Rnordman

Having spent years – decades, even – building up professional reputations and honing our expertise, it can be scary how much appears to be at stake each time we launch into a new negotiation, project or work-task. We’re confident and know that we have the chops to execute…but we also know that making a mistake could mean that we risk losing the trust and respect of others. And then it happens. We make that mistake. The world seems to slow down, our vision gets a bit blurry, and our stomachs end up in our throats.

Now what?

You fess up. No sweeping it under the rug. No finding an excuse. No pointing fingers at a scapegoat.

Why? Because as valuable as your reputation of being an expert is, your professional credibility and trustworthiness are even more so. Actually, admitting to having made a mistake will send the message loud and clear that you’re able to put doing the ‘right thing’ ahead of ego…and that can take you far with your negotiation counterparts.

It Happened To Me…

A few years ago, I made a particularly frustrating and embarrassing mistake during a negotiation. In sorting through a pricing spreadsheet, I made a typo in a formula. In and of itself it was a small error and hadn’t skewed the results too much – but the really horrifying part of it was that my spreadsheet had been used as the foundation for work completed by not only my team, but the vendor’s team as well. The volume of work that would have to be re-done as a result of my wee little typo was scary.

I’m not going to lie; there was a temptation to just duck my head under the covers and hope that it would go unnoticed by everyone else. But in the end, the right thing to do was fess up – and here are the 3 things that helped me turn the situation around:

Own It.

After spotting the mistake, and running through the spreadsheet several times over to make sure there weren’t any others, I sent word to my team and the vendor that there had been an error. I explained what it was, what the impact had been, and then made a commitment to resolve it.

Fix It.

Following through on a commitment to set things right after making a mistake is crucial. I updated the formula, verified the results, and got a new working copy out to the teams as quickly as possible (the negotiation couldn’t stop just for me – momentum had to be maintained!).

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Don’t let mistakes destroy your credibility – own it, fix it, and pay it forward instead.

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Pay It Forward.

Applying the lesson learned from my mistake meant more than just double-checking my other files and making a mental note to avoid the same issue in future spreadsheets. It meant offering to help others on my team the next time they were completing similar work. It meant collaborating with a counterpart on the next-generation of spreadsheets we’d be using to wrap up the negotiations. That’s the great thing about mistakes – the solutions to them benefit more than just your work.

At the end of it, sure, I was still embarrassed about the whole thing, but I knew that I’d done the right thing by owning it, fixing it, and sharing the lesson learned. And that negotiation? It turned out just fine – as did my relationships with my counterpart.

LEARN MY 15 EXPERT TIPS FOR BOOSTING YOUR PROFITS WITHOUT CHASING NEW CLIENTS.

Download your free guide now!

If you’re still approaching sales in the same way it was done 30, 20, or even 10 years ago, you won’t be successful. To understand how it has changed, let’s back way up and take a big picture, generational view.

1st Generation

Let’s go back 50 – 100,000 years. You need to survive, so you need to prospect and find people with whom to trade goods. You needed a story to tell, and you’re going to have to ask for a commitment to exchange goods. Those are first level sales skills. You still need them, but they’ve been around for a long, long time.

2nd Generation

Next, fast forward to the Industrial Age, where we see massive disruption due to mass production. Now, you need to differentiate your offering. It is what GM did so successfully against Ford. Instead of Ford’s “You can have any color you want, as long as it’s black,” GM offered customers choices. They could have a color, and style of car, that differentiated their car from all of the black cars on the market.

With these changes, sales is more complex. You have to differentiate, you have to diagnose, and you have to figure out what people need. And then, you have to be able to negotiate. Because there are different levels of value being created, there are different levels of value being captured to deliver that. These changes require the 2nd generation of sales skills.

3rd Generation

At present, we’re in the 3rd generation of sales – on the verge of a 4th generation, because there is another disruption on the horizon. Now you need new skills:

• Business acumen
• The ability to answer the question “why should I change?”
• The ability to lead teams – your team and your client’s team, in the process of changing.

We’re talking about the need for a very high-level skill set, and it’s what salespeople are now required to do.

You say you want to be a trusted advisor. You only need two things to do that: trust, and advice. If you don’t have the advice, you can’t be a trusted advisor. You need business acumen, and you need the ability to help people change. That’s the biggest, most dramatic change in sales, and it’s why people are struggling. They want it to be the product, service, or solution, and it’s none of those things. You are the value prop now. You are what they’re buying. They either believe you and think you can help them change, or they don’t want you on their team.

Photo credit: Irudayam Only a pawn in their game via photopin (license)

The post Sales is Now a Very Different Game appeared first on The Sales Blog.

A decade into the rise of social media as a business imperative, and we’re still hamstrung by a glut of weak and sometimes misleading statistical measures.

In short, social media metrics often suck.

I want to try to help fix this by drawing from the Convince & Convert team’s experiences with dozens of brands. I want to try to shed some light on what’s real and what’s mathematically imaginary, like Conor McGregor’s chances.

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New, free ebook from @jaybaer - 3 Social Metrics That Will Get You Promoted
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Yes, I want to help social media practitioners better understand what’s happening day-to-day. But perhaps more importantly, I want to give social pros a way to better merchandise their data inside their own companies. This is an area that, in my experience, needs a lot of work. There are a TON of very adept social professionals that are holding back their own careers by not consistently explaining their progress in a concise and powerful fashion.

So today I launch a new ebook from me and the Convince crew, called “The 3 Types of Social Media Metrics and Why They’ll Get You Promoted”

It’s 100 percent free. All we ask for is your first name and your email address. Yeah, we’ll add you to our weekly email list, and I hope you’ll find that a worthwhile value exchange. If not, let me know and I’ll remove you.

Highlights of the 3 Types of Social Media Metrics and Why They’ll Get You Promoted

There’s a ton of content in this book. We pulled no punches and drew no quarter. I very much hope you’ll download it—and I want your feedback. Just email me jay at convince and convert dot com and let me know what you think.

Meanwhile, a few highlights:

• Metrics matter more than ever. As social becomes more reliant on paid, budgets go up. And when budgets go up, scrutiny rides shotgun. Effective measurement is required to justify budgets (and personnel).

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Time to get serious about social media metrics
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• Most metrics fail because they are not tied to a meaningful business outcome.

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Goal isn't to be good at social. The goal is to be good at business.
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• We describe nine key metrics in the ebook, ranging from audience growth rate to share of voice.
• And, in my favorite section, we discuss the three different reports that should be created about social media, and who should see each type of report, and when, using our F3 approach (Frequency, Focus, Format).

Huge thanks to the entire team for working on this. It’s the first in a series of ebooks we’re creating called The Thoughtful Marketers Guides. Next one is on content marketing.

Grab yourself a copy of  “The 3 Types of Social Media Metrics and Why They’ll Get You Promoted” right now here, and please let me know what you think via email, or below.

Sales emails are not marketing emails. This sounds simple enough, but you wouldn’t believe how many sales emails I see in my inbox that resemble long-winded marketing newsletters. And I’m guessing they’re also in yours

So what’s the difference between the two?

Cold emails, as the name suggests, are sales emails sent without any prior connection or context in the hopes of starting a conversation with a potential customer. By contrast, most marketing emails—often referred to as “drip nurture emails” or “warm emails”—are meant to educate their audience while building awareness and rapport over a longer period of time.

For cold emails to even have the slightest chance of working, you need to understand some key ways they differ from marketing newsletters. Pay attention to these 6 cold-email tenets if you want to succeed with your outbound sales goals:

1. Nobody opts into cold emails. 

People generally opt in to receive marketing newsletters, but no one chooses to get cold emails. This simple fact is one of the most important differences between the two.

2. Cold emails arrive without context. 

Since you opted into marketing emails, you generally expect to receive information. Whether you attended a webinar or signed up to receive a company’s latest best practices, you already have some context as to who this company is. People sending sales emails don’t have this advantage. In many cases, a cold email might be the first time the recipient is ever hearing about you or your company. Likewise, you haven’t yet earned their trust or attention yet.

3. The best cold emails lead to offline relationships.

While marketing emails sometimes focus on upcoming events and conferences, for the most part, involvement with them remains on the computer screen. In contrast, great cold emails capture their recipients’ attention and build a “virtual rapport” that leads to offline conversations—phone calls, coffee meetings, dinners. In that way, everything about your cold email should take this long-term goal into account.

4. Cold emails don’t brag.

A line like, “Our groundbreaking new software will change your employee’s lives” is acceptable in a marketing email. In a cold email, it will make you look really obnoxious and self-promotional to a stranger. Instead, collect interesting statistics and testimonials about your offering, and let them do the talking for you. When you have a truly compelling pitch, you don’t need to dress it up with bragging.

5. Cold emails are designed for individual recipients.

Your recipient doesn’t want to feel like they’re one of 1000 people getting the same email. Given that, your cold email should include a field for their first name, at the bare minimum. That way, when Josh at ACME sees his name instead of “Dear Sir” at the top of the message, he’ll feel a greater sense of connection to you and be more likely to read on.

6. Simple design speaks volumes in cold email.

Email newsletters tend to include graphics, bright colors, bullet-point lists, lots of links, and unusual fonts. Avoid all of these things when sending cold emails, as they’ll only distract the recipient from the main message—how you can help solve their business problems. Not to mention, they signal to recipients that your email to them is completely mass.

Your parents would probably be pretty skeptical that you wrote them a personal message if you sent them a crazy colorful HTML email asking how their week was. Your prospects are the same, so don’t do that to them either.

How do you keep your sales emails from turning into marketing? Please share your tips and tricks below!

The post 6 Things You Should Never Confuse Between Sales and Marketing Emails appeared first on Salesfolk.

According to a recent Google search completed just moments before this article was due, millions of people use social media to promote brands and build businesses. Selling is the new sharing, where the name of the game is finding clever ways to plug products. Products like Mountain Dew. Because when you’re cleaning out your sales pipeline, there’s no better taste than the refreshing citrus taste of Mountain Dew.

(See what I mean?)

So if you’re looking for money-making shortcuts, you’re in luck. Thanks to a collaboration with Join-My-Database-For-Marketing-Whitepapers.com, here are five tips to help online business developers get a leading edge on every major social platform.

Platforms like Mountain Dew…

Sorry.

LinkedIn

On any given day, over 238 million sales professionals use LinkedIn to creep the profiles of potential product buyers. It’s also considered a best practice to passive-aggressively endorse sales targets for skillsets like Late December Budget Approvals and Responding to My Emails. Tip: break from the pack by re-sharing billionaire leadership think pieces to raise your status. When posting, subtly refer to yourself in the 3rd person as a “Leader” while tagging posts with #leadership, #humble, or #leaderhumble…and wait for the phone to ring off the hook.

Twitter

Since the dawn of time, sales experts have been obsessed with an element more elusive and unpredictable than fire: the perfectly-written Twitter bio. In fact, archaeologists recently discovered the first-ever cave-drawn Twitter bio at Spain’s Panel of Hands. It reads: @Nodog: Hunter, Solutions Specialist, TEDx Stonehenge. (Nodog closed FY 30,000 B.C. with over 10 rocks which, after inflation, amounts to even more rocks.) To set yourself apart with a biz-dev-bio, use this simple formula: @Name: JobTitle, Solutions Specialist, TEDx Hometown.

Facebook

Facebook inventor Jesse Eisenberg famously stated that he “…wanted to create a platform for real estate professionals to showcase new listings to their high school friends and exes.” Pro tip: when listing those Gorgeous, Unaffordable Houses with Impeccable Fixtures and Shoes-Off Flooring, remind everyone that you “love referrals,” that you’re “always available for referrals,” and “Oh by the way, referrals are always welcome!” And for a retro tip from 2010, don’t forget to auto-post Tweets to your Facebook profile. As any stepdad will tell you, noise works.

Instagram

Unless you work at Dogs of Instagram Tax & Legal, you’ll need to build an Instagram following from the ground floor. Remember the Golden Rule of image sharing: Every Day Is Gym Selfie Day. Crunch robust leads into your sales funnel’s latissimus-dorsi by cross-posting gym selfies while unveiling product promos: Getting jacked for the Q2 offsite while crushing 4 sets of squats (15x). By the way, cloud-computing CRM licenses are 30% off though Canada Day. #Squats #SquatLife #Canada150 #DogsOfInstagram.

Google Plus

(What’s Google Plus?)

One final tip: with summer approaching, if a potential customer mentions that they’re “heading to the cottage” and would like to “book a meeting down the road,” it’s an indication that they want you to join them and their family for a week at the cottage. Follow them down the road.

But not on Google Plus.

Sandy Marshall is available to be endorsed for Typing on LinkedIn and unfollowed on Twitter at @MarshallSandy.

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MORE ABOUT WORKPLACE CULTURE:

• 10 burning questions about millennials in the workplace, answered
• Millennials aren’t coddled—they just reject abuse as a management tactic
• For modern marketers, there’s no such thing as “too much information”
• Moonlighting at other jobs makes your employees more creative and productive
• Donald Trump’s election has measurably decreased workplace happiness
• Change Agents 2016: Erin Reid, DeGroote School of Business
• Scientists prove that sucking up to your boss actually works
• Shopify CEO Tobias Lütke on how to maintain a startup culture at scale

The post The five best social media networks to stage your brand meltdown appeared first on Canadian Business - Your Source For Business News.

For reasons no one can explain, in terms that make sense anyway, senior sales people are no longer required to prospect. Instead, the role of prospecting has been handed off to SDRs or BDRs or some other title that covers the role of prospecting, which is in practice is more qualification than opportunity creation. This is hurting sales organizations, hurting their clients, and hurting the senior reps who would all benefit from their own prospecting.

No one is better prepared to create value for the prospective client than a senior salesperson. They have the most experience, the greatest business acumen, and the most finely tuned ability to help clients succeed in making change. Those clients are deprived of this experience and instead, their first experience is less than it should be, even when sales people who prospect do their very best to create value. Who has helped the most clients change their organization and produce better results? Who knows better how to open a conversation that leads to change?

Less experienced reps are also being harmed by looking at more senior reps as models. They are learning that prospecting isn’t something that “real salespeople” do, and they mistakenly believe that being promoted means they will no longer have to create opportunities on their own, that this work will be beneath them. Younger, less experienced salespeople are looking up to see what success looks like. They are going to model what they see. Providing them with an example that allows them to believe that sales does not require prospecting to create opportunities is doing them a huge disservice.

This is a fundamental misallocation of the senior sales person’s talent, one of the valuable resources in the sales organization. You want your best and most capable people on your best and most valuable targets. You want your A team playing the game with your A clients. It doesn’t make sense to apply what is perceived to be a cheaper resource to this work when the opportunities you need to create are strategic, high value, high visibility, and potentially transformative to your results.

The post Senior Sales Reps Must Prospect appeared first on The Sales Blog.

Lead Qualification — When to Say Goodbye to Poor Leads

In sales, we all walk that fine line of pursuing leads without pushing them away. It’s a dance that we delicately engage in with all our potential customers. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t. But what about lead qualification?

Most of us are reluctant to give up on anyone who has shown some interest in our company, right? We come up with great ways to them interested again and don’t take “no” for an answer.

Well guess what? Sometimes you just have to cut your losses and walk away.

I can practically hear your inner perfectionist screaming “NO, but they DO want our business!”

Maybe they were interested at one point but there are a million reasons that they have decided you just “aren’t the one” for them. Slightly reminiscent of those sad high school break ups, low quality leads need to be set free and forgotten.

Not sure how to do lead qualification or how to spot an unqualified lead?

There are many different signs and clues that will show you that your time is being wasted, you just need to learn to look closely for them. Sadly, any lead with one or more of these qualities is “just not that into you.”

Still not convinced lead qualification matters? Take a look at this post that argues that unqualified leads are WORSE leads than no leads at all.

Once you’ve learned how to start a cold email, grab this guide which gives you 10 tips you need to be using to maximize your cold emails!

Lead Qualification is for EVERYONE

If you are convinced, here’s a look at nine reasons your unqualified leads may not be a fit (at least at this point).

Here are 10 signs you have a lead qualification problem:

1. They Have No Budget

So your potential client seems heads over heels for your brand – you couldn’t be happier! Then, the other shoe drops.

They simply “have no budget for this.” This terrible phrase may also be uttered in a variety of ways including (but not limited to) “we recently had our budget cut,” or “we would really love to work with you but we can’t justify spending this money now.”

No matter the form in which it is said, it all translates to the same thing – unqualified lead.

Wasting your time trying to come up with some scenario in which they can afford it will ultimately backfire 9 times out of 10.

2. They Aren’t the Decision Maker in Their Company

This one is a real heart-breaker!

1. The client loves your company and understands the value in your pricing. All lights are green and signs point to instant conversion. But who is this person exactly? What is their title and rank within their company?If you are speaking with anyone other than the person with the authority to make the purchase, your time is being wasted.That’s not to say that you can’t try to connect with the appropriate contact within the company, but there is no guarantee you will garner the same level of interest.Time to say goodbye and move on!

3. They Have no Engagement with Your Content

Creating content in sales is all about lead nurturing and getting people excited about our value. For some, it may be their first time learning about your company. If you are dealing with a lead that isn’t engaging with your content, they are likely a fair-weather friend.

Maybe they like the idea of what you offer but have no real motivation/budget/intention of becoming a viable lead.

Those who are truly excited about your company will be like your overzealous relative who just joined social media. They will be interacting with your content, sharing your posts and retweeting.

This also applies to your email campaigns. If your lead isn’t clicking your content in emails, they probably just don’t care enough to take the 10 seconds to see what they sent you. Would you stay friends with someone like that? MOVING ON!

4. They Filled Out Your Contact Form with Fake Information

This is one we see ALL the time. We know your real number isn’t 555-5555. It’s like giving someone a fake name at a bar. You may be bored and want to chat a little but you don’t want to be contacted again.

If a lead isn’t giving you all their information, they are lukewarm about you or they are perhaps window shopping. In fact, only 25% of leads are legitimate. Wasting time tracking down these false leads is pointless.

The good news is that you may still hear from them down the road when they are ready for a serious purchase and are further down the sales funnel.

You know what they say, “…if they come back it’s meant to be.”

5. They Have a Problem You Can’t Solve

You may be your company’s sales superman but if you can’t solve a client’s issues with your product and services, there is no point wasting time.

While sometimes this is obvious, other times it’s a bit harder to see.

Do you notice during your pitch that they are giving you clues like “we don’t really have that issue,” or “I’m not sure how that would apply to us.”

These are your red flags. Like it or not, it’s not a good fit.

6. The Timing is Wrong

This one happens a lot.

They tick off most boxes for a qualified lead but the timing isn’t right for them to move forward. This is most commonly noted by statements like “we like what you have to offer, it’s just not the right time for us to buy.”

At this point you are really at a standstill. There are many things you can do to overcome objections, however, time isn’t going to be one of them.

7. Your Sales Call is Short

Consider this akin to the horrible first date where no one has much to say and one of you keeps checking your watch.

The short sales call is a surefire sign that interest isn’t there.

Whether it’s a cold call or a call with a lead who has expressed interest, if you feel like you are being rushed off the phone, there is no use wasting your time.

8. Multiple Ignored Offers

Let’s face it; we put a lot of time, money and effort into carefully crafting our content and automation software to reach our leads wherever they are in the sales funnel.

We are doing our part to communicate but if you aren’t getting any kind of response it’s time to spend time on those who are ready to buy.

Who likes sitting at home waiting for the phone to ring?

9. Uneducated About the Company

Leads who are really interested in fixing their issue will eat up all the information they can about you. They are truly excited about all that you have to offer. If they don’t seem to know much about your company, they haven’t been actively researching you.

The fine print?

They aren’t that interested.

Now, this is an indicator of poor lead quality only IF your content is great and you aren’t leaving any gaps. Considering that yours is likely stellar, they just aren’t serious about you. Next!

10. They Don’t Have a Solution in Mind

Ask anyone their problems and you’ll probably wish that you didn’t as you stand there 10 minutes later looking for a way to get the heck out of there.

Problems will stay just that until a solution comes to mind.

Your job as a sales person is, of course, to help them see that YOU offer them a solution but if you are getting feedback like “yeah, not really sure I can picture that helping,” they probably have no clue what would make their situation better and if they can’t see that, you can’t help them.

So let’s define a qualified lead.

(Original Image Source)

While it’s a bit more complex than a definition you would find in the Webster’s dictionary, a qualified lead is basically someone who has the ability to make the decision for their company, has a high likelihood to purchase, has a problem you can fix and a budget to back this all up.

One lead qualification method you may have heard of is BANT.

This acronym has become and old standby in the sales industry. It stands for Budget, Authority, Need and Timing. Essentially, a qualified lead will have all the qualities that the ten we just mentioned don’t have.

They not only have the need for your service, the budget to cover it, the authority to make the decision but the timing is also right. The clouds part, music chimes and your amazing qualified lead is right in front of you!

Keep this feeling in mind when you say goodbye to stale leads. There are plenty of motivated buyers out there, you just need to find them and put them in your pipeline.

Why Aren’t You Generating Quality Leads?

So what if you feel that the majority of your leads are poor quality? This can be rather disheartening, but it happens if you don’t have a great lead generation program in place.

Here are some of the most common reasons you might be drawing the attention of low quality leads.

1. Your Content is Not Attracting the Right People

The way you craft your content says a lot about the people you will attract. Take a look at your recent content and ask yourself “who am I writing this for?”

Is your content aimed at the person making buying decisions?

Is it crafted toward those who can afford your products/services?

Content is not about just writing about things YOU find interesting. It’s all about crafting it for the RIGHT kind of audience. Put yourself in the shoes of your ideal lead. What are they hoping to learn? What do they need to know? Create killer content that appeals to all these inquiries and make sure you are placing it where your desired audience will see it.

2. You Don’t Have a Lead Qualification Process Off the Bat

In order to save time, you need a great lead qualification process early on. What safeguards do you have in place to weed out low quality leads from quality ones in the beginning?

Chances are, if you are getting hit with tons of poor leads, you don’t have one.

Not to worry! At least now you know what you need to do.

As far as choosing the process that works for you, look at the qualities that are making your leads poor ones.

Is price a concern among them? Then you may want to produce sample pricing early on to be sure that you are discouraging those who cannot make the purchase at the time.

3. You’re Not Asking the Right Lead Qualifying Questions

Keep this in mind – all sales calls are not the same.

This may sound simple, but if you are interacting with all your leads in the same way, you might just be wasting your time.

You need to make sure you are asking the right questions in order to determine if this sale is likely to convert. Once you have done this, set up a ranking system and sort out the leads you think have the most potential and those who seem unlikely to make it through the sales funnel.

This will save you and your team from wasting valuable time on the wrong people.

4. Delayed Follow-up

Imagine that you are the lead and you are really excited to find a company that can solve your own business’s problem. You read all the content you can about them, you enter your information in right away and you hear nothing…. This may continue for a few days or a week but when you finally hear from them, the thrill has sort of worn off. Right?

Be sure you aren’t doing this to your leads!

It’s often an overwhelming process responding to the many inquiries you receive but if your team isn’t doing it in a timely manner, rejections will increase and sales will suffer.

You may think you have this covered by using automated replies. While these are great to confirm that you have received their request, people want to speak to an actual person.

Tighten up your process (i.e. respond in a timely manner). If you don’t, your competition will.

By taking the time to ask yourself “what qualifies as a good lead?” and pushing aside low quality ones, you will be saving time and placing your efforts elsewhere.

While no one likes a break up, it’s time to bid your stale sales leads goodbye!

What techniques do you use for lead qualification? Let us know in the comments below!

Image Copyright Eerik

You've heard it all before - but not quite this way.

The one thing you need in order to have a successful sales force is CRM.

The one thing you need in order to have a successful sales force is a powerful Inbound initiative.

The one thing you need in order to have a successful sales force is a customized sales process.

The one thing you need in order to have a successful sales force is lots of leads.  Really?

By and large, ecommerce marketers are well aware that sites like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Pinterest can be used to generate leads.

But what about community sites like Reddit and Quora?

Despite their ubiquity, ecommerce marketers across the industry don’t realize that Reddit and Quora can be absolute gold mines for finding leads and prospects.

We get more conversions from Quora, but get more leads and traffic from Reddit. And, our conversion rate from Quora is higher than organic search or social media.

Brad Ervin, founder of Hippie Butter

If you’re not familiar with either service, both are information and content-sharing platforms that anyone can join.

What are Quora and Reddit?

• On Reddit, users contribute to message threads, creating ongoing conversations focusing on a given topic.
• Quora is structured in a question-and-answer format, where experts on a given subject can share solutions to common (or not-so-common) problems.

But who am I kidding? You’ve probably lurked on either one of these sites at least once (or constantly through the day, if you’re anything like me) within the past month or so, scrolling through content generated by other users.

Why Reddit and Quora are Marketing Goldmines

But have you ever considered the benefits of actually generating content for Reddit or Quora?

Like I said, both of these sites are full of qualified leads for your business –– no matter which industry you’re in. Let’s take a look at the numbers.

• In November 2016, Reddit posted 8 billion page views, and 250 million active monthly users. The site ranks 11th in the US, and 26th in the world, in terms of monthly traffic.
• Quora is a few years younger than Reddit, but has recently exploded in terms of traffic. In March of 2016, the site was generating 200 million monthly visitors. By April of 2017, that number had almost doubled to 190 million. This puts Quora within the top 60 websites in America, and the top 120 in the world.

But it’s not just that these sites generate a huge quantity of users.

The most frequent users of Reddit and Quora tend to be absolutely obsessed with the topics they follow. They expect highly-specialized, laser-focused answers, solutions, and other such content whenever they log on.

If the product or service you offer appeals to a Reddit or Quora user, you have a pretty good chance of gaining a new customer.

But, you can’t just jump into either Reddit or Quora and do a hard sell of your products. No one will pay attention to you –– and to win sales –– you need folks on these platforms to not only pay attention, but to like what you have to say.

Marketing on Quora and Reddit is all about subtlety.

On these platforms, adding value is the most important metric on the measuring stick. Though the nuances of using Reddit and Quora differ from one another, your goals for using both are the same:

• Gather insight from a targeted community
• Showcase your expertise and gain credibility within the community
• Offer to help solve the problems the community members face
• Forge a genuine connection with potential customers and peers
• Organically grow your customer base without much hard selling (if any at all)

It will take some effort on your part to get in with the communities on these sites, but once others see the value you bring to the table, your customer base is bound to explode with highly loyal and passionate people.

Let’s take a look at how you can join in the fun and start using Reddit and Quora to generate a massive amount of traffic and sales.

Using Reddit to Grow Sales

The process of generating sales through Reddit is as follows:

• Find the right “subreddits” to target
• Become a valued part of these communities
• Point users to your product/service
• Profit!

Let’s break down exactly how to go about these steps in order to maximize your results.

Finding the Right Subreddit

To put it simply: Reddit is huge.

To make the site more navigable, Reddit is broken down into “subreddits.” A subreddit is a forum focused on a specific industry or topic. At the time of writing this, there are over one million subreddits to check out.

While that sounds like a lot to wade through, the good news is two-fold:

• You can easily search for subreddits that apply to your industry
• With over a million subreddits, you’re bound to find a bunch that apply to your brand

Yes, even if your niche is “painting pictures of monks looking at beer.”

You’ll want to be both broad and specific when searching for subreddits related to your niche. For example, if your company focuses on exercise tips for busy moms, you’d want to check out:

1. /r/fitness
2. /r/xxfitness
3. /r/fitmama

You’d also want to check out subreddits that relate to your niche in a more indirect way. Using the example from above, /r/parenting might also be full of potential leads, as well.

Once you’ve discovered a good amount of subreddits, you’ll want to know for sure which ones are worth joining. Factors to consider include:

• The number of subscribers to the subreddit
• Trending topics within the subreddit
• The amount of recent activity within the forum

Also, take a look at the quality of the content being posted.

• Does it seem like many of the community members are actively interested in purchasing the solution you offer?
• Or are they more passive in terms of their interest in the topic?

Along with this, consider the overall perspective of the community and the way in which members interact with each other. Remember, one of your goals is to become an authentic member of the community; if your personality or perspective clashes with the herd, this isn’t going to happen.

Here an example of a subreddit the brand Hippie Butter has joined, enough so to be listed as a related link (back to their ecommerce homepage) in the sidebar for an active community of more than 2,000.

On the same token, before you take the leap and join a subreddit, check out its rules and policies. While some reddit communities are rather laid back, others are pretty strict in terms of what you’re allowed and not allowed to post. In some cases, posting promotional content will get you banned, no questions asked.

Rules for /r/ecommerce

Getting “In” With a Reddit Community

If you haven’t already, now is the time to create an account on Reddit.

Unlike most other online communities, your Reddit profile doesn’t include a bio or anything like that. Anonymity can be your friend as you begin to wade into Reddit marketing.

All other Redditors will know about you when they click on your account name is what posts you’ve shared or commented on, and how many karma points (think “upvotes”) you’ve earned.

“wurstfinga” has clearly been active, and provided huge value, over the last five months.

Once you’ve created an account, you can either start requesting to join specific subreddits (some are private), or you can immediately join in discussions that appeal to you and apply to your niche.

Your goal now is to start building a reputation as a valued member of the community. Don’t jump the gun and begin posting your own content, or links to your website –– just yet.

Instead, focus on joining conversations and generating discussions just as you would with a group of friends in real life. Answer other people’s questions, ask your own questions, probe for more information. Link to content that helped you achieve a certain goal or overcome a certain problem.

In short: provide value.

Don’t just join a conversation to gain visibility, especially if you have nothing of importance to add to the discussion. Remember: just as you can gain credibility by getting upvoted, you can also lose it completely if people downvote your not-so-valuable comments.

Posting Your Own Content

Once it’s clear that a certain community appreciates you, you can then wade into posting links back to your own content or products.

However, when it comes to posting your own material, there are a lot of caveats.

As alluded to, you should avoid posting your own content before you’ve become well-known within the community. Redditors are acutely aware of when they’re being sold on something, and will likely ignore or downvote you if it’s obvious you only joined the community to peddle your wares.

An exception to this rule, however, is if you know for sure that your content is incredibly valuable. If, for example, your content has garnered positive comments elsewhere, go for it.

Also, if you plan on posting the same content to numerous subreddits, make it clear that you’re “cross-posting.” by including the phrase “xpost” or “cross-post” in your subject line for subsequent posts. This is about transparency and honesty.

Again, this community hates being sold to –– especially if the item or the sell isn’t really, really ridiculously good.

Once you’ve started posting your own content, it can be tempting to just keep pushing through until you generate discussions and leads. But don’t get overly-promotional.

Continue to post other people’s content, as well as comments and content that don’t link to your website. A general rule of thumb is to only post links to your own content or products 10% of the time.

Another thing to consider when posting your own content is when to do so.

Since you’re only posting your own content 10% of the time, you want to make sure these posts get in front of as many eyes as possible. Check out Later for Reddit’s Subreddit Traffic Analysis Tool to determine the best times to post in a specific subreddit.

Lastly, and this probably goes without saying: don’t be annoying.

Don’t solicit upvotes, spam subreddit boards, or use bots to post comments. As mentioned earlier, Redditors notice this kind of stuff –– and they don’t take kindly to it.

Be real. Provide value. The sales will follow.

Advertising on Reddit

Although the bulk of your activity on Reddit will be on generating organic traffic and leads, you can pay to advertise your content on the site, as well.

Once again, you should only do so after you’ve gotten in with a community and its members have reacted positively to your products or services.

When advertising on Reddit, you have three options:

• Sponsored posts: Purchasing a sponsored post ad will pin your content to the top of a chosen subreddit, making it highly visible to anyone who visits that specific forum. Payment for these ads is per thousand clicks, so you’ll only pay when someone actively engages with your post.
• Display ads: These are essentially banner ads that will appear at the top or on the side of a subreddit main page (or the front page of Reddit – if your budget allows it). However, one thing to note is users can up or downvote display ads; if the content you choose to display isn’t top-notch, it might do more harm than good for your brand. To set up a display ad, you’ll need to contact the Reddit team directly to determine timing and pricing.
• Sponsored Q&A: Similar to Reddit’s “Ask Me Anything” sessions, a sponsored Q&A session allows you to host a live chat of sorts with a subreddit’s community members. This will allow you to actively engage with anyone who joins, but places you and your brand at the center of attention. You’ll also need to contact Reddit’s team to set one of these sessions up.

While we’re on the subject of question-and-answer format posting, let’s move on to discussing how you can use Quora to drive traffic and generate leads.

Quora Marketing Tips for Super Qualified Leads

Quora is built upon the simple premise that people use the internet to find answers to their most burning questions –– and that someone out there will surely be able to help.

The process for becoming a respected member of the Quora community is similar to doing so on Reddit, with a few key differences along the way.

This section will focus on how to:

• Create a proper Quora profile
• Find the right topics to focus on
• Answer questions in a valuable manner
• Determine who among the “askers” are the most qualified leads

Let’s get started.

Creating a Quora Profile

Unlike Reddit, Quora allows you to create a fully fleshed-out profile detailing who you are and what your company specializes in.

To begin, you can choose to build your profile from scratch or connect it with an existing Google or Facebook account. Whichever option you choose, keep one thing in mind: use your company Facebook or Google account, rather than your personal one.

You’ll then be asked to choose the topics that interest you.

More topics become available depending on your initial choices.

Again, these topics should apply only to your interests in terms of your brand. You can always create a separate personal Quora account if you’d like.

Next, you’ll be asked to list topics that you know about. This step is incredibly important, as it’s where you can showcase your expertise in a variety of areas related to your industry. You can be rather broad with your choices, but it’s best to be as specific as possible.

“Marketing” is entirely too broad. “Digital marketing” shows you have a focus.

Also, like when choosing Quora topics to target, think about related subtopics that your target leads might also follow. For example, if you offer content related to blogging advice, you might also check out freelance writing as a topic.

You’ll then be able to fill out the rest of your profile, including your employment and educational background, company website, and bio.

Your bio doesn’t need to be long-winded (in fact, it shouldn’t be). But it should cover who you are, what you’ve done, and what your company is all about.

You can also provide a short description regarding your expertise in each of the topics you chose earlier. As you would when creating a resume, use these areas to list your accomplishments in these areas (rather than boasting about your skills).

Lastly, make sure you link your company’s social media profiles to your Quora account. This will allow you to easily share content when you begin answering questions in the future.

Browsing Topics and Questions

Now that your profile is all set up, you’re ready to start browsing topics and questions which apply to your industry.

As with assessing subreddits in terms of whether or not you should focus on a specific forum, you should do the same with topics and questions on Quora.

Topics are essentially forums that house any and all related questions. Important factors to consider when discovering topics to follow include:

• The number of questions in the topic’s feed
• The number of followers
• The quality and quantity of unanswered questions
• The quality and quantity of answers to questions that have been answered

The topic “freelancing” is admittedly a bit broad, but 245,000 followers presents a huge opportunity if your company is focused on helping solopreneurs in any industry.

When looking at individual questions to answer, consider:

• The amount of followers the question has
• How recently the question was asked
• The quality and quantity of answers provided

Ideally, you want to target questions that:

1. Have at least 5-10 followers
2. Were asked in the past few months
3. Don’t have many answers yet.
4. Or, if a question does have a long list of answers, check whether or not the answers are valid and valuable.

As a bonus, you may want to also find questions that are ranking organically on the first page of Google for keywords that align with your business as it potentially means additional views to your answer.

Quora also allows you to follow individual accounts, as well. Use this function to follow experts who have answered numerous questions within your niche. Quora will then notify you the next time they answer a question –– allowing you to stay on top of trending topics in your industry.

Once you’ve discovered topics and questions worth following, you can begin focusing on answering questions and providing valuable content to the Quora community.

Answering Questions on Quora

Before you begin answering questions you’ve targeted on Quora, there are a few things you need to do.

First, check out the other answers that have already been provided. Answers with the most upvotes will, of course, be the ones you want to focus on here.

After reading through a handful of these answers completely, ask yourself:

• Is there anything missing from the answer?
• Is there anything you can expand upon?
• Is of the information within these answers incorrect, disputable, or outdated?

If you answer “yes” to any of these questions, you’ve found the perfect target for your Quora marketing efforts.

But don’t fire off an answer just yet.

Your next order of business is to prepare some epic content that will do one of the following:

• Answer the original question better than any of the current answers
• Dive deeper into and expand upon a specific area of one of the previous answers
• Correct or clarify information from a previous answer that may be confusing or misleading

If you already have a piece of content that fulfills these goals, perfect. If not, you need to create it!

As a side note, using Brian Dean’s Skyscraper Technique is an insanely productive way to create the kind of 10x content we’re talking about here.

Once you have this content ready to go, you aren’t going to simply post a link to it as an answer and move on.

Instead, craft an answer based on this content.

Every answer you post on Quora should be:

• Insanely detailed
• Logically structured
• Packed with links to various resources (your own and other people’s)
• Written in a personal and professional manner

Now, you can link back to the content you’ve prepared in order to answer this question. But there’s a certain way to do it.

Check out Devesh Khanal’s answer to the question, “To build an online presence should I start with a blog or social media?” He answers the question, provides essential data from an infographic he created for his blog to back up his claims, and then provides a link to supplemental information regarding how to build traffic via guest posting.

For this answer, Devesh received 14 upvotes from other Quora members. Had he simply said “Oh, I answered that question on my blog a few years ago. Check out my answer here!” there’s no way his answer would have had such a positive impact.

Also, remember that you’ve already put a link to your website in your bio, which is visible whenever you answer a question. In other words, you don’t necessarily need to (in fact, you shouldn’t) include links to your content in every single answer you provide.

Rule of thumb: don’t force it. If the situation warrants a link, go for it; if it doesn’t, leave it be.

Think back to our 90-10 rule for Reddit. For every 10 questions you answer, only one or two should include links to your site.

Once you’ve answered a question, remember to share your answer on your social media pages. Chances are, some of your followers have the same question, and will be grateful that you preemptively answered it for them without them having to reach out.

As is the case with Reddit:

Be real. Be valuable. Be helpful.

And trust that your most qualified prospects will find a way to contact you when they’re in need of your services and products.

Hippie Butter is a great use case of exactly what to do on Quora to drive increased traffic to your Quora answers, become a trusted member of the community and drive traffic back to your site.

Founder Brand Ervin has more than 400 followers on his Quora account, which gets more than 1,000 views per month (more than 11,000 in total) thanks to his 44 answers to hemp related questions.

Brad has become a thought leader on Quora for hemp-product related questions.

Advertising With Quora

Before we dive into Quora advertising, you’ll first need to have an established Quora account, and then contact the Quora team to apply for the ability to use it. You’ll then be able to begin creating ads on Quora that target specific topics and questions that relate to your niche.

First, you’ll need to create an advertising campaign. You’ll give it a name, set your daily cost-per-click budget, and decide when you’d like the campaign to become active.

You’ll then select your targets for the campaign. This includes specific topics and questions you’d like to focus on, as well as where (geographically) your ads will be visible (if your company currently only serves customers on the east coast, you wouldn’t want people from California wasting your clicks).

Then, you’ll be ready to create your ad. Unlike a complex and highly custom platform like Facebook, Quora ads are relatively simple, consisting of a headline, body, and site link.

Minimalists rejoice!

Again, since the service is in its infancy, it’s not certain whether more features and options will be added in the future –– or if Quora’s advertising services are even all that effective.

If your advertising budget is rather small, it might be best to focus on generating leads organically for the time being.

Don’t Underestimate Reddit and Quora Marketing

Perhaps because they haven’t reached the mainstream in the way that Facebook or Twitter have, Reddit and Quora aren’t necessarily seen as prime locations for increasing traffic and sales.

But, if you go about it the right way, both of these resources can help you build your reputation as a thought leader –– and reach thousands (if not millions) of people in the process.

For Brad, both have been valuable resources for increased traffic and sales. Here are his tips, advice, and insights:

1. On Quora, answer questions about your industry. For me, that’s the emerging hemp industry. I always post a link back to a blog post on my website for more information. On Reddit, I work to get backlinks to my new blog posts and product pages –– which offer valuable content and information for anyone looking for details about hemp products.
2. Our conversion rate from Quora is higher than Organic Search or Social Media
3. We get more conversions from Quora, but get more leads and traffic from Reddit.
4. Take the time to write good answers and always have a picture and link back to your site. You can use Quora questions to come up with new blog posts, too!
5. Make sure to place you link in the right Reddit Category or it will get deleted quickly and that doesn’t help anyone.

“I followed your advice on how to leave voicemail messages that get more callbacks and since using it, my call backs have increased. But my question is, what do I do with the prospects that haven’t called back?”

I like to use a “three strikes and you’re out” rule. Meaning, after the 3rd attempt, if I haven’t heard back from them, I take them out of my current call list (I move them back into my drip marketing campaign and let that do its job)

But the key to success here is knowing what to say on the second and third voicemail / email attempts BEFORE picking up the phone.

The 2nd Attempt Call

You don’t have to have fancy words or a whole new voicemail message for the 2nd attempt.

Assuming you have a strong 1st attempt voicemail message, when on your 2nd attempt should you get voicemail again, simply lead with:

“Hi (Prospects Name). I left you a voicemail the other day regarding…” (now repeat your first time voicemail message, including your name and number twice at the end)

It’s that simple.

And when you send your email (I always recommend sending an email right after you leave a voicemail message) you can simply say:

“Hi (PROSPECTS NAME) Just left you a 2nd voicemail message regarding…”

And now schedule your 3rd attempt in your CRM in case you still don’t hear back from them.

The 3rd (and sometimes final) Attempt

As I said, I use a 3 strikes, you’re out rule. You may find that 4, 5, 10 or 20 works best for you, but for me, it’s 3.

If after 2 solid voicemail / email combo attempts (which would be 4 touches, not including any drip emails or LinkedIn messages/connection requests that they may have gotten in between calls 1 and 2) I’ll leave a 3rd voicemail message (followed by an email, of course) that simply says something along the lines of:

“Hi (PROSPECTS NAME) this is (YOUR NAME) with (YOUR COMPANY) and I see we’ve left you a few messages / emails regarding (HOT BUTTON / WHATS IN IT FOR THEM VALUE STATEMENT) but haven’t heard back from you.

I assume it’s safe to say you’ve gotten really busy or this isn’t a top priority for you at the moment so I’ll take you off of my call list as to no longer interrupt your day.

If something changes and you would like to discus how we (HOT BUTTON / WHATS IN IT FOR THEM) please give me a call at 888-888-8888. Again it’s (YOUR NAME) with (YOUR COMPANY) at 888-888-8888. Have a great day.”

Follow that with an email that says the same thing, log the call / update your notes in your CRM and MOVE ON!

– Michael Pedone

Over the past couple of years, if there is one tool that is loved by workplaces all around the world, it is Slack.

If you haven’t heard of them yet, Slack is a real-time messaging platform mostly used by companies to centralize their internal team communication with the hope of fostering better intra-team and inter-team collaboration.

It has close to 4 million daily users and 1.25 million paying customers. From the likes of NASA, Expedia, to small startups, people just love this app.

This article is mostly aimed at new users to help them understand how Slack is different from a chat app. They should follow a few etiquettes while communicating:

A. Etiquette to follow while communicating through Slack

Being a messaging platform, a lot of users end up treating it as another Facebook Messenger, which it is not.

You will be frowned upon and considered unprofessional if your messages don’t the fit the workplace context or if it is conveyed in a manner that is not in sync with your workplace setting.

Here are a few that you ought to keep in mind.

1. Do’s and don’ts while adding a someone to a channel

Slack is not WhatsApp. When you add someone to a new channel, make sure to consider the following:

• Do inform existing channel members before adding someone new.
• Do inform the person before adding them to a channel. Make sure they know why they are being added, what is the purpose of the channel, and what can/will be discussed.
• After adding someone, introduce them to rest of the members. Make sure everybody knows the newcomer’s role.
• Don’t add irrelevant people to a channel.

2. Communication style

This is where a lot of users go wrong, they end up communicating in a manner that is inappropriate. Here are a few dos and don’ts to help you communicate without getting frowned upon:

• If you are new to a channel, go through the chat history or observe how other members communicate – it will help you understand what style to follow.
• Make sure you go through the list of members in the channel before you start messaging.
• Humour is acceptable, but don’t over do it.
• Don’t write messages like you do in email, send one line at a time, give the other person time to respond.
• Don’t use emojis too much when you are discussing work-related matters.

3. Basic courtesy

• When someone has assigned you a task – acknowledge it immediately.
• If someone has asked you for an update – acknowledge it immediately.
• Don’t leave a conversation without informing, especially in channels.
• If you won’t be available to chat or don’t want to be disturbed, make sure you change your status first.
• Before sending a direct message to someone make sure you check their status.
• If the person hasn’t replied immediately, don’t bombard them with more messages.
• Don’t assign tasks to people when they are offline.
• Don’t use ‘@’ if the matter is not urgent because most users get push notifications when you use ‘@’ to tag them.
• Don’t use public channels for personal conversations.
• Don’t criticize teammates in public channels, do it via a DM.
• Do take Slack conversations to email, phone or face-to-face when required – complex problems, large attachments etc.

Slack channels have become a representation of your company culture and your personality. Keeping a few etiquettes in mind will definitely show you in good light. If you’ve already been using Slack for a while, these advanced etiquette guidelines will come in very helpful.

B. Must-know productivity hacks for Slack users

Only a few Slack users actually use it to its full potential. For new users, it may seem like every other chat app, but it is not. There is a lot more you can do with it.

Here are few Slack-hacks to improve your productivity and facilitate greater collaboration within your team.

1. Use features like ‘Starred items’, ‘Remind me’, ‘Pin an item’ effectively

In a conversation, if you come across something that you need to read/access later, you can use features like ‘Starred items’, ‘Remind me’, ‘Pin an item’ to save yourself from the trouble of having to go back and scroll up. Here’s how to use them:

1. Starred items – press the Star button first. Later, you can access it by pressing the ‘show starred items’ in the top panel. When you star items, only you will be able to see them.
2. Remind me – click on the ’show message actions’ button and you will see an option ‘ Remind me about this in’. You can learn more here.
3. Pin this item – click on the ‘show message actions’ button and you will see an option to pin an item to a channel. Later you can access by clicking the ‘Channel Details’ button. When you pin items, all the channel members will be able to see it.

2. Text formatting

Formatting your text correctly will help you make yourselves more clear. This reduces chances of confusion – saving you precious time and resources.

Here are the ways you can use them to make your messages clearer.

• Bolden the text – add asterisks (*) to it.
• Italicize the text – add underscores (_) around it.
• To format content as code, add backticks (`) around it.
• To make content preformatted, add three backticks (“`) around it.
• Strikethrough the text – add tildes (~) around it.
• Quoting the text – add a less than sign (<) in front.
• To create a list, use Shift + Enter to create new lines in your message, then add a number or a bullet (•) before each item.

Hint: If you can’t remember these shortcuts, just type in the name of the format you want the text to appear in, and a guide will appear on the right beneath your message box.

3. Slack shortcuts

Don’t waste time with multiple clicks, instead, learn these keyboard shortcuts. They will make your Slack usage a lot more simple and faster.

• Cmd + K on Mac or Ctrl +K on Windows – to bring up the task switcher which will help you switch between conversations faster.
• Up arrow – if you want to edit the message you just send.
• The forward slash (/) – type in “/” to see a list of things you can do from your message box.
• Mark a message as unread by pressing Ctrl and +.
• Type ‘+’ in the search box to bring up options for filtering your search results.
• Shift + Escape – mark all messages as read
• Alt + Shift + ↑ / ↓ – sift through unread messages.
• Ctrl + / – open list of keyboard shortcuts.
• Go to previous channel or DM: CMD+[ or Ctrl+[
• Go to next unread channel or DM: Alt+Shift+up arrow
• Open All unread messages: CMD+Shift+A or Ctrl+Shift+A
• Open starred messages: CMD+Shift+S or Ctrl+Shift+S
• Open All Threads: CMD+Shift+T or Ctrl+Shift+T
• See all of Slack’s keyboard shortcuts: CMD+/ or Ctrl+/
• CTRL + Q – exit Slack

4. Prioritize conversations

Normally, there will be a lot of conversations going on simultaneously on Slack. This means a lot of unread messages for you to sift through which could be a major time suck. The best way to solve this is by clicking the ‘@’ button at the top right. It will show all the messages that you were tagged in.

Additionally, you can also search for messages with @channel tags, which are aimed for everyone and you will also be able to see emoji reactions from others to your messages.

5. Selective notifications

Slack’s notification settings allow you to get notified only when your name is tagged in a conversation. But, this may not be enough. Your teammates may discuss something that you are working on, or related to what you are working on. You can’t afford to not respond when such discussions come up. But, how can we do that?

Go to the Notification settings, you will be able to add a list of words to the ‘My keyword’ box. So that, when these words are mentioned by your teammates, you will get notified immediately.

Wrapping up

These are some of the basic Slack hacks and etiquettes that you should keep in mind, they will help you get started and learn to use the tool effectively. There are a lot more that you can do with Slack, especially with things like Slack apps, bots, and integrations.

During price negotiations, prospects often mention the incredible offers they’ve received from your competitors. X Company gave them a massive discount. Y Company dropped all service fees. Z Company provided exclusive access to a bunch of new features.

As a salesperson, your first instinct might be to counter those offers—after all, it’s your job to close deals—but many times that’s a mistake. Instead, take a step back and ask yourself one fundamental question:

Why are these prospects still talking to me?

If the other deals are so great, why don’t they just buy from your competitors? Why go through the hassle of re-negotiating with you?

Because you have something they want—a superior product.

If they’re torn between two deals, don’t compete on price alone. There’s no path to victory in a price war. When you offer another discount, the competition will just lower their prices, too. You need to close them based on value, not price.

In the middle of price negotiations, it’s easy to forget why they’re even talking to you. But if they’re still on the phone, that means your product provides real value for them. They’re ready to buy. They just want to see what else you can offer.

Want an easier way to handle objections? Get your free objection management template today!

Let me share a quick Close.io story

One of our sales reps was in the final stages of negotiation when the prospect said they were going with someone else. Apparently their CEO decided not to sign for two reasons:

1. One of our bigger competitors was offering a massive discount
2. Their current solution was also cheaper than our offer

So the rep came to me and said, “I already gave them a great discount, but they’re asking for more. What can we do?”

I said, “If they’re so happy with their current solution and this other offer, why are they still talking to us? What kind of value do we create for them—how much would we increase revenue or decrease operational costs over time?”

Unfortunately, because their earlier conversations had been so positive, the rep missed an opportunity to frame the price negotiation around value—which goes to show you that even we make mistakes.

So what did we do next?

I sent an email to the CEO that basically said:

“We’re excited to work with you, but we’ve given you the best deal we can. We’re confident this partnership will create a ton of value for both of us, so let’s get started.”

All I did was reinforce that we’d offered a great deal and that we wanted to work with them. Shortly after, the CEO replied:

“I appreciate you stepping in, but we’re getting a 60% discount here and a 70% discount there. We’d like a better offer from you guys.”

I thanked the CEO and said:

“If you’re really getting these kinds of discounts, you might want to take them. It could be the best thing for your business.”

I honestly meant this. In the end, only they know what’s best for their business. I did, however, want to explain why we weren’t offering any further price reductions:

“We like to be super transparent with our pricing. We don’t have any hidden costs—what you see is what you get. But being transparent means we can’t play the discount game. Unlike some of our competitors, we don’t offer massive discounts and then find other ways to get that money back. That’s not how we do business. If you want to go with X Company, that’s cool. I think they offered you a great deal. But if you want to work with us, we’re ready to go.”

What happened next?

They replied and said, “Thanks for the deal—we’re excited to work with Close.io. Let’s get started!”

When prospects flaunt other offers during price negotiations, remember to ask yourself, “Why are they talking to me if there are so many ‘better’ offers on the table?”

It’s because you’re worth it.

So don’t chase discounts. Don’t buy into the hype that your competitors have better offers. You have the best offer. You have the right product for them. You provide the most value. That’s why, after all this back and forth, they’re still on the phone with you.

 

 

Handle any objection with this easy-to-use template. Click the button below to get your free copy!

This is a sponsored post written by me on behalf of CBTS. All opinions are 100% mine.

A network used to simply mean a group of computers linked together. The network itself provided little more than the basic framework through which those machines all talked and exchanged data.

Think for a moment about all the things you need from your network now.

You still need it to provide connectivity, but now factor in data centers, remote branches, and private and public cloud functions. You need it to run applications that allow you to take advantage of the latest advances in voice, video, data, and collaboration. You need it to do all of those things securely, ensuring that your data is confidential, but readily available. Most of all, you need all of these things to happen reliably.

There is nothing simple about your network needs, and that complexity by definition creates potential problems. Ensuring that the performance level stays high requires experience and expertise. Keeping up with security trends to protect yourself is difficult in and of itself, but talent scarcity means that you either have to take risks or incur high costs.

Which brings us to the central problem: cost. Staying in business is about making money, right? So if your network is a complex, expensive beast, what can you do? Until now, businesses with multiple remote locations have been forced to simply accept increased costs and complexity to access customized networking capabilities that address their unique IT needs.

CBTS has solved this problem with the development of Network as a Service (NaaS).

To meet your needs, CBTS has developed a customized, fully managed networking solution with cloud integration, security, switching, Wi-Fi, management, monitoring, and SD-WAN available as a utility pricing model. As a result, Network as a Service (NaaS) provides businesses with a scalable method of supporting, maintaining, expanding and securing today’s commercial networks, making the managing of hybrid, public and private networks with remote sites more affordable and less complex.

NaaS from CBTS is a full-featured managed service offering, giving you a simple, cost-effective and advance IT network experience without the complexity. It provides network switching, security, Wi-Fi, VPN, and SD-WAN.

The CBTS NaaS solution includes all monitoring and managing services with an “always on” mindset –24-7, 365 days a year – as well as support and upgrade services.

You will gain complete visibility through a single unified interface, which has the added benefit of removing your dependence on complex hardware and service solutions.

It is also easily adaptable, offering modern, scalable architecture to meet the needs of each business, and branch office deployment makes full integration of all locations easy. Further, WAN optimization as a service allows your business to take a “scale as you grow” approach.

There are service options for single site locations as well as multi-site, allowing you to let CBTS manage the complete network and IT needs of your infrastructure so you can focus on the essential demands of your business

All of which, of course, translates to lower cost to you.

Interested? Request a FREE Demo and see how NaaS can change the way you view your network.

Improve Your Brand’s Business Reputation with These 4 Strategies

Today I have some branding strategies to help you create more visibility online for your business. Here’s four links with tips and tricks to kick start your Monday.

Establishing your company as a leading authority takes time and cultivation through the right relationships. Using the right methods can help you connect more with your audience and influencers. There are several ways to help you focus your strategy with success. Would you like to improve your brand building? Take advantage of these ideas, and let me know how these work for you!

1) Communicate with your customers through brand activation

Build a wider audience through offline marketing events. With this strategy your business can reach interested prospects by being active and engaged with them at places like industry trade shows, concerts, book signings, and more. By making a personal connection at a branded booth with attire and displays showing your logo and name so that you can create a memorable experience that will translate into your online properties as well.

2) Word of mouth marketing

There’s no better way to build your brand than through people who trust your business enough the spread the word. Think of this as free advertising for your company that can have a continual payoff. As you build relationships online you will want to encourage your customers to share their experiences — this can be done in many creative ways including photos or videos on Facebook and Instagram or as an incentive for a tweet on Twitter. As you take a positive, and encouraging approach with a high value offer you will begin to see your products or services being recommended by others online.

3) Cross promotion of your content

In addition to your regular blog posts make a plan to connect with other bloggers in your industry. This will open the doors for guest blogging opportunities that can help bring more visitors to your website. Publish on places like LinkedIn, Medium, and Scoop.it to attract more brand followers as well. After establishing your expertise and authority it won’t be long before your business or name is recommend on authority websites like Scribble Live.

4) Audio and video content

Would you like people to find your brand on social media quickly? This is a powerful and popular way to showcase a behind-the-scenes look at your business, provide a quick glimpse of a new product or service, or showcase an expert interview. This is effective with both live and pre-recorded methods posted to Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, or iTunes.

Hopefully you will find these branding methods useful to your online strategy. Are there any that you would like to add as well?

Recently, I was pondering the gulf that exists between the fantasy of entrepreneurship and the reality. Pop culture portrays entrepreneurs as superheroes. They’re hailed as master innovators; economic revitalizers; and big, bold (and sometimes horribly bad) risk takers.

These depictions aren’t incorrect, per se, but they do add up to create a myth that entrepreneurship is elusive, exclusive, and elite. In reality, I believe anyone with a smart idea, the right drive, and a clear sense of commitment can become a successful entrepreneur.

Still, entrepreneurship isn’t easy — not now, not ever, and not for anyone. It takes grit, stamina, and an indomitable spirit to make it, but more than that, it takes a clear understanding of three basic assets — money, time, and knowledge — and how you can convert these critical resources into continued growth opportunities.

Transforming Assets Into Growth Opportunities

If you’re truly entrepreneurial, you’ll recognize money, time, and knowledge as the assets they are rather than the barriers they’re often perceived to be. For example, we’ve all heard the “I just don’t have time” excuse. Though time is often in short supply, it’s important to remember we all have the same number of hours in each day. It’s what we do with that resource that makes the difference.

You’ll bridge the fantasy-reality gap by first realizing your limitless potential — regardless of the resources on hand. This requires a truly optimistic and opportunistic mindset. You’ll gain momentum as an entrepreneur by then managing the confluence of these assets as they collectively transform into the actualization of your growth goals.

1. Money = Growth

For would-be entrepreneurs, money seems like the tallest, most intimidating barrier. But the problem is less about not having enough money and more about believing money is the only valuable resource.

Start by realizing that what you have to offer is something more valuable than dollars and cents. Instead, consider the value of your other assets (time and knowledge), and prepare to barter effectively, always considering what you want to gain from the exchange.

Once money is actualized in this exchange, know your flow. Remember: Where it flows, it grows! Unless you’re carefully tracking your spending, you won’t be able to identify wasteful patterns you could otherwise control. Once you understand the reality of the situation, you can start to direct the flow of those resources in a more conscious way.

As you’re managing the flow of cash toward growth-oriented activities, be clear about what you want versus what you need. Commit to the practice of careful, considerate spending. With the right frame of mind and a solid set of solutions, you can begin to turn your financial resources into greater opportunities to actualize your vision.

2. Time = Money

When you don’t have money, you do have time; frankly, this is much more precious than most humans imagine. As a busy entrepreneur, it’s easy to forget time as we hustle from one important meeting to the next — filling every other gap with reading, research, contemplation, planning, and the occasional beer meeting with co-founders and collaborators.

The days can fly by in an instant, causing once-distant deadlines to smack you dead in the face. Unfortunately, you can’t slow down the clock, but you can work toward getting smarter about how you use the little time you have to eventually convert your time into hard-earned cash.

Remember, just like cash flow, you cannot improve that which you do not track. Start by looking at how you’re actually using your time, then set a few goals to shift the behavior that seems out of line. There are multiple time-tracking applications to help you examine your time and shift your focus as needed. I like to use MinuteDock, but Toggl and TimeCamp are two alternative options.

Once you’ve gained clarity on exactly how you’re using your time, really think about the value of every working hour. Take your living expenses, pad them a bit to overestimate, and then divide that by the number of working hours in a day. Once you’ve figured out your hourly rate per working hour, take stock of your day-to-day activities and ask yourself, “Is it worth that?” One of my favorite questions to consider is this: What would the greatest, most successful version of yourself say about your time sheets today?

3. Knowledge = The Limitless Power and Potential of People!

And now, a few words on the most valuable asset you’ll ever have: knowledge!

As an entrepreneur, you start out not knowing a lot of things, but you can’t “fake it till you make it” forever. At some point, you need to actually make it. So you embark on a learning journey — a quest to convert what little knowledge you have into a powerful ecosystem of people supporting your vision. As an entrepreneur, your ability to inspire people to carry out your mission is critical. You can’t build a great business alone!

Here are a few strategies to tap into the power of the people who surround you:

Find the strongest community voices, and hold on.

When I was asked to lead SUM Innovation, I didn’t have a traditional background in accounting. I knew a few things because of my experience working at The Bookkeeping Center, a nonprofit focused on training full-charge bookkeepers. But I still needed to learn about the industry on a deeper level to develop a strong growth strategy for the firm.

Rather than explore traditional modes of education, I turned to online communities to discover the strongest, smartest voices impacting the industry. By listening to professionals rather than professors, I learned about the most important issues facing the accounting field today, got the inside scoop on the latest #AccTech, and witnessed real case studies rather than theories of application.

Soon enough, you’ll start to find powerhouse sources of information and insight that resonate with you — and can quickly guide you toward the execution of your vision. So listen and keep up!

Practice healthy skepticism.

Knowledge is essential, but inaccurate information can be poisonous. Business leaders have to respond to any piece of information with a healthy dose of skepticism. That doesn’t mean dismissing everything you hear. Rather, it means seeking additional sources, examining the context, bringing other people into the conversation, and being clear about how reliable and applicable the information is to your business objectives. But make sure to do your homework before taking action on that info!

Turn knowledge into action.

Once you’ve done your legwork, it’s time to convert this newly discovered information into an opportunity for growth. There’s a correlation between the people you surround yourself with and the knowledge your organization has. You’re tasked with managing this collective insight as a resource for growth. It’s certainly not easy!

And when you’re blessed with the opportunity to employ these people, cherish that deeply. Elevate, celebrate, and continue to inspire.

You can bask in your egocentric, self-made entrepreneurial mindset until you’re blue in the face. But at the end of the day, you can’t possess all of the knowledge in the world, and you certainly can’t take action on all of that knowledge.

The more knowledge you need, the more people you need — because knowledge is nothing without informed individuals to carry out your business’s objectives. Surround yourself with people you can collaborate, communicate, and eventually convert group knowledge into group action with. That’s the true meaning of people power.

It’s an achievement to get any business off the ground and to sustain it with engineered growth. Every mile on the road to success is hard-earned, but anyone can start the journey. Once you can convert your resources into opportunities, it simply becomes a process of putting one foot in front of the other, day after day.

  Whether it’s content your company created, a report by an independent third party, or a customer case study backing up your product’s value proposition, relevant collateral is a powerful weapon in your sales arsenal. Of course, finding the right collateral to advance every opportunity is like searching for a needle in a haystack. Not […]

The post What the Top 1% of Sales Reps Do Differently appeared first on Fill the Funnel.

It seems natural for engineers to work mostly with other engineers, designers with other designers, marketers with other marketers, and so on. How else would you organize teams?

This is one of those management philosophies that looks good on its face, but doesn’t necessarily hold up to scrutiny. Having designers only working with other designers (and engineers with other engineers, and so on) can create miscommunications, team friction, and a lack of transparency — the bane of productive managers everywhere.

On the other hand, cross-functional teams — teams that pull together people from different disciplines and background — can help break people out of their silos, ensure everyone is aligned towards a common goal, and create stronger, more innovative products as a result.

Let’s see what that looks like in practice and how you can make it work at your business, whether you’re a startup founder or working at an established business:

The Myth of the Lone Inventor

Everywhere you look in our culture — especially in startup culture — the myth of the lone inventor/creator persists. Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Edison, Nikola Tesla, Steve Jobs, Mark Zuckerberg, and the list goes on.

We think about these people as multi-talented one-man-bands with a mastery of all necessary skills.

Unfortunately, this idea doesn’t match the reality: all of these people worked with teams of assistants and fellow inventors to develop their ideas and bring them to fruition. Even those creatives who could be characterized as loners were still inspired by their fellow inventors, as well as the culture and trends of the day.

“We all like to imagine that the lone inventor exists outside the cultural and institutional forces that facilitate innovation. If people would simply try harder, pull themselves up by their own bootstraps, get better ideas, they could change the world. But history, like innovation itself, is messy.”

— Tech journalist Matt Novak in his 2013 SXSW talk

In short: innovation doesn’t happen in a vacuum.

The Biggest Breakthroughs Come from Teams

So, if innovation doesn’t come from one lone genius, and instead comes from teamwork, what does that look like in practice? And how can cross-functional teams be particularly helpful?

One of the biggest proponents of cross-functional teams is IDEO, a product design firm in California that worked on the Apple Mouse, among other projects.

When we spoke to Ian Lotinsky, CTO of LearnZillion, he said they were one of his major inspirations in changing his team structure, after he read The Art of Innovation, which discusses the importance of cross-functional teams with a diversity of perspectives and opinions. One of his biggest takeaways from the book?

“Innovation tends to happen in the context of a team, and having a diverse set of experiences and perspectives in the mix is going to lead more insights and better solutions.” — Ian Lotinsky, CTO at LearnZillion

Of course, IDEO isn’t the only company that’s noticed this. The Robert Half Management consulting firm surveyed over 2,200 CFOs and found that more and more C-level executives are focusing on adding job rotation into their team workflow:

“Before, these functions were run as silos. But business has become more complex, and organizations continue to invest in technology to make strategic decisions. A few years ago it wasn’t necessary to work together — now it’s essential.” — Tim Hird, executive director for Robert Half Management Resources

In Ian’s case, he was further inspired to bring together people from different roles after reading Getting Real, a book from the 37signals (now Basecamp) team.

In the book, they discuss creating teams with product designers and software engineers working together. Their reason for creating this structure was simple: because they want people working together to represent all sides of the application stack.

If you focus specifically on backend, you’re lacking some of the user-focus, and if you focus too much on the design/user side, you can neglect some of the infrastructure requirements. The cross-functional team format incorporates multiple perspectives to help avoid blind spots. At Basecamp, the first version of any product or any new functionality that requires both a UI and a backend always has those functional groups represented on the development team.

How to Build The Right Cross-Functional Team

The composition of your cross-functional teams will depend greatly on your product and industry. Kelly Wu, engineering manager at PolicyGenius, notes that their cross-functional teams teams typically include an engineer, a product manager, and a designer.

At LearnZillion, they need to represent more viewpoints, so their teams are made up of:

• A software engineer
• A product designer
• A product manager
• Another member of the company — depending on the feature, it might be someone from the academic team, customer success, marketing, or sales

“Having different people from different backgrounds tends to get more work done faster and create better products.” — Kelly Wu, Engineering Manager at PolicyGenius

All of these team members participate in scope discussions and the kickoff for the product:

• The product manager coordinates the schedule, makes sure that the right people are involved, does the pre-work before kickoff (user interviews, testing, surveys, and so on), and establishes a goal and objectives for the feature
• The product designer’s job is to do UX, design, and implementation of that feature
• The software engineer does all the backend work — data modeling and backend code — and they work very closely with the product designer
• The others are participating in the conversations or helping to evaluate iterations of the product and might also be producing material (in LearnZillion’s case, the curriculum or other supporting material for the feature/product)

Once the team is brought together and the right problem is identified, the team thinks about how to solve this with the product and works together to build a prototype. Then, that’s shown to the rest of the team for input and further ideation/iteration. Depending on the scope of the change, this can be very rapid (a few days) or spread out over a week or two.

It can be tempting to start pulling in people from every single company department, but most engineering managers we spoke with felt it best to resist that urge. Too many “cooks in the kitchen” can result in team members stepping on each other’s toes (or each other’s code). You need to walk a fine line of including everyone whose perspective is needed, without adding a person or three from every single department in the company.

Looking to incorporate cross-functional teams into your own development cycle?

Here are a few tips:

• Adjust the makeup of the team based on your company’s product and needs. In Ian’s case, he needs to have someone from the academic side of things on his teams. Having just a frontend and backend person on his team might represent both sides of the app stack, but it wouldn’t cover all the bases that need to be covered at LearnZillion. Similarly, adjust your cross-functional teams to match your product and company.
• Try a few different workflows with your cross-functional teams. In Kelly’s case, the team doesn’t necessarily work together for the entire length of the sprint — most of their time together is at the kickoff and during the post-mortem. Ian’s case is different. Your team might need another format — maybe just the story kickoff, or story kickoff and post-mortem, but also 1–2 check-ins throughout the sprint. Experiment with a few different styles and see what works for you.
• Make sure to get feedback from your team. Talk to the team as a group, but also individually, about what they liked and didn’t like about the process. Did any of the team members feel like they were unnecessary or ignored in the process? Did working this way disrupt their normal workflow, or complement it? What would they like to see done differently next time?

Do you use cross-disciplinary teams when you’re developing products?

This post was originally published at the Clubhouse blog.

Data storage is an intangible component of the technological landscape, but is often unnoticed. As the unsung hero of the tech world, it’s the core infrastructure that is key to maintaining web operations. It has also been estimated to be worth over $77.5 Billion by 2022 (according to Markets and Markets).

Most of us are aware the impact that the cloud and AI have made on how we look at data, but we rarely talk about how these developments impact data centers. Not long ago, data centers were the primary locations for shared information. Today, however, data centers’ value proposition are evolving. While the data center isn’t going to become obsolete anytime soon, it’s definitely growing and shifting with tech, making it one of the most dynamic areas. Here’s why:

The Cloud’s Takeover

Over the past decade, the cloud has found itself overshadowing almost the entire data hosting industry. According to a survey by Spiceworks, over 93% of organizations use some form of cloud-based storage. While that statistic seems high, it doesn’t necessarily mean that 93% of data is stored on a cloud; some companies still store sensitive information on other hosting platforms. Although, given the intuitive and accessible design and cost-effectiveness, it’s easy to see why it’s a dominating choice for a lot of our data storage needs.

Beyond just its affordability, the cloud offers teams the opportunity to collaborate in a variety of ways. Not only do cloud platforms offer immediate access to people anywhere they go, but it also enables individuals to access and update information in real-time without any lag. Additionally, the cloud is growing to implement more seamless integrations of API’s and other tools, which means it will only become even more aligned with people’s personal and professional livelihoods. Cloud capabilities have set a foundation that have transformed, not just data storage, but how that data interacts with other pieces of data.

When Data Talks

With the advancements in storage, data centers are additionally becoming much smarter and self-sufficient. According to David Wang, CEO of Wave2Wave Solutions, AI is one area that has greatly benefitted from data storage advancements. With current storage systems, IT technicians can identify problems and potential threats quicker and make updates accordingly. Even though some predict that AI will eventually overtake jobs in IT, another important point that Wang, along with many other thought leaders, doesn’t believe AI robots will take on the same characteristics and capabilities necessary to managing IT programs.

Another application driven by the development of AI is the advancement of data compression industry. Just this past April, Google created the Tensor Processing Unit (TPU), a chip that runs deep neural networks to power image recognition, machine translation, and internet search. Rather than setting up data centers to process their machine learning efforts, the chip can tap into deep neural networks that are much more efficient and effective. While the possibility of this technology might mean that data centers could shrink in size, it does not mean that they will become entirely self-sufficient.

Moving Forward

For data centers to adapt to growing trends, they need to start taking a crack at establishing a plan that addresses digital transformation, as Sunbird DCIM points out. Essentially, digital transformation refers to the progression of supporting factors at data centers. For example, improving upon customer service (including streamlining your communication efforts), as well as leveraging the data that already exists within your system to make smarter decisions, are necessary enhancements that must be achieved for organizations to truly harness the power of data center.

Data centers are never going away; they’re too ingrained in the technological landscape to ever be replaced by robots, clouds, or even machine learning entirely. However, the world of data is experiencing a period of growth and evolution that the tech world has never seen. The faster data centers can progress, the more opportunities there are for other technological systems and development to take advantage of enhanced data storage. Data centers fuel progress and, luckily, data centers themselves are in the midst of a progressive period.

Face-to-face events remain an extremely valuable marketing touchpoint used by B2B marketers to reach buyers and move them down the funnel. As digital marketing tactics become more measureable and data-driven by means of marketing technology, in-person events must follow suit to justify the spend for competing dollars.

One of the most crucial aspects of your work as sales manager is to come up with an on-target sales strategy. Your B2B B2C strategy is a make or break. You may have the best talkers, presenters and deal makers in your team. (Heck, you may have Don Draper and Jim Halpert in your team.) It’s going to be a long and difficult sales cycle if you have a mismatched sales strategy.

To get to a strategy that fits your business, your first step is to distinguish between B2B and B2C. The sales strategies that you employ are distinctly different, depending on your target audience. Here are 6 key differences to keep in mind.

B2B B2C Strategy Difference 1: Lead Pool

The lead pool size is a major differentiator between B2B and B2C sales strategies. With B2Cs, you are presumably targeting millions of people who need your product. Let’s say, as example, that you’re selling cornflakes. To zoom in on your target audience, just count the number of people who have breakfast every day. And, in case you want to broaden the market, you can get marketing to design a campaign that sells cornflakes as snack and dinner alternatives. Now, you potentially have a lead pool made up of billions of people.

For B2Bs, the lead pool size shrinks by the millions, and is more defined by the companies’ specific requirements. As example, let’s presume that you’re selling one of those cornflake/ oats making machines. This limits your lead pool to companies, such as Trader Joe’s, Kellogg’s and Nestle. You don’t even have those artisan cornflake makers in your lead pool, unless you can convince them to turn to machines.

Given this reality, a blanket approach won’t work. Similar companies will go after that puddle-sized lead pool. So, you need to be specific in your pitch to each of the companies in your pool.

For both B2B B2C sales teams, here’s a good reminder from SEOmoz CEO and co-founder Rand Fishkin regarding dealing with your lead pool: “Best way to sell something: don’t sell anything. Earn the awareness, respect and trust of those who might buy.”

B2B B2C Strategy Difference 2: Required Product Knowledge

Your sales team needs to know about what they’re selling. This is the same, regardless of whether you’re B2B or B2C. As Brian Halligan, CEO and co-founder of HubSpot, says: “People shop and learn in a whole new way compared to just a few years ago, so marketers need to adapt or risk extinction.”

Both B2B and B2C sales teams need to know their product like the back of their hand. They should know their features, design details, advantages and disadvantages. Competitor knowledge is necessary too. Buyers are more sophisticated these days – be it B2B or B2C. They will know some details about your product and ask questions.

The difference lies in the depth of knowledge required. Buyers in B2B and B2C have different information requirements. A mom buying cornflakes, for instance, will want to know the calorie and sugar count of the product, as well as its price and taste. Your sales team can train to respond to these queries in a day or two. After a week, they may be already be expert in your product.

Compare this to a B2B sales team. Your team needs to know the specifications and technical details of the product. They need to know how this would fit into the systems – hardware, software and human-powered – and processes of your target companies. And, it is almost always different from one company to the next.

Months of training won’t cut it. An effective B2B sales team needs continuous training, thorough product knowledge, and experience in product presentations and fielding questions from executive-level prospects.

B2B B2C Strategy Difference 3: Number of Decision-Makers

In a typical B2C buying scenario, you only deal with one decision maker. In our cornflake example, it is the mom, her tastes, budget and preferences that you need to consider. Perhaps, her hubby or kids will also factor into the cornflake buying decision – but not always.

In the case of B2Bs, the decision-making process is a lengthy process that involves several stakeholders. According to CEB (now Gartner) executive advisor and author Brent Adamson, the average number of B2B stakeholders is 6.8, as of 2016. This number has likely increased today.

There are several factors to explain this, such as globalization, the decentralization of decision making and solutions packages (instead of singular products). Whatever the case, your B2B sales team should employ a strategy that factors in several key decision-makers.

B2B B2C Strategy Difference 4: Expected Response

The response to your sales strategies is expectedly on opposite ends when it comes to your B2B and B2C efforts.

You strive for an emotional response from your B2C clients. Sure, you might offer some facts here and there. Perhaps you will tell your prospects that cornflakes are good fiber sources and that breakfast is the most important meal of the day. But, the end goal of your marketing outreach is to gain customer loyalty. You want them to love and prefer your product, even if there are better breakfast options.

It’s different with B2B clients. Corporate purchases – such as cornflakes/ oats making machines in our example – are usually on the top end of the price scale. They’re investments that need thorough consideration, especially when it comes to the expected costs, returns, advantages and disadvantages. These are things that shouldn’t be left to emotions.

B2B buyers are more likely to approach their purchasing decision with rationality. Keep this in mind when drafting sales strategies that target corporate buyers.

B2B B2C Strategy Difference 5: Decision-making Process

In the B2C scenario, the decision-making process is quick – in some case, even impulsive. People buy out of habit or they buy in-the-moment. Their decision is influence by advertising, word-of-mouth or habits/ cravings. To sell to this kind of audience, you need product awareness and presence.

With B2Bs, however, the wooing period is longer. There are several people making the decision, and you need to convince each one of them. You will go through a lot of phone calls, meetings and demos if you’re keen on closing the deal. And, this can take months.

B2B B2C Strategy Difference 6: Length of the Business Relationship

Typically, B2C business relationships are looked upon as one-off transactions. The focus is right there at the point of purchase. Outside that, preferences and loyalties can change. The cornflake-buying mom today may decide on another brand next week; or, she may choose to switch to eggs and toasts for breakfast.

With B2Bs, it’s different. The whole purchasing process is an investment for both sides. Your sales team puts in months of their time and effort attending to the requirements of the prospect. You nurture your lead, and provide necessary information and content. You follow-up, meet and present to all stakeholders. Your buyers put in their time and effort too to find the best-fit solution for their needs.

The underlying expectation of this mutual investment is that it’s for a long-term relationship. It’s never a one-off transaction because there’s going to be a consistent need for maintenance, support and upgrades. The stakeholder’s purchasing decision takes a long time because it’s a crucial one: that of choosing a business partner.

Of course, this can also apply to B2C transactions, at a lesser degree. You create relationships with your clients, whether B2B or B2C. This is where your business’ success lies. As speaker, writer and Chief Content Office of MarketingProfs, Ann Handley, puts it: “Make the customer the hero of your story.”

You may have noticed an interesting trend that has recently picked up steam.

Buyers are looking less for experts (this is not an excuse to NOT be an expert, by the way) and they’re increasingly looking for peers.

They want someone is equal to them and at the same level as them, even if they hold different titles from the person they’re buying from.

Here are two important steps you need to consider if you want to be perceived as a peer and build trust with your customers:

1) It All Starts With Mindset 

That’s right. If you walk into a meeting feeling like a subordinate or feeling superior, your rapport with the client will erode. You must first believe and feel like you have value to provide and that you are on the same level as your buyer. If you’re not believing it yourself, don’t expect other people to either! Start in your own head!

2) Make Sure You’re Armed With Questions

The best relationships aren’t one-way streets. That is, if you’re entering discussions with buyers with the intent of spewing as much information as possible within a certain time frame, you need to reconsider your approach. Peers collaborate on ideas, ask questions to each other and have real conversations.

Apply these two steps and create a peer-to-peer relationship.

With a compelling sales story you can quickly break through, differentiate your company, build trust and preference, and justify a premium price.

In Mike Weinberg’s bestselling book New Sales. Simplified. The Essential Handbook for Prospecting and New Business Development, he explains that the most important sales weapon in your arsenal is your story:

A compelling, differentiating, client-focused story is a prerequisite for new business development sales success. It’s our best opportunity to set ourselves apart from the competition; to beautifully package our offering; to gain the prospect’s attention; and to position ourselves as experts, value creators, and problem solvers.

Weinberg, an internationally-acclaimed author, keynote speaker and sales trainer spends more time working with individuals and sales teams to improve their story than on any other aspect of selling. The story is that important.

Click here to listen to a Marketing Book Podcast interview with Mike Weinberg about New Sales. Simplified.

One of the biggest benefits of a strong sales story is that it helps differentiate your company. Differentiation helps your sales team break through all the sales sameness. Differentiation helps you earn a meeting, create intrigue and open the door for a sales discussion. Additionally, a powerful sales story can change the attitude and the outlook of an entire sales organization.

Another benefit of a strong sales story is that it helps to justify a premium price. If you’re competing exclusively on price, there’s not much need for a salesperson. Successful salespeople are able to justify the gap between what your company charges and the price of alternatives in the marketplace.

Sadly, most companies, executives and salespeople don’t have an effective story. The vast majority of the companies Weinberg has worked with did not have a uniform, coherent story that could be expressed by employees throughout their organization.

The most important thing to know about your sales story is that it’s more about your customers than your company.

Buyers are not terribly interested in your company – they’re interested in what your company can do for them. Buyers are sick and tired of being on the receiving end of seller-centric drivel (“We do this, we do that, our employees are our most important asset, we’re all about quality and trust…” Yada, yada, yada.)

So how do you build a strong sales story? First and foremost, your story needs to pass the “so what” test. Listen to a sales rep on a sales call and every time they make a statement, simply ask yourself “So what?” You’ll start to see how self-focused most information is and how little real meaning it has to the customer.

There are three critical sections, or building blocks, to a compelling sales story (and the order in which they are presented is crucial):

1. Client issues addressed – This is the bedrock of a compelling sales story and refers to customer pains you remove, problems you solve, opportunities you help customers capture, or results you achieve for customers.
2. Offerings – This is what you do: the services, solutions, or products for which you bill customers. Keep this short and sweet, and resist the urge to prattle on about yourself. This is the least compelling component of your sales story.
3. Differentiators – These explain why you are better and different from other alternatives. This provides solid reasons why you are the best choice to address the customer’s issues, as listed in the first part of the story.

Then, add a headline and a transitional phase. An abbreviated sales story for Allsafe, a fictitious security services company, might sound like:

• [HEADLINE & TRANSITIONAL PHRASE] Allsafe is the premier security services provider in Virginia. We work with building owners, property managers, and individual corporations to deliver true integrated security. Building owners look to us when:
• [CLIENT ISSUES ADDRESSED] 1) Seeking a competitive advantage by offering the finest security available to tenants and guests, 2) Frustrated that their current system is not doing what was promised when it was “sold” to them. 3) Facing excessive liability exposure and growing life/safety fears… etc.
• [OFFERINGS] We provide true integrated security. Allsafe services include first-class manpower, access system, monitoring, mobile response, and closed-circuit television.
• [DIFFERENTIATORS] Allsafe continues to dominate the security market because we are very different from the other available alternatives: 1) We are a true one-stop shop that provides real integrated solutions. 2) We offer in-house financing and leasing options to help clients manage capital expenditures and cash flow. 3) We are “vendor agnostic,” allowing us to provide the best-fit products for your particular application… etc.

In essence, a strong sales story provides a way to articulate the truly meaningful reasons why customers buy from you.

The post How to Connect Your Sales Process to the Buyer’s Journey appeared first on Sales Hacker.

When was the last time someone replied to your email to tell you they love your sales approach? For many of us in sales, that’s the kind of response we can only dream of.

Crafting sales emails the recipient doesn’t just appreciate but actually loves receiving has been a goal of mine for the last several years.

I’ve tried all sorts of approaches.

I tried being direct and straight to the point. Many of my customers are busy people, so they might have appreciated me getting down to business right away -- but it also felt a little too brusque.

I tried being super professional. That resulted in some really dry and boring emails.

I even tried being warm and friendly. But I think that might have come across a bit cheesy, and it didn’t get me the kind of results I was looking for.

The Winning Technique

After experimenting, I finally landed on an approach that got me the results I was looking for.

Just check out the kinds of responses I got:

Jealous? Don’t be: There’s a really simple trick behind this and I’m happy to share it with you.

Be creative.

That’s it. Your leads see countless sales emails. To stand out, you’ll have to inject a little creativity into yours. You don’t need to come up with a groundbreaking new approach or reinvent the wheel. Just have a little fun and give your customers something they’ll enjoy reading.

The Hollywood Approach

Here’s one of my most creative and highest-performing sales emails. It’s the one that’s responsible for those great responses I shared above.

I call this the Hollywood Approach. Sellers and buyers keep having the same conversations over and over, and buyers complain that it starts to feel like they’re just running through a tired old script. That’s what led to my lightbulb moment: If my prospects are bored to death of the regular script, I’ll give them a more exciting one!

So, I threw a little Hollywood flare into my sales email and wrote it out like a movie script. Here’s how it ran:

Why did that work so well?

First, it was efficient. I spoke directly to my prospect’s concerns and didn’t use up too much space to do it. The script format let me cut out all of the fluff and get straight to the point.

I also proved I understood something about them. My script showed know how much they hate going through that tedious intro call, so I gave them the opportunity to skip it. And isn’t that what every buyer wants from a salesperson: Someone who understands their problems and can take steps to solve them?

Last but not least, I made it fun. While they were going through the drudgery of clicking through emails, dreaming of achieving Inbox Zero, something popped up that put a smile on their faces. How often does a sales email manage to do that?

Of course, typing this email out for every prospect gets a bit tedious. To streamline the process, I use linkedhub to add prospects into HubSpot and Sequences inside of HubSpot to send the emails.

Try It Out Yourself

If you’re not getting enough engagement from your email campaigns, go ahead and try it out. Put a Hollywood spin on your next sales email and see what kind of responses you get.

Most marketers know that one of the best places for sales, lead generation and potentially lucrative connections is LinkedIn, the professionals social network. If you already use LinkedIn, is it time to take it to the next level and start paying for ads and sponsored content to expand your reach?

Recent data shows that LinkedIn has a considerable user base of over 450 million users worldwide, considerably more than the 319 million users on Twitter but falling far short of the 1.86 billion accounts registered on Facebook. A total of 57% of companies have their own LinkedIn company page and crucially, around 50% of B2B buyers regularly use LinkedIn when making important purchase decisions.

Paid ads can provide a vital increase to your reach as well as helping to improve your targeting strategy, all working alongside your organic posts and ads. It can also ensure that you keep up with your competition, who will all be using LinkedIn for advertising and most will be making use of paid features. In fact, the research shows that an enormous 94% of B2B marketers are already using LinkedIn to distribute their content – so can you risk being left behind?

What paid LinkedIn tools can do for you?

There are many reasons to consider making use of paid advertising features on LinkedIn, beyond the enormous reach of the platform and the fact that all of your competitors are already doing it. Key benefits include:

• Precise targeting of your ideal target audience – ensuring more of your ads and posts get in front of the right eyes

• Building and maintaining potentially lucrative relationships through LinkedIn connections

• Positioning your company as an authority in your industry and as having the answer to your target audience’s problems

• Increasing the number of qualified responses, click-through rates and lead production

LinkedIn sales features

Like other social platforms, LinkedIn offers a suite of advertising tools to B2B marketers as part of an all-in-one platform. These include:

• Real-time sales updates – including insights into potential and existing leads

• Recommendations for finding new leads

• InMail – a way to directly connect with the key decision makers within the audience you’re targeting

There are also different ways you can use paid advertising on the platform. These include self-service advertising, allowing you to launch and start tracking a targeted campaign in minutes. This kind of format covers everything from sponsored content, InMail and text ads.

B2B marketers can also splash out on managed campaigns, which come with a dedicated LinkedIn team. According to LinkedIn:

“LinkedIn’s account-managed advertising allows you to partner with a dedicated LinkedIn team to create exclusively placed, highly visible ads for premium audiences. Our team will help you fine tune your targeting and create personalized content that converts.”

With this kind of package, you can create dynamic and display ads, sponsored content and InMail and use LinkedIn account targeting to ensure you reach exactly the right audiences. It is inevitably a far more expensive option, but it can deliver impressive returns if you have the budget.

While lead generation involves the marketing process of capturing and stimulating interest of potential customers in a service or product for the main purpose of creating a sales journey, lead nurturing ensures that leads which have already been captured are cultivated into paying customers. Lead generation can be viewed as an event and lead generation as a journey. According to Invespcro, companies that stop at lead generation lose 80% of the leads whereas companies that have a lead nurturing strategy spend 33% less while generating 50% more sales. Clearly, lead nurturing could be your most important marketing strategy in 2017 because it helps you to convert your inbound traffic into real sales.

Basically, lead nurturing is supposed to guide potential customers through the sales process while developing strong relationships at the same time. It would also interest you to note that lead nurturing results in 47% larger purchases per nurtured customers compared to non-nurtured customers.

Infographic source

Why is this strategy so effective?

The very fact that lead nurturing is meant to improve customer relationship and build company trust as well as product appeal means that customers are going to be more confident to pull out their wallets. It is an assurance to them that they are about to make the right choices. It is human nature to seek assurance wherever we are confronted with decisions.

But every lead need necessarily be nurtured

The downside of lead generation is that it results in greater workload. You are going to spend resources and money to nurture each of your lead; therefore, it is important that you sieve your leads right at the beginning of the process. For your lead nurturing process to be effective, you need to pinpoint who are going to be your hot prospects. Based on your leads behavioral and demographic data, you can use lead scoring tools and other parameters to separate hot leads from the cold ones. This will save you a lot of time and money.

The goal of developing lead nurturing strategy is to maximize your marketing efforts so that there is a positive impact throughout your marketing process. It is to ensure that you don’t lose any of the leads who can become a paying customer to the competition simply because you failed to offer the guidance, create awareness, supply information, provide inspiration or generate more interest on your products and services to your qualified leads. The cost of generating leads. If marketing were a transport system, the lead generation is getting customers into the bus while lead nurturing is transporting those customers to the right destinations.

The B2B customer experience isn’t a shifting landscape anymore. It’s a whole other planet.

Your customers are relying on honest peer reviews, and they’re not fooled by 100% 5-star evaluations.

They insist on personalized communications – even when those communications are automated.

They educate themselves – thoroughly – online before even thinking about making a purchase. And then they make that purchase online, too.

They expect instant responses, on-demand solutions, and fast, free shipping.

Buyers are in control, and they’re aware of it.

Contrary to the dystopian picture that might paint for sales and marketing teams, this is actually a good thing. Your job has changed from holding all the cards to showing all the cards.

Before we can serve our audiences well with outstanding marketing content, though, we have to understand their mindsets and behaviors.

Modern B2B Buyers and the Big Shift in Behavior

I touched on some important stats in my recent article on understanding the modern B2B sales process – and I want to bring some of those back into the light, here, because they’re important for marketers seeking to understand buyers’ mindsets.

Research conducted by HubSpot made it clear that salespeople are no dummies. They recognize that buyers have changed, and they’re trying to figure out how to change with them.

In fact, 79% of sales reps surveyed noted a power shift over the last 2-3 years. Interestingly, 22% found that buyers today are actually more reliant on salespeople during their decision-making process.

Source: HubSpot.com

Considering that we also know from Forrester research that 74% of business buyers conduct more than half of their research online, and Demandbase research shows that 53% of B2B buyers admit to taking longer to make a purchase, this poses an interesting scenario.

If 22% of sales reps think that their customers are more reliant on them now, what are those customers relying on them for?

B2B buyers are using more sources to research and evaluate purchases today, and spending more time researching purchases – which leads me to believe that those sales reps are probably spending as much time educating (and pointing customers to the right content) as they are selling.

Source: Demandbase

Here are some important points to consider as you try to get into the heads of your B2B buyers today:

1. They have access to more information than ever before … and the amount of information they have access to continues to increase and become more robust every day.

The simple peer review has morphed into a multimedia experience. Buyers are posting pictures of their purchases, YouTube videos of themselves opening products, Jing tutorials of themselves using software.

Competitor price-lists are readily available on vendor websites. Or if prices aren’t listed, a quick question on Quora or a Google search would produce that information for the prospective buyer.

User guides are increasingly digitized and publicized, meaning buyers can now learn how to use your product before they ever buy it.

The list goes on.

The crucial thing to note, here, is that your buyers may be experiencing information overload. Your job as a marketer has now expanded to cutting through the noise by providing real solutions.

2. They are increasingly connected to one another.

B2B buyers are more connected to each other today … and the information flows two ways. Your buyers are both learning about your brand and sharing their own experiences about your brand with a growing network of your customers.

Social media, online forums, review sites, even company intranets are connecting your buyers together.

Two takeaways:

1. People talk. Make sure you’re giving them great things to talk about – like valuable content, easy-to-find answers, and standout marketing.
2. Your buyers are more cynical. They’ve heard what others have said about your brand, and they’re not going to fall for a self-serving sales pitch. Focus your marketing on providing solutions to their challenges – not pushing your own agenda.

3. They are dealing with more cooks in more kitchens.

Today’s B2B buyers rarely act alone. Making a purchase is a group effort requiring sign-off from multiple stakeholders. A recent CEB study found that an average of 5.4 people are now involved in a B2B purchase.

Unfortunately, the more people involved in a decision, the less likely they will make the purchase. For effective marketing, it’s more critical than ever that you learn the dynamics of group purchases.

Source: CEB and HBR

Learn about your buyer’s business ecosystem and how they fit into it, so you can help the entire group come to a decision. This deeper insight will also help save you from making personalization mistakes.

5 B2B Buying Journey Models

As the B2B buying process has changed, so have the behavior models. Though your customer’s journey will be unique to your brand and offering, these models can give us a good jumping-off point for mapping the path from attention to purchase.

One thing you must remember, however, is that successful marketing today initializes a two-way conversation, sharing information while encouraging buyers to tell us more about themselves.

As marketers, we should be taking that customer insight and creating even better solutions and even more valuable content – and keeping that two-way conversation going.

As you explore the models in this section, you’ll note that some of them appear cyclical, while others don’t.

Let me reassure you that effective marketing is always cyclical – even when the model looks like it has a hard stop. Just imagine there’s an arrow pointing back to step one! The purchase is never the end of the journey.

Let’s take a tour through five modern buyer’s journey models.

1. Traditional 3-Step Buyer’s Journey

This is a very simple model that can be applied in almost every industry. Almost every other model is a take on this one or an expansion of it.

Awareness

In the Awareness step, your buyers are have discovered that they have a problem, and they’re in the initial period of learning that your brand might have a solution for them. This is where the conversation begins.

Buyers in the Awareness step are in full-on research mode. They don’t care about brands at this point. They just want to learn more about their problem and how they might go about solving it. At this step, your content should be highly educational and more brand- and product-agnostic.

This step is also a great opportunity to learn more about what your customers are looking for and what challenges they face. Make sure you’ve got interactive content like quizzes and assessments in your content marketing mix so you can gather these insights while providing real value.

Evaluation

The next step is Evaluation. Here the buyer is crystal clear on their problem, knows what solution might work, and is zeroing in on a handful of brands that might have that solution.

This is the comparison step. Your brand is being pitted against your competitors. Buyers are trying to understand the available options, approaches, and pricing from each possible vendor. At this step, your content should be more product-specific. Create content that illustrates your understanding of the problem and how your product solves that problem specifically.

Decision

The final step is Decision (or Purchase). Now your buyer knows that your solution will solve their problem – they just need to know what “the deal” is, and be reassured that their investment will pay off. This is where you nudge buyers off the fence.

Think details in this stage. Data sheets, pricing sheets, benchmark reports, testimonials, and case studies will go far, here.

2. Circular Renewal Model

This model comes from Anthony Christie of Level Three Communications. A bit more complex than the traditional model, this model works well with companies who sell ongoing services or subscription-based products.

Source: Level 3 via Content Marketing Institute

The slide above does a pretty good job of illustrating each step, so I won’t repeat all of that. I will, however, point out that marketers have opportunities to create customer touchpoints at each step.

And at each step, you have the obligation to smoothly transition the buyer to the next step to make the entire experience a positive one.

3. Beyond-the-Purchase (or Before-and-After) Model

This buyer’s journey model created by MXM reflects the cyclical nature of marketing today. As I said earlier: The purchase is not the end of the buying journey.

Too many brands forget that customer loyalty triggers more than repeat purchases – it triggers referrals and recommendations, too. Never neglect your loyal customers!

Source: MXM via Content Marketing Institute

Another thing I believe is important about this model is that it includes an Experience phase.

Has this ever happened to you? You buy something, and immediately you’re sent a customer feedback survey.

You had a really great purchase experience, so you fill out the survey and use glowing terms like “outstanding customer service.” Then the product breaks. Or the service technician fails to show up. Or the software doesn’t work like you thought it would.

And now you resent the fact that you gave this company positive feedback.

Your experience didn’t match your expectations, and you want a do-over of that customer feedback survey!

Personally, I have a blanket rule that I won’t fill out a feedback survey until I’ve used the product or the service job is done. That scenario happened to me too many times to count.

The Beyond-the-Purchase model considers the after, which is something many other models simply don’t do.

Though my research into this model indicates this applies to bigger, more complex purchases, I believe this can actually apply to most B2B purchases today. Remember, a lot more goes into a B2B purchase now – more time, more research, more decision-makers.

4. Circular Trigger Model

I’ve seen this model represented in a few different ways in the last few years, but I like McKinsey’s model the best for its clarity. Like the last model we looked at, it considers the customer beyond the point of purchase. Unlike the last model, however, it clearly demonstrates the nonlinear B2B buying process.

Source: McKinsey.com

Beginning at the trigger point, this model illustrates the initial consideration phase, the evaluation phase, the purchase, and the experience – but you’ll notice that it loops right back to the trigger again.

The next time through, however, the customer enters the “loyalty loop.” They bypass the consideration and evaluation phases and loop right back to purchase.

This is what most of us marketers strive for. Repeat buyers. Advocates. This demonstrates the importance of engaging customers all the way through the buying journey – and continuing to keep them engaged after they’ve made a purchase.

5. AARRR Model (aka Startup Metrics for Pirates)

Though this model is often referred to for SaaS startups, I think every marketer can take something away from it.

Source: Dave McClure

You can see how this model would apply to any e-commerce website. One important thing to note, however, is that this model separates out the “loyalty” segment into Retention (repeat purchases) and Referral (recommending the product to others).

From initial visit (Acquisition) to purchase (Revenue), every step along the way is an opportunity for marketers to engage B2B customers.

If you have a few moments to spare, here’s the entire slide deck from Dave McClure.

Looping Back

B2B buyers are more informed than ever, they take longer to make a purchase, and there are more people involved in the buying decision. BUT – and this is very, very important – this actually gives marketers more opportunities to engage.

Instead of looking at each step in the B2B buying process as a hurdle, look at it as a touchpoint. You’ll serve your audience better and create loyal customers as they move down the path to the sale… and beyond.

Did you know Facebook is the perfect platform for acquiring and nurturing new prospects, while also engaging your existing customers?

It’s true. The ideal strategic approach to advertising on Facebook is simple:

1. Identify prospects using advanced targeting methods (like interests and behavior)
2. Nurture website visitors and custom audiences using remarketing
3. Build lookalike audiences based on your remarketing lists to fill your funnel with more qualified leads

Lookalikes

However, for many new and smaller businesses, the option to build complex remarketing funnels just isn’t realistic to start. You don’t have enough traffic yet.

Not having a pre-existing database of leads also makes the prospect of rendering lookalike audiences nearly impossible.

If you find yourself in one of these scenarios, what do you do?

The answer? Manual targeting. That means getting your hands dirty and constructing your best Facebook audiences from the ground up.

Now, there’s nothing wrong with having to build Facebook audiences from scratch: it’s just a little tricky. In this post, I’ll show you how manual targeting methods can be equally as effective as other targeting options available on Facebook, and the proper way to approach their creation and management.

How to Build Your Facebook Audiences Based on Objectives

The act of building out manually targeted audiences in Facebook is daunting and, without experience under your belt, can be difficult to execute without a hitch. That being said, there is a systematic approach that can be taken when building out audiences from scratch.

The first question you should answer for each campaign is: “What is my objective?”

There are multiple campaign objectives in Facebook, and each provides its own form of value to you, the advertiser. Although your audience should always align with your target demographic, the campaign objectives from left to right correlate to how refined that audience should be.

Here are the three types of Facebook campaign objective:

• “Awareness” campaign objectives allow for you to have the broadest audiences because your goal is simply to generate awareness for your brand and business.
• “Consideration” campaign objectives should be more refined than the awareness type, because you want the audience to actually engage with your ads or at least produce some type of result.
• “Conversion” campaign objectives should be as refined as possible because you want to produce results within a Cost per Acquisition framework (App installs and Lead Generation are more or less conversion campaigns by nature).

Understanding the relationship between campaign objective and audience size is the essential foundation for manual audience building. Once you can conceptualize how broad or how refined an audience should be, the rest of the process is a cakewalk.

How to Structure Your Facebook Audiences for Broader Objectives

With broad objectives (awareness and consideration) you have the liberty to be less strict with your targeting. With that being said, unless you’re selling fidget spinners, I wouldn’t suggest targeting everyone from the ages of 18 – 65+ with an interest in automatic doors and Dwayne “the Rock” Johnson.

You still want to take a systematic approach that is business-centric. Remember that regardless of the campaign objective in Facebook, you still want these individuals to have a high propensity to turn into customers at some point.

Let’s say, for example, you run a local dance school and want to generate brand awareness within your community:

With all other targeting parameters in place (i.e. location, age etc.) this brand awareness campaign will be able to cast a wider net while also being relevant to the business. Individuals whose interests fit within these categories (choreography, street dance, physical fitness, etc.) will likely have some type of positive reaction to an ad for a dance school, whether it is simple intrigue or engagement.

Using Facebook Interest Targeting with More Refined Campaign Objectives

There are two primary concepts or approaches when it comes to manually constructing your audiences.

The first is Core-to-Broad, which essentially means taking the most definitive characteristics of your target audience and building it out from there. The other, Broad-to Core, is basically the reverse of that, where you would start very broad in interest and behaviors and add layers of required characteristics that ultimately refine the audience down.

Here are the scenarios in which each strategy is most effective.

Strategy 1: Core-to-Broad

Continuing with the dance school example, let’s say that you want to refine your audience a bit so you know that a higher level of in-market qualification is being met. For a campaign that aims to significantly drive “qualified” traffic to the business’s website, you could take this approach:

Given that this is a local business, I elected to start with the core attributes of the target audience; we want to get a definitive profile of those who are in the desired location radius and who are demographically in-market for the service. These details are about who the audience “is” rather than what the audience is “interested” in. This is important because the strategy is based on characteristics that are more defining to them as individuals.

After that, I included another layer of targeting that requires Facebook to file those individuals down to those who fit within the interests and behaviors that are contextually relevant to the business.

This strategy is effective because it takes the pre-qualified audience and filters it down to individuals who will have a higher probability to be interested in the business.

These details are crucial when it comes down to overall engagement and relevance score, but also their propensity to click-through to the website. I often use this strategy when I am dealing with local business or ones with very low budgets. We can get this audience size relatively small and relevant, effectively spend a low budget on it for a period of time.

Strategy 2: Broad-to-Core

Alternatively, you can begin with broad interests and file them down into specific subsets based on defining behaviors and qualities. The reasoning for taking this approach primarily has to do with building a large, broad audience with members who share a common interest, then refining it to a size and profile that fits your campaign goals.

This approach is generally used when there isn’t a common thread of behaviors or demographic qualities that tie the entire group together. Instead, the filing down of interests or a collection of interests is what is important here.

Let’s take the example of a company that provides PPC software for digital marketers (far-fetched, right?). Here’s what that might look like:

The audience that comprises a digital marketing interest is about 39,764,000 people. Taking that audience and refining it to require at least one of the subsequent topics reduced that audience size to 7,700,000 people.

This is still a large audience, but if the goal is to promote blog content that is tangentially related to these topics of interest, then we increase the probability that those who are exposed to our content might actually be interested in it.

More Ways to Use Facebook Interests to Find More Qualified Prospects

Competitor targeting

If there are some larger fish in the pond in which you do business, use them to your advantage.

You can very simply target individuals who are interested in these companies. Your strategy from a promotional standpoint is an entirely different story altogether, but at least you know your ads are being served to individuals you are fairly certain are in-market for your business.

Account-based targeting

You can also take somewhat of an account-based marketing approach by targeting individuals who work for specific companies and have specific job titles within those companies that would be valuable to you (similar to this recruiting strategy).

To do this: select browse within the “Detailed Targeting” field. Then select “Demographics” from the drop-down.

Then scroll down and select “work”:

Then select “Employers”:

From there you will be able to search available employers whose employees you can target.

Which Behavior Targeting Strategy Is Best for You?

Unfortunately, the only way for you to truly know which strategy will work best for you is to test them all and optimize accordingly.

The positive result of all this hard work is that your audience-definition efforts will ultimately help you to build that ever-elusive remarketing pool that you desired in the first place. It allows you to market your business without any pre-requisites and hopefully allows you to build upon your successes.

If you are running a lead gen or conversions objective campaign, then you will be able to build lookalike audiences of those who converted, thus making the process of building and finding new audiences easier over time.

The False Promise of Traditional Brainstorming

In 1948, Alex Osborn, a partner in the famous advertising agency B.B.D.O., published a book called “Your Creative Power” in which he shared his secrets. One idea in his book, discussed in Chapter 33 on “How to Organize a Squad to Create Ideas”, later became one of the most widely used creativity techniques in the world.

In order to create innovative ideas, Osborne suggested that a group of people should engage in a “brainstorm”, i.e. “using the brain to storm a creative problem—and doing so in commando fashion, with each stormer attacking the same objective.” Osborne further outlined that the group should defer judgment, go for quantity, and embrace wild ideas.

This simple technique quickly became extremely popular and widely used in creative agencies and innovation teams up until today. There is, however, a big problem with Osborne’s idea of brainstorming: It doesn’t work!

Already ten years after Osborne published his book, an empirical study by the Yale University showed that students working on ideas by themselves were able to come up with roughly twice as many solutions – judged to be more feasible and effective – as brainstorming groups, when given the same challenge. As it turns out, an overwhelming amount of evidence shows unequivocally that brainstorming groups produce fewer and poorer quality ideas than the same number of people who work alone ideas and later pool them.

Why Traditional Brainstorming Does Not Work

The problem with brainstorming is that due to psychological and social issues, Osborne’s criteria of deferring judgment, going for quantity, and embracing wild ideas are often not followed in typical brainstorming sessions. Here are a couple of proven shortcomings of group brainstorming:

First of all, studies show that when it comes to ideation, it is very difficult for people to remove their fear of judgment (also referred to as evaluation apprehension). This is especially the case when a brainstorming group is made up of managers or other persons that hold a higher position in the company, and also when the company itself is structured rather hierarchically. Hence, participants of the brainstorming session are less likely to share wild ideas and rather stick with the predictable.

Conducting brainstorming via a digital innovation platform removes the problem of production blocking and the unfair advantage of extroverts or talkative people as everyone is able to contribute their ideas at will.

Secondly, we know from neuroscience that introverts process information via a different pathway in their brains than extroverts – a pathway that is considered to be longer and more complex. Consequently, extroverts will always have an advantage over introverts in the context of a typical brainstorming session whether their ideas are more innovative or not. However, even extroverts who are fast to react to external stimuli often encounter another problem when brainstorming, the so-called production blocking. In a brainstorming session, we often have an idea but cannot express it right away because someone else is talking. When it’s our turn, we have often already forgotten the idea or think that it has become redundant or is too similar to already expressed ideas. This means that there is no free flow of ideas and that some ideas stay hidden in the minds of the participants.

Another problem with brainstorming is that our brains are naturally hardwired to fear the new and to reduce uncertainty. Novelty is generally linked to risk, while practical and familiar ideas are seen as safe. This leads to a surprising paradox. We often reject crazy and disruptive ideas even when we advocate creativity as the desired goal.

Lastly, brainstorming often does not work, because great ideas emerge from an evolutionary process that can take some time. Creativity simply cannot be scheduled. Both Keith Sawyer in his book “Zig Zag: The Surprising Path to Greater Creativity” and Adam Grant in “Originals: How Non-Conformists Move the World” explain that the greatest ideas require an incubation phase where they enter the unconscious mind. As Keith Sawyer writes in his book:

“Successful creators engage in an ongoing dialogue with their work. They put what’s in their head on paper long before it’s fully formed, and they watch and listen to what they’ve recorded, zigging and zagging until the right idea emerges.”

Digital Brainstorming: Ideation on Steroids

What if we moved the brainstorming session into the digital realm? Qmarkets’ award-winning Idea management and crowdsourcing platforms allow organizations to brainstorm digitally, therefore not only eliminating the flaws with traditional brainstorming but at the same time creating valuable side-benefits.

Conducting brainstorming via a digital innovation platform removes the problem of production blocking and the unfair advantage of extroverts or talkative people as everyone is able to contribute their ideas at will. On top of that, the session can be designed in a way that ensures anonymity enabling the participants to completely let go of their fear of judgement, no matter how hierarchically and rigid the organization is structured. Furthermore, if ideas are allowed to be contributed over the course of say three days, the participants are able to process their thoughts within their unconscious mind, then revise or expand them. This also relieves pressure, a proven inhibitor to creative thinking.

Second-Order Benefits of Digital Brainstorming

But not only that, digital brainstorming allows for very diverse groups of people dispersed around the world to brainstorm together. This unleashes something which is considered one of the main ingredients of out-of-the-box creativity and disruptive ideas: exposure to unfamiliar perspectives. Research shows that exposure to alternative views spurs greater creativity as it causes us to reassess our initial assumptions and viewpoints. Simply said, it wakes us up. This means for example that an idea management and crowdsourcing tool like Qmarkets’ Q-max allows organizations to include people from a very diverse set of disciplines, cultures, and industries within the digital brainstorming session.

When an organization adopts usage of an advanced idea management tool, the above evidence suggests that it will not only lead to more innovative and successful ideas, it will furthermore enable new, diverse exchanges and connections, and ultimately empower employees by giving them an opportunity to contribute their thoughts and ideas in their own terms.

By the way, if you are worried about employee adoption of a digital brainstorming solution, remember that many of your employees are probably already expressing their ideas and thoughts through digital channels several times a day – whether it is on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Snapchat or somewhere else. I am convinced that if Alex Osborn were to invent brainstorming today, he would use the tools already used by his colleagues to foster creativity to ensure that his criteria are met. It is time to finally bring this creativity technique from the 1940’s into today’s digital age!