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ORLANDO, Fl. — “Empathy” was the watchword as SAP’s CEO, Bill McDermott, launched the business software giant’s annual user conference, Sapphire Now, in Orlando, Florida by detailing the ways in which SAP is responding to customer complaints about many issues, as he had promised at last year’s conference.

“We have been turning empathy into action,” he told the over 20,000 attendees during his presentation, titled the Urgency of Doing. “It’s a race with no finish line.”

So far, the company has delivered product and solution roadmaps, and McDermott announced changes to licensing that removes charges for accessing static data in SAP databases (defined as read-only that is not related to a real-time system inquiry or request and requires no processing or computing in an SAP system) from third party applications such as Salesforce.

• Industry consortium including Deloitte, SAP and AWS founded to accelerate ‘digital transformation’
• SAP CEO Bill McDermott applauds Canada’s ‘vibrant workforce’ as company tries to innovate in new sectors

The big focus of the conference, however, was SAP Leonardo. It’s not a product, but more of an overarching strategy to help companies with their digital transformations. It combines software and services across multiple areas – Internet of Things (IoT), blockchain, big data, analytics, and machine learning – all of which run in the SAP Cloud. It represents a redefinition of the original Leonardo branding, which had previously been synonymous with IoT. Leonardo technologies will be integrated into existing SAP products to make them more intelligent.

SAP is touting Leonardo as “the biggest move our company has made since HANA,” according to McDermott. It’s setting up SAP Leonardo Centers, with initial locations in New York, Paris, São Leopoldo and Bangalore, to help customers get started through its jump start program, a three month fixed-price engagement that takes the customer through design thinking exercises to identify and define a problem, the prototyping of a solution, and implementation of a live pilot. It includes a one year subscription to a single cloud service.

A set of industry accelerators — 25 so far, with more to come — is available that, SAP says, reduces time to innovation by over 50 percent. SAP itself is using its Leonardo technologies in the SAP Cloud for Real Estate to manage its properties worldwide.

It’s a race with no finish line

The SAP Leonardo Digital Twin lets companies create a software representation of physical assets that takes sensor data from the physical asset and simulates the impact of events on the asset in the software. Users can also place virtual sensors on the digital twin to glean additional insights. For example, the world’s most northerly wind farm relies on digital twins to predict failures and alert engineers in time to do proactive maintenance. This removes the need to do physical inspections in arctic conditions, while maintaining the integrity of the installation.

SAP also announced some other rebranding efforts. Last year, it grouped its analytics products under its BusinessObjects brand, only to learn that the BusinessObjects name was so tightly tied to business intelligence (BI) that customers were becoming confused. This year, it’s undoing the change, stripping the BusinessObjects name from all but its BI products such as BusinessObjects Enterprise, and BusinessObjects Web Intelligence. What was formerly known as BusinessObjects Cloud is now SAP Analytics Cloud.

In the third quarter of this year, a new offering, the SAP Analytics Hub, will be launched for business users. It will give them a portal from which they can access all of their analytics content, whether it’s generated in SAP products or not.

Partners were front and centre at the conference. One year after its announcement of an agreement with Apple to help bring iOS development into the enterprise, SAP reported that its enterprise-grade iOS software development kit (SDK), along with an addendum to Apple’s development guidelines that focuses on enterprise developers, hit version 1.0 at the end of March, and is in use at customer and partner sites. The company has committed to two updates this year, to coincide with Apple’s own SDK updates.

SAP also plans to partner with others such as system integrators with industry expertise to extend its reach, creating Leonardo accelerators that may or may not carry the SAP brand.

“The questions most customers are asking are business questions,” noted Jayne Landry, global vice president and general manager for Business Intelligence at SAP. “Leonardo is not focused on capabilities, it’s about business problems – discrete business problems that are industry-specific.”

Investors have yet to take a summer vacation from the markets as they remain quite active providing support on any weakness by stepping in and buying each dip. That said, in the midst of this positive environment some peculiarities are developing that are worth keeping a very close eye on.

In particular, we have noticed five oddities that could have an impact not only on investors’ portfolios but on other areas of their financial well-being as well.

Rate hikes amid record household debt

The Bank of Canada responded to Canada’s latest economic data including an impressive first quarter GDP print by signaling that it is preparing to raise it benchmark rate for the first time in seven years.

The majority of our economic growth has come from consumers who have ramped up their spending, feeling confident because of skyrocketing home prices. Banks have increased their lending accordingly, sending household debt-to-income to record highs at 166.9 per cent, the highest level in the G7.

As long as interest rates remain at low levels this shouldn’t be a problem, as the interest-only debt-service ratio in Canada is at a record low of 6.1 per cent, according to a recent Reuters report.

That said, this could be about to change if the market is correct with its expectation of one rate hike by the end of 2017, which could be a good test of just how dependent our economic growth is on housing and debt.

Oil and the loonie decouple

Looking longer-term, there is a strong relationship between the Canadian dollar and the price of oil. This makes sense given the nature of our exports, primarily to the U.S. Interestingly though, the loonie has recently delinked from this relationship as speculators focus in on the potential for an interest rate hike by the Bank of Canada.

Contrary to what some may believe, a lower dollar has been a positive to most Canadians, especially those in the real estate market, because it provides a great incentive for foreigners looking to purchase properties in Canada.

Meanwhile, oil prices have recently weakened again despite attempts by OPEC to talk them back up again.

We wonder what the Canadian economy will look like in the event of an interest rate hike, a higher loonie and falling oil prices. 

Commodities go AWOL

Equity markets, especially in the U.S., are continuing to set new highs despite commodities continuing to sell off.

According to Katusa Research, the ratio of the S&P Commodity Index to the S&P 500 has now reached record low levels, exhibiting a similar profile to what transpired during the tech bubble of 2000. This means one of three things: stocks are overly expensive, commodities are overly inexpensive or the market is correctly factoring in economic growth that has been so efficient that we no longer rely on commodities like we used to.

Technology, part two

While many are saying its different this time around in regards to the rapid rise in technology stocks, that’s not how it looks to us. Investors have always been prone to return-chasing and have herded into tech stocks like the FANGs (Facebook, Apple, Netflix, and Google) over the past three years at an astounding pace.

Consequently, you now have companies like Tesla with a market capitalization of more than US$61.1 billion which is larger than Ford’s US$44.7 billion with only 76,000 cars sold last year versus Ford’s 6.65 million. The recent Amazon acquisition announcement of Whole Foods wiped out $40 billion of market value from other food companies including powerhouses like Costco and Walmart. Apple and Alphabet’s combined market cap is now larger than the entire financial sectors in Japan and the Eurozone, according to a recent MarketWatch report.

Bonds and stocks moving together

Bond investors have taken the opposite stance of equity investors and as a result bond and stock prices have both been rallying together since mid-January. Whenever this happens, it’s time to take notice as it isn’t sustainable longer-term. The big question is who will be right: the conservative bond investors or the tech focused stock investors?

Martin Pelletier, CFA is a Portfolio Manager and OCIO at TriVest Wealth Counsel Ltd, a Calgary-based private client and institutional investment firm specializing in discretionary risk-managed portfolios as well as investment audit and oversight services.

Here’s how Fran Horowitz-Bonadies, chief executive officer, Abercrombie brand/Hollister & Co. describes consumer communication in 2017:

“For the past year, we spoke to one-and-a-half million consumers on what they are looking for in their shopping experience… There’s been almost a 180-degree turn on making sure we keep the customer at the center of everything we do. It’s been [our] most important singular focus…”

But, it’s not only about keeping customers at the center of your communication and engagement strategies. Research findings from thousands of hours of VoC research conducted by our firm, ERDM, indicate that customers want unprecedented levels of personalization at 7 very specific points in their lifecycle with a brand. Think about how savvy customers are to identify the following points where they want brands to engage:

• Purchase
• Onboarding
• Reach out when you see Decreasing Engagement
• A Poor Experience
• Surprise & Delight / Thank You
• Value Added Cross Selling
• Value Added Repeat Sales.

However, to deepen relationships at these key points, brands must shift to truly relevant and value-driven communications. Per the research, traditional transaction/persona /implicit data based communications are not viewed as relevant.

Using the 7 VoC research-based lifecycle points, here are ways that marketers can add value to communications.

New Purchases and Onboarding—You Need to Become Part of the Consumers’ Lifestyle
Bacardi Limited Chief Marketing Officer Mauricio Vergara recently noted:
“We need to get our brands back into culture, so we’re moving away from a traditional marketing model of talking to consumers to really being part of their lifestyle…If we are true to that philosophy of being part of their lifestyle, a brand that they actually relate to in their day-to-day life, we cannot just be present in the high-selling moments… It’s been a learning process…but we’re definitely seeing the payback.”

When You See Decreasing Engagement/Poor Experiences – You Need to Understand How to Win Back Trust
V. Kumar, a marketing professor at Georgia State University outlined in a Harvard Business Review article, the key factors marketers need to keep in mind when attempting to win back lost consumers, “Too many companies go after whoever they’ve lost, throwing all these offers at them, hoping something will work,” Instead what he recommends is fully understanding which group of lost consumers will yield the best bet to come back and not depart again, then crafting an offer or message that is compelling to that segment.

Here is what the study advises: “firms will be more efficient if they focus on people whose prior behavior suggests a predisposition to return. The researchers found that customers who have referred others, who have never complained, or who have had complaints that were satisfactorily resolved are the best bets. Reasons for leaving are also predictive: Customers who canceled because of price are more likely to come back than those who left because of poor service, and people who cited both reasons for quitting are the least likely of all to return.”

For Cross Selling/Thank You/Repeat Sales – Use Value Added and Emotional Engagement to Strengthen Connections
Recently, Yeti — a manufacturer of coolers used primarily for outdoor and camping pursuits — decided to open their first retail location. But, rather than building a transaction based store, the brand decided they wanted an experiential, emotional, connection-building brand immersion. The brand noted, the goal was less to “find a way to sell a lot of coolers to people who come inside and more to create a permanent brand activation that allows people to interact with Yeti in ways that they’ll hopefully take with them in the future.”

Corey Maynard, Yeti’s Vice President of Marketing explains “It’s meant to be much more of an immersive Yeti experience…than it is to be a transactional space… Yes, we’re selling coolers…but it was much more important to us that people could have fun with the Yeti brand and see it brought to life …than just be a place that’s driven by transaction.” Tony Kaplan, YETI Director of Consumer Experience “YETI’s flagship is not a typical retail store… [it is an] authentic experience that allows our customers to interact with the YETI brand in a whole new way.”

In summary, think about the 7 stages in the lifecycle which emerged from the research and see how many opportunities exist for you to deepen your relationships with customers!

Salespeople want absolute superiority when it comes to product, service, or solution. They want an absolute advantage when it comes to pricing. You want dominance when it comes to generating a return on a client’s investment. If you had all of these things, then selling would be easy, and you might really, really want selling to be easy—but it isn’t.

All of the ideas above are in conflict. If you have the very best product, service, or solution on earth, you must spend the money necessary to have that advantage in the marketplace. How on earth could you have absolute dominance and also have the lowest price? The additional premium you charge is how you have the very best solution.

If you have the ability to generate greater results than anyone else, a strategy called “customer intimacy,” then you have to make the necessary investments to deliver that level of value. Look, your competitors aren’t stupid. If they have a lower price, they know that they are giving up something when it comes to customer intimacy. Maybe they decided not to make the investment in the additional people. Maybe they don’t want or intend to make the investment in leadership. To reduce their price, they have to give up something.

You have to pick a lane on these things. You can have the very best product, but you are going to have to sell at a price that allows you to deliver the very best product. If your product is your intimate knowledge of the client and the ability to work creating high trust, high value, and high caring, then you are going to have to give up low price to deliver those things.

If you want to sell at the absolute lowest price, you’re going to find that it’s much more difficult when you have no compelling differentiation. You are also going to notice that you mostly sell to difficult clients who care only about price, and who do not value you as a salesperson nor your organization as a partner.

The post You Have to Pay for Your Competitive Advantage appeared first on The Sales Blog.

9 Tools You Can Use to Spy on Your Competitors Businesses that focus on their target audiences, ideal buyer personas and customer pain points are ahead of the marketing game. But they’re still missing a crucial step to success. Failing …..

The post Essential Competitor Analysis Tools appeared first on Smart Insights.

Research has shown that overusing “filler words” creates a slightly negative perception of the speaker. But do filler words actually have a meaningful impact on sales outcomes?

As salespeople, we pride ourselves on being professional communicators. Filler words make most of us cringe. But professional communicators can sometimes be too nitpicky (attend a Toastmaster’s meeting and you’ll see what I mean.)

We nitpick at filler words in sales calls, thinking that reducing them will help us close more sales.

But will it?

Do top performing sales reps use filler words less often (or differently) than bottom performing ones?

Do closed deals have “fewer filler words spoken” than lost deals?

Let’s look at the data.

The Most Common Filler Words in Sales

First, let’s take a look at the most common filler words we found when we used Gong’s conversation analytics engine to analyze nearly half a million B2B sales call recordings:

 To further explain what the percentages mean here, these are the most common filler words spoken in aggregate across the entire pool of call recordings we analyzed. In other words, “so …” was the most common filler word, occupying 33% of all filler words spoken.

The Impact Filler Words Have on Sales Outcomes

As it turns out, this list of annoying filler words has no correlation with the success of sales calls.

When we analyzed the differences between top-, mid-, and low-performing reps, we found no statistically significant difference in the frequency or types of filler words used.

In other words: Top sales reps don’t use filler words less often (or in different ways) than their peers.

Then we sliced the data another way.

We analyzed filler words against sales outcomes while remaining blind to who produced those outcomes.

And we found the same thing: Filler words didn’t correlate negatively with call or deal success.

There was no impact on win rates, sales cycle length, conversion rates from opportunity stages … nothing.

One thing we did find was women use filler words 5% more often -- and differently -- than men do (a small testament that women sell differently than men?).

Women consistently use these filler words:

• "great"
• "perfect"
• "like"

While men use these ones:

• "cool"
• "sort of"
• "you know"

But those are nothing more than fun facts.

So … Should We Like … Ignore Filler Words?

To sum up, filler words on sales calls don’t seem to have an impact on key sales outcomes -- at least none that we could find.

Some might even argue that filler words serve a purpose: We use them when we need time to think, process a question or statement, and come up with a response. That’s not such a terrible thing when it comes to having a productive sales conversation.

I’d also argue salespeople and managers are hypersensitive to filler words. They are much more noticeable to reps and managers who are reviewing a call recording for coaching than they are to buyers immersed in a live conversation.

Editor's note: This post was originally published on Gong.io and has been republished here with permission.

All too often business owners find themselves trapped into thinking that the price of their product or service is what matters most. But that’s not true.

People often spend money and buy products or services without consideration for price, and it is important for us to understand why. Fundamentally, it is because the product or service they are buying offers something more to the consumer than simply a competitive price. The business has positioned their product or service to live well UP the price ladder, far from the bottom, where price alone matters in making a buying decision.

If you’re not familiar with the Price Ladder, it is an important concept to know and understand. How you position your products and services matter, especially if you do not want to compete on price alone. Allow me to use the purchase of a phone to illustrate how the price ladder works.

Price

The bottom rung of the ladder is Price alone. This is where products and services are sold as a commodity. Nothing differentiates them from their competition. It is price alone that determines whether a customer buys product A or product B. At this point on the ladder, it is essential that your product is very low cost to build because there is little upside on the price you can charge when selling it.

Using our phone as an example, these would be what are known as “burner” or disposable phones. These are pay-as-you-go devices that are very inexpensive and only allow you to make and receive calls. There are no frills, no special features, just a phone connection for a fee.

Package

The next rung up the ladder is a Package. This is where a product is bundled with a service in an attempt to disguise price. This allows for some differentiation in that the packaged product/service can be unique from the competition. Packaging or bundling is a way to get more than just rock bottom price for what you have to offer. While not an ideal place to be, offering a package or bundled product does provide some level of protection and stability for many products and services.

As this applies to our phone, this may be a low feature phone device that comes packaged with a very low monthly connection fee. This phone is likely a flip phone that simply makes and received calls but has the added benefit of a low cost usage plan that allows the buyer to have the convenience of a phone but without paying for all the bells and whistles.

Experience

The third rung on the ladder is where there is an Experience. What the customer is buying is something more than just the product or service but the “experience” or “feelings” that are unique to how you deliver your product or service. This requires some thoughtful planning and deliberate customer interactions, but can separate your product or service from the “me to” crowd that is selling only based on price or packaged offerings.

Our phone at this level is probably a “smart” phone meaning it has additional features such as a built in camera, perhaps web access and other features that allow you to fully function and “play” with your device. It comes bundled with a service package but is modestly priced and not fully feature-rich.

Transformation

Higher yet on the ladder is where there is a Transformation as a result of the purchase. This is where the product or service you are selling actually “changes” something when it gets used. It could be a physical change or a mental change, but something happens as a result of using your product of service. In these situations, a customer who desires that particular change is not focused on price, but on getting the desired transformation.

Our phone at this level is likely the current version of an iPhone, where the device is feature-rich and owning it “makes a statement” that the owner is cool, relevant and trendy. The phone itself is so packed with features that the owner is constantly learning and enjoying new functionality well after the initial purchase.

Guaranteed Transformation or Experience

The top rung on the price ladder is where there is a Guaranteed Transformation or Experience. The furthest point from price is where you can GUARANTEE that the buyer will have an experience or have a transformation as a result of using your particular product or service.

The phone on the top rung of the ladder likely is a part of a virtual reality gaming system where there is an “out-of-this-world” experience associated with owning it. Just the thought of “virtual reality” makes prospective buyers want to buy the device – no matter what the cost. It is something that the buyer wants to show off to others, because it is something that only very few will purchase or experience.

So how about you? Where is your product of service positioned? Are you struggling trying to compete on price alone. Shaving your margins to make ends meet? Why not step up the Price Ladder?

Don’t know how? Don’t think it can be done in your industry? Let me assure you, it CAN be done in any industry. It may require you to re-think your business and re-position your customer service expectations. Give it a try – you’ll enjoy the results!

Three kids begin playing Little League baseball on the same team at the age of eight years old. Each one of them plays in the league until they are twelve years old. Given that all of them now have five years of experience, which one is the all-star? It seems like some important information is […]

Keeping your pipeline full has cascading effects. If you know you have plenty of opportunities to work, you won’t fall back on bad sales tactics (like discounting or guilting prospects) to close deals. You’ll feel confident enough to set your price and stand by it. Because you’re selling with integrity, buyers will respect you more. Not only will your average deal size be larger, but you’ll generate more referrals and positive word-of-mouth.

That means you’ll have more opportunities coming into the top of your pipeline -- bringing us full circle.

But how do you start the cycle in the first place? Many salespeople say prospecting is the most difficult part of the sales process. If you can relate, try these seven habits. I’ve helped reps on my team adopt these, and their results reliably improve.

1) ABP: Always Be Prospecting

Whether it’s the first day of the month or the last, you should always, always be prospecting. Spend time every day to do LinkedIn research, look for buying triggers in the news, and email and call new prospects.

Consistency is critical. If you let yourself take a day off one time, you’ll be tempted to do it again a week later -- and the week after that. Next thing you know, you don’t have any new deals in your pipeline.

Block time on your calendar, set an alarm on your phone, ask another salesperson on your team to keep you honest, write “prospecting” on your daily to-do list -- whatever it takes to stick with it.

2) Ask for Referrals

Your current customers are the best source of your next customers. They believe in your value proposition; if they didn’t, they wouldn’t have bought your product. So don’t be shy to ask for a referral.

No, “Can you recommend anyone I should talk to about this solution?” and “Would anyone you know be interested in the product?” don’t count. Make your request as specific as possible so a name leaps into your prospect’s mind.

For example, you might ask, “Do you know any partially or fully remote companies with less than 50 employees?”

3) Know Your Key Triggers

The most successful triggers will depend on your product, market, and prospect persona. Pay attention to which triggers most often lead to deals. For example, maybe 30% of new business comes from companies who recently opened a second office, while 10% comes from companies who just hired a chief culture officer.

Once you’ve homed in on your triggers, you can use them to execute with killer focus.

4) Know Your Top Customers

The same principle applies to your personas. If you close four times more deals with manufacturing corporations than tech startups, you should prioritize manufacturing corporations. If you’re 46% likelier to win the deal when you work with the learning and development (L&D) team versus the culture team, you should get an introduction to an L&D employee ASAP.

Of course, to have these insights in the first place you must consistently update your CRM and periodically review your data. Don’t fly blind: Every action you take should be strategic.

5) Automate as Much as Possible

The simpler and easier prospecting is, the less you’ll dread doing it -- and the more efficient you’ll be. Fortunately, you’ve got plenty of tools to choose from that’ll help you prospect faster and better.

LinkedIn Sales Navigator, for example, will help you stay up-to-date on target buyers and/or accounts, find mutual connections, and even kick off timely, contextualized conversations.

HubSpot Sales lets you quickly customize and send emails, track their open and response rates, and see how and when your prospects are engaging with the content. It even lets buyers book open slots on your calendar, so you don’t have to spend precious minutes coordinating with them.

6) Use Social Media -- Selectively

LinkedIn, Twitter, and Facebook can be valuable prospecting platforms. Use them to monitor changes in your buyer’s world, find reasons for connecting with them, and position yourself as a subject matter expert.

That being said, many salespeople use social media as an excuse for avoiding the phone. If you’re always putting off calling prospects because you’re “busy” tweeting or commenting on LinkedIn posts, it’s time to reevaluate.

Yes, you’ll get rejected far more often on the phone than online. But you’ll also be successful far more often: When it comes to sales, nothing beats an actual interaction. So face your fears, and make sure social selling complements -- not replaces -- your other prospecting activities.

7) Never Stop Learning

Nearly six in 10 salespeople won’t change once they’ve figured out what works for them, according to a HubSpot Research report.

The problem with this? Prospects change, buying processes change, industries change, and competitors change. A winning strategy right now is a failing strategy in one year -- maybe even sooner.

To stay current, you can’t get complacent. Try different techniques, read books, listen to podcasts, and develop new skills. It doesn’t matter how experienced you are -- there’s always more to learn. Believing there’s no room for improvement is pure arrogance and will hold you back in the long run.

B2B sales teams today have access to more data than ever before. Thanks to increasingly connected businesses, and in-depth lead generation activities, the sheer amount of incoming data can be overwhelming.

But beyond simply gathering data, sales teams need to be able to effectively organize and analyze that information in order to make it actionable. That’s where the true value lies, because what use is data if it doesn’t tell you anything?

So where do you start? How do you manage incoming data and use it to equip and benefit your B2B salesforce? Here are four tips for mastering your sales operations data.

1. Assess the Data you Have

Before you can make the most of your data, you need to wrap your arms around what you already have. Identify current databases within your sales platform to see if there are any holes in the collection process. Work with your sales team to identify what the most valuable information is, and evaluate if it is being collected and recorded correctly. Starting with an organized foundation will set you up for success down the road.

Here’s what you need to evaluate within your sales platform:

• Lead & Account Data: Evaluate your organization’s lead and account data. Remove fields that aren’t being used and add any custom fields your team needs.

• Ideal Customer Profile (ICP): Develop your ICP with personality traits and characteristics that fit your product or service. Detail industry, profession, age, sex, interests and hobbies.

• Lead Grading: Filter leads based on your ICP, grading them on a scale of “A-F” so you can drill down into the leads that are more valuable to your business.

2. Make Data Accessible to both Marketing & Sales

Smart sales and marketing teams are constantly on the go, pursuing the next opportunity. Most teams simply don’t have the time and resources to dig through reports and data to find what they need, let alone communicate with one another about every project or need that pops up. They need a data management platform that is as easy to use as it is accessible.

Enabling access to real-time data means sales and marketing teams can work together to make informed decisions. Find a data collection and reporting platform that is easy to use, with customizable dashboards that help sales and marketing reps stay in constant contact.

Never let one team gather data that the other team doesn’t have access to. While yes, some sales data is irrelevant to marketing and vice versa, you’d be surprised at how much insight one team can provide to the other. Don’t put restrictions on what teams share with each other, including access to recently-produced content.

Content should be easily accessible from the CRM tool you’re using. Through collaboration, these teams should come up with a tagging and folder structure for content that makes it simple for them to find what they need, no matter which customer they’re targeting.

3. Make Data Actionable

Specialized reporting and analytics help sales teams optimize processes, improve productivity and continually improve their results. Meaningful data pulled into easy-to-use reports makes prospecting and nurturing sales more effective overall. After you’ve collected your data, you need to make it actionable by reporting on work done and implementing future goals.

In order to make your data actionable, first you need to develop an accurate forecast that’s based on your sales team’s accomplishments and/or failures. Take the current sales numbers and extend them into the future – how does your growth look overall? If you’re shrinking instead, you may want to adjust your strategy, or let your weakest performers go.

Next, you need to understand what’s making your target audience connect with you as a brand to define the most effective messaging. Use data to tweak the message of your emails, websites, blogs and any other data-tracked asset. Try A/B testing different messaging against your most sought-after ICPs to find out who’s responding and who isn’t.

Finally, you need to segment your accounts into separate groups, sorted by importance. This way, you can personalize your outreach efforts to the top accounts and limit efforts on those that aren’t interested in buying.

4. Keep Track

Nurturing a lead successfully is all about tracking past touchpoints. By having a centralized platform for tracking account activity, your team can better personalize their touchpoints and maximize their future prospecting efforts.

Keeping a log of historical touchpoints and account activity can identify best practices and help with forecasting. Within most sales platforms, you can assign data to the best reps suited for the job. You can integrate rules so your salespeople know which account is assigned to whom and avoid infighting over the lead pool.

Use your data to track correspondences and give your reps the power to have informed conversations with their leads. Additionally, give your sales manager the data they need to understand best email templates, call times and activity logging so they can provide better leadership to the reps.

With businesses that are increasingly connected and lead generation activities that are becoming more and more complex, B2B sales teams need to harness the capabilities of their data like never before. Try out these four tips and master your sales operations data once and for all.

The post 4 Steps to Master Your Sales Operations Data appeared first on OpenView Labs.

Misalignment is what happens when the way your people spend their time is out of sync with your mission. Sound familiar? It does to most companies, but gets far too little attention.

No matter what size your company is, Total Alignment: Tools and Tactics for Streamlining Your Organization shares proven processes that will get all your people on the same page. To make sure you stay aligned and don’t veer off course like so many companies do, you’ll also learn how to measure and track throughout the year how aligned your people’s results are with the overall outcome your business was intended to achieve.

For 25 years, Infotrac Founder and CEO Dr. Riaz Khadem and EVP Linda Khadem have been helping companies align their processes so they can turn mission into action into desired results. They’ve worked with small and large companies in the U.S. and abroad, including FEMSA, the largest Coca-Cola bottler in the world, which increased revenue 21 times between 1996 and 2016 by implementing new initiatives including total alignment.

In easy to follow steps, the authors show how you can achieve alignment by:

• Defining the right alignment progress indicators for each of your people
• Supporting these indicators with data to measure progress toward your vision
• Creating an alignment map that will serve as a frame of reference for every action
• Assigning clear roles and accountability for each initiative and progress indicator
• Creating individual scorecards for everyone (including the CEO) to delegate, clarify and align responsibilities and compensation with the organization’s vision, strategy and core values
• Scheduling results meetings and “vertical” performance reviews that are upward-focused and future-oriented instead of about past accomplishments
• Linking pay to performance based on how well your people’s results are aligned with the goals of your company.

 

Is Your Company Misaligned? Check for these Symptoms

A company is misaligned when people pursue goals and agendas that are incongruent with each other and do not combine to effectively advance a single purpose. One way to determine the extent to which your company is misaligned is to watch for the following symptoms:

Decision making takes too long. Slow decision making decreases the momentum needed for growth and puts your company at a competitive disadvantage, particularly when you’re competing with aggressive competitors and more agile organizations. There could be legitimate reasons for taking time to make decisions. However, if the slow pace is caused by lack of clarity as to who should make the decision, or poor understanding of the vision and strategy of the organization, then these conditions inhibit action and indicate a lack of alignment.

There are too many meetings. Meetings are necessary for exchanging thoughts and ideas, making plans and reviewing progress. But organizations often are stifled by too many long and unfocused meetings that waste time and drain productivity. If this is the case in your company, the underlying cause could be lack of clear definition of accountability. When it’s unclear who is accountable, then everyone is accountable and too many people are invited to meetings. In organizations hampered by a strict hierarchical culture, functional managers find it necessary to be present in meetings, or send their representatives to attend. As a result, meetings become too large and too long for effective action, and little progress is made when the meeting is over.

There’s an overload of email. When we talk about this symptom, we’re not referring to the overload of junk email, which can be eliminated by your computer software. We’re talking about legitimate messages that people receive and cannot ignore. Highly skilled knowledge workers spend too much of their time managing email. While important messages should be answered, a large number are unnecessary. Frequently they’re sent in such high volume because organizational responsibilities haven’t been clearly defined, and managers feel they need to copy a long list of people to protect their actions from criticism or to respect hierarchical protocols. Email overload can be an indicator of misalignment.

Silos exist. Silos are departments working as separate units and not sharing information with other departments in the same company. The lack of communication may be intentional or unintentional. Functional units often become turfs that guard information and interests. Silos exist in organizations of all sizes and are an indication of misalignment.

There’s a lack of clarity of responsibility. When responsibilities are not clearly defined, either no one is taking charge, or someone is taking charge who might not be the right person, or several people are fighting for control. These scenarios have varying effects on the bottom line of the company. When the results are good, people tend to compete to get credit. When the results are bad, people may engage in finger-pointing and assigning blame to each other. These are all symptoms of misalignment.

There’s a lack of empowerment at lower levels. If the lower levels in your organization don’t feel empowered to make decisions, then you might be experiencing misalignment. The employees on the front line are the ones that sell the product, often deliver the product, and serve the customers. When they aren’t empowered to act and merely wait to receive instructions from their managers, customers suffer and customer loyalty is lost. This is an important symptom of misalignment. Lower levels should be empowered with a clear definition of responsibilities; they are your link to customers, with the critical role of helping your company align with the market.

Communication is selective, protecting individual interests. If you sense that communication among people is not open and free-flowing, or if people are cautious about sharing information, you could have an alignment problem. Information is not owned by turfs. It belongs to the company and should be available to whomever has a legitimate need for it. When a manager and a direct report converse, if the direct report selectively shares information or hides information from the manager, no useful outcome will result from the meeting.

There’s a lack of motivation in the organization. This is a general malaise you would find in misaligned organizations. It’s the result of multiple misaligned elements described above. Lack of motivation leads to apathy, where people have the attitude of ‘whatever.’ Apathy is a serious condition that can impact your success. It is the opposite of being unified in purpose, having a clear vision and a strategy for success.

Confusion and rumors proliferate. When alignment is absent, people become confused as to where your organization is going, what they should do and why. When people are left confused for too long, many revert to gossip, sharing opinions and news that could become distracting or destructive. Confusion and rumors are the byproducts of a misaligned organization.These symptoms are present to different degrees in companies of all sizes, but a strategic focus on alignment can help reduce or eliminate them—whether you have $1 million in sales or $4 billion.

 

ABOUT THE AUTHORS

Dr. Riaz Khadem is the founder and CEO of Infotrac, a U.S.-based consulting firm that specializes in aligning and transforming organizations.Having spent over 25 years of consulting managers in business strategy deployment, performance management, leadership, and cultural transformation, Dr. Khadem grew inspired to create the Total Alignment management model. Khadem’s work in business strategy provides managers across the globe a succinct model that joins unique concepts, methodologies, and tools together to align their organizations at all levels and transform the way managers work.

This model has since been implemented in organizations across the globe, including U.S., UK, Germany, Spain, Austria, Mexico, Colombia, and Brazil along with several industries such as manufacturing, insurance, and retail. Dr. Khadem has lectured in business forums in several countries. He has held teaching and research positions at Southampton University, Northwestern University, and Universite Laval, and currently holds a doctorate in Applied Mathematics.

Linda Khadem is the EVP and in-house counsel of Infotrac, overseeing product trademarks, copyrights, and contracts with clients and representatives worldwide. In addition, she has been instrumental in the evolution of Total Alignment, along with other business strategy books such as One Page Management and previous adaptations of Total Alignment published in Colombia and Brazil.

Along with her work at Infotrac, Khadem pursues justice and education across the nation. She has served as secretary and chairperson of the Baha’I Justice Society, a national organization of 180 attorneys. She has spoken at numerous conferences on the theme of justice and served as the coordinator of refugee children’s classes promoting moral and spiritual education in eleven Atlanta neighborhoods. She holds a Bachelor’s degree in Sociology from the University of Illinois as well as a degree of Juris Doctor (J.D.) from Emory University and has been educated in the U.S., UK, and Canada.

The conversion game for SaaS is different from that of its contemporaries like eCommerce and hyperlocals. With different purchasing cycles, business objectives and unique success metrics, the field for B2B SaaS conversions is surely an interesting one.

A staggering 86% of SaaS marketers have understood that to get their conversions right – their prime focus should be on acquiring new customers. Whether it’s maintaining a sizeable budget or getting the extra manpower, no stone is being left unturned in getting the conversion numbers right.

And therein lies the problem, despite having the right focus and dedication, many SaaS companies fail miserably to get their returns. In moments of desperation, marketers try to take a cue from e-commerce and other industries – they believe the only way that can get a second chance at converting is by pumping more resources and assigning bigger budgets.

But, the fact of the matter is: these conversion failures have nothing do with money; it’s about the mistakes that SaaS marketers are committing, either knowingly or unknowingly. Marketers have to understand that SaaS conversion processes cannot be compared to other industries, simply because SaaS is a different and a more complex industry.

The unfortunate part is that if these mistakes continue to persist, it can eat up your SaaS business. You have to be mindful of these mistakes if you hope to get quality conversions and sustain your business.

Here are are five painful conversion mistakes that you should always avoid:

1. Failing to Prove Your Expertise

A SaaS audience is a tough crowd to please, you always need to be on top of your game. For driving conversions, you need to portray your organization as a genuine thought leader in the industry. Your brand is seen as a resource hub with high level expertise.

To become a thought leader in the industry, focus on your content marketing. Weak content can fail to validate your claims of being an ‘expert’. Prior to engaging with your site, B2B users carry out an average of 12 searches and if they do not find relevant content, they will not proceed ahead with you.

Create content which balances customer expectation with your offering/expertise. If you overshoot or underplay with your content, a distortion will be created between what users perceive to be your expertise than what it actually is.

Another way your SaaS can fall short on proving relevant expertise is by assigning the wrong keywords. Ranking on irrelevant keywords can set unrealistic expectations from your SaaS.

Say, you’re a SaaS company which provides ‘customer support collaboration tool’, if a user is searching for ‘social media collaboration tool’ and your SaaS comes up, it will can negatively affect your Google rankings and make you seem unreliable.

Takeaway: Along with creating strong content, do a thorough keyword research before executing your SEO strategy.

2. Features over benefits

An email template is a feature, but when an email template saves time by automating repetitive emails – that’s a benefit. Users want to know how your product can help them with their needs, that’s the sales pitch that many SaaS websites fail to provide.

Your SaaS needs to put the customer in the spotlight than the product itself. That’s when you will able to create a culture where your SaaS becomes a ‘problem solver’.

Having said that, do not assume that features have no relevance. It’s simply that – feature tells the customer about your SaaS and benefit sells your SaaS to a customer. If you are trying to figure out which one of them should get the preferential treatment, as a rule of thumb, follow the 80/20 rule. A good 80% of your content should focus on customer benefits and 20% on product features.

Takeaway: Create copies which have a healthy mix of features and benefits.

Here’s an example how you can combine features and benefits to your main copy in order to get quality conversions.

3. Asking for too much info

In the SaaS realm, data drives everything – any strategy without data is unthinkable. A large chunk of data comes from the information provided by users, this includes – login details, choosing categories, ordering details, and more.

SaaS marketers tend to go overboard by trying to squeeze users for information. They end up asking too many questions, making the checkout process longer and complex, which is not a healthy practice, since complicated checkouts contribute 27% of total cart abandonments.

To gain information from users without hurting your conversions, remember these points:

• Ask information at the end of the funnel, not at the top nor middle of the funnel.
• Collect customer feedback only when it does not interfere with what users are doing. For eg: give a phone call right after a user has availed your support services, they will be more willing to give their feedbacks at that moment of time.

Takeaway: create a system of asking information without driving away of customers, and monitor it regularly.

4. Showing marketing fatigue after user sign-ups

Marketers spend a considerable amount of resource to get customers hooked to the free trial period. After spending on ads, influencer marketing, referral programs, when finally users sign-up to a free trial, marketers assume they have achieved their targets. But, in reality, they have achieved only a part of it.

The end goal of any marketing is converting visitors into paying customers, a free trial is a means to this end. It’s surprising that a marketer’s excitement fizzles down once the user has signed-up for the free trial. They are lethargic at coming up with strategies that would encourage customers to upgrade to the premium version, this leads to ‘limited’ user onboarding.

Limited user onboarding leads to ‘stacking’ users in the free trial version and since no money is made, it decimates your entire marketing plan. To save your conversions, create a sequence of customer onboarding strategy – the first sequence can be aimed at getting users into the free trial, the second sequence will convert trial users into premium users.

Takeaway: Optimize your user onboarding for converting trial users into premium ones.

Here is an example of you can encourage trial users to become paying subscribers.

5. Weak CTA

Many SaaS fail to come up with a call to action (CTA), that is relevant. Marketers undermine the effort it needs to plan and execute the perfect CTA. Due to which, many marketers try to forge replicas of successful CTAs, without considering if it even compliments the objective.

If your CTA is not getting the desirable clicks, then you are making one of these mistakes:

• Multiple CTAs on your home/landing page – They lead to lack of clarity and will only end up confusing the user.
• Unclear copy – Your message is unable to communicate what a user can expect after clicking the button.
• Wrong place – Your CTA is put at a place where it’s neither visible nor readable.
• Bland colors – Certain colors catch instant attention, make sure the color of your CTA button attracts users, at the same time, it matches with the aesthetics of your website.

Takeaway: Keep monitoring the performance of your CTAs with A/B testing.

Here’s an example of how multiple CTAs with different copies reduces the clarity of the message. There is a confusion as to what users are expected to do: take a free trial, schedule a demo, download the white paper, learn how the tool works or how it can help my business.

Winding up

Don’t be disheartened if you have been making these mistakes, the better way to go about it is by learning from them. Apply the takeaways and prop your conversions to glorious heights.

Sales territory management is more important than many may realize. It can boost your sales team’s morale, increase sales, provide a larger customer base and inspire team cohesion. So what is it and what do you need to focus on for efficient management of sales territories?

Territory management is a customer group or geographic area over which either an individual salesperson or a sales team has responsibility. These territories are usually defined based on geography, sales potential, its history or a combination of these factors. The ultimate aim of this division of areas is to maximize sales and profits and to allocate resources efficiently.

Sales Territory Management in simple terms is a methodology to control, optimize and improve territory alignment and structure of an organization’s sales resources and activities. This can include balancing and aligning territories so that sales personnel and resources are being used effectively to maximize the productivity of your sales team.

It is very important to create sales territories that are balanced. When a sales territory is out of balance, there are two things that can happen. If a territory is being under-serviced, the sales team or salesperson is spread too thinly and it leads to sub-optimal levels of activity. Those responsible for the territories will seek out too few leads, identify too little prospects and spend too little time with customers because they are overworked. This leads to customers going to competitors and you lose sales.

Over-servicing in a territory is where the sales team has too little work and too many team members to service a small area. This raises costs and prices overall which ultimately leads to reduced sales. Precious resources are also then not being utilized in more important areas. This can lead to under-servicing in other areas.

Learn more about it here

Unbalanced territories can cause many problems. Some of these include the unfair distribution of sales potential amongst the sales force, distorted compensation amongst sales reps and, reps leaving the company to seek out better balance and compensation elsewhere.

One of the things people can do to form good sales territories is sales potential forecasting. This helps to determine sales targets and identifies areas that are worthy to allocate sparse resources to. Forecasting determines the number of prospects in an area and their combined (and individual) buying power.

There are three main reasons why sales management usually employs territories. It can be customer-related which increases market coverage and provides good customer service. This makes for higher sales figures and greater customer satisfaction.

The second reason can be related to the salespeople themselves. It increases enthusiasm and motivation in teams. It is great for effective performance evaluation and decreases employee turnover while providing reward potential for the amount of effort taken.

The last reason can be related to management. Control is enhanced with territory allocation and is great for promotion coordination. It provides the potential for staff incentives and better allocation of costs per territory.

Territory management can help spread out the workload for your sales team, allowing them to complete tasks more efficiently, build better customer relationships and increase the good-quality leads that they get. Just as important is the motivation it provides to your sales team if they feel like they are being productive and accomplishing a lot of the sales goals they set out to do.

Why is Sales Territory Management important?

1. Increase Sales & Reduce Cost

The primary task for any sales organization is to maximize the amount of time salespeople spend selling while ensuring that they sell the right products to the right customers.

Aligned territories will result in balanced workloads for sales personnel, providing them with greater earning potential, improved morale and career satisfaction.

This leads to higher motivation, lower staff turnover and most importantly, more sales. Territory mapping also provides route optimization capabilities which can reduce travel costs, improve fuel efficiency and increase the number of customers that field sales teams serve within their territory.

2. Measure Performance

When sales territory data is visualized using mapping software, there is a host of analytical tools to take advantage of including several different performance reporting options.

Mapping software enables data plotted on a map to be aggregated to get a consolidated view of performance. It’s possible to segment and filter data, isolating sales of above or below a specific value.

You can also overlay demographic and geographic data to identify insights in your market. Each member of a sales team can create reports and analyze their own territories and measure their current performance against quotas and targets. These reports can then be easily shared with colleagues and managers

3. Identify Hidden Insights

Data Visualization enables you to quickly optimize and visualize the data from your CRM and spreadsheets.

An interactive map allows the discovery of hidden insights and patterns not possible in spreadsheets such as over- or under-served territories. Seeing a territory in a variety of different perspectives allows you to see not only the bigger picture but also more granular detail.

For example, zooming in to see greater detail based on different market characteristics such as customer types, or assigned sales professionals. What are the external factors that are influencing the performance of your sales team?

4. Delegate Work Through Hierarchies

Using territorial hierarchies enables more flexibility over data visibility, collaboration and delegation between managers and teams. Each member of your sales department, from sales rep to regional manager can quickly see and manage the territory they have responsibility for.

For example, a sales rep may only see their own territory in a city suburb, the Regional Manager can see all of his sales team’s territories in a city, while the National Sales Manager can see all the territories in the country.

5. Increase Collaboration & Sharing Within Your Team

For sales teams located remotely, seamless collaboration is very important. Cloud-based solutions can allow these teams to collaborate on the definition of their territories from any location, the office or the field in real-time.

For example, members of a nationwide sales team can add their own data – latest sales or leads – to a territory on a daily basis, thus creating a complete, up-to-date holistic view of their territory.

Poor Sales Territory Management can lead to unbalanced territories, which can be a headache for sales teams.

If a salesperson’s territory is too large or if their workload is too heavy, they cannot effectively cover all customers and prospects. Conversely, a salesperson whose territory is small or not populated enough has too little work and can end up wasting their potential on low priority clients, leading to under-utilized sales resources and an unmotivated workforce.

You and your sales team can’t be everywhere at all times. This is one of the many reasons why sales territory management is so important.

In the age of hyper-targeted prospecting and nurturing, your content marketing program might not be sufficiently surgical.

Considering the very nature of B2B marketing, your prospecting list is likely already rather narrow – at least when compared with B2C. Hopefully, you’ve already built your buyer personas, too, having gathered and utilized extensive knowledge about their online behavior patterns, sales cycles, pain points and challenges. Account Based Marketing (ABM) simply takes these concerted efforts one step further by identifying key leads and creating and disseminating customized content for each one.

In this sense, ABM is significantly more sophisticated than traditional content marketing. Instead of aiming for a type of client, the ABM process focuses on identifying your top handful target clients, getting to know each of them intimately, and publishing specific assets for each of them as individuals. Ultimately, the goal is to position your product or service as the ideal solution to your audience’s problem, an effort that’s actually easier when there is zero ambiguity when it comes to whom you’re trying to influence.

Adopting ABM also raises the sophistication level of your marketing efforts, because it demands close alignment between sales and marketing – a relationship that, in more traditional marketing, can be strained or conflicted. ABM, however, requires that both departments share one goal and one process: ferret out as much information as possible on a contact, identify his or her pain points, and generate marketing materials that address these specific concerns.

At its best, Account Based Marketing yields unprecedented collaboration between sales, marketing, delivery and key executives. Further, ABM focuses on building long-term relationships with key decision makers inside target client organizations. Rather than clamoring to fulfill near-term revenue goals, an ABM methodology recognizes and prioritizes reputation and long-term growth.

Even though 65% of B2B marketers agree that ABM provides significant benefits for attracting new clients, only 18% of mid-size companies are utilizing ABM as a leading strategy, leaving money on the table and opportunities untapped. If your team is ready to up their game, there are a few key steps that can make your transition to ABM smoother and more efficient.

Best Practices for Marketing to One

Do Your Homework

Since ABM moves marketing teams away from a massive, wide funnel of leads in favor of a highly targeted funnel of qualified accounts, proper research is essential. Be prepared to dedicate a significant portion of your team’s resources into becoming intimately familiar with each target account individually. Robust knowledge is required to create unique collateral and story lines for each client separately, ultimately constructing a personalized offer for each target.

Perform enough research to define not only your target’s pain points but also his or her emotional triggers. It’s entirely possible that you will need to become familiar with (and court) not only the decision maker, but also the surrounding decision influencers.

Target the Right Crowd

ABM is not a scalable investment. Therefore, it’s imperative to allocate your resources wisely. Clearly, you cannot afford to perform extensive research, invest in a myriad of targeted relationships and create customized collateral for every potential client. Instead, go after the whales – those large, profitable, stable clients which will produce a significant return on this investment.

There may even be some whales who are already interested in you. In order to maximize your investment, use an audience intelligence tool like Leedfeeder. By tracking which companies’ IP addresses are interacting with each of your content pages, Leadfeeder can not only help you identify engagement opportunities with specific sales leads, but it can also tell you which leads are interested in which product features, helping you personalize your offer to each target.

Automate

In order to reduce complexity as well as your team’s time investment, you are going to want to automate as much as possible. There are a growing number of out-of-the-box solutions that will automate multichannel ABM initiatives for you, highlighting the link between data and buying behaviors.

Act-On, for example, now manages interactions across touchpoints to deliver personalized experiences based on a prospect’s role and stage in the buying cycle. This past spring, Demandbase launched a next-generation ABM solution that works with the Oracle Marketing Cloud to provide lead scoring schematics that take ABM principles into account and to tailor content for “buyer committee” members. These types of automation technologies help optimize ABM-focused marketing automation by algorithmically tapping into comprehensive behavioral information.

Collaborate

One of the distinct advantages of ABM is the manner in which it demands collaboration between the sales and marketing teams. Make a concerted effort to break out of traditional silos and embrace cooperation. For example, because the sales team is in direct contact with both existing and potential clients, lean on them as a research resource. They might know whether a white paper, a free trial or an ROI study will be most likely to motivate each target.

Bounce drafted collaterals and storylines off your salespeople for constructive feedback. Building customized materials together will greatly enhance the effectiveness of your ABM efforts. No need for fancy tools here – simple solutions like Google Docs and Dropbox Paper can do the trick well enough.

Use Social Intelligence

It’s important to recognize that your key accounts are not static. Companies evolve quickly. There are strategy shifts, personnel changes and often new goals or areas of focus. Since ABM’s core tenet is personalizing communications, it’s important to keep a close eye on trigger events and changes at a company level.

Utilize alerts on social media activity to uncover what’s happening inside your key prospects’ organizations, rather than relying on press releases or company-sponsored publications, which will only paint a picture of achievements. Tools like BrandMentions can send you email alerts when social posts go up with the keywords of your choice, while the recently launched Social.co will alert you when certain Twitter accounts post on specific topics.

The Time Is Now

ABM may be the ultimate answer to B2B prospect demands. With demand for personalized offers going through the roof, B2B marketers must move this direction. Creating intensely relevant content which resonates with each of your target accounts is the right way to stand out and cultivate relationships today.

A powerful strategy when used correctly, ABM does require a great deal of labor and complete commitment. By performing comprehensive research, utilizing effective technology to your advantage and cultivating clear lines of communication between your company’s departments, you will be primed for success.

Photo Credit: Shutterstock

One size, one strategy, and one methodology do not fit all. Your unique industry vertical dictates the best marketing tactics needed to meet your related revenue goals. Inbound marketing is an essential piece of that puzzle as a technique for drawing customers to products and services via content marketing, social media, and search engine optimization. Here are six unique considerations when developing a comprehensive inbound marketing strategy for your SaaS company.

1. Position Yourself as an Authority

In creating content to support your inbound marketing strategy, writing original, forward-thinking blog content and articles that position your brand as a team of innovators and thought leaders is essential to success. Original content created through interviews with subject-matter experts and industry influencers is vital to the success of any content marketing effort. Take ownership of and share proprietary knowledge or expertise that your target market can only get from you. Encourage leaders of your SaaS company to participate in broadcasts, conferences, and interviews to further take advantage of opportunities to position yourself as an authority in the industry. Share specific stories about how your SaaS offering solved major problems and make case studies come to life with anecdotal information about solutions, with titles built around keywords your audience is searching for.

2. Get Smart About Distribution

In 1996, Bill Gates wrote an essay titled “Content is King,” in which he stated, “Content is where I expect much of the real money will be made on the Internet, just as it was in broadcasting.” While that prediction did come to fruition, as indicated by the prolific success of inbound marketing, distribution is the queen of content’s kingdom. Content without readership, engagement, and action is simply a waste of resources. Creating the right distribution strategy through appropriate channels, watering holes, and content syndication platforms gets content related to your SaaS offering in front of your target audience in places they already spend time and alongside resources they trust.

3. Make Dry Content Come to Life

When marketing flat, dry, or outright boring SaaS offerings, the delivery of the information is more important than ever. How can you improve your time on page, number of page views, or site engagement for a software product? Use content delivery tactics like video, animation, infographics, flowcharts, how-to guides, and demos to engage visitors and deliver a memorable message. Check out this homepage video from our client, Prolifiq, for an example of a video that incorporates elements of its SaaS platform’s user interface with storytelling and animation.

4. Make Co-Marketing Your Secret Weapon

Many SaaS prospects have a pre-existing allegiance to a certain platform. Leveraging relationships with platform partners by co-marketing with the leaders of these platforms is key to getting in front of your target market. For instance, if your SaaS offering integrates with Amazon Web Services or Salesforce, ask to interview a leader of that organization and publish an article outlining industry trends and predictions. Or co-promote a webinar, which expands your respective reach. Co-host a happy hour at an upcoming industry event or include one another’s logos on a partner page. Identify those in your industry that share a similar market position, without being competitors, and consider co-publishing industry research, a white paper, or an ebook. Capitalize on each other’s followings, contact lists, and expertise.

5. Segment and Automate

Decisions about SaaS technology are often made by C-level executives. While those leaders might delegate research on SaaS offerings to others in the organization, it’s important to email only highly valuable content to C-level decision-makers that truly helps them overcome their greatest professional challenges. Therefore, SaaS companies must take extra care to strategically segment lists and automate marketing efforts by attributes, including pain points, industry, specific product capability needs, lifecycle stage, decision timelines, or platform interests. Sending a message that isn’t aligned with a prospect’s needs is risky in any inbound marketing program, and especially when working with C-level executives who are inundated with emails all day long, relevance and personalization are paramount. Consider highly sophisticated marketing automation tools, such as those found on HubSpot, Pardot, or Marketo, to execute an email marketing strategy with this level of detail.

6. Engage in Nontraditional Social Media

When you think of social media, Facebook and Twitter probably come to mind. These platforms aren’t usually ideal for SaaS companies. Social media engagement or opportunities for social interaction that benefit SaaS companies happen outside the Instagram box. Participate in unconventional social channels, including Reddit, TechDiscussion, CNet Forums, Spiceworks Community, or one of these 10 tech forums outlined by TechBullion. Inbound marketing is about using content and expertise to help solve challenges or provide relief to industry pain points. Position yourself as an expert where help is needed and don’t forget to engage top industry influencers to expand your reach exponentially.

Of course, like any and all marketing strategies, consistent data analysis based on clear KPIs, optimization, and testing is essential to measurable success. Especially in technology industries, keeping up with competitive insights and adjusting strategy accordingly leads to a greater ROI on your marketing investment. Consider these recommendations to shorten the traditionally long SaaS sales cycle and educate your savvy buyer along his or her journey to finding the ideal SaaS partner.

By Rashaqa Rahman

Customers want choice. That is a fact. According to a global Nielsen survey,  63% of customers around the world want manufacturers to offer a new product. Yet, 65% of new products fail, costing US companies alone $260 billion, and that is no pocket change. Oh what a conundrum it is! But it doesn’t have to be. Today markets are dynamic; customers are increasingly more knowledgeable and inertia in bringing new product offerings to the market is just not an option. So how can innovation be made less risky? The answer is value-based pricing.

In the words of pricing guru Madhavan Ramanujam from his book Monetizing Innovation, “Pricing is the most critical factor in determining whether a product makes money… it is an indication of what the customer wants, and how much they want it.”

As per Clayton Christensen’s Theory of Disruptive Innovation, there are two kinds of innovation: sustaining and disruptive. Sustaining innovations either improve products within an existing market or bring completely new products to market, neither of which have a significant impact on existing markets. Then there is disruptive innovation (think Airbnb and Netflix) that taps into a previously unaddressed customer pain points and drives value. Disruptive innovations have significant impact and can potentially completely take over existing markets.

For market incumbents, successful sustaining innovation is key to retaining competitive advantage. Doing nothing is not an option, because existing competitors or new entrants will bring new products to market and shift the market dynamics. The wrong approach to innovation is offering 'me-too' products that add little value for the customer. This approach can potentially rock the boat and push one’s customers into the arms of the competitor.

Market entrant hopefuls can either take the sustaining approach to innovation and try to carve out a share of the pie for themselves in a pre-existing market or bring disruptive innovation to market and create a new value network. More often than not, disruptive innovation comes from new entrants. Even though incumbents may have better access to resources and capital, they are often too limited by pre-existing customer expectations to risk attempting something truly radical. One place where market entrants can innovate is on new pricing metrics. Incumbents find it very difficult to change their pricing models. New pricing metrics that better capture value to the customer can be very disruptive.

For both sustaining and disruptive innovation to be successful, creating value for the customer is fundamental. Secondly, disruptive innovations carry the added risk of needing to cross the chasm (technology adoption lifecycle term coined by Geoffrey Moore) from a handful of adventurous early adopters to gaining acceptance by the masses and growing the customer base to a healthy early majority.

Let’s look at some classic examples of disruptive innovation and their pricing strategies. At its inception, Netflix was competing with brick and mortar video rental establishments. Blockbuster the incumbent market leader at the time had strong brand equity and an imposing number of physical storefronts which acted as a robust barrier to entry against sustaining innovation. Any competitor or new entrant trying to enter the market through the video rental store route would require large upfront capital investments to build enough market presence to compete against Blockbuster.

But, Netflix’s disruptive product innovation did not require huge capital investments in brick and mortar stores. They could add differential value through addressing previously unaddressed customer pain points and providing “….content with an all-you-can-watch, on-demand, low-price, high-quality, highly convenient approach.” Not only was online streaming more convenient than having to pick up and drop off video rentals, Netflix's subscription pricing model captured further customer value by negating the risk of late and re-shelving fees, and the flat monthly fee also had more perceived fairness than a per rental fee. Blockbuster's business model did not allow them to copy Netflix's pricing strategy. Today Netflix’s subscription pricing not only allows them to generate recurring revenue from their client base, but developing original streaming content allows them to charge a further price premium to capture user value.

Another classic example of disruptive innovation is Google Adwords and their disruptive pricing strategy that captured the differentiated value of more effective, targeted leads based on the number of online ad clicks versus the number of  ad impressions. Google AdWords disrupted the market by targeting an initial customer segment who were unable to pay the high upfront costs required by online marketing platforms of the time, and were not being served by the market. Google's innovative price-per-click versus price-per-impression pricing metric not only made them a leader within the online marketing space but changed how we think about online marketing.

In his book, The Strategy and Tactics of Pricing, Tom Nagle showed how an automated voice recognition software that enabled call centres to process more calls within a shorter time frame adapted a value-based pricing strategy. This voice recognition software had the ability to process calls faster than other traditional call software. However, capturing the added user value through the existing price-per-minute metric would have required charging at least a 3X price premium which would surely have met with customer resistance. So this software company shifted the pricing metric from "cost-per-minute" to “cost-per-call.” This allowed them to reframe their price and win a premium. The customers accepted the premium because for them the total cost-per-call was less with the new software. The goal of a call center is to resolve calls within the shortest possible time-frame, so "cost-per-call" is a better value metric. The shift to a 'cost-per-call" metric is a win-win for buyer and seller. It focuses both parties on what is creating value. Creating pricing structures that are in the interest of both buyer and seller is the goal of pricing strategy and one of the key advantages of value-based pricing.

Innovation can be successful if we can truly add value for the customer. And no, we don’t need a crystal ball for that. It requires discipline and a systematic approach to understanding the customer, market segmentation and pricing. Treating pricing as an afterthought to the product design process is a big mistake. Carefully segmenting the market by customer needs, values and willingness-to-pay at the early stages of product design is crucial. While it may seem counter-intuitive to discuss pricing with the customer before one has a product to offer, gauging the customer willingness-to-pay early on during the innovation process means that the right product functions can be prioritized, at the right price, for the right customer. A deep understanding of customer needs creates strong differentiated value for the innovator, which in turn can be captured through a price premium. Innovation done right requires a delicate balancing of creativity with structure. 

 

We can adopt technologies early, but adaptation takes time

Research has shown that overusing “filler words” creates a slightly negative perception of the speaker. But do filler words actually have a meaningful impact on sales outcomes?

As salespeople, we pride ourselves on being professional communicators. Filler words make most of us cringe. But professional communicators can sometimes be too nitpicky (attend a Toastmaster’s meeting and you’ll see what I mean.)

We nitpick at filler words in sales calls, thinking that reducing them will help us close more sales.

But will it?

Do top performing sales reps use filler words less often (or differently) than bottom performing ones?

Do closed deals have “fewer filler words spoken” than lost deals?

Let’s look at the data.

The Most Common Filler Words in Sales

First, let’s take a look at the most common filler words we found when we used Gong’s conversation analytics engine to analyze nearly half a million B2B sales call recordings:

 To further explain what the percentages mean here, these are the most common filler words spoken in aggregate across the entire pool of call recordings we analyzed. In other words, “so …” was the most common filler word, occupying 33% of all filler words spoken.

The Impact Filler Words Have on Sales Outcomes

As it turns out, this list of annoying filler words has no correlation with the success of sales calls.

When we analyzed the differences between top-, mid-, and low-performing reps, we found no statistically significant difference in the frequency or types of filler words used.

In other words: Top sales reps don’t use filler words less often (or in different ways) than their peers.

Then we sliced the data another way.

We analyzed filler words against sales outcomes while remaining blind to who produced those outcomes.

And we found the same thing: Filler words didn’t correlate negatively with call or deal success.

There was no impact on win rates, sales cycle length, conversion rates from opportunity stages … nothing.

One thing we did find was women use filler words 5% more often -- and differently -- than men do (a small testament that women sell differently than men?).

Women consistently use these filler words:

• "great"
• "perfect"
• "like"

While men use these ones:

• "cool"
• "sort of"
• "you know"

But those are nothing more than fun facts.

So … Should We Like … Ignore Filler Words?

To sum up, filler words on sales calls don’t seem to have an impact on key sales outcomes -- at least none that we could find.

Some might even argue that filler words serve a purpose: We use them when we need time to think, process a question or statement, and come up with a response. That’s not such a terrible thing when it comes to having a productive sales conversation.

I’d also argue salespeople and managers are hypersensitive to filler words. They are much more noticeable to reps and managers who are reviewing a call recording for coaching than they are to buyers immersed in a live conversation.

Editor's note: This post was originally published on Gong.io and has been republished here with permission.

Tech research firm Gartner has ranked the top tech vendors worldwide based on their revenues.

The list is designed to help business leaders understand how much various tech companies sell as relatively new tech firms like Google and Facebook go head-to-head with more established companies like Microsoft, HP, and IBM.

The list, which includes 100 companies in total, includes big names such as Apple and Amazon, as well as lesser-known tech companies who sell their hardware and software directly to businesses.

Gartner said business leaders can use the list to understand how and where companies are spending their IT budgets.

John-David Lovelock, a vice president at Gartner, said in a statement that "the needs of IT buyers are shifting" and "the impact of digital business is giving rise to new categories."

Here are the 26 biggest tech companies by revenue:

26. Canon ($26.8 billion)

25. Facebook ($27.6 billion)

24. Fujitsu Vendor Group ($28.7 billion)

See the rest of the story at Business Insider

There has been a lot of buzz around newsjacking, a content marketing tactic in which brands capitalize on breaking news and trends to craft timely blogs and assets. Although newsjacking helps drive clicks and social word-of-mouth, it takes far more to craft a sustainable and successful marketing strategy. Perhaps the most critical component of a successful plan is evergreen content.

In the simplest terms, evergreen content is content that has no expiration date and highlights your organization’s unique knowledge and expertise. These assets aren’t tied to a new product release or update, and they don’t include any elements that may age out in six to 12 months. (Assets that have a lot of research data are a prime example of content that will age out relatively quickly.)

Why do you need evergreen content? Because it can act as an anchor in your content library. You only have so much budget for each quarter or fiscal year, so you need to ensure you’re making smart decisions. A solid library of evergreen content is a great way to penny-pinch. You can reuse these foundational, thought-leadership-based assets in conjunction with your new, more timely pieces, which will ultimately give you a greater return on your investments.

What are the characteristics of a successful evergreen asset? There is no silver bullet for creating the best evergreen content, but there are a few common qualities:

• They focus on a relatively broad topic, such as blogging best practices and ways to win buy-in for new system upgrades.
• They’re sometimes “how to” or best-practices based. However, it really depends on the topic you’re focusing on. If it’s a topic that won’t change or evolve over the next five or 10 years, you’re good to go. Be honest with this exercise, though. You don’t want to promise that an asset will deliver a lot of long-term value and find that it needs a big facelift next year.
• They’re SEO-friendly. No, that doesn’t mean you jam as many keywords in your E-book as possible. Because these assets focus primarily on your brand’s knowledge and thought leadership, they will organically have a lot of the search terms and keywords integral to your website and product pages. Most of all, assets should include keywords that your buyers will use while searching for articles and content on the topic you’re writing about.
• They can be reused in a lot of ways. When developed well, evergreen content can be reused in campaigns a year (or more!) from its original publish date. But the best part about evergreen content is that it can be broken down, repurposed and even reversioned for different audiences or knowledge levels. Let’s use the blogging best practices concept from point one. In addition to that broad, foundational asset, a company can break it down into modular briefs for specific industries, such as retail, financial services and healthcare. Although the crux of the content is the same, someone would just need to update some of the headlines and copy to be more industry-specific. Instead of starting from scratch, you simply use what you have. Ultimately, this means it will take less time, money and effort to get a new asset up and running.

All B2B brands need to stay in tune with the latest news and trends in their target audience’s industry. This proves that they have knowledge and expertise in the topics that are most pressing. However, having a strong library of evergreen content is the best way to educate buyers on foundational concepts while maximizing your content reach and ROI.

How does your company split its time and budget between evergreen content and assets focused on more timely trends and product releases? I’d love to hear more about your strategy and any success stories in the comments section below!

Building an outbound sales strategy can be challenging. The best place to start? Your ideal customer profile (ICP).

Define exactly who you’re selling to, and you’ve got a solid foundation for growth. And that’s just what the ICP does.

Keep reading for an in-depth guide on creating your ideal customer profile, including an ideal customer profile template, how to identify your ideal customer, and a simple three-step process for creating an ideal customer profile.

What is an ideal customer profile (ICP)?

An ideal customer profile, or ICP, is an overview of the type of company that’s most likely to buy your products and services, become long-term users, and recommend you to others. It includes a description of your ICP, their demographics, objective, challenges, and behaviors or traits that indicate they’re a good fit.

Ideal customer profile example:

 

 

This template gives you an idea of the information you might include. But there’s no one way to create it, because it reflects your business and your best customers.

Be aware, this tool isn’t just for your sales team. It’s useful for the product team for evaluating the features and add-ons customers are likely to want/need. It can help customer success anticipate and address customer issues. And it can help marketing develop messages that are on point.

Why is a customer profile important?

Without an ideal customer profile, you could end up targeting accounts that aren’t likely to close. Your reps will to waste time chasing leads who are never going to buy. And that’s money down the drain.

An ideal customer profile helps you quickly qualify (or disqualify) a prospect. It also makes it easier to prioritize your time.

For example, if a new prospect is an exact match to your ICP, you can confidently invest time and effort selling to them. Companies that aren’t an exact fit may still be worth selling to, but you’ll know in advance that the sales cycle will be longer and the chances of a closed-won are lower.

Ideal customer profile vs buyer persona

Don’t confuse ICPs and buyer personas. As similar as they are, each has a different application.

The ideal customer profile helps you identify companies that you should be talking to. It gives you a high-level picture of the types of companies that get the most value from your product, including specific details that indicate they’re a good fit.

The buyer persona is useful when trying to connect with those companies. It’s a detailed description of the person you should be selling to, complete with a (fictional) name, photo, job title, likes and dislikes, and most importantly, the pain points and challenges they face on a daily basis.

Generally speaking, if you’re new to market, it’s better to start with an ideal customer profile and then develop your buyer personas once you get to know them better.

Getting started: Who is your ideal customer?

An ideal customer has seven traits:

• Ready to buy your product – they have already identified a need.
• Keen to buy your product – there are clear elements of value you can deliver for them.
• Able to buy your product – they have the financial resources to make the purchase.
• Skilled – they are likely to have the in-house knowledge to make successful use of your product to its full potential (in other words, they’re good fit customers).
• Profitable – they’re doing well in their line of work so they don’t have to cut corners.
• Growing – they’re planning to expand so they have potential for upsells and renewals.
• Networked – they’re able to act as an ambassador for your product and talk it up to other potential buyers.

You may already have a few customers like this. They’re your go-to for creating an ideal customer profile.

The ideal customer profile (ICP) template

The ideal customer profile needs to answer a few basic questions:

• What type of companies are you targeting?
• What do they look like?
• How can you quickly and easily identify them?

Can include any information that answers these questions. If you’ve figured out that users of XYZ app tend to want your solution, then you need to include that information on your profile.

When designing your profile, make it easy to scan — otherwise, it won’t get used. It’s a good idea to create a card that your team can refer to when building lists or talking to prospects. That way, it can guide their assessment and conversations.

Creating an ideal customer profile

The process of creating an ideal customer profile is simple:

1. Identify your best customers
2. Learn more about them
3. Build a profile

Let’s dive in.

Step 1. Identify your best customers

How do you define your “best” customers? That’s up to you. You likely have a north-star metric that describes a long-term, profitable customer. For example:

• Shortest sales cycle
• Lowest customer acquisition cost (CAC)
• Highest customer satisfaction
• Largest number of renewals
• Most up-sells and expansions
• Most referrals
• Cost of servicing the contract

Using whatever criteria matters to you, make a list of the customers who you consider “ideal.” Add the list to a spreadsheet. Then add metrics, qualities you like about them, and any other relevant information.

Step 2: Learn more about your best customers

Once you’ve identified your best customers, it’s time to learn more about them. Your goal is to identify the traits and qualities that define them, so you can find more companies just like them.

There are two ways to do this: customer interviews and demographics. This gives you both hard and soft data for understanding your ICP.

Soft Data: Customer Interviews

Schedule a few interviews with your best customers, so you can get insight into their decision making criteria and feelings about your product. You can ask any number of questions, but here’s a good place to start:

• Why did they buy?
• What problems were they trying to solve?
• What other options did they consider?
• What were the features they were looking for?
• Now that they’re enjoying the solution, where have they seen the most value?
• How has it changed their situation/business?
• How would you feel if you no longer had access to the solution?
• Who was the decision maker?
• What would they tell someone who was considering the solution today?

The request for an interview should be made by the person in your organization with the best line of communication to them, whether a sales rep or a member of the success team. It’s a good idea to give them some choices: a phone call, video call, or an online questionnaire.

During the interview, try to uncover the customer’s emotional response to your product and company. Ask open-ended questions and don’t be afraid to divert from your questions and let the conversation take its course.

After the interview, show your gratitude by offering something in return, such as a free service upgrade or an Amazon gift card.

Hard Data: Study their Demographics

Dig into your CRM and prospecting tools for hard data about your customers. Look at your analytics tools for website usage and behavior.

Here are a few of the characteristics you might look at:

• Industry – what do they actually do?
• Location – where are they based, and are they local, regional or national?
• Company size – how many employees do they have?
• Revenue – how much revenue are they generating?
• Funding – how are they driving growth?
• Growth trends – are they growing, stagnant, or contracting?
• Tools – what other tools and software do they use?

These are the basics — you can evaluate any criteria that makes sense for your business. For example, I once heard of a company that discovered their best customers’ founder had a crew cut. While that’s not likely to be a trait you’ll evaluate, it demonstrates the breadth of your options.

Before moving on, add this data to your spreadsheet. Create new columns for the demographics you’ve uncovered, and add as much detail as possible.

Step 3: Build a behavioral profile of your ideal customer

Now it’s time to review the data and insights you’ve pulled together. You’re looking for patterns and commonalities, so you can easily identify companies that are likely to become long-term customers.

Steps to build your ICP profile: 

1. Review your spreadsheet, and make sure it has all the data (hard and soft) that you’ve gathered.
2. Sort your list, so similar companies are grouped together. Consider naming each segment.
3. Identify common traits and characteristics and tally the frequency of them.
4. Highlight the traits that appear most often and indicate a good fit.

Now, you’ve got ultra-specific traits that define your ideal customer. You only need to create a reference card for your teams like the ideal customer profile example above.

Recap: Ideal Customer Profile questions

As you can see, creating an ideal customer profile is about asking the right questions. This checklist should help you ask the right questions to determine your ideal customer.

Questions to identify WHO you should target: 

• Who are the best customers to work with?
• Who places the highest value on our product?
• Who stays with the company for the longest times?

Questions to understand the USER:

• Who is the end user of the product?
• What does the typical day look like for them?
• At what points are they getting frustrated and upset, and can you stop that happening?
• What economic, political, social, regulatory and technological forces are acting on them?
• What does the future hold for them?
• Who is accountable for ensuring the purchase is successful?

Questions to determine FIT: 

• What is the number one thing that increases customer satisfaction with your product or service?
• What priority or challenge is top-of-mind when people are using your product or service? Do they want to save time, cut costs, or simplify their work processes?
• What makes customers happy and sad about your product or service? What are the best and worst features?
• Do users feel your product fulfills its promise?

Questions to know how to CONNECT with your ICP:

• How do they acquire information and knowledge?
• What blogs and books do they read?
• Are they active on particular social media?
• Where might they go where you can reach them?

I have my ideal customer profile. Now what? 

Once you have your ideal customer profile, put it in the hands of everyone in a customer-facing role.

For marketing and customer success, the information you’ve uncovered is vital for attracting and keeping your best customers.

For prospecting, it’s essential for list building, engagement, and quickly determining whether someone’s a good fit.

For selling, use it to understand the buyer’s pain points and the goals they are trying to achieve, so you can quickly move them through the pipeline.

Bottom line, the ideal customer profile keeps everyone on the same page and empowers them to convince prospects that you, and only you, hold the solution they’re looking for.

The post 3-Step Guide: How to Create Your Ideal Customer Profile (ICP) appeared first on Sales Hacker.

Tony Robbins is an author, speaker, businessman, and life coach. He’s written six best-selling books, coached everyone from former President Bill Clinton and Oprah to Serena Williams and Aerosmith, acted as a founder or partner in more than 30 companies (with combined annual sales of $5 billion), and presented to more than four million live seminar attendees.

To learn more about Robbins, read through the following mini-guide. You can also visit his official website.

• Background
• Books
• Inspirational Quotes
• Selling Insights
• Morning Routine
• Seminars
• Courses

Who is Tony Robbins?

Robbins was born in 1960 in Southern California. When he was seven, his parents divorced. His stepfather, a semi-pro baseball player turned salesperson, had trouble providing for the family, and his mother could be abusive.

“I had to become a practical psychologist to figure out how to protect my brother and sister and to protect myself,” he told Fortune in 2014.

Robbins found inspiration in books. After learning how to speed-read, he finished one book per day -- learning about famous leaders and self-improvement principles.

When Robbins was 17, he permanently left home. Soon he found a job with motivational speaker Jim Rohn. This launched his career in personal empowerment.

Robbins published Unlimited Power in 1986. This book laid the foundation for his current status as the top life and business strategist in America.

Tony Robbins' Books

If you want to learn Robbins’ philosophy on success, money, emotional and mental health, and self-empowerment, his books are a great way to start.

Unlimited Power

Although Robbins was just 25 when he wrote Unlimited Power, its principles are still highly relevant. The book explains how you can improve both your personal and professional lives. It’s described as a “fitness book for the mind” and includes lessons on:

• Discovering your true motivation
• Overcoming fear and phobias
• Building genuine rapport with people
• Recreating others’ success

Money: Master the Game

This book is designed to help you achieve financial freedom. It’s divided into seven sections: Getting into the proper mindset, understanding financial rules, making a plan, deciding how to invest, creating a lifetime income plan, getting inspiration from billionaires, and enjoying your life.

Unshakeable: Your Financial Freedom Playbook

If you want more investment advice from Robbins, pick up this guidebook. It delves into the fundamental concepts and processes of the stock market. Lessons include the six biggest mistakes investors make and how to avoid them, how to navigate crashes, and optimizing your retirement plan.

Awaken the Giant Within: How to Take Immediate Control of Your Mental, Emotional, Physical and Financial Destiny!

Robbins doses out some cold, hard truths in this bestseller. After you figure out what you’d like to achieve, he will walk you through what you need to do to get there.

There are a couple different exercises to help you implement Robbins’ techniques, such as the Ten-Day Mental Challenge and the “Seven Days to Shape Your Life” program.

Notes from a Friend: A Quick and Simple Guide to Taking Charge of Your Life

When you need a pick-me-up or dose of motivation, go to this short book. It’s just 103 pages, meaning that you can finish it in a few hours. Robbins interweaves real-life examples and anecdotes with tangible points. Some readers say many of the same messages from Robbins’ other books can be found here in condensed form, like the “Cliff Notes” version of his insights.

Tony Robbins Inspirational Quotes

Looking for a quick dose of motivation? This infographic, which we created with 24Slides, presentation designers, lists 15 quotes perfect for sales reps. 

Selling Insights

The 6 Basic Needs

According to this LinkedIn post by Robbins, there are six fundamental human needs. Our first need is certainty and comfort. Humans want to understand what the future holds so they can prepare and avoid risk. A person’s risk tolerance is directly equivalent to how little certainty they need: The higher their tolerance, the less mental security they require. Determine how risk-averse your prospects are, then tailor your pitch accordingly. If they're not willing to take a big risk, you might offer a free trial before they buy. However, if you sense they're comfortable taking chances, consider giving them a great price in exchange for a 12-month contract.

The second need is for variety. Robbins says unexpected events -- whether bad or good -- give us opportunities to grow. Without these problems or surprises, we’d never develop resilience. In sales, answer this need by providing fresh or unexpected opportunities for prospects to grow their business.

The third need is significance. Every person wants to feel like they’re valuable, different, and/or necessary. Your prospects might fulfill this need at work by landing a promotion, getting recognition for an achievement, or taking on a high-profile project. Show them how your product can make them more significant, and you’ll increase your win rate.

The fourth need is love and connection: We naturally seek out communities and relationships. Incorporate this into your selling strategy by treating your prospect like a human and asking about their life, using humor, creating rapport through empathetic statements, etc.

The fifth need is growth, which leads to true fulfillment. As a salesperson, how are you continually learning and improving? If you can’t answer that question, you probably won’t feel satisfied. It’s also worth pondering how you can help the buyer grow. Will your solution somehow make them better at their role? Can you teach them something new?

The last need is contribution. As Robbins puts it, "What's the first thing you do when you get good or exciting news? You call somebody you love and share it. Sharing enhances everything you experience." Make sure your solution improves your prospect's professional relationships -- either by helping them hit their goals or collaborate with their team members.

The Selling Mindset

Robbins stresses that your performance isn’t dependent on your ability -- it’s based on your mindset.

To put yourself in the right mode, he says, “You've got to develop an emotional sense of certainty that what you have to offer is worth 10 times more than what you are asking for in return.”

As a salesperson, it’s easy to forget the impact your product and your insights have on your customers. After all, you’re usually spending most of your time and energy with them while ROI is still hypothetical.

Remind yourself of your solution’s value by:

• Checking in periodically with customers to see how they’re doing and what results they’ve gotten so far. (This is also a great opportunity to upsell and cross-sell them.)
• Reading customer case studies.
• Talking to your customer success team.

These actions will strengthen what Robbins calls your “core sense of certainty” that you have a compelling offer.

Robbins also believes most salespeople unconsciously set limits on themselves. They believe they’re not capable of landing huge deals, holding their own with C-level executives, or persuading the prospect to switch from their competitor.

To reach your true potential, stay alert for these self-imposed restraints. When you resist moving forward with a deal, ask yourself, “Why am I resisting?” Then challenge those beliefs.

You’ll probably find many of your insecurities stem from a fear of rejection. Sales is filled with rejection -- so it’s critical to develop a healthy attitude to it.

Consider what a “no” from a buyer actually means.

Here’s what your emotional brain might translate “no” as:

• I’m not good at selling.
• This prospect doesn’t like me.
• My inexperience is obvious.
• They think I’m wasting their time.

But 99% of the time, Robbins says “no” really means:

• The prospect is nervous about change.
• They’re not confident enough to stake their reputation on an unproven solution.
• They’re not sure they’re technical or sophisticated enough to use your product.

Do you notice the common theme? “No” is typically caused by your prospect’s shortcomings, not your own.

That doesn’t mean you’re powerless to avoid “nos.” If the buyer fears change, show them why sticking with the status quo is more harmful in the long run. If they’re hesitant to risk their internal capital, provide them with case studies showing how beneficial your product is. If they’re insecure about their ability to use it, give them training options or self-education resources.

The point is, don’t associate “no” with “I’m not good enough.” Instead, think of “no” as a sign you need to creatively help the buyer overcome their mental roadblocks.

This mental shift will make you more confident and less impacted by setbacks.

Source: SalesLoft

Tony Robbins' Morning Routine

Few people in their mid-fifties could consistently put in 12- to 14-hour workdays -- especially workdays consisting of speaking to 5,000 to 10,000 people and getting in a marathon-number of steps. Robbins credits his morning routine for much of his stamina and energy.

He starts the day with a short swim in his cold plunge pool (kept at 57 degrees Fahrenheit), a river, or a cryotherapy unit (if available).

Then he spends 10 minutes doing a “priming” ritual. There are three parts.

First, Robbins takes 90 deep breaths. Then, he reflects on three things he’s grateful for. One must be relatively minor, like his son’s smile. Finally, Robbins spends three minutes concentrating on good events for his family, friends, and clients.

Robbins ends his morning routine with a nutritious breakfast.

Events

Robbins hosts several different types of events all around the world. Read on to find the best fit for your goals.

• Unleash the Power Within: A live 3.5-day event that will help you surpass your inner limitations and ultimately, achieve your ideal life.
• Date With Destiny: A live six-day event centered around your life, career, finances, health, and relationships.
• Life & Wealth Mastery: A live event geared toward improving your physical and financial health.
• Business Mastery: A five-day event that will help entrepreneurs better understand their businesses and craft winning strategies.
• Leadership Academy: A four-day event designed to teach you how to motivate yourself and others.

Courses

For sales professionals who would rather “train at home” or boost their sales skills during what Robbins calls N.E.T. time (No Extra Time), these are the best audio products. Learn, grow, expand, and improve while driving to work, exercising, or taking your lunch break.

• Mastering Influence: A dynamic system Tony designed to give anyone the skills to be influential, motivate potential buyers, and create lasting, mutually beneficial relationships with clients. In this 10-day course, you’ll learn the techniques, strategies, and secrets of the world’s top salespeople and leaders -- principles that Tony uses every day.
• Personal Power: Tony Robbins teaches the psychology and the underlying behind the growth and change he has triggered in professional athletes, world leaders and top business entrepreneurs.
• Ultimate Edge: The number one best-selling personal development product, the three-part program helps you discover what you want most in life, then gives you the proven tools and strategies to achieve it.

How have you applied Robbins' philosophy and advice to your sales career? Let us know in the comments!

The difference between average salespeople and good ones is staggering. Average reps hit their quota —most of the time — while good ones don’t just consistently hit, they have blow-out months and quarters.

Good reps earn their prospects’ admiration, loyalty, and referrals. They skillfully handle objections and preemptively surface concerns to make them disappear.

If you want greatness, good news. Following these rules of good sellers will help you become one of the top-selling salespeople on your team — or even company.

Most sales reps don't become rockstars over night. It takes a lot of time, effort, and continuous improvement to be successful in sales. However, there are a few common characteristics that every good salesperson has. Let's explore.

Delightful

Being a good salesperson goes far beyond just making sales. You have to build strong relationships with your customers, which starts by making a positive first impression. When meeting with a new customer, make sure you have a well-put-together appearance and an inviting demeanor.

As a salesperson, you should go the extra mile. Take the time to understand your customers’ needs, preferences, and pain points. Then, tailor your approach and recommendations to their specific situation, showing that you genuinely care about solving their problems.

Enthusiastic

Being a good salesperson means you’ll put in the work, even when it gets tough. Having motivation to get the job done shows that you are passionate.

Sharing your personal excitement about why your product is valuable can make all the difference. When engaging with prospects, let your belief in your product shine through your words and actions. Although genuine enthusiasm cannot be faked, it doesn’t hurt to intentionally speak with energy and excitement while maintaining an open posture and eye contact.

Analytical

While friendliness is a good trait, you have to let your customers know you’re prepared, too. Customers want to make deals with salespeople who are dependable, fact-driven, and likely to ask questions and deliver answers they’re looking for.

Take the time to analyze your company’s sales data, customer trends, and market information. Not only will this enable you to understand your customers’ needs better, but it will also help you identify ways to refine your sales strategy over time.

Resilient

The sales profession can be challenging. You deal with constant rejection and varying sales numbers. However, these setbacks don’t deter good salespeople — they motivate them.

Instead of getting discouraged, look at challenging situations as opportunities for learning and growth. Turned down by another prospect? Don’t take it personally and focus on your next opportunity. Falling behind on your sales targets? Rethink your game plan and get back to work.

Attentive

As a salesperson, you know that each customer has different needs. Tending to those needs can help you build stronger relationships with your customers, foster loyalty, and open the door for future opportunities.

To better understand your customers’ needs, actively listen to them, pay attention to their verbal and nonverbal cues, ask them relevant questions, and be fully present in conversations. By doing this, you can gather important information, uncover pain points, and identify opportunities that can help you create a deal they’ll value.

Thorough

A good salesperson should be an expert in what they’re selling. You wouldn’t buy a car from someone who can’t tell you anything about its mileage or safety features, would you? Demonstrating that you’re knowledgeable makes you more reputable in the eyes of customers.

By being thorough, you can identify and address potential concerns or objections upfront. Customers appreciate thoroughness as it shows professionalism, reliability, and a commitment to delivering exceptional service.

Empathic

Connecting to your customers’ emotions can tell you what they really want from a sale. By appealing to their sentiments, you can meet their needs in new ways.

Put yourself in your customers’ shoes and consider the challenges they face. By having genuine concern for your customers’ needs — and addressing them effectively — you show that you’re actually committed to their best interests and not just trying to make a sale.

Confident

This may seem obvious, but being confident in your product or service can make your customers feel more confident in it, too. The same can be said for how confident you are in yourself.

The more confident you are, the more persuasive you are. You’re able to clearly articulate your value proposition and negotiate deals with conviction, all while making customers feel more secure in their purchasing decision.

Just remember, confidence is not about being pushy or overly assertive. You have to have the right balance of knowledge, preparation, and empathy to build trust with customers.

Adaptable

Sales is a pretty volatile profession, and good salespeople are adaptable to those changes. Being able to pivot your approach, or manage time shifts are very useful skills in this field.

Every customer and sales situation is unique. As an adaptable salesperson, you have to quickly read cues, pivot your sales techniques, and find common ground.

Committed

Good salespeople aren’t quick to give up, even in the face of challenges and rejections. It’s a tough profession, but those who are hungry to succeed will strive toward their goals.

Being committed also means going above and beyond for your customers, delivering on promises, and following up to provide exceptional service. You also have to continuously improve your skills and stay up-to-date with industry trends.

Understanding the qualities that a good salesperson has is only the first step, and to become an effective one takes practice. The following list is divided into three sections: selling habits, tips, and life habits good salespeople share. Improve your strategy and become an effective salesperson with these tools.

Selling Habits of Effective Reps

1. Identify and stick to your buyer personas.

A clearly defined buyer persona is crucial to an effective sales process. And, a sales rep who sticks to that persona is effective in generating sales. Otherwise, a salesperson might fall back on spray-and-pray tactics that result in inefficient prospecting.

An effective rep researches the prospect to make sure they’re a good fit. They stick to their ideal buyer persona and know exactly whom they're selling to and why.

Further Reading: 20 Best Buyer Persona Questions to Ask Customers [Free Template]

2. Use a measurable, repeatable sales process.

Low-performing reps let intuition guide them. High-performing reps use a process that’s optimized to move as many prospects as possible from “connect” to “close.”

Low-performing reps sometimes let things slip through the cracks. High-performing reps know the state of every deal in their pipeline, what actions they’ll take next, and when. Low-performing reps rarely analyze results — because they haven’t been tracking them. High-performing reps obsessively review key metrics and adjust as necessary.

TL;DR: To be extraordinary, you need a consistent process. HubSpot has a free Key Performance Indicator template if you want somewhere to begin.

Further Reading: The Ultimate Guide to Creating a Sales Process

3. Know your product.

Being able to sell is half the battle. Understanding what you’re selling is the other (often under-appreciated) half.

In the old days, selling relied on charm and snake-oil tactics. But now that prospects have more access to information than ever before, they’re not fooled so easily. To gain their trust and add value to their lives, you have to truly know your product and why it’s valuable to your prospect.

Further Reading: Product Knowledge: How to Train Sales on the Thing They're Selling

4. Review your pipeline objectively.

Effective sales reps don’t mark a deal as “likely to close” because the influencer likes them. They’re able to objectively review opportunities, avoid happy ears, and come up with accurate sales forecasts.

Further Reading: Sales Pipelines: A Comprehensive Guide for Sales Leaders and Reps

5. Find shortcuts and hacks.

Once a great salesperson finds a strategy or technique that works, they use it — again and again and again and again, until it stops working.

This is smart. Reps are always working against the clock, which means the more time they spend experimenting, the less time they have for true selling. Plus, there’s an opportunity cost. Try one thing that doesn’t work, and you’ve missed the opportunity to use something that does.

I’m not suggesting you should never change up your approach. Just do so selectively, and get results ASAP so you can either implement the tactic or move on.

Further Reading: Strategies to Maximize Your Sales Productivity

6. Practice active listening.

Successful salespeople are completely present when they talk to prospects. They’re not thinking about another deal, scrolling through Reddit threads, or sending funny memes to their team members. They’re engaged — and as a result, their conversations with buyers are deeper and more meaningful.

Active listening may be one of the hardest skills to develop since it’s human nature to care more about what you have to say than your prospect. However, it’s incredibly valuable. Not only will you build stronger relationships, but you’ll unlock information that’ll help position your product as the best option.

Further Reading: Active Listening in Sales: The Ultimate Guide

7. Work hard.

It’s 5 p.m. on the last day of the month or quarter. The B players have already left the office — they’re at a bar, celebrating because they all met quota. The C players are still in the office — they’re sending off last-ditch email attempts to prospects they haven’t engaged with in weeks.

The A players are in the office, too. They’ve already hit, but they’re still sending emails, scheduling meetings, and making calls. And, by laying the foundation for a great month before they need to, they always blow their goals out of the water.

Further Reading: 70 Quotes About Hard Work That’ll Help You Reach Your Goals

8. Follow up.

Many salespeople fail to effectively follow up after sending a proposal. They don’t even know if the prospect opened their email.

HubSpot Sales helps with this issue, letting salespeople know when and how often a prospect opens an email. With this information, they can follow up at the optimal time.

Further Reading: The Ultimate Guide On How To Write A Follow-Up Email

9. Personalize your message.

Instead of following a script and approaching each prospect with a “one-size-fits-all” mentality, high-performing salespeople are committed to learning as much as they can about a prospect to tailor their message. These sales reps understand the unique pain points their prospect is facing and can explain why their product is a good fit.

As Lauren Kennedy, Founder of Coastal Consulting, puts it, "We consistently see that high-performing sales professionals focus in on both the emotional component and necessary outcomes from the start of the sales process. Meaning, how will this product improve the customers' life? And, what tangible results will our product provide them? Offering an empathetic view on tangible results creates a unique sales process founded on relationship-building that places you above the competition."

Further Reading: Is Personalizing Your Sales Emails Worth It, According to Data?

Tips to Become a Better Salesperson

10. Shadow your peers.

Want to improve your objection handling? Identify the salesperson who's best at it within your company and ask if you can shadow a few of their calls. Learning from your peers is a great way to get better at your job while building strong relationships with your coworkers.

Further reading: Why Coachability Is Key to Sales Success

11. Practice your people skills.

Excellent small talk is a learned skill — and one that's crucial to salespeople's success. Whether you're at a housewarming party or a networking event, practice making other people feel at ease. Notice what makes them open up, zone out, and laugh, and take what you learn back to the office.

Further reading:

How to Make the Most of Sales Networking – Tips, Mistakes, and Examples

How to Network Remotely in Sales [+ Tips]

12. Be a team player.

So much of sales pop culture glorifies the lone wolf. But the best salespeople know it takes a village to build a career and a successful sales team. Help your colleagues, and know when to ask for help — that's the key to a long, fulfilling sales career.

Further reading: Sales Culture: How to Build a High Performance, Healthy Sales Team

13. Know when to walk away.

Are you wasting too much time on deals that just aren't that into you? Know how much your average deal length is and use that as a guidepost for how long is too long to spend on one deal.

There are exceptions to this rule, but if your average sales cycle is 45 days and you're working a deal going on 90, consider trying Sandler's Reverse Negative approach.

Further reading:

7 Signs You Should Walk Away From a Prospect

8 Ways to Weed Out Tire Kickers: Tips From Sales Pros

14. Be honest.

The days of telling customers anything to close are over. Don't promise a feature that doesn't exist, a price you can't deliver on, or a service your company can't do well. This might earn you a close, but it won't keep their business, and you'll end up with bad reviews and poor word of mouth.

Further reading:

Lying in Sales: 9 Reasons It’s Not Worth Lying to Sell More

9 Tips on How to Say No to Customers the Right Way

15. Always solve for the customer.

Similarly, don't oversell your customer on services or features they don't need, just to bump up your number. A consultative selling approach allows you to be honest with your customer about what they really need to solve for their business. It's the right thing to do and you might be surprised how much it will benefit you when it comes to renewals and referrals.

Further reading:

The Ultimate Guide to Sales Demos That Close Prospects

Solution Selling: The Ultimate Guide

16. Roll with rejection.

You won't win every deal, and some buyers just won't like you. That's part of being in sales. And while it's important to be thoughtful about how you can improve, it's crucial to move on easily from rejection.

Experts suggest viewing rejection as proof you're pushing the limits. So, examine why you weren't successful with your prospect, ask for outside opinions when appropriate, and move forward quickly and positively to bigger and better deals.

Further reading: A Proven 4-Step Process for Handling Sales Objections

17. Always ask for referrals.

Successful salespeople know the easiest close often comes from a referral. Sales pro, Marc Wayshack, recommends asking for one introduction every day. The social proof is already there, initial outreach is direct, and sales cycles are often shorter. Once you've successfully closed, always ask for a referral and follow up quickly on those leads.

Further reading: 8 Powerful Referral Strategies That Will SuperchargeYour Sales, According to Sales Insight Lab's Founder

Life Habits of Effective Reps

18. Stay balanced.

Salespeople experience more highs and lows in a single week than most professionals do in an entire month. Some days, you feel invincible. Other days, you wonder if you even belong in sales.

Successful reps have learned to manage their emotions and stay somewhere in the middle. When things are going really well and almost all of their deals are closing, they remind themselves not to get too cocky. When business dies down, they tell themselves not to become demoralized: sales will pick up soon if they keep chugging.

Further reading:

12 Ways to Keep Sales Stress from Taking Over Your Life

9 Stats That Prove Your Mood Can Impact Sales Performance

19. Take breaks.

In sales, activity is often correlated with results. The more emails you send, the more meetings you book. The more meetings you book, the more demos you set. The more demos you set, the more deals you close.

Following this line of thought, many salespeople end up working 10-hour days every weekday and even putting in time on the weekends.

Not only is this bad for your mental and physical health, it's also unproductive. As Basecamp founder and CTO David Heinemeier Hansson points out in this fantastic piece on workaholism, some of the highest-achieving people in history — like Kobe Bryant, LeBron James, Charles Dickens, and Charles Darwin — prioritized sleep and a balanced schedule.

If you're regularly burning the candle at both ends, you'll eventually burn out. Plus, how much are you actually getting done between 6:30 and 8:30 at night? That time would be better spent reading, talking to your friends or family, watching TV, playing video games, cooking, walking your dog — basically, anything that gives your brain a break.

Further reading: 6 Strategies Salespeople Can Use to Recover From Burnout

20. Get eight or more hours of sleep.

Think you can get away with five or six hours of sleep? Think again. According to the American Academy of Sleep Medicine, most adults need seven to eight hours of sleep per night. If you get less, you’ll suffer from a laundry list of ailments, including:

• Irritability
• Decreased motivation
• Anxiety
• Symptoms of depression
• Distractibility
• Reduced energy
• Fatigue
• Restlessness
• Poor decision making
• Increased errors
• Forgetfulness

To be at your best on sales calls, prioritize your sleep.

Further reading: 7 Habits of Highly Effective People [Summary & Takeaways]

Motivation Habits of Effective Reps

21. Believe in what you’re selling.

It’s easier to be passionate about — and sell — a product when you genuinely believe in it. The most effective salespeople actually use their product and believe in its value.

If you feel “meh” about what you’re selling, find happy testimonials from customers. Examples of how your product has improved people’s lives — in ways both large and small — will keep you motivated and engaged (and give you valuable social proof when you’re meeting with prospects).

Further reading: 15 Unique Characteristics of Top-Selling Salespeople

22. Identify your strongest motivator.

It doesn’t matter what drives a salesperson — they simply need to be motivated. Every top salesperson has a burning reason for showing up to work every day and giving it their all. Maybe they want to buy a house and must make at least 110% of quota every month. Maybe they’re super competitive and always want to be at the top of the leaderboard. Maybe they need to prove to themselves that they can do well in sales.

Ask yourself, “What’s my #1 reason for wanting to be successful?” If you can’t immediately come up with an answer, you need to find that motivator.

Further reading:

The 24 Best Motivational Speeches Our Employees Have Ever Heard

19 of the Most Motivational Videos to Inspire Your Sales Team in 2023

23. View your customer’s success as your own.

Salespeople don’t stop working as soon as the prospect signs on the dotted line. Instead, top reps touch base frequently with their customers to seek feedback and provide tactical suggestions. Customer success lets reps know what strategies work, forms client relationships, and drives customer advocacy for your business.

Further reading: 12 Customer Satisfaction Metrics You Should Be Monitoring in 2023

Life Habits of Effective Reps

24. Build personal relationships.

Dan Tyre, one of the best salespeople I know, is a relationship builder. Tyre connects with people everywhere he goes — not in the surface-level, LinkedIn way, or the “let’s exchange business cards” way, but in a genuine, human way that makes you want to talk to him again.

As a salesperson, relationships are your capital. You don’t need Don Draper levels of charisma; on the contrary, a desire to help goes a lot further than a magnetic personality.

Further reading:

38 Fun Corporate Team-Building Activities & Outing Ideas Everyone Will Enjoy

45 Quotes That Celebrate Teamwork, Hard Work, and Collaboration

25. They prepare ahead of time.

An effective salesperson prepares before a call. That means they do research on their prospect and gather all the information they need before a big customer meeting.

Top reps don't wing it. They go in with a plan and a contingency plan. This way, they anticipate challenges or questions and prepare an effective response to avoid losing the sale.

Further reading:

28 Questions to Ask on a Discovery Call During the Sales Process

7 Sales Voicemail Mistakes + How to Recover [Advice from HubSpot Sales Reps]

9 Sales Pitch Examples (Plus Tips on How to Write Your Own)

26. Look for potential customers wherever you go.

To over-perform, you can’t stop being a salesperson as soon as you leave the office. Successful reps are always looking for potential customers — at parties, networking events, dinners, and so on.

Of course, you have to read the room. Should you deliver a five-minute speech about the importance of life insurance at your Cousin Jack’s memorial? Definitely not. But if you’re talking to your new friend Greta, and she mentions she’s in the market for life insurance, give her some handy pointers and let her know you’d be happy to talk more in-depth.

Further reading:

The 13 Best Networking Apps Every Sales Professional Needs

Making the Most of Virtual Networking [+How to Get it Right]

Put these Habits into Practice

There’s not one single way to become a good salesperson, but the habits mentioned above are essential to providing a positive sales experience to your customers. Demonstrating that you have passion, knowledge, self-determination, and adaptability can take you from an average sales rep to a high-performing success story.

Editor's note: This post was originally published in May 2021 and has been updated for comprehensiveness.

B2B sales teams today have access to more data than ever before. Thanks to increasingly connected businesses, and in-depth lead generation activities, the sheer amount of incoming data can be overwhelming.

But beyond simply gathering data, sales teams need to be able to effectively organize and analyze that information in order to make it actionable. That’s where the true value lies, because what use is data if it doesn’t tell you anything?

So where do you start? How do you manage incoming data and use it to equip and benefit your B2B salesforce? Here are four tips for mastering your sales operations data.

1. Assess the Data you Have

Before you can make the most of your data, you need to wrap your arms around what you already have. Identify current databases within your sales platform to see if there are any holes in the collection process. Work with your sales team to identify what the most valuable information is, and evaluate if it is being collected and recorded correctly. Starting with an organized foundation will set you up for success down the road.

Here’s what you need to evaluate within your sales platform:

• Lead & Account Data: Evaluate your organization’s lead and account data. Remove fields that aren’t being used and add any custom fields your team needs.

• Ideal Customer Profile (ICP): Develop your ICP with personality traits and characteristics that fit your product or service. Detail industry, profession, age, sex, interests and hobbies.

• Lead Grading: Filter leads based on your ICP, grading them on a scale of “A-F” so you can drill down into the leads that are more valuable to your business.

2. Make Data Accessible to both Marketing & Sales

Smart sales and marketing teams are constantly on the go, pursuing the next opportunity. Most teams simply don’t have the time and resources to dig through reports and data to find what they need, let alone communicate with one another about every project or need that pops up. They need a data management platform that is as easy to use as it is accessible.

Enabling access to real-time data means sales and marketing teams can work together to make informed decisions. Find a data collection and reporting platform that is easy to use, with customizable dashboards that help sales and marketing reps stay in constant contact.

Never let one team gather data that the other team doesn’t have access to. While yes, some sales data is irrelevant to marketing and vice versa, you’d be surprised at how much insight one team can provide to the other. Don’t put restrictions on what teams share with each other, including access to recently-produced content.

Content should be easily accessible from the CRM tool you’re using. Through collaboration, these teams should come up with a tagging and folder structure for content that makes it simple for them to find what they need, no matter which customer they’re targeting.

3. Make Data Actionable

Specialized reporting and analytics help sales teams optimize processes, improve productivity and continually improve their results. Meaningful data pulled into easy-to-use reports makes prospecting and nurturing sales more effective overall. After you’ve collected your data, you need to make it actionable by reporting on work done and implementing future goals.

In order to make your data actionable, first you need to develop an accurate forecast that’s based on your sales team’s accomplishments and/or failures. Take the current sales numbers and extend them into the future – how does your growth look overall? If you’re shrinking instead, you may want to adjust your strategy, or let your weakest performers go.

Next, you need to understand what’s making your target audience connect with you as a brand to define the most effective messaging. Use data to tweak the message of your emails, websites, blogs and any other data-tracked asset. Try A/B testing different messaging against your most sought-after ICPs to find out who’s responding and who isn’t.

Finally, you need to segment your accounts into separate groups, sorted by importance. This way, you can personalize your outreach efforts to the top accounts and limit efforts on those that aren’t interested in buying.

4. Keep Track

Nurturing a lead successfully is all about tracking past touchpoints. By having a centralized platform for tracking account activity, your team can better personalize their touchpoints and maximize their future prospecting efforts.

Keeping a log of historical touchpoints and account activity can identify best practices and help with forecasting. Within most sales platforms, you can assign data to the best reps suited for the job. You can integrate rules so your salespeople know which account is assigned to whom and avoid infighting over the lead pool.

Use your data to track correspondences and give your reps the power to have informed conversations with their leads. Additionally, give your sales manager the data they need to understand best email templates, call times and activity logging so they can provide better leadership to the reps.

With businesses that are increasingly connected and lead generation activities that are becoming more and more complex, B2B sales teams need to harness the capabilities of their data like never before. Try out these four tips and master your sales operations data once and for all.

The post 4 Steps to Master Your Sales Operations Data appeared first on OpenView Labs.

Long ignored because of the myth that they’re difficult to create and expensive to execute, webinars have become an easy, effective and indispensable tool for selling online.

Growing up as the son of two English teachers, I was raised in a home that was lined floor-to-ceiling with books.

Teaching and storytelling were as common in my home as cartoons and cereal on Saturday mornings.

And, while I didn’t realize it at the time, I’d later discover something critical about being successful in business – teaching sells.

If you’re able to teach someone else how to get something he or she wants, or how to solve a pressing problem in his or her professional life, you’ll never be short on sales leads or revenue.

And, while my parents spent the 1970s and 1980s inside a physical classroom with a small group of students, the “classroom” for the rest of us is global thanks to the Internet and Webinars.

The Big Lie About Webinars

For the past five years, I’ve spent thousands of hours studying (and perfecting) how to create wildly successful webinars.

Today, when I set out showing others how to create, hold and run a webinar, I see the same infuriating fallacies and myths holding others back. I want to spend the rest of our time right now addressing (and dismantling) three of the biggest myths when it comes to webinar training.

Myth #1: Webinars Are Expensive and Time-Consuming

This is one that stops Business Coaches, Consultants, Entrepreneurs, Authors, Speakers, Small Business Owners and others who would most profit from holding a webinar.

Because those types of professionals are so busy both running and building a business, the idea of having to dive into the world of webinars just seems like leaping into digital quicksand.

In reality, webinars have never been easier to set up or less expensive to run. In fact, my favorite webinar platform costs less than $400 per year and includes unlimited attendees, pre-built landing and registration pages, pre-written email reminders and more.

Best of all, the advent of automated webinars allows you to create a high-value, high-converting online presentation that reaches a global audience without even being online.

Myth #2: Webinars Require Tons of Overhead, Tech and Tools

This is another big misconception. All I use for my webinars is a laptop, a “fill-in-the-blank” presentation template tool that costs $7 per month and a Blue Yeti USB microphone that goes for around $100 on Amazon.

My favorite webinar platform already has pre-built, pre-hosted landing pages, registration pages, calendar reminders, pre- and post-webinar emails, all hosted, automated and delivered for me.

When it comes to creating a killer webinar, the days of needing a degree in IT, a team of graphic designers or a massive budget are gone.

Myth #3: Webinar Presentations and Content Are Difficult to Create

This is perhaps the biggest stumbling block many well-intentioned professionals have.

“What will I talk about?”

“I’m not a designer – how do I create slides?”

Having spent the past five years giving (and attending) thousands of webinars, I’ve found that there is a very specific format and formula you must follow in order to be successful.

The best webinars utilize a few specific steps, and they’re the biggest reason I’ve been able to build a thriving, six figure business online using webinars.

For example, the first step in the process involves the “warm up” or introduction phase of your webinar.

The remaining steps walk through a logical path, from warming up your audience to validating their decision to attend to sharing the story of why you are the expert on this topic to teaching in a way that naturally transitions into your sales pitch or product offer.

Webinars That Work = Ongoing Sales Leads + Revenue

When done correctly, webinars are the single best online sales tool I’ve ever seen or experienced.

They’re especially powerful for those who sell knowledge for a living – Business Coaches, Consultants, Authors, Trainers, Speakers and Entrepreneurs. Since teaching and training comes natural to those groups, webinars are an easy way to “bottle up” and share your wisdom with a worldwide audience.

They also work incredibly well as a way to showcase how your product or service can solve a pressing problem or relieve a pain point that a specific audience has.

The devil, of course, is in the details, but those are easily sorted out once you get past the biggest myths and misconceptions that we addressed above.

Bottom line: Getting a virtual room full of your ideal prospects or customers together and teaching them on a scale my English teacher parents could never have imagined is the gift webinars can bring your business.

If you aren’t using them already, it’s time to get started!

In a sales call, the sales rep’s goal is to communicate the belief that the prospect’s challenge can be overcome, problem solved, and business goal met. Experienced sales teams know how difficult it can be to describe a concept as opposed to showing prospects what they will gain. That’s why visual engagement solutions are crucial in creating a tangible belief in the benefits being offered.

Why is visual engagement important for sales teams?

Sixty-five percent of people are visual learners. Yet in 2016, only fourteen percent of marketers used live video.

In today’s online world, a visually underpowered sales interaction has a 50-50 chance of failing to adequately engage its audience. Even worse, it can lead sales teams to miscommunicate or encourage prospects to focus on more easily consumable alternative messages.

Even in a digital world, it’s critical to beat your competitors’ ability to visually engage with the same prospects you’re courting. You must help prospects discover the products and services they need, demonstrate those solutions in a compelling way, and upsell advanced capabilities with further benefits. In order to accomplish all that, your sales teams must become experts at exploiting visual engagement as a sales tool.

Here’s how to build their technique:

• Explain to your sales teams that truly personalized visual engagements produce outstanding, effortless sales experiences.
• Have your sales teams use visual engagement solutions to transform the selling process into a more naturally collaborative, cooperative, and stimulating relationship.
• Your ability to produce amazing customer experiences creates a significant competitive advantage and will help you close more deals faster.

Make it effortless

According to research by Animoto, 96 percent find videos helpful when they are making online purchase decisions. What’s more, nearly 75 percent are more likely to purchase if they watch a video about a service or product.

Online slide presentations, walk-throughs, and demos are components of many online sales processes today. However, setting up and conducting sharing sessions can often include distracting steps like downloading meeting software or screen sharing browser plugins.

Prospects deeply value a sales organization that can get the show on the road quickly. This is not true with every visual engagement solution. Shameless promotion – Glance visual engagement technology, your prospects merely click on a link. They then immediately arrive in your sales teams’ demo space. No pauses, installs, or instability.

In addition, for any given online sales call, your prospect may well be using a mobile device instead of a PC. Make sure your visual engagement solution gives mobile folks the same effortless one-click engagement, no matter what device they are using.

Remove the “I don’t get it” factor

Prospects have a hundred ways of becoming confused during an online sales session. That confusion is uncomfortable. Discomfort leads to tuning out of the pitch.

Nothing helps one human stay engaged with another more than being able to see that person directly. One-way live video puts sales reps’ faces in front of prospects. Knowing they are talking with real people vastly improves prospects’ “focus stickiness.” Moreover, it reduces their likelihood to wander off to check email or otherwise multitask in the middle of the session.

Study how to integrate visual cues into conversations

Visual engagement solutions give everyone something to look at. At the same time, like watching a sporting event you’re not familiar with, a prospect may get lost if the action zips along too fast without a good play-by-play announcer.

Sales reps must crisply describe what prospects are seeing and proactively solicit questions and feedback throughout the conversation. With some visual engagement solutions, you can even allow a rep to turn cursor control over to prospects for a period of time so prospects can try out a product and be guided through processes. Make your prospects part of the demo!

You’re in sales – be branded

Most prospects are positively impressed when they are involved in a branded online visual engagement. Don’t use a generic online meeting provider’s UI. Instead, add the “professional touch” by displaying your company’s logo and corporate identity throughout the interaction.

Create a comprehensive collaborative sales environment and invite your prospects in.

Quantify your sales impact

Visual engagement technology automatically records all screen sharing activity and reports on a variety of metrics. For example, you can track:

• Number of demos per sales rep
• Average demo length
• Impact of demos on conversion rates

Then sales teams’ managers can use those metrics to improve training and sales development programs and make every rep more successful.

Bottom line for sales teams

Visual engagement technology lets sales teams go beyond “slides and a demo.” Connect with prospects in a more powerfully visual, highly collaborative, and measurable way.

Glance visual engagement solutions for the win

Are you ready to discover how Glance can improve customer engagement and increase sales for your own business?

Sign up for your personalized Glance demo today!

Logic is a funny thing.

Most consumers think they make their decisions of what to buy, and what to do based on logic and information. However, the truth is that logic often intertwines with emotion in the buying cycle, and that means we can manipulate it.

Most startups know by now that emotion is a powerful force working to subconsciously influence the way customers feel about their favorite brands. Everything from the colors a brand uses, to its words, and its approach to selling can construct a specific image in our minds that prompts us to act a certain way.

While we often believe that logical decisions are totally separate from emotional ones – the truth is that decisions are never made without some emotion. However, that doesn’t mean that you can’t make your leads think that they’re making a logical decision…

The key to appealing to “buyer logic”, is to understand how the human mind works to process logical decisions. After all, as we’ve evolved, we’ve developed specific thought patterns that assist us in making decisions. Below, I’ll take a look at the science behind human logic, and how startups can appeal to it in their marketing efforts.

1. The rule of reciprocation

When a friend buys you lunch or gives you a gift as a surprise, you’ll generally feel obliged to do something for them in return. In fact, that feeling of obligation can be overwhelming – causing stress and discomfort until you find a way to pay back your imagined debt. The same sense of buyer logic applies to selling. If startups go out of their way to offer their customers something of value, then those customers will feel compelled to do something in return.

The rule of reciprocation is often why people leave reviews on websites. In part, we write testimonials to help other people make good purchasing decisions, but we’re also compelled to show that we appreciate whatever the brand gave us. It’s like saying thank you for a good experience.

In the example above, McDonalds uses “free mocha mondays” as a way of building a relationship with their audience. The idea is that if they offer you something, you’ll be more likely to reward them with continued business.

2. The threat of scarcity

If you go onto a website with the aim to buy a new pair of shoes, you might browse a few pairs and then put the purchase off until a later time when you feel more comfortable financially, or you end up with a hole in your favorite boots. However, if you click onto a website and see that there’s only one pair of shoes left in your style, your size, and your preferred price, then you’ll jump to act.

When supplies are limited, logic tells us that we need to act immediately in order to take advantage of a specific situation and save ourselves from loss. Creating urgency with countdown clocks, expiration dates and deadlines commands action from your leads, and therefore enhances your chances of earning the profits you want.

Booking.com is great at creating “scarcity” by letting you know that there are only so many rooms available in the hotels that you’re looking at.

3. The comfort of authority

If something seems authoritative and official, logic tells us that we should be able to trust it. That’s why recommendations from respected public figures, that little padlock on a website that indicates it’s secure, and great testimonials are a great way to generate trust with your reader.

Today’s buyers are skeptical of everything – and let’s face it, a little paranoid too. To end up with a successful conversion, you need to make sure that the value of what you’re offering outweighs the risk of buying something from you.

Evidence of your authority in the form of reports and case studies, or anything else that can add credibility to your name helps to remove some of the risk of investing in your products. In fact, authority makes your business the more logical choice for consumers. Startups are new, and uncertain, so customers need extra reassurance.

4. The value of contrast

How valuable is your startup?

To you it’s probably worth more than anything else in your life (except for your family and friends). However, it’s probably a lot less valuable to your consumers. This is because value is a relative concept. If someone told you that the bought a new computer for $1,000 you might think that the purchase was really expensive. However, if they told you that they got it for $1,000 when it was usually $5,000 logic says they got a great deal.

Startups use the value of contrast frequently in their marketing strategies. Think about all the sales that you see in local stores and online today. They don’t just show you the new price after applying the discount – but also display the old price too so you can calculate the value of your saving.

It’s a pretty clever process – but try not to trick your audience with it. People don’t like to feel as though they’re getting a great deal to begin with, only to find out that you made up the “before” price to help convert them.

Amazon.com is great at using the contrast technique. It doesn’t just show you the price you’re getting the item for, but the price that it was previously listed at too. In other words, you see how much you’re saving.

5. The Attribution Effect

In the world of psychology, the “Attribution effect” refers to the tendency that people have to place emphasis on the characteristics of a person, rather than an external factor. To put It in simple terms, if someone runs a red light and nearly takes out your car, you automatically assume that person is a reckless human being. However, the external factors may have warranted their bad behavior – for instance, they could have been rushing their pregnant wife to the hospital.

In business, consumers praise companies or blame them for activities that are often outside of their control. For instance, a problem with shipping immediately gets blamed on the business, when the issue might have been with a third-party organization.

Still, regardless of whether something was your fault or not, if you’re willing to take responsibility for your customer’s grievances, they’ll generally like you more for it. People just like to be listened to. If startups respect your customer’s feelings and apologize for their inconvenience, then their logic will define them as a more trustworthy company.

6. The loss aversion effort

Finally, loss aversion refers to the fact that humans are more inclined to avoid losses than work to acquire equivalent gains. We feel as though it’s better to save $20 than find the same amount in our bank account. Most marketers know that people prefer to see that they’ll be saving 25 percent rather than paying 75 percent- and that’s why they draw attention to the loss aversion, rather than the value.

To make the most of loss aversion, you simply need to change the language that you use. For instance, talk about what your consumer could lose without your product, rather than what they could gain from buying it. This desperation to avoid discomfort prompts people into action.

Loss aversion is often why free trials work well for selling programs and software. If your customer gets a chance to experience your product and see how valuable it is -failing to purchase the full system means that they risk the chance of losing everything they’ve gained.

Source

The example above tells the reader that they could be “wasting” money, rather than letting them know how much they stand to gain from changing phone tariffs. By using the loss-aversion technique, the company appeals to the part of you that doesn’t want to lose out.

The logical conclusion

As I mentioned at the beginning of this article, people make decisions primarily with both emotion, and logic. The most effective options for startups will begin by appealing to emotions first, then presenting the logical aspects after to build loyalty and trust.

To be successful with your campaigns, you need to think carefully about how you can use both logic, and emotion together to prompt your audience into action. Remember with the right techniques you can manipulate logic, just like emotion.

A lot has changed in the realm of B2B marketing strategies over the past year. New technologies have entered the market. Executives have new demands on marketers. How can you not only keep up, but pass these hurdles with flying colors?

Let’s talk about that.

Hubspot’s recently released State of Inbound report has provided us with key data that reveals what challenges are top of mind for marketers in 2017. Let’s examine the top 10 challenges, and the solutions that you need to know moving forward.

10 Hurdles That Today’s B2B Marketing Strategies Face

1. Generating Traffic and Leads

The Hurdle: This overwhelmingly polled as the #1 challenge facing marketers in Hubspot’s 2017 State of Inbound report. What makes this such a hurdle? Marketers today face more content overload than ever before, and the competition is fierce to create content that gets people back to your site.

The Solution: Marketers need to focus more on the quality of their content and the types of content formats they use.

Actively participate in your content creation. Look at your competitors to get a clear idea of what content is popular, and pour your efforts into creating similar but better content. To keep your content up to par with today’s bursting marketing scene, utilize tools that will get you results — such as Canva to create visual content, or Grammarly to ensure your written content is grammatically correct.

High quality content could also mean more long-form content. Do you have an ebook? A white paper? A long-form blog post of 1600 words or more that gets into the nitty-gritty of an industry issue? If you don’t, now’s the time! Such content can attract more traffic, and turn that traffic into leads. Studies show that long form content (of 2,000-3,000 words) consistently receives more shares on social media, and more organic traffic than its short-form counterpart.

Browse social media to see what kinds of content your audience most often shares and comments on. Infographics? Videos? Case studies? Approach this with an open mind, and truly get to know what interests your audience.

2. Proving the ROI of Your Marketing Activities

The Hurdle: Even with the analytics tools on the market today, proving the worth of every campaign or piece of content remains a top hurdle for marketers. To many, the time it takes to monitor and prove the effectiveness of every channel, campaign, and piece of content can seem like a monumental task.

For others, the variables that affect a purchase — from the number of decision makers at a given company to economic trends — are numerous. How do you keep track of everything? And with so many avenues available to measure ROI, how do you know which one is the right fit for your company and goals?

The Solution: First of all, keep it simple. Stick to avenues that will be easy for you to measure and prove ROI. This could include social interactions, brand mentions, and bounce rate. Choose what metrics are most important to your company, and then choose an analytics tool that will put this data at your fingertips.

For example, you can create special links, using such tools as bit.ly, to see what campaigns and networks are getting you results. You might also use a solution like Marketo or Kapost to get a wider view of your B2B content marketing strategy and its impact.

3. Securing Enough Budget

The Hurdle: Marketers often face the challenge of tight-fisted execs who are scaling back budgets across the board. Meanwhile, startups and small businesses may not have the extra money to invest in a higher marketing budget.

The Solution: Hubspot’s State of Inbound report revealed that 37% of companies have increased their marketing budget from the past year. This is evidence that when executives see positive results from inbound marketing, they respond. As long as you can show a proven ROI for your B2B content marketing strategy, it’s likely your budget needs will be met.

If you are a startup or small business without the financial reach of larger organizations, focus on cost-friendly or free alternatives to amplify your brand’s message, including social media and blogging. Use employee advocacy programs that encourage your very own employees to be effective brand ambassadors.

4. Identifying the Right Technologies

The Hurdle: Analytics, collaboration, automation…finding the right tool for each of these can be like finding a needle in a haystack. New marketing technologies feel like they’re popping up all the time. And with so many features and high price tags, the choices are complex and overwhelming for many.

It can be difficult to find all the answers to your questions, and make an informed decision.

The Solution: Start by narrowing down what your priorities are. What specific tasks do you need the technology to do? Then take to trusted sources to get the low-down on what tools fit those needs.

 

5. Targeting the Right Audience

The Hurdle: How do you reach your target audience? Defining who the decision makers are within a company and honing in them is one of the major challenges of B2B marketing strategies.

With so many budding networks, where can you find your audience? What social networks are they on?

The Solution: If you want to target a B2B audience, you need to focus on thought leadership material. If B2B buyers recognize your brand, and come to think of you as a leading and trustworthy authority in your industry, you will naturally float to the top of their list when they are serious about buying.

Create content that supports thought leadership at all stages of the buyer’s journey. This will range from how-to blog posts and videos to more in-depth and comprehensive case studies, eBooks, and white papers.

The right channel is also an important component to targeting your audience.

Find out where your B2B buyers live online. According to Hubspot’s State of Inbound report, when asked what networks they used most for professional purposes, 84% answered LinkedIn, followed by 77% who used Facebook, and 71% who used Twitter. Are your content and campaigns available on these networks?

6. Training Your Team

The Hurdle: Marketing concepts, technologies, and company values are just some of the general topics teams need to learn. As your company grows, it can become a hurdle to get your entire team on the same page, and train them to comply with company standards.

The Solution: Create a specific plan or introduction manual for each new hire, and gradually cover every aspect of the job that you want them to know. Instead of expecting them to absorb everything right away, make the plan easy to digest, gradually adding in new concepts and technologies as they master the task at hand. Having a uniform guideline for each new team member will ensure that everyone is on the same page.

7. Hiring Top Talent

The Hurdle: With more and more companies switching to an inbound marketing strategy, competition is high to find the right talent. Add to this challenge that the pool of eligible candidates with the right skill set is relatively small, and you begin to understand why this is such a hurdle.

The Solution: Many companies approach hiring too broadly. Instead, before you can find the “right” candidate, narrow down what your marketing goals are. Would you like to beef up your SEO? How about social media marketing? Content marketing? Once you land on the specific goals you would like to reach, focus on what specific duties and skills you need.

Cast your net wide by posting your needs on a variety of job seeking platforms, including Indeed, LinkedIn, Monster, and more.

Keep informed as to what desirable candidates are after. For example, a recent study showed that 72% of job candidates are looking for positions with an opportunity for growth, while 47% are looking for a good work-life balance. To attract the top talent, highlight these as part of your job description.

8. Leveraging Influencer Marketing Effectively

The Hurdle: Influencer marketing has grown in the past few years, becoming one of the most effective strategies in the B2B marketing world. Yet, people are still treating influencers like a secondhand tactic. In order to use the full potential of influencer marketing, marketers need to learn how to engage influencers, and what to expect.

The Solution: Marketing departments need to create a team just for the management and nurturing of influencer relationships. Such a team helps to coordinate the use of influencers across departments, and creates a more efficient and effective use of influencers.

Secondly, companies need to define what influencers will be most effective for their industry. It’s not a one-size-fits-all kind of marketing strategy. Find out what networks your audience frequents, and who your audience follows and engages with on those networks. After some observation, you can approach an influencer about working with you in an upcoming program.

9. Managing Your Website

The Hurdle: Your website is the gateway to your brand — its performance impacts many aspects of your business. Your website works nonstop to attract people to your brand, convert them into leads, and keep customers happy. But the challenge lies in making your website stand out among the millions of other websites that are vying for people’s attention.

The Solution: If you are a small company, it may be easiest to hire experienced freelancers who can handle the bulk of this work for you.

You must first know what areas of your website need work. Does it have a slow load time? Does it appear in organic search results? Once you pinpoint the problem areas of your website, you’ll be better able to move forward. Create specific, attainable goals for your website. For instance, you might want your website to:

• Be optimized for mobile
• Run smoothly
• Be optimized for organic search
• Have a modern and intuitive design
• Feature a variety of content
• Engaging enough to keep people on it

 

10. Producing Sales-Qualified Leads

The Hurdle: For years now, there has been a disconnect between how marketing teams and sales teams define a qualified lead. How do marketing teams hand over the right leads to their sales department?

The Solution: There needs to be a middle ground between these two departments. This is where lead nurturing comes into play. With emails and other marketing techniques, your team can build a relationship with a prospect.

Marketing and sales teams need to work together to define sales qualified leads as they relate to the sales funnel, and create a dedicated lead nurturing program. This ensures that everyone is on the same page, and that you only hand over qualified leads to your sales department.

Before a prospect is handed over to sales as a lead, the prospect should be:

• Qualified by going through several automated “drip marketing” campaigns
• Analyzed in order to score the prospect’s interest and intent

Key Points to Remember…

• Find out which types of content your audience engages with, and create high quality content to attract more leads.
• Be specific and uncomplicated when you choose what marketing goals to measure to prove ROI.
• Hire freelancers, or have team members dedicated to the smooth management of your website.
• Key in on what top job candidates look for in a job opportunity, and leverage this to get the best talent working for your company.

As B2B marketing strategies change from year to year, so do the various challenges that marketers confront. Stay on top of the marketing challenges for this year, and stay ahead of your competition.

Sales and marketing. Marketing and sales. Chicken. Egg… Which comes first? Are they even separate things?

While sales and marketing are often grouped together in one role, particularly in smaller organizations, they are actually very different business functions that require different skill sets. There are a million ways to define marketing, but at its core it can be defined as promoting a product or service to a targeted audience. Sales, on the other hand, can be defined as the exchange of money for a product or service.

Even though sales and marketing should be looked at as two separate functions, they need to work together to ensure the success of a business. Marketing leads to the sales process much like the passing of a baton in a relay race. Even though each leg of the race is run by an individual, all individuals are needed to win the race, and they all have to work together to do it.

Here are all the differences you need to know between sales and marketing:

Brand vs. Customer

Marketing focuses on market positioning, brand development, and telling the story. While this is based on careful research of customer behaviours, the focus in on the brand. Sales will focus more specifically on the customer because they are looking to persuade them to complete a purchase.

Needs vs. Persuasion

Marketing is all about identifying and filling customer wants and needs by showcasing the product and benefits, while sales is about persuading customers to buy into the benefits that you can provide. A sales team will use research and materials provided by marketing professionals as tools to help with customer conversions (purchases).

Evolution vs. Static History

Even though channels might change, sales in itself hasn’t really evolved since the door to door salesman. Marketing is constantly changing to meet target audience needs when it comes to communication channels, the types of message, and values and ethics. It used to be more of a one way announcement of information, now, with the introduction of new technologies, marketing is designed to create dialogue that will more easily feed into the sales funnel.

Relationships vs. Transactions

A sales person will focus on building lucrative relationships with clients and prospects, however, the focus is still on the transactional aspect of the strategy. Marketing is purely relationship-driven, building communities on and offline, building loyalty, creating brand ambassadors, etc. Because of the transactional nature of sales, sales people are more quota and objective-driven. That’s not to say that marketing departments won’t have overall objectives, but sales-related objectives will be different than those of the marketing strategy.

Groups vs. Individuals

While personalization is creeping more and more into marketing strategies, the overall strategy is still focused on groups of people – the intended target audience. These audiences are identified and segmented based on research. A sales transaction is generally focused on an individual person and the exchange of money for goods/services.

Differences don’t mean separate. In the case of sales and marketing, they have to work together. Marketing generates interest, which creates leads – sales then takes those leads to convert to paying customers

How do your sales and marketing strategies work together?

A version of this article was originally posted to the SongBird Marketing Communications Blog.