of a video they watched. For us, that’s a rare edge case and there’s plenty of integrations with ONTRAPORT that where those high tech customers can do that but we don’t consider that to be core data for being relevant.

John Jantsch: All right, let’s talk about ONTRApalooza. We’re in August of 2017 is when we’re recording this so depending upon when you’re listening, you have an event coming up that you’re going to invite people to Santa Barbara in October. You want to pitch that a little bit for the people that might be interested?

Landon Ray:  Yeah, let me see. I’m actually going to type up that website right now, it’s ontrapalooza.com. Unfortunately, I wish I could tell you who all of our amazing speakers are going to be but I don’t think that they’ve announced it just yet but I can say that we’ve signed contracts with something like 20 or 30 speakers already.

John Jantsch: I know who one of them is.

Landon Ray: You know who one of them is. Do we lock you down this year?

John Jantsch: We did.

Landon Ray: Awesome. That’s great, I’m glad to hear that, I hadn’t gotten the update on that but that’s going to be great. It is October 4th through 6th in Santa Barbara and this is I want to say 6th you’re doing this and it’s just an awesome event. Our team puts on the best show, I mean it’s super high production value, killer speakers. You can go to our website ontrapalooza.com and see all the people we’ve had in the past and I think we’ll be announcing most of the speakers here in the next just few days. Probably by the time this thing is posted you can go to the site and see a lot of the speakers.

They kind of drip out some of the keynotes over time so I don’t know exactly how it goes but it’s a killer event. There’s several different tracks. There’s a software track where you learn all about ONTRAPORT. In fact, the few days before ONTRApalooza you can come out and do our bootcamp which is just a three or four day deep dive which is cool. There’s tons of software training at the event but also there’s a whole other track that’s all about just marketing and the general business success. There’s another track for our consultant partners. I mean, it kind of goes on and on. You got to take a look at the site but it’s a great event.

John Jantsch: Let’s wrap up with I asked you what was hard, what’s the most fun about what you get to do?

Landon Ray: Oh man, I like building stuff, like I said, I’m a product guy and I like building stuff and seeing it come to life and seeing thousands and thousands of businesses around the world use the stuff that we built. It’s such a cool opportunity to be able to support these entrepreneurs and make a difference for them with these tools that we’re building. You know, we’re getting pretty good at it after a dozen years. We’re building some amazing stuff. The release that we just did a couple months ago in July I guess it was or no, early June with our new drag and drop campaign builder is really a pretty impressive piece of software, probably the best release that we’ve ever done. We’re going to just keep the hits coming. To me that’s what’s fun. Also, of course working with entrepreneurs and our employee is killer.

John Jantsch: It’s been fun for me to watch your evolution too. As you said, when you put some of the stuff together first, what we call the version one, to really as you said a really sleek looking interface that does ten times what it used to do so really cool and obviously going from you and somebody coding in a garage somewhere to hundred people in a lovely campus in Santa Barbara. Real success story and it’s been fun for me to watch.

Landon Ray: Yeah, thanks so much for inviting me to join you today. I appreciate it.

John Jantsch: We will see you soon when I’m out in Santa Barbara at ONTRApalooza.

Landon Ray: I can’t wait. Thanks.

John Jantsch: Thanks for listening to this episode of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast. What if you can do me a favor? Could you leave an honest review on iTunes? Your ratings and reviews really help and I promise, I read each and every one. Thanks.

LinkedIn recently rolled out some new features aimed at helping you get “found” more easily by potential employers and prospects alike.

There are millions of users and billions of data points on LinkedIn, but most people still miss the mark in fully grasping how to leverage their profile to grow their business on LinkedIn.

What if I told you there’s a powerful method I’ve been advocating for years to help LinkedIn users get found by their ideal audience, and LinkedIn recently made that process even easier?

Here’s what you need to know.

LinkedIn Announces “Search Appearances” Feature

Your LinkedIn profile and all its data points, along with the other 500 million users on the network, make up the world’s largest search engine for professionals — LinkedIn Search.

In my business teaching others how to sell on LinkedIn, I’ve been an advocate for this underutilized feature on the network for sometime, as it is invaluable in helping grow your business on LinkedIn.

By connecting you with a hyper-specific, hyper-targeted list of prospects, LinkedIn Search is your key to find quality leads that will increase your sales.

LinkedIn is helping you realize this power even more, as it recently released a new feature called “Search Appearances.”

“With our new Search Appearances feature which begins rolling out this week, you can now go to your LinkedIn Profile on both mobile and desktop and see how many people found you from a LinkedIn search,” LinkedIn shared in a recent blog.

You can then leverage this data to see how well your profile is being found by your ideal audience.

Boost Your Sales by Reverse Engineering

In order to grow your business on LinkedIn, you can reverse-engineer the job titles and industry types or company types of people viewing your profile and roll those into your LinkedIn prospecting efforts.

Meaning, you can edit your profile to reflect the industry keywords that will show up inside a LinkedIn Search.

You can also use this information to refine the content you create and share on LinkedIn.

For example, if you sell marketing services, and you find your profile is being viewed by people in a particular industry (Accounting and CPAs, for example), you could add a job title – such as CPA – and include that as part of a headline for a LinkedIn article.

Here’s what your headline might look like: “5 Tips CPA’s need to know about Marketing on LinkedIn!”

How to Win on LinkedIn

In addition to increasing your number of Search Appearances, there are several other little games inside the platform help you improve your efforts.

This “gamification” of LinkedIn can be attributed to Co-Founder Reid Hoffman’s passion for strategy games – which he credits much of his entrepreneurial success.

“Business is the systematic playing of games,” he’s fond of saying.

Reaching “All Star” profile status for example, is part of a game featuring a meter that ranks and gives you quick tips to refine your profile.

The “Social Selling Index” is another game or ranking that measures how effective you are at establishing your professional brand, finding the right people, engaging with insights, and building relationships help you win business.

Using these features will help you crack the code to win both new business and new opportunities on the world largest network for professionals!

Online sales have exploded over the last 5 years in virtually every industry. Want to buy a car – go online and configure one just the way you want it. Want an 18 -wheeler to haul your product – go online and get it configured. Training courses, books, and even consulting are all being sold […]

The post Online Sales Have Changed The Landscape- Are You A Player? appeared first on Fill the Funnel.

        

Most people don't spend their free time imagining what it would be like to get on the subway and sit across from a 300,000-year-old person. But anthropologist Jean-Jacques Hublin isn't most people.

In June, Hublin published two papers in the highly-respected journal Nature suggesting that the first Homo sapiens — that is, the first members of our species — lived 100,000 years earlier than previously thought in a place that no one would have expected. They also had faces that looked surprisingly like ours.

”I’m not sure these people would stand out from a crowd today," said Hublin on a call with reporters shortly before his research was published.

Hublin's findings, while controversial, were generally greeted by other researchers in the community with excitement about the other kinds of research opportunities that could be opened up by this new idea.

"It really sets the world alight in terms of the possibilities for understanding the evolution of Homo sapiens," Sonia Zakrzewski, an associate professor of archaeology at the University of Southampton, told Business Insider in June. "It certainly means that we need to rethink our models."

Hublin is one of several anthropologists and archaeologists who are combing the planet for evidence that could rewrite various aspects of ancient human history. Together, they are answering burning questions about our origin story, from when and where the first Homo sapiens emerged to how the first people braved the icy passage between what is today Siberia and North America — and when they did it.

"It definitely challenges what most people learned in high school," Mikkel Winther Pedersen, a geogeneticist at the University of Copenhagen in Denmark and the lead author on a paper that suggested that the first Americans arrived via a previously unidentified inland route rather than the widely-known Bering land bridge, told Business Insider of his findings in 2016.

Here's a look at some of the most captivating findings from the last year.

The first Homo sapiens lived 300,000 years ago

In 1961, a crew of miners was plowing into a dense wall of limestone in a hilly region west of Marrakesh when they struck a soft patch. Further digging gave way to a nearly-complete skull. As word about the discovery spread, researchers flocked to the area and uncovered more remains, including several pieces of jaw bone and a fragment of an arm. At the time, scientists pegged the fossils as roughly 40,000 years old.

Almost half a century later, Hublin and his team from the Max Planck Institute decided to dig deeper — literally. By excavating the soil beneath the initial discovery, they found remains that appeared to belong to at least five individuals with skeletons that closely resembled those of modern humans. They also found a set of flint blades which showed signs of having been burned, perhaps by a cooking fire.

Using a dating technique that measures how much radiation had built up in the flint since it was heated, Hublin and his team concluded that the bones belonged to people who lived roughly 300,000 to 350,000 years ago — or 100,000 years earlier than the first Homo sapiens were thought to emerge. Their location also suggested that our species emerged outside of sub-Saharan Africa, which was previously assumed to be a sort of "Garden of Eden" origin place for Homo sapiens.

Ancient humans didn't trek into the Americas via the route you learned in high school ...

Remember back in high school when you learned all those human-history basics, like the fact that we share a common ancestor with the African ape or that the first Americans reached the continent by way of a grassy strip of terrain called the Bering land bridge that emerged as the ice retreated between Russia and Alaska?

Turns out that last bit might be wrong.

According to a study, published in August 2016 in the journal Nature, the first people to reach the Americas most likely never even saw this route.

By analyzing ancient ice cores from lakes between North America and Siberia, a team of researchers was able to determine that our ancestors couldn't have taken that route because it was too barren, meaning they had to voyage further inland to get there instead.

The finding means archaeologists and anthropologists may have an entirely new area of terrain to explore further.

... and those first Americans showed up 100,000 years earlier than we thought

For decades, it's been generally accepted that the first humans to trek into the Americas — the ones who perhaps did not take the Bering strait — arrived about 25,000 years ago. But a set of recent evidence suggested that timeline could be 100,000 years off. In April, archaeologists working in San Diego, California uncovered a set of 130,000-year old mastodon bones (dated using uranium) that showed signs of having been processed by humans, placing them in the Americas at that time.

Instead of showing the typical patterns of decay that bones exhibit over time, many of the fragments appeared to have been fractured shortly after the animal died, signaling that something other than natural processes were at work.

At the same site, the archaeologists also found what they believe were bones that had been fashioned into hammer-stones and anvils — two types of tools that early humans used in Africa as early as 1.7 million years ago.

Together, all of this data painted a picture that Richard Fullagar, an archaeologist at Australia's University of Wollongong and the lead author on the study, called "incontrovertible" evidence that humans were around at this time.

SEE ALSO: Archaeologists are fuming over the alleged discovery of a 'lost city' in the middle of the Honduran rain forest

DON'T MISS: Archaeologists uncovered genetic evidence that rewrites a fundamental aspect of American history

Join the conversation about this story »

NOW WATCH: A Harvard psychologist reveals the mind trick that can curb your appetite

Mazda Motor Corp said it would become the world’s first automaker to commercialize a much more efficient petrol engine using technology that deep-pocketed rivals have been trying to engineer for decades, a twist in an industry increasingly going electric.

The new compression ignition engine is 20 percent to 30 percent more fuel efficient than the Japanese automaker’s current engines and uses a technology that has eluded the likes of Daimler AG and General Motors Co.

Mazda, with a research and development (R and D) budget a fraction of those of major peers, said it plans to sell cars with the new engine from 2019.

The engine is called SKYACTIV-X and Mazda had no plans to supply the engine to other carmakers.

HCCI engines achieve extremely low levels of Oxides of Nitrogen emissions (NOx) without a catalytic converter. Hydrocarbons (unburnt fuels and oils) and carbon monoxide emissions still require treatment to meet automotive emission regulations.

Advantages

Since HCCI engines are fuel-lean, they can operate at diesel-like compression ratios (over 15), thus achieving 30% higher efficiencies than conventional SI gasoline engines.
Homogeneous mixing of fuel and air leads to cleaner combustion and lower emissions. Because peak temperatures are significantly lower than in typical SI engines, NOx levels are almost negligible. Additionally, the technique does not produce soot.
HCCI engines can operate on gasoline, diesel fuel, and most alternative fuels.
HCCI avoids throttle losses, which further improves efficiency.

Disadvantages
Achieving cold start capability.
High heat release and pressure rise rates contribute to engine wear.
Autoignition is difficult to control, unlike the ignition event in SI and diesel engines, which are controlled by spark plugs and in-cylinder fuel injectors, respectively.
HCCI engines have a small power range, constrained at low loads by lean flammability limits and high loads by in-cylinder pressure restrictions.
Carbon monoxide (CO) and hydrocarbon (HC) pre-catalyst emissions are higher than a typical spark ignition engine, caused by incomplete oxidation (due to the rapid combustion event and low in-cylinder temperatures) and trapped crevice gases, respectively

Homogeneous charge compression ignition (HCCI) is a form of internal combustion in which well-mixed fuel and oxidizer (typically air) are compressed to the point of auto-ignition. As in other forms of combustion, this exothermic reaction releases energy that can be transformed in an engine into work and heat. HCCI combines characteristics of conventional gasoline engine and diesel engines. Gasoline engines combine homogeneous charge (HC) with spark ignition (SI), abbreviated as HCSI. Diesel engines combine stratified charge (SC) with compression ignition (CI), abbreviated as SCCI.

Sales is not a science. You cannot repeat a process and have 100% certainty that you get the same outcome. Sales is an art, but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t follow a process or methodology.

The post Why Sales Is Not a Science – Episode 181 appeared first on The Sales Blog.

Tissue Nanotransfection (TNT), that can generate any cell type of interest for treatment within the patient’s own body. This technology may be used to repair injured tissue or restore function of aging tissue, including organs, blood vessels and nerve cells.

“By using our novel nanochip technology, injured or compromised organs can be replaced. We have shown that skin is a fertile land where we can grow the elements of any organ that is declining,” said Dr. Chandan Sen, director of Ohio State’s Center for Regenerative Medicine & Cell Based Therapies, who co-led the study with L. James Lee, professor of chemical and biomolecular engineering with Ohio State’s College of Engineering in collaboration with Ohio State’s Nanoscale Science and Engineering Center.

Researchers studied mice and pigs in these experiments. In the study, researchers were able to reprogram skin cells to become vascular cells in badly injured legs that lacked blood flow. Within one week, active blood vessels appeared in the injured leg, and by the second week, the leg was saved. In lab tests, this technology was also shown to reprogram skin cells in the live body into nerve cells that were injected into brain-injured mice to help them recover from stroke.

“This is difficult to imagine, but it is achievable, successfully working about 98 percent of the time. With this technology, we can convert skin cells into elements of any organ with just one touch. This process only takes less than a second and is non-invasive, and then you’re off. The chip does not stay with you, and the reprogramming of the cell starts. Our technology keeps the cells in the body under immune surveillance, so immune suppression is not necessary,” said Sen, who also is executive director of Ohio State’s Comprehensive Wound Center.

TNT technology has two major components:
1. It is a nanotechnology-based chip designed to deliver cargo to adult cells in the live body.
2. It is the design of specific biological cargo for cell conversion. This cargo, when delivered using the chip, converts an adult cell from one type to another, said first author Daniel Gallego-Perez, an assistant professor of biomedical engineering and general surgery who also was a postdoctoral researcher in both Sen’s and Lee’s laboratories.

Nature Nanotechnology – Topical tissue nano-transfection mediates non-viral stroma reprogramming and rescue

TNT doesn’t require any laboratory-based procedures and may be implemented at the point of care. The procedure is also non-invasive. The cargo is delivered by zapping the device with a small electrical charge that’s barely felt by the patient.

“The concept is very simple,” Lee said. “As a matter of fact, we were even surprised how it worked so well. In my lab, we have ongoing research trying to understand the mechanism and do even better. So, this is the beginning, more to come.”

Researchers plan to start clinical trials next year to test this technology in humans, Sen said.

Abstract

Although cellular therapies represent a promising strategy for a number of conditions, current approaches face major translational hurdles, including limited cell sources and the need for cumbersome pre-processing steps (for example, isolation, induced pluripotency). In vivo cell reprogramming has the potential to enable more-effective cell-based therapies by using readily available cell sources (for example, fibroblasts) and circumventing the need for ex vivo pre-processing. Existing reprogramming methodologies, however, are fraught with caveats, including a heavy reliance on viral transfection. Moreover, capsid size constraints and/or the stochastic nature of status quo approaches (viral and non-viral) pose additional limitations, thus highlighting the need for safer and more deterministic in vivo reprogramming methods. Here, we report a novel yet simple-to-implement non-viral approach to topically reprogram tissues through a nanochannelled device validated with well-established and newly developed reprogramming models of induced neurons and endothelium, respectively. We demonstrate the simplicity and utility of this approach by rescuing necrotizing tissues and whole limbs using two murine models of injury-induced ischaemia.

40 pages of supplemental information – Topical tissue nano-transfection mediates non-viral stroma reprogramming and rescue

Operations has long been a forgotten persona. But not anymore. Without ops, data doesn’t see daylight, leads aren’t routed, accounts aren’t scored, CRM and marketing automation databases decay. There are more than 60,000 open operations positions and it’s time we start shinning a light on the importance of these roles.

To give you greater insight into just how important and underserved the ops role is – across sales, marketing and general business – LinkedIn and InsightSquared teamed up to bring you the ‘Ops Leviathan” – an infographic that compares the basic characteristics of sales, marketing and business operations roles based on original research supplied by the LinkedIn team. Check out the infographic below!

The post The State of Sales, Marketing & Business Operations [Infographic] appeared first on OpenView Labs.

The truth is, we live in a permanent technological revolution. Remember when you didn’t have a cell phone because no one did. Granted some of you may be too young to remember that – but the majority of readers are not. That’s a pretty short window. We’ve gone from not knowing what a mobile phone was to 91% of adults have a mobile device within arm’s reach 24/7 in less than 25 years.

And if anything, things are just moving faster than ever, which means we’d better buckle in because we’re on a never-ending roller coaster.

Consider these additional facts:

• 95% of all text messages are read and read within 90 seconds of receipt
• 65% of all email is opened on a mobile device versus a desktop or laptop
• Mobile is now the first screen worldwide – eclipsing screen time on both PCs and TVs
• There are more mobile devices on the planet than there are people

Mobile has become THE place for media consumption. It’s where people connect on social media, it’s where they watch videos, read, search for where they should eat dinner and, based on their apps – renew their prescriptions, pay for coffee with a quick scan or board a plane. And that’s child’s play compared to what is coming next.

But the important thing for us to recognize from a marketing point of view has nothing to do with the devices. The real mobile revolution is about our behaviors and choices, not the device of the day.

This technology has changed how consumers behave. They are less patient, more demanding, have higher expectations and a lower tolerance for any sort of delay, disappointment or lack of options.

Forget millennials or baby boomers. We’ve become the IWWIWWIWI culture.

The “I want what I want when I want it” attitude is evident in how we consume today. Wait for a TV show to actually be on TV? Forget it. I’ll watch what I want, when I want and I will binge watch as many episodes as I want on whichever device I want. Wait a week for you to get something in stock? I don’t think so. I’ll just order it on Amazon and I’ll have it tomorrow.

A global survey asked respondents to assign a value to their smart phone and the average consumer came up with an implied value of $6,000. Which makes perfect sense, given how we’ve come to rely on the super computers we carry in our pockets every day.

Those are the consumers we’re trying to reach and sell to every day. How should we be taking advantage of this mobile revolution to win the loyalty and buying dollars of these consumers?

As marketers we can and should be using mobile to:

• Deliver time sensitive content to audiences
• Reach out to audiences with location specific information and offers
• Solve problems for key audiences at the exact moment/location they need it
• Create community around a passion or cause or shared need/experience
• Develop a deeper, more meaningful experience or connection
• Accomplish tasks in a faster, easier and better way

One of the realities of this new world is that what used to be unattainable for the average small to mid-sized business is now well within your reach, both in terms of access to the technology and affordability.

Over the next couple of weeks, we’ll look at some of the ways mobile is being used today to connect with consumers, build brands, and drive sales. We’ll look at B2B and B2C examples that are leveraging everything from SMS texts, QR Codes, augmented reality, mobile apps, location/GPS technologies and much more.

The post The mobile revolution is not about technology appeared first on Drew's Marketing Minute.

It’s time to catch up on Facebook with a Business Page

Last week I attended a wonderful all-day digital marketing seminar here in Las Vegas. There were about 80 attendees at the event. I was so surprised to learn that many of these business people did not have a Facebook Business Page. It got me thinking that it was time to address this basic social media marketing tactic again.

There is no denying that Facebook is king when it comes to social media and this is the same as we recognize Google as king of search. We are spending over 30 minutes per day on Facebook. Every week, 3-4 hours on that platform. That doesn’t take into account time spent on Instagram, Pinterest, etc. just Facebook. That means your customers are on Facebook every day, often times before they have their morning coffee and for some, even before they brush their teeth. Where do you keep your phone at night? Is it by your bed? Mobile is also king, that is where we are researching, engaging, laughing and sharing.

If you do not have a Facebook Business Page (what used to be called a Fan Page) then you are missing out. Create a business page, take a custom URL and begin to grow your community. The Facebook Business Page is where you:

• Build a loyal following – now the customer is the driver. Encourage your loyal customers to engage with you on your Facebook Business Page. You want testimonials, reviews and feedback.
• Drive people to your website or landing page to grow your email list. Always offer something in return for the email, something of value. A coupon if restaurant or retail, a one-page “tips” or a contest with a prize. Be sure to follow all compliance and legal guidelines for advertising for your profession and the FTC. Email marketing is essential. Remember you don’t own Facebook, get those email addresses so you can market to those people no matter what Facebook does.
• Drive more traffic to your website. Use your Facebook page to consistently drive people to your website by always including the link to your website in your Posts.
• Let people know there is someone home. It is so important now to be transparent and let your potential customers know that someone is paying attention. Customers will choose a company that has an engaging, responsive Facebook page over one that doesn’t. Share what’s going on with your company, staff, products and services. Ask for feedback.
• Separate your personal and professional life. This is particularly important for certain professions, i.e. legal, teaching, physicians and others. Your Facebook Personal Profile is your personal page, set your Privacy Settings accordingly and check them every now and then. Your Facebook Page is public.
• Be current, relevant and “with it”. If you aren’t there, you aren’t there and you won’t be found. People expect you to have a Facebook Business presence. It is a red flag if you don’t. A Facebook Business Page that is active validates your business as real.
• Educate, Enlighten and Engage with your audience. Don’t keep selling to them. Give them valuable information, humor and offers/discounts. Keep them coming back.
• Facebook Boosting is so inexpensive. Use Boosting of Posts to expand your audience. Remember to carefully select demographics. If you are a brick & mortar establishment, choose zip codes around your location. Look at “interests” and other demographics that your potential customer might have. Start with a $50-$100 budget for a month. Boost engaging information, link back to exactly where you have a Call to Action. Use #hashtags in your posts.
• Facebook has it’s own scheduler for Posts. You can schedule posts in advance but always remember to check back for engagement. A note, you cannot Boost a Post until it is Posted so make a note to Boost it after it has scheduled on your Page. Use the Pages Manager app on your phone to deal directly with your Business Page.
• Just Do It – you can’t break it. Stop making excuses and get going with your Facebook marketing on a Business Page. It isn’t going away, it doesn’t bite and while it can be annoying, it works. Millennials particularly expect you to be there but so does everyone else.

Have some fun with your Facebook Business page. Think of questions you are always asked and make those into informative Posts. Always use an image but NEVER take images off the web. Not even Google Free Images. Use pixabay.com or pexels.com. There are others as well. Humor sells but no politics, religion or highly controversial issues.

Original Article

These days, blogging is more about creating content for your audience and using your influence to build your brand more than anything else. We are seeing this time and time again with some of the biggest and most well-known entrepreneurs and bloggers in the world today. What starts off as a blog, turns into much more over time. It’s not the amount of content that we create, it’s the value we offer and the loyal following we can build over time. This is a winning formula that has been working for millions, and while it might be a slow process, in

The post 3 Millionaire Entrepreneurs Using Blogs to Fuel their Businesses appeared first on Blogging Tips.

The conversation is flowing smoothly, and then -- it stops. You don't say anything. Your companion doesn't say anything. You clear your throat. They scratch their knee. Your smile is getting strained. They look at the clock.

You're smack dab in the middle of a very ... awkward ... silence.

This is bad news during a first date or a job interview. But in sales, awkward silences are actually good -- that is, if you know how to use them to your advantage. The golden rule of using silence as a sales weapon? Embrace it.

Consider that it only takes four seconds for people to become uncomfortable with silence. So next time you're tempted to break the silence, remember it probably hasn't been very long, and keep mum.

Still not convinced that zipping your lips is the way to go when a conversational lull hits? Consider the following positive outcomes of awkward silences, and the negative ramifications of breaking them.

How to Use the Awkward Silence in Sales

1) Silence allows time for prospects to comprehend your offer.

The first few moments after you suggest a final proposal to your client are tense. Are you going to close the deal? Or will your prospect object to the contract, the price, or another component?

If your closing statement is met with silence, you could take this as a sign that the prospect is displeased with your offer. But there's another equally likely explanation -- they're thinking about it. If you disrupt the silence, you could interrupt their thinking process -- and they might have been three seconds away from saying, "Let's do it."

Keep in mind that people with certain behavioral types are more inclined to think carefully and speak slowly.

2) Silence communicates genuine interest.

When checking in with a friend after they've endured a stressful event, you probably ask, "How are you feeling?" and then listen -- even if it takes them a while to answer.

You probably wouldn't ask, "How are you feeling? Sad? Angry? Stressed? Why? Are you okay?" And yet, this is often what sales reps sound like when they ask a discovery question.

Instead of posing a question and letting the prospect answer, salespeople get excited and try to fill in the blank for the buyer after the first sign of silence. But by letting silence persist -- no matter how uncomfortable -- reps demonstrate interest in the buyer's answer, instead of what they think the buyer's answer could or should be.

3) Silence helps salespeople stand their ground.

If you're uncomfortable with silence in the closing process, you might be tempted to revise your offer before your prospect has even officially rejected it. But instead of throwing out price discounts or freebies prematurely, simply state your offer -- and then shut up.

For a prime example of how silence can be your greatest negotiation tactic, check out this article from Steli Efti, CEO of Close.io. In this situation, Close.io was the customer, and Efti was faced with paying a hefty sum to get his organization out of a contract. Instead of agreeing to pay the full amount, he simply kept quiet and let the account executive -- feeling the pressure of Efti's silence -- negotiate the fee down all on his own. At the end of the phone call, Efti had saved Close.io $225,000.

Don't undercut yourself before your buyer states their objections. There will be plenty of time to make concessions, but don't make offers you'll regret later just because you're afraid of a little silence.

4) Silence prompts buyers to reveal their true needs and concerns.

Some prospects don't have a problem explaining challenges at their companies or issues with a seller's offering. Others are more hesitant to give honest or negative feedback.

If your prospect falls into the latter category, more talk from you won't help to draw out relevant information. Instead, listen to your prospects. After all, what is listening besides intentional silence on one party's behalf?

When a salesperson asks a question the buyer might not want to answer, silence coaxes them into sharing the truth while making it clear you're prepared to carefully concentrate on their answers.

5) Silence encourages prospects to lead the conversation.

Sales should be about the buyer and their business, not about the salesperson and their product or service. To ensure the buyer gets exactly what they want out of a sales meeting, sellers should fall silent after explaining a point or presenting a certain argument.

If the magic of awkward silence works (and it usually does), the buyer will guide the conversation. By analyzing what the buyer brings up next, the seller can determine what part of the product or service the buyer is especially interested in or concerned about.

6) Silence pulls disengaged prospects back into the conversation.

Remember the statistic above about most people feeling uncomfortable after four seconds of silence? If you feel like you're losing the room (i.e., people are checking email, zoning out, or disengaging), pause for between three and five seconds.

Give your audience time to look up from whatever they're doing. Once your silence has accomplished its goal, touch base with your prospects and ask if you're still on the same page, or if there's anything you can do to make the conversation more meaningful for their business. The result is a more fruitful conversation for them, and a more engaged audience for you.

7) Silence highlights important points your prospect needs to understand.

Since today's sales process is all about the prospect and their needs, it's important for them to understand key points about your product or service to ensure it's the right fit for them.

Author and public speaking expert Andrii Sedniev says pausing before and after critical points in your speech will emphasize important information, pique your audience's interest, and give you a moment to catch your breath. It's tempting to ramble on about important points in your presentation, but give them space and you'll increase their impact.

Don't be afraid of silence on sales calls -- use it to your advantage. With a little practice, this technique will become scond nature.

Carla was killing off her leading man. And it felt good—but not perfect.

She drummed her fingers on the editing desk and squinted at the monitors in front of her as she scrolled through footage from the season finale of Dope, her production company’s long-running drama series about DEA agents.

“What’s wrong?” asked Melanie, who had directed the episode.

Editor's Note

“In that last scene, we need quicker cuts between the fire at the lab and the flashbacks. And the song isn’t right. Viewers should be sad, yes, but mostly shocked. This is their hero dying—without any warning.”

Melanie looked upset, and Carla felt a pang of guilt. Dope was supposed to be Melanie’s now. Carla had handed over showrunner responsibilities to her protégé last year so that she’d have more time to spend on the other two series that C3 Productions had on the same network, RBN. But this scene—capping Dope’s 10th season with the surprise death of a main character—was too important to Carla. She’d pushed Melanie to go for a blockbuster finale and helped her write the script. She had to make sure the execution was right, too.

“The network wants a final cut by midnight,” Melanie said, tensely.

Carla looked at the time: 3 PM. She’d been on the set of 911, her police drama now in its second year, since early morning and was scheduled to do a script read-through with the cast of Forty Stories, her newest series about the residents of a Manhattan high-rise, from afternoon into evening. She’d intended to stop by the Dope set only briefly, to give Melanie’s work a final signoff. But now she’d have to come back, sacrificing the 9-PM-to-midnight window she’d hoped to spend working on a new idea: a sitcom-length “dramedy” about aging that would be something totally new—and exciting—for C3. She’d been trying to write the pilot for months, but working 13 hours or more a day, she just couldn’t find the time. Melanie wasn’t the only one feeling frustrated.

“I’ll come back tonight,” Carla said. “It’s almost there,” she added.

“Sure,” Melanie said, glumly. “But we still need ‘that Carla magic.’”

Carla gave a tight smile. Michael Love, RBN’s head of programming, had first used those words nine months before, at the annual “upfront” presentation when networks give ad buyers a preview of their new seasons and shows. Word had leaked that Melanie was taking over Dope, though Carla would stay on as co-executive producer. When people asked what that meant, Michael had assured them that every C3 show on RBN would still have “that Carla magic”—an emotional center, sharp dialogue, and surprising plot twists—that garnered high ratings, especially in the coveted 18- to 34-year-old demographic.

Now the term had become something of a catchphrase with the network suits. When Carla nominated assistant producers to write scripts or direct, the concern was always “Do they have your magic?” When RBN sent notes on first cuts of shows, the feedback was often “needs more C.M.” Though Carla had initially been flattered by Michael’s endorsement, she’d come to resent it. Juggling three shows, all on demanding 24-episode schedules, she wasn’t sure she had enough magic to go around anymore.

Under Pressure

As Carla headed to the Forty Stories set, her phone rang. It was Michael. “Did you see last night’s ratings?”

“Michael, you know I don’t check next-day numbers.”

“It wasn’t good.”

“It was a busy night with the NBA playoffs. People DVRed us. We’ll see pick-up over the weekend.”

“We didn’t last week—not enough. Look, Melanie’s a capable producer. But she still needs your oversight.”

“I know, and she has it,” Carla said.

“How’s the finale shaping up? I hope you’re taking the reins back for this one. It’s important.”

“I’m working on it with Melanie tonight. But Michael, I can’t manage three shows without delegating. I tried last season, and it’s just not sustainable. I barely slept. I need Melanie to run Dope, and I’m hoping that next year, on 911, Keston can do more directing and script-writing.”

“We can’t do that—it’s too soon. We were lucky to avoid a second-year slump. We need you to be completely hands-on.”

“Then we have to think about cutting episodes. We could move from 24 to 16, start later in September and take a longer winter hiatus. I’d have more time for all three shows if the schedule wasn’t so tight.”

“Carla, we—you—have three of the top 15 shows on television. The market is shrinking—and getting more fragmented—but the revenue for your shows is going up. Dope still pulls in $150 million a year in ads, and the others are close. That’s huge money—for us and for you. And you want to cut back? If I suggested that to Bill,” he added, referring to RBN’s president, “I’d be laughed out of the room.”

“If you want me to keep giving you good shows with high ratings, I need time to be creative,” she countered. “And I don’t have that right now.”

“You’ll have the summer.”

“To write scripts and plot story lines. It’s the same treadmill. I can’t work on anything new.”

“You know you’ll never fully give up control. These are C3 shows: Carla Tremont Productions. It’s your name. They’re your babies. And you’re a perfectionist. That’s why we love you.”

He was right; they were her babies, and she couldn’t imagine ever fully letting them go. But she had to do something to give herself more time to think. “Michael, I was due at a read-through 10 minutes ago.”

“Sure, I’ll let you go. But one more thing: Did you say you’re working on something new?”

“No,” she answered, with only a moment’s hesitation. It was technically the truth—but she still felt guilty. When she’d first conceived of 911 and Forty Stories, she’d floated them with RBN right away. C3 was under contract to give the network the right of first refusal to any new shows, and Michael had been a terrific, if tough, partner since the early days of Dope. But her new idea was edgier, more explicit—not at all right for RBN. She envisioned it airing on a cable network like AMC or HBO, or maybe Netflix, Amazon, or the new media upstart that was getting so much buzz, Cascade.

How could she explain to Michael that she wanted to scale back on her existing shows so that she could create a new one that she’d most likely pitch to a competitor? And what if the dramedy idea failed? She’d worked incredibly hard for her three hits, and knew the ride—an amazing and lucrative one—wouldn’t last forever. Maybe she should suck up the workload and enjoy her success while it lasted.

Heart to Heart 

The Forty Stories read-through took longer than expected. The script, from another of Carla’s up-and-coming producers, needed tweaking, and she’d been too busy to eat dinner. She found a bag of almonds in her purse and ate them on her way back to C3.

Two hours later, a little before midnight, she and Melanie had nailed their scene. She was exhausted but exhilarated.

“Just in time,” Melanie said, yawning. “Thanks. I didn’t want to ask you for help, but I clearly needed it. I feel mostly on top of things, but it’s good to work together again.”

“Next year will be easier,” Carla said.

“Maybe,” Melanie said. “But I’ll never be you. I had a drink with Keston the other night, and he feels the same way. At the end of the day, these are your shows, not ours, and it’s hard to run them without you.”

“No one’s asking you to be me. What we need is more ‘Melanie magic.’”

Melanie brightened. “Hey, are we still going to that top-women-in-TV breakfast tomorrow?”

Carla groaned inwardly. “I’m not speaking, am I? Do we both need to go?”

“You’re not presenting, but it won’t be pretty if I show up without you.”

“OK, then. Let’s call it a night.”

A Proposition

Carla walked into the Beverly Hilton ballroom the next morning and ran into Dale Grossman, the new head of content at Cascade. She’d met him at the previous year’s Emmys, when he was still at HBO.

“Carla, great to see you again.”

“You, too, Dale. Congrats on the move to Cascade.”

“Thanks, I’m really fired up about it. Huge shows coming up—one from Tarantino, the other from Clooney, acting and directing. Limited series, of course. Can’t tie these big stars down. But top-notch production, filmed on location, amazing scripts and casts.”

“Expensive,” Carla replied.

“Well, our investors believe that content is still king. Of course, I don’t have to tell you that! You’re the queen of RBN.”

“You’re too kind.”

“Seriously, three shows—on that grueling network timetable. And you still find time for business breakfasts!”

“I try,” Carla said, drily.

“Would you have time for lunch at Cascade? I know our CEO would love to hear your perspective on the industry, what audiences really want, how our shows stack up. I know you’re locked in at RBN, but—”

“I’m not locked in,” she interrupted. “RBN gets a first look, but we’re not tied to them.”

“Of course. Well, if you’re ever ready to do something different, we’d love to discuss it.”

He handed her a card, and Carla took it, her expression neutral. But she wanted to leave right then and there, write the pilot, schedule the meeting, make the pitch. She couldn’t, though: She had to be on the Forty Stories set in an hour.

In the car afterward, she considered her situation. She had a lot more magic left in her. But she wasn’t sure she could sprinkle it across three shows and a new venture. She’d have to cede more control to Melanie and Keston and trust them to take her shows forward. Or she had to convince Michael that the three series would benefit from fewer episodes in the long run, even if it meant RBN and C3 taking a financial hit in the short term. The only other option was to convince herself that the dramedy idea wasn’t so urgent; she could set it aside and wait for things to slow down in a few years as they surely would.

That was all the thinking she had time for, however: Her casts and crews and viewers were waiting.

Question: Should Carla cede control of her hit series to focus on her new idea?

If you’d like your comment to be considered for publication in a forthcoming issue of HBR, please remember to include your full name, company or university affiliation, and e-mail address.

Customers won’t tell you.

They know you’d love to know what they’re thinking. To get an inside look at how they make their decisions. But the fact of the matter is, they won’t share.

Because they don’t really know.

Make no mistake, customers think they know about decision making. Ask them and they’ll tell you about their “rational decision-making process.”

• First, they determine what they need
• Next, they assess qualified candidates
• Finally, they select a winner

You’ll get some variation depending on who you ask but it’s usually something similar. It’s completely untrue.

Logical decision making is a myth

Antonio Damasio, Professor of Neuroscience at the University of Southern California made a startling discovery.

His research focused on the areas of the brain responsible for emotion. His work focused on patients who had a damaged limbic system. These patients were normal in every way, except for one thing.

They weren’t able to feel emotions.

During the course of his research, Damasio discovered the people in his study all had the same unusual problem.

None of them could make decisions.

They were able to describe what they were supposed to do in logical terms, but without emotion, they found it incredibly difficult to make even the simplest of decisions (e.g. what to eat).

Damasio discovered that, at the point of decision, emotions are vital for decisions. What does this mean for us, for your customers? It means that every decision, even the ones we believe are purely logical are always based on emotion.

Customers are emotional decision makers

Contrary to popular belief, we’re all emotional decision makers. Emotion is a fundamental part of choice. It’s what customers won’t tell you, not because they aren’t willing, but because they don’t know.

Whether we like it or not, we’re all dependent on emotion.

What drives emotion? Our thoughts, information. The emotions your customer experiences come from three simple areas.

1. Inexperience. What you don’t know can hurt you. As customers, we all understand this intuitively. Naturally, customers have questions. Are there any hidden fees? Is this safe? What am I getting myself into? These unanswered questions create a wide variety of negative emotions. Answering customer questions relieves these negative emotions.

2. Past experience. Customers are far more likely to approach you with fear if they were burned by a dishonest seller in the past. Did a competitor’s product fail shortly after purchase? Expect skepticism and doubt.

3. Perception. Politicians, used car salesmen and lawyers are often viewed as sleazy and dishonest. When there’s an industry or company bias at play, customers are immediately, automatically resistant. If you’re perceived as authoritative or prestigious, customers approach with a sense of awe and respect.

When a customer is looking to buy, one of these three scenarios is at play. But what does that look like? To find the answer, let’s look at a few product examples.

Inexperienced and unsure about Amazon Echo

Amazon Echo is a smart speaker system that offers buyers “hands-free voice control”. It’s also a new product. It’s something most people aren’t familiar with yet. It makes sense then that customers have questions about it.

First, let’s look at inexperience. Echo is a new product so obviously inexperienced customers (almost everyone) have questions about the Echo.

• Is the Echo reliable?
• Is it accurate and dependable?
• Will it save me time?
• Are there any added monthly costs?
• What do I need to make the Echo work?

Customers arrive on site with thousands of questions.

Other customers jump in and provide helpful answers for other customers, defusing customer objections for Amazon. What’s also interesting, is the nature of customer questions.

They’re almost entirely based around inexperience.

What about reviews? What can customer reviews tell us about the buyer’s journey?

Michael’s story is sad, powerful and compelling. He’s a widowed quadriplegic who…

• Relies on Echo to retain his independence
• Calls out commands instead of a joystick with his mouth
• Realizes his Echo learns and improves daily
• Has dramatically improved his life and productivity

His story is loaded with emotion. It’s powerful because it rings true. Here’s the amazing part. Michael’s review has drawn other people to the product.

Reading his experience (and others like it), they’re convinced, they’ll be able to live a happier, more productive life with an Echo. Amazon’s reviews have given inexperienced customers confidence!

A perception problem for Pizza Brain Pizza Museum

Pizza Brain is listed as the nation’s first pizza museum. The restaurant was started by Brian Dwyer and is listed as the world’s largest collection of pizza memorabilia.

What comes to mind when you think of a museum. Big, spacious with lots to do/see, right? What did customers find?

Do other customers feel this the same way?

And so does Cindy.

Customers came to Pizza Brain with perceptions. The phrase “Pizza Museum” conjured up imagery of an actual museum, full of stories, artifacts and yes memorabilia. Customers wanted history but felt they got trinkets and memorabilia instead.

An expectations mismatch has created a perception problem.

That problem has created negative reviews, leading to more and more customers choosing to pass on Pizza Brain. This doesn’t even include their other negative reviews.

If there’s a perception at play – industry, company, individual – it needs to be addressed. If the perception customers have is positive, they expect you to live up to that perception. If the perception is negative, they’ll expect you to win them over (or they’ll move on).

Past experiences set the tone for Zappos

Zappos’ customer service stories are legendary. They’ve sent flowers to customers, after the death of a loved one, saves a best man from going barefoot at a wedding and even ordered pizza for the CEO and a few customers.

Their amazing performance creates a major expectation.

That their next experience will be as good (or better) than their last experience.

No pressure right?

But they continue to deliver, building on these past experiences with new and existing customers.

What if it’s a fluke? What if they’re not living up to customer expectations?

Their reviews state otherwise. Zappos continues to deliver. They’re building on the positive experiences customers have had in the past.

Here’s why that’s important.

A customer’s past experience may not be with you. It may be with a competitor or analogous provider. That past experience may be negative. It most likely isn’t your fault but it’s still your problem to deal with.

Past experience drives expectations. Customers want to avoid harm. If their experience is negative, they search for a signal demonstrating that you’re different. If it’s positive, they’re looking for you to match or exceed their expectations.

There’s pressure either way.

For customers, the buying process is painful

Customers are loaded down with what ifs, can I’s, and will I’s. They’re searching through reviews, looking for answers to their problems, their questions. They’re looking to relieve the fear and doubt that stalks them.

Inexperience, perception and past experience.

Just one problem.

There’s no way to relieve every single fear and answer every single question is there?

Nope.

But there’s good news. You don’t have to. You simply need to solve enough. Customers aren’t looking for an answer to each and every question, just answers to the important questions, the ones that matter to them.

Do that, and you’re in.

Go above and beyond and you’ve got a customer for life.

But how much is enough? How many questions do you have to answer? There’s no way to tell, every customer is different after all.

So, how do you win a customer over?

It’s simple.

You tell the whole story. Follow Amazon’s example. Flush out every question you can think of, every objection, every problem ahead of time. Then, answer each question completely. Tell the whole story.

Customers make their decisions when they feel satisfied with your answers. The truth sets them free from their negative emotions, from their fear, stress and anxiety.

Customer decisions aren’t purely logical, they can’t be…

We use our emotions to make decisions and facts (e.g. information, reason) to validate decisions already made.

Customers won’t tell you what they’re thinking, because they don’t know.

But they know how they feel.

Customers think they know about decision making. Ask them and they’ll tell you about their “rational” decision-making process.

But you know the truth.

Science shows decisions are made with emotion and justified with data. Give customers the answers they’re looking for and you’ll help them complete the buyer’s journey, no secrecy required.

Sometimes, the stars just align and no matter what you say or do, people can’t wait to throw their money at you.

What? That’s never happened to you?

Well, to be honest, it hasn’t happened to me either.

The truth is that selling is a process—one that changes and evolves constantly. Converting a prospect into a customer is like trying to hit a moving target. On a windy day. With a blindfold on. There’s no such thing as a fail-proof sales technique (and if there were, I think I’d probably be keeping it to myself). But there are ways you can greatly increase the likelihood of getting the yes every single time you approach a new lead.

I’m talking about developing a sales process—a collection of repeatable steps you can take to move a potential customer from prospect to client to brand champion.

With a sales process, you’re no longer going in blind with new prospects and hoping for the best. You’re using what you already know has worked in the past and helped you close deals to create a checklist for success.

Along with your sales goals and your sales plan, your sales process forms the triple threat that puts you out in front of the competition and gives you a systematic edge.

So are you ready to get down and dirty and create your own sales process? Let’s dive in.

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The 8 key stages of creating a successful sales process

A successful sales process is repeatable, but that doesn’t mean it’s repetitive. Consistency creates success, but it can also cause complacency if you lose sight of the bigger picture.

You can think of what we’re showing you here simply as an outline you need to fill in based on your own business needs and adjust based on customer actions, the market you’re in, and what your competition is up to.

Like every aspect of your business, your sales process needs to be fluid enough to move and stay relevant. It also needs a solid backbone. So let’s start with the big question: Just what should be addressed in your sales process?

1. Prospecting

The first step in the sales process is finding the right people to target. Just like those old bearded men of frontier America, your prospecting means a lot of digging around in the mud looking for gold (with customers being your precious metal).

The goal of prospecting is to develop a database of strong leads who you can then systematically communicate with to try and convert them into customers.

When you’re just starting out, your prospects will be broken down into two types:

• Suspects: Individuals or companies you think have a need for your product or service, but who most likely aren’t aware of you.
• Prospects: Suspects who have confirmed in one way or another that they might be interested in buying from you at some point. For example, a startup that just took in a round of funding and is growing their sales team could be a prospect for your sales CRM, as long as they know who you are.

2. Researching

As you’re building out your database of suspects and prospects, you’ll also want to be doing additional research to understand their needs and offer them a more tailored experience when you do reach out.

Check out their Twitter or other social media and see what they talk about. Do you have any common interests that could create a connection? What about complaints? Have they recently spoken publically about a problem that your product or service solves? Knowing these sorts of things before reaching out can be the difference between a hard no and the more ambiguous and optimistic maybe.

For our fictional sales CRM company, we might search Twitter for people tweeting at a competitor’s support Twitter to see where they’re slipping up, and where we can capitalize.

But remember, research isn’t a do-it-once task. You’ll want to continue to do further research throughout the sales process as you learn more about your prospect.

If all else fails in your research process, you can take a page straight out of the political playbook. Marketing strategist and entrepreneur Dorie Clark employs a technique called power mapping, that focuses on winning over the people your prospective client already trusts.

Clark shares, “For years, advocates who hope to influence a legislator would create a map of their connections and the people they listen to most: donors, the head of the political party, the leaders of interest groups whose support they need and others.” As a salesperson, this is leveraged as an opportunity to try and win over the people around your prospect—or identify mutual connections—to quickly get your message in front of them.

3. Connecting

Now that we know who we’re after, the next step is to engage with those suspects and prospects to let them know who you are, how you can solve their problems, and why they should be giving you some of their hard-earned cash.

Connecting can take many forms, from emails to social media messages to picking up the phone and cold calling. Whatever format you choose, you should have a clear script in place and know what you’re saying before you get involved. This is your first impression and it can make or break the sale.

For our sales CRM company, we might take our list of prospects and set a goal of cold calling 10 of them every day. And if you think sales calls are old school or ‘too salesy’, just remember, even Uber started with a cold call.

4. Presenting

Now that you’ve got the attention of your prospect it’s time to roll up your sleeves, light a candle, and turn on the smooth talk. Seriously though, it’s time to convince them just why they should care about you and what you’re doing.

The presenting part of the sales process is very dependent on what you’re selling, but could be anything from a formal presentation to a walk-through of your app or service. This is your opportunity to show benefits and explain how your solution solves the problems that you know your prospect has. It can be time-consuming, however, and you should make sure that you’ve qualified your prospects properly before taking the time to present.

Because our sales CRM is a SaaS company, the best way for us to present to customers is to show them around the software. So, for every lead that we get to present to, we’ve got a presentation in place that shows off our product’s main benefits as well as a few specific use cases for them we discovered during our research.       

5. Addressing objections

Undoubtedly, somewhere along this sales process path you’re going to hit a few bumps. It’s normal for a prospect to have objections to what you’re selling them. Our brains are hardwired to hold onto what we have (money) and not like change. You’re asking them to do both.

So do we give up? Hell no. A good sales process takes into account any objections a prospect might have. Some of these objections will be specific to your business, but to get you started here are 7 of the most common objections you’re going to hear from prospects:

• Price. Example: “We don’t have the budget for your Sales CRM.” The oldest objection in the book is price. When the bottom line is the biggest hurdle for a potential customer, you need to help them justify the value of what you’re providing.

• Complacency. Example: “Yeah, I’m OK with what I’ve got now…” It’s hard to sell a prospect if there’s no clear immediate need for them to switch. Try showing them results and research why you’re better than what they’re using.

• Fear of change. Example: “We’ve been using X sales CRM for 5 years. I don’t want to change up a good thing.” Like I said, we’re hardwired to fear change so you’re bound to hit this objection more than a few times. Try showing your prospect how the industry has changed in that time and how you’re addressing current and future issues.

• Trust. Example: “I like what you’re saying, but you’re new. How do I know your sales CRM is going to be around in a year?” Trust takes years to build and seconds to destroy. If you’re starting out and going after new customers be transparent. Show testimonials from the customers you already have and offer to put them in touch (if the customer is fine with it).  

• Personal politics. Example: “I’m close friends with our current sales CRM’s CEO.” It’s hard to compete with friendships and close relationships, but this is business. You might not get them with the hard sell, but plant your seeds now and follow up with them down the road.

• External input. Example: “I like it. But I need to run it past my business partner first.” This is a potentially positive objection if your prospect is actually showing your service off rather than just trying to get out of the conversation. In this case, try to stay part of the process. Offer to jump on a call and walk their partner through the product.

• Timing. Example: “We’re really busy right now and it’s just too much to try and switch our sales CRM. Call me in 6 months.” Right. If they don’t have time now, nothing is going to change in 6 months. At this point you need to make hiring you the easiest option for them.

Which brings us to...

6. Closing

With objections out of the way, expectations set and met, and benefits clearly shown, it’s time for the ask. After all of your hard work getting to this point in your sales process, the close should be a no-brainer for your prospect. But it isn’t always.

Deals can get derailed and the hours/days/weeks you’ve put in can feel like a huge waste of time. This is where your sales process comes in handy. Look at how deals have closed in the past and ask your prospect: “What will it take for you to become a customer?”

Continuing our sales CRM example, let’s say our prospect tells us they have to go through legal first before they can sign on. Here’s how we could play this out:

You: “After legal gives the go-ahead, are we ready to move forward?”

Prospect: “Yes, we’d only need to run this past a few higher-ups, then the ethics committee and procurement.”

You: “Interesting. What can you tell me about this part of the process?”

Prospect: “Well, the ethics committee usually takes a couple weeks to review agreements, and if everything looks good, they'll send it to procurement, who has the final sign-off."

You: “Great. And then we're in business, right?”

Prospect: “Yes. At that point, we'd purchase your product.”

Not only are you exploring their buying process, but you’re getting your prospect to imagine a scenario where they become your customer, which is a powerful tool for getting the close.

7. Delivering

You got the sale! Congrats! Time to sit back, kick your feet up and crack a cold one, right? Not quite yet. As part of your sales process you need to make sure your new customer gets the product, gets it set up, and starts seeing value from it as soon as possible.

Why? Because there’s always someone else lurking around the corner doing their own prospecting and presenting. If you drop the ball now, it’s more than easy for your shiny new customer to jump ship to someone else.

We could schedule a call with their whole team to walk them through setting up their new sales CRM, assign them an account manager to help with any day-to-day issues they have, and even send them a thank-you gift for becoming a customer.

8. Following up (asking for referrals)

One mistake a lot of companies make is cutting the sales process after the close. You got the sale, you delivered, your customer is happy. Why do anything else? Because a happy customer is your greatest asset.

Entrepreneur, investor and sales coach Grant Cardone cites not following up with your customers to ask for referrals as one of the biggest missed opportunities for increasing sales with relatively low effort and time investment.

Cardone shares, “91% of clients say they are open to providing referrals. Yet, only 11% of salespeople ask for referrals.”

That fact alone creates a massive opportunity for you to incorporate a feedback loop of requesting referrals directly into your sales process after delivering your first results.

Set a reminder to follow up with new customers on a regular basis (1 month, 3 months, 6 months, 1 year) to see how they’re getting along. At a certain point, you should ask them if they know anyone else they think would benefit from your service or product. A warm lead like this is the easiest way to bring in new business.

If they don’t have any connections, you can still plan to ask them for a testimonial or case study to help convert future prospects.

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Applying this sales process framework to your business

Now that we’ve got a clear framework for a sales process in place, it’s time to look into how you can actually apply these ideas to your own business.

I know we used a sales CRM as our example, but I want to be extra clear that this sales process framework works for any company, service or product out there. It doesn’t matter what you sell, you need to have a repeatable way to sell it to new customers.

So, let’s get into the nitty-gritty of how you can start filling in the blanks and fleshing out your own sales process:

Start with what you know

If you ever get lost in the wilderness, the first thing you’re supposed to do is take stock of what you have already.

Now, you might be sitting down in your fancy office (or coffee shop—no judgement) but going after new customers is a lot like venturing off into the deep unknown woods. You don’t know what you’re going to run into. So starting with the tools you have at your disposal is a safe bet.

This means documenting everything about your current sales process.

Start by looking at the last successful deal you closed. Go back to the beginning and analyze the customer. Who are they? Why did you go after them in particular? What characteristics made them a good lead in the first place? This is your first step towards building your own database of suspects and prospects.

Next, re-read your initial conversations. What sort of language did they use? Where did you have success reaching them? Was it on the phone? E-mail? Social media? Knowing where your audience hangs out will help when you’re reaching out to new prospects.

When you presented your product or service to them, what format did they prefer? Video chat? In person meet-up? Powerpoint? Write down how your ideal customer prefers to interact with you so you can offer that as the first option next time around.  

Once you presented, what objections came up? And how did you deal with them? If they came up once, there’s a good chance they’ll come up again, so be sure to start making a doc you can share with your sales team of all objections you’ve actually faced and how you got through them.

Now onto the good stuff. How did you finally get them to give you the yes? What sort of language did you use? How much time did you give them? Did you have to follow up or not? Did you have to talk to other people on the team?

Once they said yes, how did they prefer delivery? Did they ask for help setting up their accounts (which is something you could automate or create a resource for if it keeps coming up)? How often did they ask for help once they were new customers and were you able to help them?

Finally, when you followed up what did they say? Were they happy to refer you to other people or give a testimonial? Do you have a system in place for gathering testimonials you can use in your own marketing?

This will be a big doc, but it will start to give you a picture of how your process should be laid out specifically for your business.   

Set clear expectations

Now that we have a broad picture, let’s go into the details.

At each stage of the sales process you need to define clear metrics that tell you whether you’re doing a good job or not. Remember, this is a fluid process. If we don’t have benchmarks to measure against we can’t get better in the future.

Look at things like prospect to presentation ratio. How many prospects are engaged enough to actually want a presentation or demo? If that’s low or dropping, it’s time to adjust your pitch.

What about after you’ve presented? How many of those people are becoming customers? If that number’s low, what objections are coming up time and time again? Is it the pitch or the product? Getting feedback from real, qualified, potential customers can help shape your product into something people really want.  

Set success metrics and goals for each stage of your process so that your team knows if they’re on the right track, and so that you know when things stop working and can act on it, fast.

Have a list of actions to move the prospect onto the next stage

Just like we should have a list of common objections and how to answer them we should also know clear next steps for each part of our sales process.

Every action, whether it’s prospecting, researching, connecting, presenting, closing, or delivering, needs to have a clear corresponding action. If there are ever any hiccups, you know that’s an area of your sales process that needs to be looked at again.

Let’s say you reach out to a prospect and don’t hear back. What do you do next? Move on? Wait a week? Look for them somewhere else? For some salespeople, a no isn’t a no until they hear the words come out of their prospect’s mouth, whereas for others, two weeks of silence means it’s probably not a good fit. Which is right for you?  

What about when closing? How many times do you ask and how far do you push before you accept you’re not getting the yes? Your process should answer these questions clearly and concisely.

Remember, your sales team represents your company and its values. If you don’t clearly lay out how you deal with these situations you’ll do more than lose sales, you’ll lose your reputation.

Analyze, learn, and keep on optimizing

I know I’m sounding like a broken record here, but, like all aspects of your sales set up, your sales process is truly a fluid system. You have to be constantly measuring, analyzing and optimizing your process as you engage with more prospects and close more deals.

Markets change. Competitors switch tactics. You need to always know what’s happening and how you can adapt. That’s why you defined all those metrics and set up a clear plan.

All this planning and documenting does nothing if you just leave your process as it is and keep on marching blindly.

Regularly revisit your process and look at how things have changed. Or sit down with one of your colleagues and run through a recent sale. What happened that was different than before? Were there objections they hadn’t heard before?

Getting the jump on potential issues will keep you at the front of the pack. But you’ll only ever know these if you keep track of what’s going on.

So there you have it.

While it’s no magic bullet, a clear sales process is the closest thing you can get to a checklist for success with scaling your business. Put it in place, stick to it, and adjust when necessary.

You’ll have a repeatable way to take a prospect from unknown stranger to lifelong customer.

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