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A critical factor in the maintenance of a high performance sales force is an organization’s talent management system: the people, tools, systems and processes that give it the ability to attract, hire, develop, reward, and ultimately retain talent. Responsible for its development and execution, today’s human resource leader faces unique challenges and increased pressure as

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The post Beyond Hiring: How HR Can Build an Integrated Approach to Sales Talent Management appeared first on Peak Sales Recruiting.

 

If you’re a sales person and you give a shit about your clients, your personal development, your career, and your company, then I have a message for you.

It’s 2017, and we’re failing our customers, prospects, the companies we work for and ourselves.

In the past 15 years, there have been crazy advancements in the area of sales tools, from CRM’s that do just about everything except your laundry to data or insights applications that deliver a full dossier of your client’s life straight to your phone or desktop. Shit, there are even apps that tell you when to call a prospect and what to talk about.

Not surprisingly, advancements in the sales world didn’t just come in the area of tools and applications; they also came via new organizations structures like inside sales, inbound marketing, ABM (Account Based Marketing) and more, all to make selling more efficient, faster and more predictable.

Selling has been turned on its head by technology.  It’s never been easier to sell.

Yet, I lament, it appears we are doing less selling than ever. We’ve become slaves to the machine.

In spite of all the new tools, new methodologies, insights, our selling, our commitment to the craft of selling is waning, and it’s time we get our shit together and become the valuable purveyors of change our prospects expect from us.

Too many of us are operating from 20th-century sales rules that no longer apply, and it’s not longer OK or acceptable.

New Rules of Selling

Rule 1: Give a shit about your customers and prospects.

I mean genuinely give a shit about your prospects and buyer’s success and business.  Put them first, become an expert in their business, be able to bring value to them before you ask for something in return.  Your prospects are the ones with the money; they are the people with a problem, treat them that way. I don’t suggest you be their bitch, but for sure stop looking at them as an ATM. Put your customers and prospects first. Build your selling methodology around them, and you can’t go wrong.

Rule 2: You don’t matter

Your prospects and customers don’t give a shit if you’re the top rep, are going on Presidents Club or are on a PIP. They care about their business and are looking for you to make a difference in THEIR world. They have their own set of goals, objectives, and needs that have nothing to do with you. Stop getting upset when they cancel a meeting, don’t show up to a call or choose the competition. It’s not personal. You nor your product are at the center of the universe. Pull up your big boy pants and move on.  The truth is, it’s probably your screw up that cost you the deal in the first place.

If you want to sell better, just keep in perspective, you don’t matter.

Rule 3: Stop sending stupid emails

The number of stupid emails salespeople send out is at an all-time high. Stupid emails are emails that do nothing for the recipient. They are selfish requests for time, and rarely offer anything of value for that time. Stupid emails unnecessarily interrupt a prospects day. No, your buyer doesn’t want to give you 15 minutes in their crazy busy schedule to tell you about their organization or discuss how you can improve their business.

Just stop.

If you can’t offer something of value, in the email that’s not product specific, don’t send it.  Learn how to create emails that create value for the recipient. Learn to create emails that teach, educate and inform the recipient.

Learn to write emails that give more than their asking.

Rule 4: You’re not that good

It’s time you stop thinking that because you’ve made Presidents Club 5 years in a row and because you’re one of the tops salespeople you have nothing to learn.  You’re not that good. You have plenty to learn,  especially if you’re over 35.  Sales is and has been going through incredible changes,  yet too many of you think that you’ve seen it all and there is nothing you need to know.  Sales is a fluid, and ever-changing environment and assuming that you’ve completed the learning journey is a mistake. Have some humility, be open to new things, expand your craft, and embrace deliberate learning. 

Rule 5: Stop blaming the prospect

It’s not the prospects fault if they don’t return your call. It’s not the prospect’s fault if they choose the competitor. You can’t blame the prospect if they continue to push you on price. It’s not the prospects fault, so stop blaming them for your poor selling. Prospects are busy, and they aren’t beholden to YOU! They’re trying to run a business. They have goals they’re trying to meet. They have bosses, employees, peers and more all demanding their time. You are not their number one priority. If a prospect is ignoring you, it’s your fault. If a prospect is fighting you on price, it’s your fault. If a buyer chooses your competition over you, you didn’t do a good job selling. Don’t blame the prospect. Instead, provide more value, and stop wasting their time. It’s not the prospects fault; it’s yours.

Rule 6: Ask good questions not stupid questions

“What keeps you up at night?” . . . that is a stupid question. “What are you looking to accomplish?” . . . that is a stupid question. “What are your goals?” . . . that is also a stupid question. Most of the questions you ask are stupid questions. Why? See number Rule 1. You’re asking questions to sell your product or service.  You’re asking questions that benefit you, not questions that help identify and solve real issues or challenges your prospect may be struggling to address.  Your prospect knows what his or her goals are. They know what they are trying to accomplish and asking them questions they know the answers to, so you can attempt to sell them your shit, isn’t selling. It’s just annoying.

Rule 7: Yes, you have to use the CRM

The CRM is there to help you, and if you use it correctly, it will be your best friend. If you don’t think the CRM is useful, then you’re using it wrong. Today’s CRM’s do so much more than store a few names and numbers. They are central data hubs that can supply you with everything you need to engage with your prospects the right way. If the data in you CRM isn’t helping you, if you find the CRM to be a pain in the ass, take a good look in the mirror, ’cause it ain’t the CRM.

The CRM is a tool, like any other tool. It’s only as good as it’s handler.

Rule 7: You’re not ready for a promotion

Hey millennials and wily veterans, you’re not promotion material.  Just because you’ve made quota a few times or even been on President’s Club your entire life, promotion to sales management has nothing to do with your ability to sell.  We already have too many unqualified sales managers screwing up sales organizations because they were promoted for being great salespeople. Sales management is about leadership. It’s no longer about turning the screw but getting others to turn the screw. If you want a promotion, start learning to lead.  Embrace how to motivate, influence and drive people, because that’s what sales needs in sales management. Just ’cause you’re a badass sales person doesn’t mean your promotional material.  You’re not ready!

Rule 8: You’re not exempt from ANYTHING

Yup, you’re a great salesperson, you’re crushing it every month. You’ve never missed quota. You’ve always been on President’s Club. Your customers love you. You’re Ms. reliable.  Great, but that doesn’t mean you get special treatment. Put your shit into the CRM. Show up at the team meetings. Support the other reps on the team. Share best practices. Be present at company functions. Be a visible, productive part of the team and the entire organization. Just because you’re the top rep doesn’t mean you get to operate from a separate set of rules. You’re not a lone wolf; you’re not special, so stop acting like it. Doing your job well doesn’t entitle you to special treatment. You’re not exempt from anything.

Rule 9: Stop pushing your product

Feature-function selling is dead. It’s not selling, and no one cares about how many features your product has or how bits it can process or how many fizzy wizzies it has. Buyers are trying to get stuff done, and your annoying pitches about how great your product and company are is frustrating and wasting everyone’s time. It’s 2017.  Buyers can look at your site, trial your product or ask others what features you have. Selling features isn’t being helpful.

Rule 10: Do your homework

Take the time to learn a little something about your prospect. Do the research, know what your buyer does, what the company does, know what division he or she operates in, understand who their competition is, know what their overall corporate goals are, know what’s important to them.  Your buyer is not an unknown entity; they produce content. They write blogs. They may be public. They have a social media presence, etc. There is no excuse not to know someone before you reach out. Put in the time, stop being lazy and get acquainted with the people and companies your calling.  It’s not their job to educate you on who they are.

Rule 11: Elevate your game

Selling is a craft. You’re not a carnival barker, working a crowd to find the unsuspecting sucker who’ll drop the last of his hard earned money on your rigged game. You’re a sales professional who’s value is in providing solutions to companies big and small. Your job is to help businesses increase revenue, reduce churn, improve customer loyalty, save money, improve processes, and more. These are not small, immaterial efforts. As a sales person, you have the ability to substantially change the game for hundreds, thousands or even tens of thousands of individuals so act like it. Expand your business acumen. Elevate your communication game. Improve your critical thinking skills. Become a sophisticated sales leader, relied on for insight, advice, and direction.

It’s time sales people. It’s time we step up our game. The world demands it!

 

The post Note To Sales People in 2017 — It’s Time To Up Your Game appeared first on A Sales Guy.

With Revenue Summit 2017 in the books the Sales Hacker team is onto our next big project. As a B2B sales education company Sales Hacker delivers our content in 3 formats: conferences, meetups, and online. Today we are taking a massive step forward with the launch of Sales Hacker U as we look to revolutionize the online sales education space. Sales Hacker U is an on-demand elearning sales course marketplace. Here is what you will find in Sales Hacker U:

3 years of Sales Hacker conference sessions

We have been executing conferences and recording these lectures for 3 whole years yet never really released this content publicly. Welp that all changes today! From Gary Vaynerchuk at Sales Machine 2016 to Jason Lemkin at Sales Hacker SF Conference 2014 you can now watch all your favorite Sales Hacker conference sessions on Sales Hacker U.

Tactical app focused sales training courses

One commonality we hear from the Sales Hacker community is this constant demand for more tactics. While the conferences are super insightful they can lack tactical education at times. Sales Hacker U solves this problem. Now you can see detailed training videos down to the specific click. From setting up your sales stack to list building via the newest app our new cutting edge courses will show you the details and tactics you have been craving.

Structured training courses and curriculums

In order to accelerate your learning and enforce the concepts, we have structured courses to ensure you have a well thought out curriculum. Going to a Sales Hacker conference is like drinking from the firehouse of sales knowledge. What we have tried to do with Sales Hacker U is give you a pay-per-course model where you only buy the content you want and need. No subscription billing. Buy what you want and enjoy LIFETIME access to this content.

Webinars and Demos

Sales Hacker webinars have exploded in popularity over the last few years. Going forward all webinars will live in Sales Hacker U for free so all your Sales Hacker video content will be in one location for easy real-time access from any device. As part of our push to become as tactical as possible we are now allowing select partners to add their demos to Sales Hacker U. This will allow the Sales Hacker community to see how the best sales apps in the world actually work. If you are interested in adding your demo to the U for a small annual fee please email matt@saleshacker.com.

In order to celebrate the launch of Sales Hacker U we are offering 2 unique training products:

1) The 2017 Free Training Bundle

This is a collection of some of the best Sales Hacker conference lectures over the last 3 years. These are hand-selected videos to give you a taste of the type of content you will see in Sales Hacker U going forward.

2) The 2017 Revenue Summit Bundle

This bundle includes 26 courses and 200 hours of sales training content. From our research this is the most robust cutting edge B2B sales training product ever created. If you love the Sales Hacker conferences, our blog, and our meetups there is no question you will love this training bundle. No matter where you are in your sales career there is absolutely a resource in this bundle that will help you take things to the next level.

If you are interested in using this training bundle to coach up your SDRs or AEs and are looking for group discounts please contact Matt Smith.

One of the many beautiful parts of Sales Hacker U is that it is a curated marketplace. Meaning that if you have high quality sales training ebooks, webinars, or video courses you’d like to promote to the Sales Hacker community you now have a channel to do so. If you’d like to offer your content for free or if you’d like to sell your content on Sales Hacker U please contact Matt Smith at matt@saleshacker.com.

As part of the launch of Sales Hacker U, the Sales Hacker team is now offering elearning course creation services. Select partners will be able to have their own “Sales Hacker Certified” elearning course. This is the ultimate piece of content marketing. While many sales tech companies have amazing product videos explaining their technology they drop the ball when it comes to how their app fits into the overall sales stack. The Sales Hacker Certified courses will look holistically at the app and bring in sales best practices to ensure the students get the maximum value for the course. A Sales Hacker Certified course about an email automation tool will not just cover the features of the app but also email copy, cadences, list building, and social selling so that the student can fully understand how this specific app fits into their overall sales hacker workflow. If you want a massive course that will provide immensive value for your customers and drive you a steady flow of inbound leads hit up matt@saleshacker.com.

What a blur these last 3 years have been. As Sales Hacker doubles down on digital training we hope you will come along for another journey. Sales Hacker U is the future of the Sales Hacker brand as we look to help transform the lives of as many sales professionals as possible through next generation sales education.

The post Introducing Sales Hacker U: The School for B2B Sales Professionals appeared first on Sales Hacker.

It is a top priority of successful sales managers, directors and VPs to make sure their sales teams are happy.

Why is that?

Because a happy sales team is a productive sales team, and the success of your business often hinges on your team’s productivity.

With that in mind, let’s go over a few tips that will help you keep your salespeople happy and ready to crush their sales goals.

 

How to Ensure Your Sales Team is Happy

 

1. Use an effective onboarding process

A salesperson’s first impression of your company often becomes their lasting impression. In other words, if they see that your onboarding process is disorganized and makes them feel unwelcomed or stressed out, they may have negative feelings towards their job.

Thus, it is critical to create an onboarding process that makes every new salesperson feel like they are becoming part of a positive environment where they have plenty of opportunity to grow their career and skillset.

Here are a few ways to create a better onboarding process:

• Introduce new salespeople to the team so they feel like part of the group
• Provide guides to any necessary software and/or the sales process used at your business
• Make sure the new salesperson can get any of their questions answered promptly

Not only does effective onboarding help keep your salespeople happy and productive at work – it can also help with employee retention, which can save your company a lot of money.

2. Have an open door policy

When you have an open door policy, you leave your door “open” for feedback from your salespeople. In other words, you encourage them to be transparent with you – about both good and bad things happening at your business.

This is helpful because it allows you to build trust with your salespeople, and salespeople who trust their manager are more likely to be happy at work.

On top of that, an open door policy allows you to gain valuable insight on what is happening in your sales department. If something goes wrong, your salespeople will let you know and you can take quick action to solve the problem.

While this policy is often beneficial, it can backfire if your salespeople begin to use it as an excuse to needlessly complain about other employees. So, make sure you set the right expectations and focus on problem-solving rather than fielding constant complaints.

 

3. Relieve your team of time-consuming administrative tasks

Research shows that 20% of reps’ time is spent on reporting, administrative and CRM-related tasks.

Can you imagine how much your team’s sales results could improve if you cut that time down significantly?

Chances are the results would improve quite a bit. Your salespeople would be able to focus on what they do best – selling – and avoid wasting time handling tedious tasks that do not directly produce new customers.

To help cut down the time your sales team spends on administrative tasks, you can:

• Hire an administrative assistant to help with the workload
• Provide your sales team with the tools necessary to finish admin tasks as fast as possible
• Automate any administrative tasks you can

All of these actions can make your sales team far more productive, and they will also be much happier when they are relieved of this kind of work.

 

4. Keep meetings to a minimum

How many meetings do you have just for the sake of having a meeting?

At first, you may not think you are guilty of doing this. But really stop and think – out of the last several meetings you held, were all of them 100% necessary?

Chances are at least one of them could have been handled as an email sent out to your team or via some other, more efficient method.

While meetings can be important, many of them end up wasting time. So next time you think you need to hold a meeting, ask yourself:

Is this important enough to take time that could be spent selling away from my team?

If the answer is “no,” then consider cancelling the meeting and relaying the necessary information to your team a different way. If you do need to hold the meeting, make sure it is set up in a way that will allow you to deliver the information as efficiently as possible.

 

5. Get to know your sales team

While you do not need to become deeply involved in the personal lives of your salespeople, you should get to know their strengths and weaknesses.

By doing so, you will be better equipped to help them achieve better sales results.

For example, if you know that one of your salespeople is great at building rapport but struggles to close sales, you can work with that salesperson to help improve their closing techniques.

 

6. Set reasonable but challenging goals

Top salespeople are highly competitive, so they appreciate challenging goals that push them to achieve the best results possible.

However, if the goals you set are so challenging that they are nearly impossible to meet, even your most competitive salespeople may start to feel discouraged. No one likes feeling as if they are being set up for failure.

Thus, you must set goals that are both realistic and challenging. These goals can be related to sales results, professional development, skill improvement and more. Make an effort to tailor the goals to each salesperson’s strengths and weaknesses, and monitor everyone’s progress so you can see what is improving and what needs to be changed.

 

7. Prioritize work-life balance

Salespeople are known for working long hours. While they may love their job, they will likely experience burn out if they do not have enough work-life balance.

Make sure your salespeople have plenty of personal time where they do not have to be preoccupied by work. For example, you may want to advise salespeople who work extremely long hours to take extra breaks.

Sure, there may still be times when your salespeople trade personal time for work time. However, you should make sure this does not become a common habit. Your salespeople will be more productive if they are well rested and happy in all areas of their life.

 

Final Thoughts

Remember to focus on the growth of your company inside and out, and you will find that your team will respond positively.

Because in the end, happy salespeople are productive salespeople.

That is why it is so important to do what you can as a sales manager, director or VP to help improve your sales team’s quality of life at work.

 

The post 7 Tips to Keep Your Sales Team Happy and Productive appeared first on SalesDrive, LLC.

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As the fintech industry continues to mature, new segments are taking the lead when it comes to growth.

A study by PwC and UK-based fintech accelerator Startupbootcamp FinTech London looks at, among other things, the percentage of total applications to the accelerator constituted by startups in different segments of fintech.

These numbers indicate which areas of the fintech industry have the most growth potential in 2017, which are reaching maturity as indicated by fewer new startups, and which exhibited steady development between 2015 and 2016.

Here are several of the study's main findings:

• Three fintech segments saw the largest growth in the overall share of applications. These were cloud and core processing solutions, which grew from 14% in 2015 to 22% in 2016; "smarter, faster machines" (i.e. artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning, and blockchain technology), up from 12% to 16%; and "shifting customer preferences" (i.e. customer segmentation and product personalization solutions), up from 11% to 14%. Application growth in these areas is probably in part the result of evolving technology in such segments, as well as growing consumer willingness to interact with their financial services providers in different ways.
• Three segments saw a decline in the overall share of applications. These were "cashless world" (i.e. digital retail payment solutions), which fell from 19% in 2015 to 17% in 2016; "empowered investors" (e.g. robo-advisors), down from 17% to 11%; and emerging payments rails, down from 11% to just 3%. These declines suggest that fintechs already operating in these areas, particularly in payments, have established their positions and are discouraging startups from attempting to challenge them.
• Three segments maintained their share of applications. Crowdfunding's application share rose just 1% from 6% in 2015 to 7% in 2016; alt lending's share stayed stable at 6%; and new market platforms (for capital markets, specifically) saw a slight increase from 4% to 5%. This suggests that while there may be some firmly established players which dominate these areas, newcomers think there are still problems that their larger peers have not effectively addressed.

Going forward, we are likely to see funding growth correspond with application share. The study's findings offer a reliable if narrow indicator of which segments will see growth this year. As such, we are likely to see the most investment deals emerge in the areas of cloud and other core technologies, AI and machine learning, and customer data analytics, as they continue to evolve rapidly and present untapped opportunities for investors to seize.

We’ve entered the most profound era of change for financial services companies since the 1970s brought us index mutual funds, discount brokers and ATMs. No firm is immune from the coming disruption and every company must have a strategy to harness the powerful advantages of the new fintech revolution.

The battle already underway will create surprising winners and stunned losers among some of the most powerful names in the financial world: The most contentious conflicts (and partnerships) will be between startups that are completely reengineering decades-old practices, traditional power players who are furiously trying to adapt with their own innovations, and total disruption of established technology & processes:

• Traditional Retail Banks vs. Online-Only Banks: Traditional retail banks provide a valuable service, but online-only banks can offer many of the same services with higher rates and lower fees

• Traditional Lenders vs. Peer-to-Peer Marketplaces: P2P lending marketplaces are growing much faster than traditional lenders—only time will tell if the banks strategy of creating their own small loan networks will be successful

• Traditional Asset Managers vs. Robo Advisors: Robo advisors like Betterment offer lower fees, lower minimums and solid returns to investors, but the much larger traditional asset managers are creating their own robo-products while providing the kind of handholding that high net worth clients are willing to pay handsomely for.

As you can see, this very fluid environment is creating winners and losers before your eyes…and it’s also creating the potential for new cost savings or growth opportunities for both you and your company.

After months of researching and reporting this important trend, Sarah Kocianski, senior research analyst for BI Intelligence, Business Insider's premium research service, has put together an essential report on the fintech ecosystem that explains the new landscape, identifies the ripest areas for disruption, and highlights the some of the most exciting new companies. These new players have the potential to become the next Visa, Paypal or Charles Schwab because they have the potential to transform important areas of the financial services industry like:

• Retail banking

• Lending and Financing

• Payments and Transfers
• 
Wealth and Asset Management

• Markets and Exchanges

• Insurance

• Blockchain Transactions


If you work in any of these sectors, it’s important for you to understand how the fintech revolution will change your business and possibly even your career. And if you’re employed in any part of the digital economy, you’ll want to know how you can exploit these new technologies to make your employer more efficient, flexible and profitable.

Among the big picture insights you'll get from The Fintech Ecosystem Report: Measuring the effects of technology on the entire financial services industry:

• Fintech investment continues to grow. After landing at $19 billion in total in 2015, global fintech funding had already reached $15 billion by mid-August 2016.
• The areas of fintech attracting media and investor attention are changing. Insurtech, robo advisors, and digital-only banks are only a few of the segments making waves. B2B fintechs are also playing an increasingly prominent role in the ecosystem. 
• It's not all good news for fintechs. Major hurdles, including customer acquisition and profitability, remain. As a result, many are becoming more willing to enter partnerships and adjust their business models. 
• Incumbents are enacting strategies to ensure they remain relevant. Many financial firms have woken up to the threat posed by fintechs and are implementing innovation strategies to stave off disruption. The majority of these strategies involve some interaction with fintech firms. 
• The relationship between incumbents and fintechs continues to evolve. Fintechs are no longer viewed exclusively as a threat, nor can they be ignored. They are increasingly viewed as partners, but that narrative alone is too simple — in reality, a more nuanced connection is taking hold. 

This exclusive report also:

• Assesses the state of the fintech industry. 
• Gives details on the drivers of its growth. 
• Explains which areas of fintech are gaining traction. 
• Outlines the range of current and potential models for fintech and incumbent interaction. 

The Fintech Ecosystem Report: Measuring the effects of technology on the entire financial services industry is how you get the full story on the fintech revolution.

To get your copy of this invaluable guide to the fintech revolution, choose one of these options:

1. Subscribe to an ALL-ACCESS Membership with BI Intelligence and gain immediate access to this report AND over 100 other expertly researched deep-dive reports, subscriptions to all of our daily newsletters, and much more. >> START A MEMBERSHIP
2. Purchase the report and download it immediately from our research store. >> BUY THE REPORT

The choice is yours. But however you decide to acquire this report, you’ve given yourself a powerful advantage in your understanding of the fast-moving world of financial technology.

Join the conversation about this story »

Even smart people make stupid mistakes in their writing. 

Sometimes it's laziness or impatience; sometimes they're genuinely confused.

Using data from millions of its subscribers, Microsoft recently rounded up a list of the top 10 grammar mistakes in the English language. The data comes from people who use Microsoft Word and/or Outlook, both of which come with a tool called Editor.

Editor highlights spelling and grammar errors and makes suggestions to help improve your writing.

It can make a bad impression if you have a document riddled with mistakes, says Nicole Michel, a linguist who is also a project manager at Microsoft.

She told Business Insider: "If you send a CV to a potential employer and it's full of grammar or spelling mistakes, it's going to show carelessness and lack of attention to detail, and also it shows that you're not really putting emphasis and importance on the task."

Below, we've listed the 10 most common grammar errors, along with examples, according to Microsoft. There's a good chance you've made at least one.

1. Leaving too many white spaces between words

Example: To  the left.

Correct: To the left.

2. Missing a comma

Example: If the weather remains the same we'll leave early.

Correct: If the weather remains the same, we'll leave early.

3. Missing a comma after an introductory phrase

Example: First of all we must make sure that the power is off.

Correct: First of all, we must make sure that the power is off.

4. Missing a hyphen

Example: My 3 year old son

Correct: My 3-year-old son

5. Incorrect subject-verb agreement

Example: The cats eats.

Correct: The cats eat.

6. Incorrect capitalization

Example: It's cold, But we are going out.

Correct: It's cold, but we are going out.

7. Mixing up possessive and plural forms

Example: My sisters car is old.

Correct: My sister's car is old.

8. Incorrect agreement with noun phrases

Example: I would like to buy this apples.

Correct: I would like to buy these apples.

9. Commonly confused words

Example: After all that running, I am out of breathe.

Correct: After all that running, I am out of breath.

Read Microsoft's list of most commonly confused words. 

10. Incorrect verb form after auxiliary

Example: They had ate when we arrived.

Correct: They had eaten when we arrived.

SEE ALSO: Here are the most commonly confused words in the English language, according to Microsoft

Join the conversation about this story »

NOW WATCH: Affect or effect? A writing coach breaks down the most common grammar mistakes in under 2 minutes

Best-selling author Ann Handley has the secret to level-up your writing skills. She shared it at Content Marketing World. Now, I share it with you.

Many of us might think that the secret to becoming a “ludicrously spectacular” writer is magic. Or an innate talent or gift. But Ann gave us the cold reality: To be a better writer requires showing up every day and doing the work.

And with that realization understood, she took off to reveal the five levels of her writing pyramid and some tools to help along the way.

Level 1: Don’t write

The level that should consume most of your time doesn’t look anything like writing. Yes, the foundation of good writing is not writing but thinking and researching.

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Writing is NOT the foundation of good writing. It’s thinking and researching, says @annhandley.
Click To Tweet

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At this stage, you embrace the writer’s spirit animal — the squirrel. You are a scatter-hoarder, collecting ideas like acorns and saving them in various places — digital and physical.

Then, you take the idea and research “the daylights out of it,” using Google, including its Books and Scholar options, and other available tools.

Level 2: Create an ugly first draft

Don’t stare at the blinking cursor on a blank page in Word. Don’t even think that you’re writing. Tell yourself something like:

• I’m just making a list of key points.
• I’m writing an email.
• I’m only outlining my ideas.

Or record your thoughts and then transcribe them. Find what works for you and, sooner rather than later, that blinking cursor will be farther down the screen.

If your inner critic is loud, muzzle it with a distraction-free writing tool. While Ann lists a bunch in her book Everybody Writes, three of her favorites are Draft, OmmWriter, and Ulysses.

The main idea here is to stifle your inner critic and your inner editor; instead, just get a bunch of ideas and words on the page in whatever way you’re able.

Level 3: Screw and do

Pick one key point (the screw) and make it easily accessible to the reader. As Beth Dunn, a writer at HubSpot, explains, “The screw is the fixed point around which everything else turns.”

Always ask (and answer) what’s in it for your audience — that’s the gateway to pathological empathy for your reader.

To ensure that your writing is focused:

• Self-edit by chainsaw — make each paragraph earn its keep.
• Self-edit by surgical tools — make each sentence earn its keep.
• Self-edit for voice — make sure the text sounds like a real person with a point of view (more on this in Level 5).

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Edit by chainsaw & surgical tools. Make each paragraph & sentence earn its keep, says @annhandley.
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Level 4: Spend the most time on the first line

Ann confessed that she obsesses more about the first line than anything else in her content, including the headline. The first line either makes people want to read further or stop reading right then. Remember, readers are looking for reasons NOT to read your content.

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I obsess more about the first line than anything else in my #content including the headline, says @annhandley.
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Ways to make an enticing first line include:

• Putting your reader into the story
• Asking a question
• Quoting a crazy bit of data
• Telling a story or personal anecdote

Level 5: Find and use your voice

Though we read in silence, we hear the words in our heads and form opinions. We listen to decide if they resonate. Your voice is what separates your content from your competitors. Think of it this way, if you took your brand label off your content, would you know it was your content? Would your clients know?

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Your voice is what separates your #content from your competitors, says @annhandley.
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To identify your brand personality, answer these three questions:

• Who are you?
• Why do you do what you do?
• What are you like to deal with?

Here’s how Uberflip defines its brand voice:

Uberflip also has a well-detailed style guide. Ann encourages all to steal from it to create their own brand style guide.

In developing your voice, consider detailing elements such as:

• Tone
• Word choice (short or long, colorful, serious, etc.)
• Sentence and paragraph length
• Analogies
• Accessibility

Conclusion

The caveat to all of Ann’s tips is that you should not forsake substance for style. Keeping that in mind, I now ask you to take The Writer’s Pledge shared by Ann in her presentation. Put your left hand on a dictionary and raise your right hand, and say these words loudly (or silently, in your head, if you’re not alone and don’t want others to wonder what the heck you’re doing):

• I will collect and hoard five ideas a day.
• I will not hit the backspace while I’m writing.
• I will not go straight from writing to publishing.
• I will have pathological empathy for the reader.
• I will not sound like everyone else.

Are you ready to do the work every day? If so, make sure to block out Sept.  5-8 — take a break from the daily writing work and learn a lot at Content Marketing World in Cleveland, Ohio, and hear what Ann Handley has to say in September 2017. Use code BLOG100 to save $100 on early-bird pricing. Register today!

Cover image by Joseph Kalinowski/Content Marketing Institute

The post Ann Handley on How to Make Your Writing ‘Ludicrously Spectacular’ appeared first on Content Marketing Institute.

Since 2010, the popularity of infographics has soared online–and is still on the rise, as charted by Google Trends below.

At one point, the use of infographics was limited to academic circles, but now they’re seen as a way to make any topic more palatable.

Today, we find them everywhere, from our Facebook and Twitter feeds to our favorite blogs on all types of subjects, ranging from cooking substitutions to how to become a more inspiring leader.

The problem is that with this surge in popularity also came a huge influx of chart junk, which are cluttered visualizations with unnecessary or confusing elements.

Chances are that if you’re reading this, you’ve probably tried to create your own infographics in the past and didn’t get the results you were hoping for.

After analyzing hundreds of the top-performing infographics online, we’ve come up with this list of reasons why some infographics fail to generate a significant ROI and how to avoid future infographic fails:

1. It doesn’t provide a new angle.

One of the main reasons some infographics fall by the wayside is that they don’t add anything new to a particular discussion or topic.

Some of the ways you can avoid this fate with your infographic is to look for unconventional angles when dealing with widely covered topics or analyze data from a different perspective in order to uncover trends hidden below the surface.

Takeaway: Don’t be like the hundreds of other infographics posted online–add something new to the conversation.

2. It doesn’t provide practical value.

According to our analysis of more than 200 of the most shared infographics online, a large percentage of the best-performing ones provide some sort of practical value to the reader.

Whether in the form of an ultimate guide on how to accomplish a difficult task or a visual cheat sheet, many of the most viral infographics do the hard work of compiling useful information in one easy-to-read visual that invites readers to bookmark it for future reference.

Takeaway: Readers are more likely to share and bookmark your infographic if it provides a tangible benefit to them.

3. It doesn’t make information easier to understand.

The mark of an effective and persuasive infographic is its ability to make information easy to understand within a few seconds of viewing it. But many fall short of this goal by converting textual information into eye candy, and nothing more.

Take a look at the infographic above, for example. It actually does a disservice to the information by making it harder–not easier–to understand.

Takeaway: Don’t try to force your information into an infographic if it doesn’t have much to gain from being visualized.

4. It isn’t well designed.

This mistake is particularly common among those who venture into the uncharted territory of infographic design without the proper tools or knowledge to do it well.

When this happens, it is easy to make amateur mistakes that take the attention away from your message–rather than attract it. Among some of the most common mistakes that can result in an infographic fail are cluttered designs, the lack of contrast, unattractive color schemes and ill-chosen font combinations.

You can consult this comprehensive step-by-step visual guide for non-designers to avoid making these same mistakes with your infographics.

Takeaway: An effective infographic acts not just as eye candy but uses design principles to draw attention to key points.

5. It doesn’t tell a story.

Other infographics may follow all the prescribed design rules but then fail to tie all the elements together with a narrative structure.

Instead of piling one data point on top of another, make your infographic more palatable by weaving it together with a storyline, like in the example above (click to view full infographic).

Takeaway: Stories sell. Implement a narrative structure to make your message easier to understand and remember.

6. It doesn’t empower your audience.

Some of the best infographics are the ones that help readers make better decisions, whether it be in the political arena, in their finances or their personal lives.

Make sure that your infographic empowers individuals by giving them the knowledge they need to make informed decisions.

Takeaway: Provide accurate and well-researched insights that help readers make better decisions.

7. The copy is not written for an infographic.

A very common amateur mistake is creating copy for an infographic as if it were a report or an article. This can render your infographic ineffective as it defeats the purpose of communicating with visuals, rather than with words.

Instead, create copy for your infographic as if it were a website: All textual messages should go hand in hand with their accompanying visual elements and never repeat their content but complement it.

Also, make sure to craft a catchy headline, as this is typically the first thing a reader looks at when they view an infographic.

Takeaway: When writing copy for your infographic, make it short and sweet.

8. The message is diluted.

Many infographics out there are so convoluted that they dilute the main message with unnecessary graphic elements and poor structure.

For every element in your infographic, whether it be textual or visual, always ask yourself: Do I really need this to communicate my main message? If the answer is no, then consider doing away with it.

Takeaway: Less is more. Eliminate unnecessary elements to make your key point stand out.

9. Influencers aren’t involved in the promotion process.

When the creation process is complete, many first-time infographic creators simply adopt a “publish and pray” mentality when it comes to promoting it.

But one of the keys to gaining traction online is to reach out to influencers who have written about your topic and ask them to check out your work. If they find it valuable enough, they’ll gladly share it with their audience.

Takeaway: Involve the right influencers in the creation process and then ask them to share with their followers.

10. Little time is spent on outreach efforts.

Once your infographic is complete, you can launch drip campaigns on social media channels to share the most interesting snippets from your visual.

Make sure to spend some time researching where your target audience hangs out and post to those specific discussion groups

Takeaway: Spend as much time promoting your infographic as you did creating it.

Do you sell a complex product or service? Then you know how hard it is to pare down a complicated pitch into easy-to-read, straightforward messaging.

As a growth coach for HubSpot's Sales Partner Program, I field a lot of different questions from sales technology specialists. The most common question by far is: "How can I efficiently pitch CRM implementation services to new prospects?"That's why I created this five-email sequence written in plain English that can be adapted to pitch a technical service or solution.

Want to save these templates for later? Scroll to the the bottom of this post for directions on how to use these templates in the free HubSpot CRM. 

1) The (Somewhat) Formal First Email

The first email to a new prospect should always be more formal than your follow-up messages -- but you still want to sound like a human. I recommend asking a general question about how they (or their business) is doing. Then, get into your pitch. Sticking to a couple, easy-to-skim bullet points shows you respect their time and will be easy to work with moving forward.

2) The One-Line Follow-Up Email

Haven't heard back in three days? Send a simple follow-up asking if the prospect missed your first email. Keeping this email vague encourages your prospect to search their inbox for your first email. Chances are when they find it, they'll read it more carefully than they would have the first time. And if they can't find it, they'll probably reply asking about the first email -- giving you another avenue to begin the conversation. 

3) The Video Demo

Still no reply? It's possible the prospect isn't comfortable commiting to a general conversation about CRM systems (or whatever complex solution you offer). Sending them a video of the best fit CRM system or product for their business will help them quickly understand your value proposition. Prospects are 74% more likely to understand the benefits of a product when they watch a video of it in action. 

But guessing which CRM is the perfect fit for a prospect is difficult -- and you won't always get it right. Make sure to ask for their feedback after the link. Even if a prospect replies with negative feedback, you've started a productive conversation about their needs.

4) The Final Push

Some prospects require more touches than others. If the prospect has not replied to your first three emails, follow up with two or three points and a resource explaining why this particular CRM -- and your company's implementation services -- are a perfect fit for the prospect's business.

When pitching the HubSpot CRM, I usually empahsize its ease-of-use and high customer satisfaction ranking on G2Crowd. 

5) The Breakup Email

Try one last time before giving up. Ironically, salespeople often receive their highest reply rates with this type of message. For this reason, you should always incude a meeting link or phone number in the final email so it's easy for prospects to reach out when the time is right. 

Of course, these templates won't work for every single prospect. But I am confident they will greatly increase the productivity of your current prospecting efforts.

If your still finding diffiuclt to find new clients for crm implementation services, please book some time on my calendar. I'll be happy to help any way that I can. 

Want to save these templates for later? Follow these simple steps:

Step 1. Sign up for HubSpot's CRM.

Step 2. Copy any of the templates above.

Step 3. Once you sign up, click here to open your HubSpot CRM email templates tool. Click Create your first email template, then Start from scratch.

Step 4. Paste the template and subject line. Click Add template to save it.

Coaching sales reps is the most important role front-line sales managers play, according to 74% of leading companies surveyed by Forbes Insights and Brainshark.

And research from the Sales Executive Council shows that no other productivity investment improves performance more than coaching -- or even come close.

However, the average sales manager spends just 20% of her time proactively coaching.

What’s responsible for this discrepancy between what companies want and what sales leaders actually do?

There are two main causes. First, many sales managers don’t understand what sales coaching really means. Others know from experience the value of a great manager and coach -- but don’t know how to be one themselves.

As a result, salespeople don’t receive enough coaching and sales performance suffers.

That’s why we’ve added a custom coaching module to our own sales management system.

We also collected best practices from the hundreds of sales leaders. Here’s what we learned about top-performing sales coaching strategies.

1) You’re regularly coaching your salespeople.

Without ongoing reinforcement, reps lose 84% of what they learned in sales training in just 90 days.

That’s why sales leaders must pair training with frequent, regular sales coaching sessions. By “coaching,” I don’t mean walking by each rep’s desk and asking them how their key deals are progressing.

I mean performing regular pipeline reviews and coaching reps on their opportunities. Sales managers should also periodically sit in on a few prospect meetings to coach reps on their messaging, delivery, and value proposition. Finally, everyone in sales management should be having weekly one-on-one sessions with each of their team members.

2) You’re mentoring top, middle, and low performers.

Many sales leaders tend to spend too much time coaching top performers because those are the ones helping the entire team meet quota.

Managers want to do anything they can to help their top reps both meet their number and stay at the organization.

Conversely, some sales leaders concentrate their coaching time on the worst performers. They see these reps are struggling and feel responsible for boosting them up.

While you shouldn’t ignore your highest and lowest performers, the most effective sales coaches dedicate the majority of their time to the middle performers. A study from the Sales Executive Council found that a 5% increase in productivity across middle performers on your team yields over 70% more revenue than the same productivity increase for top performers. Why? Because there are far more middle performers than top ones.

3) You’re using clear, consistent agendas.

A formal coaching process helps sales teams attain quota.

According to CSO Insights, 62% of reps either meet or exceed quota at companies with formal processes. Less than half those reps reach the same threshold at companies with informal processes.

To make your coaching sessions more structured, create a simple agenda of 4-5 topics to cover each time.

When coaching a rep around a particular meeting, for example, you’ll want to identify their agenda, meeting objective, planned questions, and customized value proposition. A deal coaching session, on the other hand, would review pipeline and open opportunities, as well as the key steps or obstacles to help secure a win.

A coaching agenda helps your rep know what to expect and makes the meeting more efficient.

4) You’re using data.

Effective coaching balances objective data and subjective feedback. Many old-school sales managers lean heavily on their emotions or gut instincts. However, research from Aberdeen found using more data accelerates the sales cycle, boosts the percentage of reps meeting quota, and reduces sales turnover.

Which metrics should you be tracking and working on with your salespeople? Of course, pipeline and bookings are critical. You should also discuss overall activity performance, which you can track with sales scorecards or activity management systems.

Use activity metrics to identify best practices from your top performers, then distribute those insights to the rest of your team. Activity data will also help you identify whom to coach, when to coach them, and what to coach them on.

LevelEleven recently hosted a webinar featuring sales coaching research and best practices. Click here to access the webinar recording.

Click here to jump straight to the responses.

Price objections are common in sales — primarily because most prospects have learned pushing back on cost will get them a discount.

That makes it difficult to respond to a pricing objection if you don’t want to immediately lower your price. While discounting has its place in the sales process, being too discount-happy will destroy your margins and lower your product’s perceived value.

How to Discuss Price

This process will help you overcome price objections:

Step One: After the prospect has finished speaking, pause for three to five seconds.
(Hit the “Mute” button if you need to.)

Step Two: Explore the pricing objection. According to sales trainer and consultant Colleen Francis, you can ask up to three questions before responding to the objection.

Step Three: Summarize their price objection in a few sentences.

Step Four: Circle back to your product’s value.

Here’s an example (using response #23 from this list):

Prospect: “We really like the product, but it costs too much.”

Rep: *Silence.*

Prospect: “The other options we’re exploring are 10-15% cheaper. Is there any way you can come down a bit?”

Rep: “I understand. In fact, I had two other customers just like you who were uneasy about the price at first. But what they found was … ”

When to Discuss Price

According to Gong's analysis of 25,537 sales calls, there are clear-cut "best times" to discuss your product's price — between 13 and 20 minutes, and 40 and 49 minutes.

These findings make sense: High-performing reps bring up pricing at the beginning of the call to set their prospect's expectations, and again near the end so they can transition smoothly into the close. 

While you shouldn't abruptly change the topic right when the clock hits 40 minutes, you should structure the meeting so you can hit pricing when you're around 20% and 65% of the way through.

30 Responses to Price Objections

The following responses to pricing objections allow you to acknowledge your prospect’s concern without immediately slashing your price or causing them to walk away.

1. "Too expensive compared to what?"

"Expensive" is a relative term. Are they referring to one of your competitors? Are they referencing what it might cost to not leverage your kind of product or service? If you can find out what the prospect is comparing your product or service to, you can more precisely differentiate value.

2. "How are you coming to the conclusion [product] is too expensive?"

This prompts the prospect to break down their reasoning. It offers a better picture of who your customers are and how they think. Once a salesperson better understands the specific concerns behind the sticker shock, they can more easily address them.

3. "Are there some boxes we left unchecked?"

Give them some space for input. See where you both stand in the transaction. Circle back and make sure the sales process unfolded to both parties' expectations. If nothing else, it can help your sales efforts going forward.

4. "I hear you. The best products are often more expensive."

According to sales expert Geoffrey James, "a price objection isn't 'real' until the customer has brought it up twice." Using this response the first time you hear "it's too expensive" can help you separate the prospects who truly don't have the budget from those who are merely kicking the tires.

5. "How much will it cost you to do nothing?"

Get them thinking about the situation at hand a bit more. Reveal the bigger picture. Show the hidden costs in the status quo, and put yourself in a better position to demonstrate the value of your product or service. 

6. "Is it a cash flow issue, or a budget issue?"

This question gets to the heart of whether they are asking for a discount (budget) or payment terms (cash flow). Once the rep categorizes the objection, they can negotiate more effectively.

7. “Let’s explore some creative strategies for fitting this into your budget.”

If your prospect doesn’t have enough allocated funding, try to find a workaround. Suppose their department has a set budget for software and a separate one dedicated to maintenance. Instead of charging them one flat price, you might send one contract for your product and another for your service fees. Now that you’ve unbundled or unpackaged your solution, your prospect can fit it into the budget.

You can also bill the buyer in stages. Let’s say your product would max out their quarterly budget — and they need to save money for other purchases. Charge them half now, and half next quarter.

Not only will the buyer appreciate your flexibility, but you’ll rescue the deal without compromising on price.

8. "Let's say money was no object. Would our product/service help solve your problem?"

This is a fast track back to value. Make them think about their situation and visualize what your product or service could do for them. If they have that idealistic picture, they'll be more inclined to hear your realistic proposition. 

9. "What's too expensive?"

Asking this (gently) prompts the prospect to explain their conception of your product/service. Hearing a response along the lines of "Well, it's a lot for just X, Y, and Z" reveals their low value perception.

10. "Too expensive? That's concerning."

Concerning because this product/service is so valuable for the cost. Nudge the prospect back to value. Be careful with this one, you don't want to sound too overly aggressive or condescending. 

11. "Is price the only thing that's keeping you from signing?"

This one can bring other important issues prospect has to light. If they have any other objections the salesperson needs to address, this question will surface them.

12. "Okay. So which part don't you want?"

What you're telling the buyer is that price is inextricably linked to value. So if a buyer doesn't want to pay full price, they won't be able to get the full value. This question might prompt them to reconsider.

13. "Will price keep you from getting what you really want?"

You're not calling them cheap outright, but you are raising the question in their minds. And no one likes to be cheap, especially when their business is on the line. Alternatively, this will reveal if your product or service isn't the ideal solution for their problem.

14. "Does this mean we will never have the chance to work together?"

Francis argues that the word "never" is the kicker.

"When it comes to handling sales objections, 'never' is the most powerful word in the English language," Francis writes. "Most people hate it. As a result, the vast majority of prospects will respond by saying, 'well, no … not never!'"

The salesperson can then probe into the conditions required in order to strike a deal and adapt terms or walk away accordingly.

15. "Setting price aside, do we have the product/service you want to buy?"

Be frank with them. Get a definitive picture of their interest in your product or service. If they say yes, you can follow up with #12. If they say no, determine if it makes sense to go back to value or abandon the deal.

16. "What's the ROI you're looking to see?"

This steers them away from thinking in terms of "expensive" or "cheap," and towards the long-term value for their business. It also puts you in a position to objectively define the value of your product or service. 

17. "It might seem expensive for one day, but let's break it down by month/quarter."

A lump sum can seem scary to anyone, so parcel the number out a bit. Show them a new way to conceive of your pricing. Have figures on how the cost distributes over years, months, or days at the ready.

18. "Is what you're saying that our prices are high in comparison to our competitors'?"

Like so many others on this list, you have to deliver this one without aggressiveness or condescension. And if your price is indeed higher than the competition's, this question opens the door for the salesperson to differentiate on value.

19. "Have you ever bought a similar product or service before?"

Another possibility is that the prospect has an inaccurate idea of what this type of product or service costs — perhaps because they've never purchased it before. With this question, you can clear up their misconception.

20. “Price is an important consideration. So I have some context: How much research have you done on what a typical investment is for a product/service like this?”

According to Andrew Quinn, VP of Learning & Development at HubSpot, the question behind this one is, “Do you already know what something like this should cost?”

Thanks to your prospect’s inexperience, they might be placing your product in the wrong category.

For instance, maybe your solution has both a data storage and an analytics component. If they compare it to other data storage options, it’ll look significantly more expensive. But if they benchmark it with analytics software, your price is right in line with the competition.

21. "You think it costs too much?"

Prospects can change how they feel as they hear recap their perspectives. Feeding their line back to them forces the them to explain their position, and might make them reconsider in the process.

22. "When's the last time you bought something based on price alone?"

Again, no one likes to feel cheap. This question provides an excellent opportunity to differentiate your value from your competitors. 

23. "I understand. In fact, I had two other customers just like you who were uneasy about the price at first. But what they found was ... "

Empathize with the prospect, and then address their concerns with a strong case study that proves value. Be able to demonstrate real results — having hard figures is a big plus when doing this. 

24. "In your own business, is your product/service always the least expensive option available?"

If you're a B2B salesperson, this is a great line to have in your back pocket. The buyer's organization has to win deals too, and they probably do it on value and not just price. If delivered correctly, this line might elicit a chuckle — and a signed contract.

25. "Do you really need to say 'no' to our price right now?"

Seems a little harsh, right? Not so according to Tom Reilly, the sales expert behind this approach.

"When the buyer says, 'I don’t know. The price is higher than I want to go,' try two or three ways to deal with it. If nothing works, offer this response and watch the expression on the buyer’s face," Reilly wrote in a blog post. "I guarantee they will raise their eyebrows."

If the buyer replies that they don't have to say no right now, the salesperson can then suggest the prospect take a few days to mull over the price — and realize that by saying no the price, they're saying no to the product and its associated value.

26. "[Silence]"

Sometimes the best response is no response. When a salesperson simply falls silent after an objection, the prospect often begins to explain their rationale. The rep can then address specific concerns from there —no prompting needed.

27. “Up front, it's a significant purchase. But when we look at [weekly, monthly, yearly] ROI, you’ll actually save money.”

Put your product in context. Let them know you understand their hesitance and concern, but assure them that those issues can be smoothed over. Again, having hard figures to back up this question is huge. 

28. “[Prospect’s name], I would rather apologize for the price today than for the lack of quality and your unhappiness forever. Now, let’s not let a few dollars keep us from doing business together.”

This reply comes from famous salesperson and trainer Zig Ziglar courtesy of Butch Bellah. It reminds your prospect skimping on price will hurt them in the long run.

29. "Thanks for your honesty. How much were you thinking of spending?"

The prospect's answer will reveal whether they're in the right ballpark or playing in a completely different state. This response also turns the conversation back on them, so they're forced to take a stand or admit they were bluffing.

30. "That's a little surprising to me, because when we talked [earlier, on X day] cost was less of a concern. Has something new come up on your end I should know about?"

Use this objection-handling strategy when you've previously discussed price and it definitely wasn't an issue. Something has clearly changed — your prospect has begun evaluating a less expensive alternative, the final decision maker has asked them to get a discount, their department just invested in a different solution and now they have less budget — and you need to figure out what did. 

31. "I don't want to force you into something here — but I also don't want you to miss out. Is this something that would be less of an issue next quarter?"

You never want to rush a deal that's too discounted or too much of a stretch for your prospect. Offering a steep price reduction just to close a deal will do your business more harm than good over the long run. And pushing a close your prospect really can't afford might lead to early termination or default on payment —also not good for your business.

Instead, be open to waiting until more budget opens up. A matter of weeks might mean the difference of thousands of dollars for your company and your commission.

32. "How soon would you need to see ROI for this to work with your budget?"

Telling your prospect they'll see 20% ROI isn't comforting when they have a strict budget and aren't sure how long it will take to see those returns. Ask them how soon they must see the benefits of your product/service and do the math with them to determine whether they can achieve that goal, even with their current budget. 

33. "What are the most valuable parts of the product/service for you?"

If it's just not possible for them to afford your full product/service, ask which parts would be most valuable to their business and work with your sales manager to create à-la-carte pricing. This might not be possible with your business model, but if it is, you'll earn a thankful customer — and hopefully more business from them down the line. 

Once you've gotten a handle on the blocker, you can determine whether it's surmountable or you need to walk away.

Want to learn more? Discover the five most common objections in prospecting and how to overcome them. 

Editor's note: This post was originally published in June 15, 2018 and has been updated for comprehensiveness.

Loyalty programs have proliferated across travel, retail, financial services, and other economic sectors. The average U.S. household participates in 29 different loyalty programs, according to the 2015 Colloquy Loyalty Census. The result is a maze of point systems and redemption options, with cumbersome processes for exchanging points among program partners. Loyalty programs are ripe for some kind of disruptive innovation that would make them easier to use.

How Blockchain Works

Blockchain may just be the answer. Best known as the technology behind bitcoin, blockchain enables a ledger of transactions to be shared across a network of participants. When a new digital transaction occurs (for example, a loyalty point is issued, redeemed, or exchanged), a unique algorithm-generated token is created and assigned to that transaction. Tokens are grouped into blocks (for example, every 10 minutes) and distributed across the network, updating every ledger at once. New transaction blocks are validated and linked to older blocks, creating a strong, secure, and verifiable record of all transactions, without the need for intermediaries or centralized databases.

For consumers juggling an array of loyalty programs, blockchain could provide instant redemption and exchange for multiple loyalty point currencies on a single platform. With only one “wallet” for points, consumers would not have to hunt for each program’s options, limitations, and redemption rules.

All loyalty programs are vulnerable to a blockchain revolution, but the travel industry is perhaps the most at risk. Travel loyalty programs tend to be complex and multicurrency, making them different from retailers, which typically run simple discount programs, or from banks, which offer cash back or a single currency that can be spent easily across a range of merchants. In some cases, travel loyalty program points differ by journey component (flight, car rental, hotel, dining), leading to fragmented point collections.  While estimates vary widely, we estimate that the typical “breakage” rate (meaning the share of points not redeemed) is about 10%–20%. Plus, it can be difficult for the average person to accumulate enough points to earn a meaningful reward.

The Benefits of Disruption

Many industries have experienced disruption, due to technologies that successfully reduced inefficiencies and frictions, often disintermediating established players in the process. Large travel companies, such as airlines and hotel chains, know this from painful experience: They pay billions of dollars in commissions each year to Priceline, Expedia, and other online travel agencies (OTAs), which have transformed how consumers book flights, hotels, and rental cars. Blockchain-based loyalty platforms could be another such disruption.

Insight Center

Both small startups and large-scale technology companies are eyeing the possibilities this presents, and some are teaming up. IBM, for example, is partnering with startup Loyyal to develop blockchain infrastructure for loyalty and rewards programs. Travel companies with loyalty programs, whether stand-alone or part of a larger alliance, will have to figure out how to respond.

Early adopters could benefit considerably. First, blockchain could help relieve a large balance-sheet liability that many in the industry are facing. Loyalty programs have long relied on cobranded cards and partnerships to sell points and generate incremental revenue. But the number of airline seats and hotel rooms available for redemption in recent years has been limited by near-record occupancy and load factors. The result has been a growing volume of unredeemed points, which new accounting standards have turned into a headache: Revenue attributable to the value of loyalty points must be deferred until the miles are redeemed.

Adopting blockchain would enable companies to rapidly add and maintain loyalty partnerships without adding complexity to their programs. A robust, frictionless partner network could mean many more redemption options outside of the core travel product, thereby creating a much-needed release valve for these growing balance-sheet pressures.

Second, blockchain would enable businesses to break out of the loyalty program mold of narrowly defined, one-size-fits-all programs and redemption processes filled with customer hassles. Consumers increasingly expect personalized (not merely segmented) travel offerings and digitally enabled one-stop services; the growth of OTAs is in part a testament to that. Blockchain would allow both large and local partners to be added seamlessly, making the crafting of on-trend offers much easier, while virtually eliminating the back-end irritations of point redemption.

Caveats for Adoption

What shape are blockchain-based loyalty networks likely to take? Initially, each loyalty program might look to develop its own solution, but over time smaller loyalty programs might choose to band together to compete more effectively with larger ones. Ultimately, we expect to see the development of four to six blockchain-based loyalty networks, each anchored by a major airline, a major hotel chain, or a group of smaller travel companies. Options for building and maintaining the blockchain platform could include a joint venture with technology partners or with network providers such as banks or payment card processors.

Of course, the introduction of one or more blockchain platforms unifying multiple loyalty programs could pose a number of risks. Such platforms would add a transaction layer between consumers and program operators and merchants, likely generating a small per-transaction cost, which could grow over time, much like OTA fees. Customer data, a loyalty program’s most valuable asset, could become available to other network participants, even competitors. Currency devaluation is another risk in what is essentially an open marketplace for points trading.

To reduce these risks and avoid having their loyalty programs become commoditized, travel companies should get in on the ground floor of blockchain platform development. Participating in the initial structuring of commercial agreements and partnerships will be essential to protecting critical loyalty program components, including currency value, customer data and relationships, and transaction costs.

For any travel company considering an investment in blockchain, a few rules will be essential. First, they will want to participate in defining how currency is exchanged between programs — that is, how currency exchange rates are set, and any transferability rules. Second, they should seek to maintain exclusive control over their data, ensuring that only loyalty points, and not associated customer information, enter the transaction stream. Third, they should require guarantees that the platform is and will remain unbiased. Otherwise, traditional travel intermediary tools, such as paid search placements and exclusive promotions, could force companies into pay-to-play arrangements to ensure competitors don’t gain an advantage.

Travel companies, such as airlines and hotel chains, recognized too late the power of OTAs to disrupt the industry, and have been paying for that misstep ever since. The nascent state of blockchain for loyalty programs offers an opportunity to realize the value of disruption and shape its future impacts — if travel companies don’t wait too long.

If you want to become the world's first person to have a net worth with 12 zeros — or $1 trillion — Mark Cuban says artificial intelligence is your industry.

Cuban, a billionaire entrepreneur and owner of the Dallas Mavericks, spoke at the SXSW festival in Austin, Texas this past weekend, claiming AI held untold wealth for anyone clever enough to tap its true potential.

"I am telling you, the world's first trillionaires are going to come from somebody who masters AI and all its derivatives and applies it in ways we never thought of," Cuban said.

The person closest to becoming a trillionaire, at least according to public financial records, is Bill Gates, although he is still about $915 billion short of the title. Some research suggests Gates will become the first trillionaire by the mid-2040s just by virtue of his accumulating wealth.

Cuban's prophecy at SXSW tracks with his past comments that liberal arts are the ticket to professional success. Rather than learn the ins and outs of finance, Cuban sees critical thinking and problem solving becoming far more valuable in the coming decades.

"I would not want to be an accountant right now. I would rather be a philosophy major," he said. However, he did emphasize at the conference the value of studying computer science. "Whatever you are studying right now if you are not getting up to speed on deep learning, neural networks, etc., you lose."

Other tech entrepreneurs have said trillionaires are inevitable. Sam Altman, president of Silicon Valley's largest startup accelerator, Y Combinator, told Business Insider in July 2016 that despite how unfair it might seem, "we need to be ready for a world with trillionaires in it."

Bob Lord, an inequality analyst and tax attorney, believes the rapid acceleration of wealth will happen sometime in the next 25 to 30 years — and will most likely involving technology that doesn't exist yet.

"Someone is going to create something that no one has conceived of before," he told Business Insider.

Cuban concluded his talk at SXSW by encouraging the audience members to think about how the labor market could accommodate all the lost jobs that such AI research could produce.

For his own part, Cuban hasn't jumped on the bandwagon for universal basic income — one of the more popular solutions for a growing AI sector, in which wealth is redistributed to give everyone a salary regardless of work status.

Instead, he has emphasized the need for more efficient government as well as job-creating social support services like AmeriCorps.

SEE ALSO: Bill Gates could be the world's first trillionaire by 2042

Join the conversation about this story »

NOW WATCH: Barbara Corcoran shares 3 things she's learned from working alongside Mark Cuban on 'Shark Tank'

The core idea of “value selling” is giving your customers more than what they expect from their purchase – providing products and services that generate returns well beyond the price paid. This is true in any industry, but is especially relevant when it comes to software sales. Everything from smartphones to the complex computer systems that control the critical functions of large companies rely on software.

Since software is so prevalent in your and your customers’ daily lives, and since it is so important to the profitable functioning of a business, the success or failure of a company can hinge on buying, using, and deriving value from the proper software. With the following value selling concepts, you can provide genuine assistance to your customers while positioning your own software business to thrive.

• You add actual value: This seems to be a given, but a software sales company must be careful that what is sold to the customer adds genuine value beyond the transaction. It may be tempting to add more features or components to a software package, for example, but if the customer won’t use those extra features, or will use them only rarely, they won’t represent actual value for the customer. Sometimes value selling is best manifested in selling less while ensuring the products and services being sold are truly adding value for the customer.
• Proper value selling builds trust and rapport: Customers who feel they cannot trust your company, or who aren’t able to “connect” with you at a professional level, will take their money elsewhere. Part of the value you add should be a high level of trust and reliability. By giving your customers what they need and what is effective, backed up by useful information and advice, you’ll quickly build a trusting relationship. If your products and services have been proven to work, you automatically have an advantage over most competitors.
• Your products and services provide good ROI: Your customer needs a good business case for purchasing your offerings, and as part of the value you add, you should be able to provide data on expected return on investment. The numbers should reflect where within the customer’s operations your software solutions will improve revenues or decrease expenses. Your data should also show how your offerings are more accurately seen as an investment rather than an expense.
• Your products and services must solve problems and relieve pain points: Your offerings should solve the problems you and the customer have identified. You should not add to your customers’ problems by selling them more than they need, something that won’t work as promised, or even something that is not quite right. If your added value includes reduced stress and peace of mind from pain point relief, your customer will be delighted and grateful and is likely to feel obligated to you.
• Your value includes education/training, support, and follow-up: One of the most common and most beneficial of value-added elements is training, education, and follow-up. Build a level of training and education into your sales package to ensure the users will be competent in using the software you sell, but also offer additional higher-level training. Provide a base level of support along with additional support and service packages at other levels your customers can purchase as needed.

Value selling lets you not just solve your customers’ problems but also impress them with your commitment to their success.

How Do Successful Salespeople grow?

Sales is both an art and science. Top sales professionals are always looking for ways to get better at both the art and the science components of selling. This can be done through by employing a variety of different sales training tactics, but continuing to grow and develop on a professional level is critical to becoming and remaining successful in sales.

Here are some sales tips on how successful salespeople grow and develop new techniques and sales methods.

• Professional training – top sales people are always looking for new ideas to develop skills, incorporate technology and develop a wider range of sales strategies. This type of professional training should come from training programs with a proven record of success by graduates and those attending courses and workshops.These courses can relate to communication, technology, sales, product learning, and much more.

• Improve communication skills – a large portion of selling is about proper communication. Simply being an expert about a product or service isn’t going to improve your sales numbers unless you have the skills to communicate that information. Becoming a student of the art of communication and conversation will help any sales professional reach potential buyers. Read books, articles and take classes on how to communicate and negotiate. An absolutely critical part of communication is not the actually talking, but the listening and taking action based on what you hear.

• Learn technology – sales strategies are always evolving to match technology. Learning how to use the latest technology is one of the biggest challenges in sales today. This technology includes social media channels, professional social networking, CRMs, and even how to produce useful emails to reach customers. This is a key ongoing part in how successful salespeople grow.

• Look for growth opportunities – most businesses offer a coaching or mentoring program for their sales staff. The opportunity to act as a mentor or to be mentored is an amazing chance to learn more about sales for everyone involved.

• Business coaching – private, personalized business coaching including successful sales coaching professional and sales training coach is a great way to continue to grow. This can be a highly personalized, one-on-one sales coaching opportunity where the sales professional and the coach work together on specific goals for improvement. This can also be a sales training workshop or keynote where a group works together and learns together.

Finally, take reviews and performance evaluations seriously. Use them as a learning tool to discover areas where personal and professional growth are needed to boost your performance and increase your sales potential into the future. By learning your strengths and weaknesses you can plan your goals and strategies as to how you can grow into a more successful salesperson.

Times are changing. By 2020, millennials will make up half of the U.S. workforce and have a growing influence over organizational decisions, including technology purchases. This isn’t new news.

The increasing hype about the dominance of digitally-dependent millennials in the workplace when compared to their Gen-X counterparts begs the question: Are millennials really that different when it comes to influencing and making technology buying decisions for business? We were dying to know, and we set out to find the real truth.

After surveying 5,470 global professionals on LinkedIn who either influenced, contributed to, owned budget for, made decisions about, or implemented one or more technology purchases for their company over the past year, we closely compared the responses of Younger Millennials (professionals age 19 to 25) to those of Older Millennials (professionals age 25 to 35) and Gen Xers (professionals age 36 to 50). Here’s what the hard data revealed.

Lots of Hype, and a Little Truth

Millennials are gaining representation on the technology buying committee and holding decision-making power. But here’s where the truth ends and the hype begins: When it comes to the significant difference in what influences their technology purchasing decisions, the data shows that millennials and Gen Xers really aren’t that different after all.

According to our findings:

• The buying committee continues to expand, with most encompassing at least four people and evenly distributed between millennial and Gen X cohorts.
• While millennials grew up more digitally connected than their Gen X counterparts, there’s little difference in tech savviness between the two, with three in four tech buyers in the “early majority” of tech adopters across generations.
• Both millennial and Gen X committee members are open to new brands and, when asked about their preferences for learning about new products and services, there was strong preference across the board for using social media (65 percent of younger millennials versus 59 percent for older millennials, and 56 percent of Gen Xers).
• Personalized communication and insights-driven social selling behavior are critical for winning over all three groups, with younger millennials weighing the need for reps to thoughtfully address their business’ needs highest at 78 percent and 59 percent, respectively, versus 73 percent and 50 percent for older Millennials, and 68 percent and 42 percent for Gen Xers.
• More than three in five tech buyers encountered gated content online in 2016. Among these, 87 percent decided not to download due to gating. Millennials, especially younger ones, who encounter gated content are more likely to enter false information than Gen Xers. Privacy and relevancy were primary motivations.

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87% of tech buyers decided not to download content due to gating in 2016.
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Proactive Insights from Hard Data for Marketers and Sellers

Last year, our research highlighted specific attributes of the many roles on the tech buying committee. This year, we examined their selling characteristics and content preferences more closely, paying particular attention to the millennial audience. We found that both front and back house functions (i.e., marketing, finance, business development, and IT) across all three cohorts provide feedback and have sway in vendor selection, implementation, and renewal.

They also prefer sales reps who demonstrate a clear understanding of their businesses’ needs and provide relevant content. For example, whether a millennial or Gen Xer, different content formats are preferred depending on the particular input or decision stage. For implementation, learning guides (47 percent) are sought above all else, while opinions and reviews (40 percent) and product information (32 percent) come out on top during the budgeting process.

When consuming information, tech buyers of all ages prefer short articles and posts that provide a mix of general news, expert opinions, learning guides, videos, and whitepapers along the purchase and post-purchase path.

To put this into action, think strategically about what purpose each specific type of tactic serves in the technology vendor selection and purchase process. Note that social media’s dominance in sharing and distributing content will affect the way your buyers collect and use information during the buying cycle. Also, carefully consider the topic, what form it takes, and whether it should be gated or not.

While there’s much ado about millennials, when it comes to technology purchases in the workplace, they have more in common with their Gen X counterparts than not. This is good news for marketers, especially as the buying committee continues to expand in size and complexity. By leveraging the common ground, marketers can craft and distribute content that is relevant and digestible regardless of generation.

Separate the hype from the hard data when it comes to millennials and Gen X tech buyers. Check out the full ebook, The Future Tech Buying Committee: Millennials and GenX Decision-Makers Achieving MORE, Together.

Get more content like this, plus the very BEST marketing education, totally free. Get our Definitive email newsletter.

Search engine optimization continues to be crucial in helping customers find you online. The main purpose of an SEO strategy is to improve your online visibility and make it a proven method for boosting revenue while building a solid foundation for all marketing efforts going forward. However, where do you start?

Here are 10 need-to-know facts about SEO.

1. Smart and effective SEO is a long-term solution and you should not expect immediate results.

When launching a digital marketing strategy, you have to determine how to measure your return on investment. Some efforts like pay per click advertising can start driving leads within a couple of days. However, SEO will take months or longer before you start noticing a difference in revenue, but your patience will pay off. Unlike PPC, SEO results are much longer lasting and cannot be turned off and on due to spend.

2. Websites with responsive design are favored by search engines.

These days, it is imperative that you have a mobile-friendly website. Search engines value customer experience, and it is proven that customers have a better experience when using a responsive site, no matter what device they’re using. Long gone are the days when your customers just went to their desktop computers to search for what they needed. The number of searches on mobile devices surpassed desktop in 2015, and search engines are not likely to rank you very high if consumers have to zoom in on your tiny print.

3. Pictures can be optimized to serve your relevancy and rankings.

It’s easy for us to see what’s in a picture, but how do search engines actually know what the picture contains? You need to help search engines identify your visual content. Save your image files using the primary keywords of your landing pages, include captions, and insert alt text to help search engine bots understand what consumers actually see in your pictures.

4. SEO and PPC advertising complement each other.

PPC advertising, otherwise known as search engine marketing, is a great way to quickly become visible on the first page of search engine results. If you can show up on the results page in both paid search and the organic listings, you’re taking up more real estate and boosting your credibility. Search engines value quality, keyword-rich content on both SEO and PPC so you could be rewarded with cheaper clicks over time as your landing pages have been optimized for relevancy.

5. Site load time affects your organic rankings.

According to Google, a reasonable load time for websites is about 4 seconds. Consumers want instant gratification and don’t like to waste time watching a blank or incomplete screen while your site loads. If search engines notice site visitors are leaving your site after waiting too long, you’re going to get outranked by your competitors running sites that load quickly. It also decreases the chances of your site being fully indexed because search engine bots have a limited amount of time and budget to crawl your site.

6. Search engines readily show your online review ratings.

Word of mouth online has a powerful impact on sales. Reviews are highly trusted by consumers, and your reputation influences their purchasing decisions over your competition. Encouraging your customers to leave positive reviews so that everyone else can see what you’re doing right is only the first step. By adding Schema.org markup to those reviews, search engines are then able to actually show those ratings in your results, greatly increasing the chance a consumer clicks to your 4-star (or better) business.

7. Site navigation is highly-valued for a positive user experience.

On top of having a mobile-friendly website full of relevant content, it’s also important to ensure it’s easy to navigate. You want your customers to be able to find what they need and not leave your website frustrated. Make sure you offer various options for consumers to get from page to page, like a top navigation bar, and include anchor text with hyperlinks within your content.

Search engine bots crawl your site to determine how your internal links direct to other pages within your site. The better organized your site is with internal links pointing towards pages you want customers to see the most, the more search engines will recognize their importance. Perform regular checks throughout your site to make sure there aren’t any page errors. Having pages that don’t work leads to a negative user experience and lessens your site credibility with the search engines.

8. Updated and consistent information boosts offline conversions.

Half of online searches for smaller businesses occur with the intent to visit in person. Need people to know when you’re open? You better have your business hours updated across rating sites and local listings. Alternatively, you don’t want potential customers getting your after-hours message because they found outdated information. Search engines look at this information as well. You need to have your business name, address, and phone number updated and consistent across the web or search engines won’t know what information to trust.

9. You can put yourself on the map with your Google My Business page.

Do you notice the map section on the Google results page with business locations highlighted? If your business has a physical location, or even multiple stores for customers to visit, you need to make sure you’re visible on Google Maps. This is done automatically just by activating your Google My Business page with your address. You can also give yourself an added boost by verifying your page. By going through this process, Google knows the information on this page is accurate and is more likely to rank your map listing above your competitors.

10. What gets you ahead today isn’t guaranteed to work tomorrow.

SEO practices are constantly evolving as search engines update their algorithms. Online search behavior is progressing with technology, and major search engines like Google strive to continue providing a positive user experience. They’re also trying to catch sites taking shortcuts to boost their rankings. Black hat SEO practices take advantage of current algorithms for short term gains but can result in getting penalized by a drop in ranking when caught. Stay up to date on best practices and your organic presence will experience positive, long-term growth.

There’s a lot to keep track of when it comes to SEO. Your SEO checklist is an ongoing strategy that requires patience while building a solid foundation for your paid media efforts. Whether you’re doing it all yourself or entrusting an expert to manage your SEO while you focus on running your business, taking these factors into consideration when optimizing your organic presence will help yield year-over-year revenue growth.

What does the top of your sales funnel look like? More importantly, how does the top look like compared to the bottom? It’s time to get real. It’s the bottom of the funnel where we make our money.  I know what you’re going to say, “You can’t get anything out of the bottom until you […]

Experts have long predicted that social selling will spell the end of sales emails. Yet, email is 40 times more effective at getting new customers than Facebook and Twitter combined. What’s worked in the past still works.

Here are 17 top sales emailing tips to help you generate leads and close more deals this year. You’ll learn how to:

• Get started with writing sales emails
• Use email templates effectively
• Increase your response rates
• Follow up after sending the first email
• Nurture leads with drip campaigns

Ready to write emails that sell?

Grab your free copy of Cold email hacks now.   

How to get started with sales emails

1. 6 simple steps to getting started with cold emails

Sales emails let you reach more leads in less time. Yet, getting started can be intimidating: What should you write? How many emails should you send? How do you know if you’re getting good results?

It doesn’t have to be this way. We’ve broken down how to write emails that sell into six simple steps to help you get started today.

2. How to write subject lines that increase email opens

The subject line makes or breaks an email. [Tweet this!] If no one opens your email, it doesn’t exist. Yet, most people treat the subject line as an afterthought. If you want to write irresistible subject lines that demand to be opened, this is a must-read guide.

For instance, did you know that misspellings, if done right, can actually increase open rates? Or that writing an email with only a subject line and no body text can increase response rates? Keep reading for nine more mind-blowing tips!     

3. 3 unusual ways to make your emails stand out

Are you afraid of sending out the same yawn-inducing emails as everyone else? Use these three easy yet proven techniques to write sales emails that stand out and get higher response rates.

Because these techniques aren’t obvious, very few salespeople are using them. To give you a hint, your signature can be used as a selling tool. If your signature only includes your name, title, and contact info, you’re wasting valuable space in your emails.

Sales emails that work

4. 5 sales email templates that will generate warm leads for your sales team

Effective emails are the result of methodical experimentation and meticulous tracking. But we've done all the hard work for you and rounded up five proven templates.

We know all about emails because we’ve had years of practice. Before Close.io, we ran ElasticSales, an outsourced sales company that did sales for 200+ venture-backed startups. We tested emails in hundreds of different verticals and markets and these were the ones that consistently worked.

5. 8 CRM-ready email templates for every step in the sales process

Do you know what your sales reps are emailing prospects? Probably not. If your sales team’s emails wildly vary in quality and content, you’re losing deals. Get on the same page and start building a scalable sales process with these eight CRM-ready email templates.

There’s a template for every scenario, whether a prospect has gone cold or is ready to be closed. Plug these templates into our inside sales CRM and close more deals.

6. How to experiment your way to more effective email templates

Even the best templates become ineffective over time. You could wait until that day arrives, then scramble to find new ones. Or, you could get ahead of the game by adopting a more methodical process that leads to continuous improvement within your sales organization.

The first step is to decide what you want to learn and what you need to improve. Here, you’re primarily looking at two things: open rate and response rate. While the list of things you can test is long, always test one thing at a time to generate the most accurate results. Here are a few things you need to consider.

How to increase your response rates

7. How to improve your response rates

You have strong email open rates but your response rate is abysmal. The first step is to determine whether you have a gimmicky subject line. If there’s a gap between what your subject line promises and what your email body delivers, readers will quickly jump ship.

However, what if your subject line isn’t gimmicky? In that case, you need to fix your email body using this 2-step approach: acknowledge the prospect’s current situation and rise above the noise. Let’s jump right to it.

8. Get 457% more replies with the 1, 2, 3 hack

Don’t make prospects do the heavy lifting. [Tweet this!] This is simple in theory, yet many salespeople do the opposite. They send 3-page emails with five different calls to actions and wonder why prospects fail to respond. Psychologists call this the paradox of choice.

The more choices people have, the more overwhelmed they feel. The upside is that if you present prospects with a limited number of options, they’ll be more receptive towards you.

Simplify life for your overwhelmed prospects by writing emails that make it quick and easy for them to respond to you.

9. How to A/B test your emails (without a statistically significant sample size)

You want to A/B test your sales emails. But either you haven’t sent out enough emails or A/B testing software isn’t in your budget. Don’t worry, there’s an alternative: call the people you emailed.

While numbers are great, they can’t always tell you how or why certain aspects of an email did or didn’t resonate with readers. That’s why you need to pick up the phone. What you’ll gain in qualitative insights will more than make up for the lack of quantitative data. Here’s how to segment your email list and the exact questions you should ask recipients when A/B testing your emails.

Win deals with the email follow-up

10. The winning sales email follow-up game plan

Sending the first email is the easiest step. Anyone could do it. But even if you send an incredible email with a killer value proposition, many prospects will be too busy or distracted to reply. If you want to become a priority and get results, you need a follow-up plan.

This post will answer your questions such as:

• “How often should you follow up?”’
• “Which type of follow-up emails should you send?”
• “When should you stop following up?”

What you write isn’t always as important as when you write. [Tweet this!]

11. How to call prospects who open your email

The prospect opened your email. In fact, due to email tracking, you even know the exact time and date they opened it. But when you call them, they have no idea who you are and get irritated that you interrupted their day. The problem?

Salespeople assume prospects who opened their email have read it and care about their product or service. Unfortunately, many people open an email only to delete it. Even if someone did read your email, they might’ve forgotten about it by the next day.

Yes, you should call prospects who opened your email, but you need a better approach. Let’s look at the two most common responses from prospects and how you can engage, rather than annoy, them.

12. Put some funny in your follow up :P

Being professional doesn’t mean your sense of humor has to go in a corner and die. In fact, humor is an effective way to connect with prospects and add a personal touch to an impersonal medium like email.

Putting a smile on a prospect’s face can be the difference between being ignored or noticed, forgotten or remembered, and deleted or replied to. Check out these four examples of funny follow-ups and get inspired.

13. The breakup email: Before you stop following up, send this

According to the loss aversion principle, people prefer avoiding a loss to receiving an equivalent gain. In other words, people may like winning, but absolutely hate losing. One way to use this principle is by sending unengaged prospects a breakup email.

Two of the main points of the breakup email are:

• I wanted to share a potentially valuable solution with you.
• However, you don’t seem interested so this is the last email I’ll send you.

Suddenly, prospects who may have been too busy to reply are flooding your inbox. That said, there’s an art to the breakup email. Here’s how to do it the right way and the one mistake you must absolutely avoid.

Nurture leads with drip email campaigns

14. Convert more trial users with drip campaigns

It takes time and resources to convert a lead into a trial user; don’t drop the ball in the last quarter by neglecting them. Instead, activate, engage, and communicate with trial users via a drip campaign to convert them into customers. To get started, these are the four principles you need to create a successful drip campaign.

15. Short vs long emails: What works best for drip marketing campaigns?

Short versus long emails is the wrong question. Instead, the best length is whatever length will achieve your desired results.

For instance, we normally recommend you write short emails when reaching out to prospects. Why? Because your objective is to move the conversation from email to phone as quickly as possible. Yet, in one of our drip campaigns, the longest email is the most successful in getting readers to sign up for a free trial of our sales CRM.

Confused? Here’s a framework for determining how long the emails in your drip marketing campaign should be.

16. Behind the scenes of our drip email course

A few years ago, we created our free Startup Sales Success Course. Driven by the mission, “Never again should a great company fail because of a lack of sales”, we wanted to empower startups to succeed with sales.

Since then, over 23,000 people have signed up in order to learn how to sell SaaS or startup products. As a bonus, our email course has proven to be a powerful lead nurturing tool.

In this behind the scenes, you’ll discover: our objectives, our reasoning for structuring the course the way we did, and our results (including open rates and readers’ responses).

17. Steal these high-converting drip campaigns from 2 killer startups

Hubspot and TrunkClub are killing it in the B2B and B2C space, respectively. Hubspot had a successful IPO and TrunkClub was acquired by Nordstrom for $350 million.

One of their secrets? Great emails. There are many examples we could use but these two case studies focus on how Hubspot and TrunkClub use email to move prospects who signed up for a free trial or account forward in the sales process.

Not only will we show you the exact emails these two startups are using, but we’ll break down why they work so you can adapt their techniques for your own drip campaigns.

The future of sales emails

Sales emails are here to stay. Email is one of the few communication channels everyone has access to, independent of any platform or app.

That said, the competition is only going to grow more fierce. Every email you send is competing for prospects’ attention against hundreds of other emails, funny cat videos, and Facebook memes on a daily basis. Never stop experimenting on your sales emails.

For even more advice on writing sales emails that work, check out our free Cold Email Hacks guide. It’s short and packed with actionable advice that’s not included in this post. Get your copy now.

Recommended reading:

39 shocking sales stats that will change the way you sell
Shocked that sales emails are 40 times more effective than social media? Here are 38 more facts that'll blow you away.

Follow up like a champ: How to win every deal with the amazing power of the follow-up!
Learn how to close more deals and make more sales by following up more and better. Boost up your follow up strategy and hustle.

24 B2B cold calling tips for sales success in 2017
Want more sales tips? Here's how fast-growing companies cold call to drive revenues in 2017.

 

Have you heard about how the most successful people are wearing the same clothes every day to limit decision making? The aim behind this is to improve daily efficiencies by minimizing the number of decisions that have to be made. The idea is real; it’s called “decision fatigue” and businesses are working to evolve around this principle. This is the exact reason that business software providers will work, and work hard, to build a level of recognition that drives companies right to them. The goal is to become the obvious choice, saving you time and effort in your evaluation…hopefully.

Some decisions should not be brushed over, though. The issue here lies in the fact that your business is unique. In fact, your company still exists because it is unique. If you weren’t doing something different than your competitors, you wouldn’t be around, you wouldn’t be scaling and you wouldn’t be in need of a sales solution in the first place. What does this mean? It means that you should be taking a unique approach to evaluating any application that helps run the processes that drive your business.

Slowing Down to Speed Up

One realm where the “one size fits all” misconception is incredibly apparent is in the sales software or CRM space. And honestly, why wouldn’t it be? It’s no secret that finding a new CRM, getting budget and approval, determining the integrations, and ultimately implementing the system is a lot of work and very little fun. You have a business to run and none of these things feel like they make you money. But they do.

This is a case where the “slow down to speed up” concept is a real phenomenon. All too often companies resort to the “industry standard” or the 800lb gorilla instead of taking the time to do a deep dive to uncover the “why” as opposed to the “how” of a challenge.

To help illustrate this point, which of the following questions is more important?
1) How can my reps log their calls?
2) Why do I want calls logged?

The first question will get you a fast answer, and if you ask reps at different CRM companies, you’ll likely get many of the same answers. The latter, however, will ultimately lead to the first question, but it will first help you identify what you’re ultimately looking to get from this piece of your process.

Are you interested in making sure your reps are actually working? Is there a correlation to their activity and their success? Can you make a predictive change in your process based on the data you’re collecting? What data do you really need to make the largest percentage of positive change in the business? These types of questions will define the “how” in a way that will truly impact and improve your business – not just put you in the same old shoes as everybody else. And they will do so by helping you identify and capture the data points that you need to optimize your sales process.

For Example…

I used to work at a recruitment firm and we used a truly antiquated CRM platform that was leveraged across a significant portion of the recruiting world. Why? Because this software was so widely utilized within our industry. Yet the reps around me were constantly complaining about how hard it was to import leads, make calls, log calls, and take valuable notes in the system.

The truth was, it was far inferior to other cloud-based CRMs on the market, and didn’t have the functionality necessary to support our unique sales processes. Looking back, we should have started our CRM search by asking “why” instead of “how,” and taken the time to find a solution that enabled us to capture the data we needed to grow, rather than taking a shortcut.

The Real Way to Improve Efficiencies

Data is the backbone behind sales success, and the only way to harness that data is by finding tools that align with your business. Find a solution that your company will use and you will start to see the results. Don’t let the 800lb gorilla or industry-specific assumptions get in the way of aligning with the best partner to help you grow. And if you’d like a little help in your search, check out our free CRM Buyer’s Kit.

Prospecting in Sales – Cold-Calls, Emails and Social Selling. If you want to start an argument in your sales circles just ask an “expert” what works when prospecting in sales: cold-calls, email  or social selling. Unfortunately, you will also hear name-calling, ridiculous claims of success and techniques that would make your mother cringe. If you […]

The post Prospecting in Sales – Cold-Calls, Emails and Social Selling appeared first on Fill the Funnel.

You know the feeling: The quarter’s up, your numbers are down. Really down. And there’s nothing you can do to save them.

Even if you landed that huge deal that’s been in the pipeline for the last few months, you’d still come up short. You’ve been off your game and there’s no way to deny it: You aren’t going to hit the mark this quarter. What’s worse, everyone is going to know you didn’t hit the mark.

There’s no stress quite like sales stress because there’s no career quite like a sales career. It’s high-pressure, results-driven and, in most cases, completely transparent.

In other words, you’ve got nothing to hide behind but your performance. When you’re doing well, everyone knows. But when you’re not? Everyone knows.

Here’s what you can expect from this post:

• A different way of thinking about stress
• Stress management 101 (Sleep enough, eat well, exercise, take breaks, and meditate)
• 3 steps to managing stress: 1) Know your shit. 2) Own your shit. 3) Fix your shit.

On top of everyone knowing about your lousy numbers, there’s a lot riding on your performance. From the financial well-being of your family to the success of your company, you’ve got a lot of people depending on you to meet your quota.

So what happens when you don’t? How do you deal with the stress of letting yourself and your team down?

No surprise, there are right and wrong ways to deal with this stress; and most salespeople don’t handle it well. But before we get there, let’s talk about what stress really means, because it might not be what you think.

Sell better with the free Startup Sales Success Course.

Enlightenment from a t-shirt

At best, stress is uncomfortable. At worst, it’s downright painful; so no one is going to blame you for thinking of it as a bad thing. I know I used to—at least until a chance encounter with some random guy in a t-shirt.

Let me explain: I was out walking one day, stressed about one thing or another, when a modern-day Confucius crossed my path. I don’t know his name and we didn’t exchange any words. We didn’t even make eye contact. But he taught me a valuable lesson that day.

Plastered across his t-shirt was a simple sentence: Stress just means you give a fuck.

I love that. If you’re stressed about something, it means you care. It means it matters to you.  And sure, the feeling of stress itself isn’t good, but the fact that you’re stressed is a good sign.

Because “giving a fuck” is the most important part of sales success. And now that you understand that, let’s talk about what you can do to manage, reduce, and even eliminate that stress (by continuing to give a damn).

Stress management 101

At its core, stress management really means emotional management.

The more capable you are of recognizing, realizing, and managing your emotions, the more control you have over your time, your energy, and your focus. And once you've got control over your time, energy, and focus, there simply isn’t any room in your life for stress.

So before we get into specific stress management techniques for salespeople, let’s start with the five basic things every human being needs to do on a consistent basis to reduce stress.

Wait.

I can tell some of you want to scroll past this section because “you’ve heard it all before.” That may be true, but you need to hear it again. Just because the information isn’t “new” or “sexy” doesn’t mean it isn’t important.

In fact, without the five principles below, the sales-specific stress management techniques I cover later on won’t even work. So think of this section as a quick but necessary review of the things you should already be doing.

1. Go to sleep: Work will still be there in the morning

I get it: Silicon Valley idolizes workaholism and there’s this unspoken pressure that if you’re not working, you’re failing. It isn’t true.

You’ve probably heard the stories of hyper-successful entrepreneurs who only sleep 3-5 hours each night, right? They’re the exception, not the rule. If you need sleep habits to look up to, how about these:

• Elon Musk sleeps 6 hours each night
• Tim Cook sleeps 7 hours each night
• Jeff Bezos sleeps 7 hours each night

Go to bed. Work will still be there in the morning. Besides, you’ll probably get more done in 8 hours of rested productivity than 12 hours of sleep-deprived dabbling.

For more on the importance of sleep in stress management, check out this article by the American Psychological Association.

2. You are what you eat

We’ve all got that one meal we know isn’t good for us, but we can’t resist. You know the one: You’ve convinced yourself it helps you relax and unwind, but really it just leaves you feeling like shit. Stop doing that to yourself.

I’m not saying you can’t eat junk food; I’m just saying it shouldn’t be a staple of your daily eating habits. Ditch the fast food a couple days each week and eat something that leaves you feeling (healthfully) energized instead.

For more on foods that help with stress management, check out Health’s "12 Superfoods for Stress Relief."

3. Break a sweat

You can’t spend your entire work day in front of a computer and your entire evening in front of a TV. You’ve got to carve out at least 30-45 minutes each day to be active.

I don’t care what that looks like for you: Lift weights. Take a martial arts class. Go for a jog around the office. Do whatever you want, as long as you break a sweat.

This balances out your body chemistry so you not only feel less stress, you’re better equipped to handle the stress you do have.

For more on the effects of exercise on stress, check out "Exercising to Relax" by Harvard Health Publications.

4. Take a break

You may be getting enough sleep, but are you taking enough breaks during the workday? I don’t care who you are: You can’t possibly be working at peak productivity from 6:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m. every day.

If you find yourself doing that, pause and ask yourself, “What are my most and least productive hours?” Then simply stop working during your least productive hours and use them for exercise or a healthy meal instead.

For more on the importance of taking breaks, check out Buffer’s "The Science of Taking Breaks at Work: How to Be More Productive By Changing the Way You Think About Downtime."

5. Clear your mind

Meditation means different things to different people. However you define it, make time for it.

Pray. Sit along the beach. Feed ducks at the pond. Do yoga. As long as it clears your mind, calms your body, and allows you to focus on the here-and-now, it’ll help you let go of current stress and equip you for future challenges.

For more on the importance of this practice, check out our article on 3-minute mindfulness.

Stress management for salespeople in 3 steps

Alright, you made it through the basics. (If you didn’t and just skipped down here, go back and read them.) Now let’s dig a little deeper and talk about how to deal with the stress of missing your quota.

Here’s a 3-step formula that’ll help you get clarity around why you missed the mark, help you develop an action plan for the future, and reduce your stress along the way.

1. Know your shit

You know you missed your quota, but do you really know why? You can’t solve a problem until you understand it, and the best way to really understand something is The Five Whys.

The process is pretty self-explanatory: Ask “Why?” a minimum of five times until you uncover the underlying source of a problem. Most salespeople stop at one “Why?” and it looks something like this:

“Why didn’t I meet my quota this quarter?”

“Because I didn’t make enough cold calls.”

As far as they’re concerned, that’s the end of that. The problem was obviously call volume so, in the future, all they have to do is make more cold calls, right? Maybe, but let’s run this through The Five Whys to make sure.

“Why didn’t I meet my quota this quarter?”

“Because I didn’t make enough cold calls. Why?”

“Because although I was doing my 100 cold calls a day, I wasn’t reaching anybody. Why?”

“Because most of the numbers I had weren’t valid. Why?”

“Because I bought 100,000 leads off a website to meet my quota, and the leads were poor quality. Why?”

“Because the goal I set for myself this quarter couldn’t be reached with the leads provided by my company.”

And there it is. Suddenly it’s clear the problem had nothing to do with call volume and everything to do with an unrealistic goal.

Before we move on to step two, let’s take a quick look at some of the most common root causes of missed quotas:

• Unrealistic goals: You set goals for yourself that are either unattainable or can’t be reached with the strategies and resources you have in place.
• Inaction: Your heart just wasn’t in it this quarter; whatever the reason, you failed to take the actions necessary to succeed.
• Poor-quality action: You took action, but the actions weren’t backed with the necessary knowledge or experience to produce results. You did the right things but in the wrong way.
• Market: The market shifted in some dramatic and unseen way. Maybe the economy crashed or a competitor swooped in and stole your customers.
• Company: Your company made meeting your goal impossible. Maybe they set an unreachable quota or got caught up in a major PR debacle.

You have complete control over the first three and practically no control over the final two. But whatever the root cause is for your situation, the simple act of knowing it is often enough to dramatically reduce your stress.

2. Own your shit

90% of the bullshit in sales comes from stressed salespeople trying to cover up the fact that they aren’t hitting their numbers.

You’ve probably seen it too: Someone suddenly calling in sick to meetings, engaging in fewer conversations, dropping off email strands, and eating alone. All in the hopes that if no one notices them, no one will notice their numbers.

No surprise, it rarely works.

So a lot of struggling salespeople will go so far as to blatantly lie about their numbers (although usually with good intentions). They think, “Alright, I’m going to tell everyone these are my numbers. That should buy me a couple weeks to overperform and make up the difference.”

In this case, “overperform” usually means an unethical shortcut like:

• Upselling unqualified customers
• Spamming an email list
• “Borrowing” a couple prospects from a colleague

But that never works either, not in the long run. All you’re doing is digging yourself deeper into a hole that’s becoming increasingly more difficult to climb out of. Don’t sabotage future business to resolve present crises.

Once you’ve identified your problem, confront it. Own it. Your team’s gonna find out eventually anyway, so it may as well come from you. And the sooner you’re honest, the sooner you can get help. Speaking of which ...

3. Fix your shit

You’ve identified the problem. You’ve owned the problem. Now you need to solve the problem, or at the very least, prevent it from happening again. At this point in the process, you may already have the knowledge and clarity to fix it yourself. If you do, great! Get started.

If you don’t, get help from someone who does.

Unless you’re in a hostile and competitive sales team, your teammates don’t want you to fail. So look at the numbers and find out who crushed it this quarter, then ask for their advice, guidance, or mentorship.

If no one on your team is willing or able to help, reach out to your sales manager. If they can’t help, find a successful salesperson outside your company. And if even that isn’t enough, there are countless resources online to troubleshoot whatever challenge you’re facing, such as:

• Videos
• Blogs
• Podcasts
• Books
• Online courses

Rest assured: Whatever sales hurdles you’re facing, someone else has already overcome them, and they’re probably more than happy to help you do the same.

Failure happens to the best of us, but …

Most sales stress is caused by salespeople afraid to face their failures.

So if you’re not going to hit your quota this quarter, don’t panic. You know what to do: Identify the problem, own the problem, and fix the problem.

Once you’ve taken full ownership and responsibility for something, there isn’t much room left for stress. That’s not to say you’ll eliminate it entirely, but that’s alright. Because remember:

A little stress just means you give a fuck.

Ready to crush next quarter's quota? Then join the free Startup Sales Success Course! It's filled with my best sales advice and techniques. Click below to get started.

Videos more your style? Watch as I break down how to deal with stress when you're missing your quota.

Recommended reading

Stay calm and close deals: How to effectively deal with stress in your sales team
Sometimes you have more than just your own personal stress to worry about. Here’s how to build a stress-resilient sales team.

Reset yourself: 3-minute mindfulness for sales reps
There are days when stress just comes out of nowhere. Recenter yourself on-the-fly with this 3-minute meditation practice.

Impostor syndrome: How to stop feeling like a fraud
Failure isn’t great for the ego. If you’re feeling disheartened after missing your quota, check out this article to get yourself back on track.

Remote Tools Just for Entrepreneurs in the Digital Age

Today I have some tools help entrepreneurs improve their productivity online. Here’s four links with tips and tricks to kick start your Monday.

Running a solo business online is the new office of today, especially for emerging entrepreneurs and small business owners. By utilizing into the right resources you can greatly improve your efficiency. There are several ways to make your venture work for you by taking advantage of these great tools. Let me know how these work for you!

1) Grab your audience’s attention – EzGif.com

Create, edit and share interactive .Gifs on Facebook and Twitter. EzGif.com is a fun way to reach your community and encourage sharing. Choose to transform a business video, image, or edit an existing image all for free. Add text quotes with different filters to help your content stand out.

2) Collaborate with anyone around the world – Padlet

Visually work on your project. Padlet provides a beautiful platform to creatively team up on things such as blog content ideas and inspirational ideas for your business. The app easily views on smaller mobile devices in addition to computers. Personalize your account while inviting others in on this fun and innovate way to stay focused and creative.

3) Virtual data rooms – SecureDocs

Store and share confidential information in a secure, remote environment. SecureDocs will help you keep critical customer and financial data under wraps while protecting you from hackers. This is a great tool to use to store your tax documents, payment information, legal files, and more.

4) Learn about your business impact – TrendKite

Professional PR analysis of your online business. TrendKite provides in-depth insight on the performance of your business and how it is being viewed by your community. Their precise analytics software measures your brand’s bottom line and helps you focus on the right things in order to move your business forward.

Hopefully you will find these tools for entrepreneurs useful to your online growth strategy. Are there any that you would like to add as well?

The future of robotics is decidedly squishy. We've already seen gel-based 'bots that can catch fish, mimic octopi and even ones that can keep your heart pumping. And, if the researchers from Switzerland's EPFL are successful, they could soon be crawl...

It’s all on you. Your results. Your recognition. Your chance at greatness.

You decide how far you’re willing to take your dream. You make the decision whether to press ahead, in spite of the obstacles holding you back, or to change course and move on to something else.

Every day, you are presented with countless opportunities to impact your destiny. How you respond to those opportunities every day ultimately decides the full measure of the greatness that you achieve.

There are a handful of decisions that successful people all make the same way.

They all do these things in their pursuit of greatness:

1. They give massive amounts of value.

They are valuable. Not just for what they know or for their generosity.

They create value by what they give.

Instead of being focused on their own needs and wants and goals, they go out of their way to give.

They take their best ideas and give them away. They don’t hoard awesomeness; they make sure everyone else around them has access to it.

2. They don’t quit when things get tough.

They want to. They think about it. But they don’t.

They have something deep within them that drives them to keep pursuing their dream.

They have grit. They have resolve. And they’re not going to be pushed around by bad luck, an unfair situation, or circumstances that just don’t go their way.

They don’t quit because it’s more painful for them to abandon their goal than it is to endure the uncomfortableness they feel at the moment.

3. They say “No” to great ideas.

They are intrigued by all the options being presented to them.

They like the challenge of learning something new or trying something different. But they understand that their resource of time is limited.

They understand that money and emotion and focus are quickly exhausted.

By saying “No” to things that are interesting, good, or even great, they have much more time to focus on things that will turn out to be awesome.

4. They stay busy pursuing their goals.

They work hard. Really, really hard.

They don’t angle to work smart. They know that hard work is the smartest work possible.

One of the core differences between people who successfully achieve breakthroughs and those who seem to stay stuck is the amount of time they work at it.

There is no substitute for hard work. Success demands it.

5. They are willing to make big mistakes.

They aren’t so afraid of failure that they play it safe. They try things. Dangerous things. Scary things.

Most of those tries end up in failure, often with uncomfortable consequences.

They look at failure as an opportunity to get better — not that they are inferior or that what they are attempting isn’t likely to achieve success.

To win big, you have to try big. Which sometimes means you’re going to fail big.

Successful people keep failure in context and learn, grow, and do it better next time.

It’s on you to change if you want to be awesome.

If you want to build something new. If you want to point your life in a new direction. If you want to achieve those goals you’ve been talking about until now.

No one else can determine your destiny for you.

The choices you make today, tomorrow, and every day for the rest of your life are what lead to those magical outcomes you’ve been dreaming about.

It all comes down to a few smart decisions. Give more. Don’t quit. Say “No”. Get busy. Try big.

Only a few years ago, you were the company everyone talked about. You created a groundbreaking software category, attracted huge sums of venture funding and expertly scaled ARR. Just as an IPO was starting to look feasible, you hit a roadblock.

Now there’s a new cool kid on the block. This budding competitor co-opted your brilliant idea and started selling it at a cut-rate price. They’ve slowed your growth down to a halt and seem to copy you at every turn – ripping off your cutting-edge new feature and borrowing that brilliant new messaging you spent so much time perfecting.

You’ve only got three strategic options to compete and get your business back on track. You can 1) fight back, 2) hold firm or 3) retreat. Each has completely different implications for your pricing strategy.

Option 1: Fight Back

The most obvious way to compete is by fighting back on price. Starting a price war feels great, don’t get me wrong. It’s something that Sales can do almost immediately. It helps your team feel like they’re finally winning deals again, and puts your arrogant competitor back on their heels.

In fact, research from Simon-Kucher & Partners finds that up to three-in-five companies admit to being in an active price war. They almost always blame the price war on competitors, but if they were to look internally, would probably realize they had a hand in either causing or escalating it.

I rarely advocate for price wars, particularly in saturated markets where there is little volume left. Price wars typically erode profitability for entire industries and leave everyone worse off than before. They discourage investment and innovation. That said, there are a limited set of conditions when a price war may become a viable strategy.

1. Secondary revenue streams are in sight, enabling you to re-balance monetization from one side of the market to the other.

2. The market is poised to grow dramatically and you expect costs to come down accordingly due to economies of scale.

3. You have a sustainable cost advantage and can withstand lower prices better than competitors.

4. Network effects create a winner-takes-all market and you need low(er) prices to attract a sufficient number of users to benefit from said effects.

5. The end game is to exit the market and you want to become enough of a nuisance that competitors will be tempted to acquire you.

Perhaps the most widely known SaaS price war is in cloud storage. Google, Amazon and Microsoft have repeatedly traded shots on bringing down the price of cloud computing services. This wasn’t by accident. Each of them have secondary revenue streams in mind, and getting a customer on their cloud likely means further monetization opportunities down the road. They also recognize that cloud computing is a rapidly growing market, with some analysts estimating a 26% CAGR over the next 5 years. In other words, these companies can afford to take a short-term hit with their pricing given the potential for long-term gains from customers they acquire in the process.

If these conditions don’t hold true for your business, however, you should consider a more narrow strategy: a fighter product. A fighter product is a stripped down version of your core offering at a lower price point. It’s goal is to help you compete for the price sensitive segment of the market without (overly) cannibalizing existing customers who are happy to pay a premium price.

The fighter product strategy commonly appears in the B2C world. Take Procter & Gamble for example. As described by the Harvard Business Review, in the 1980’s P&G had two premium diaper brands, Pampers (#1 in market share) and Luvs (#3). They suddenly faced rising competitive pressure from private label, which started buying market share through cut-rate prices. Rather than engage in an all-out price war, which would have dented profits, P&G took a more nuanced route. They lowered the price of Luvs by 16% while stripping both cost and value out of the product. They cut Luvs’ spend on advertising, product innovation and promotions. At the same time, P&G held firm on price with their market-leading Pampers brand and increased the gap in value between the two brands. This helped P&G compete at both ends of the diaper market without sacrificing the profitability of the overall portfolio.

You can apply these same lessons to SaaS. Perhaps make your fighter product only available for purchase online via self-service, thereby bringing down customer acquisition costs. Make the product as easy as possible for customers to self-onboard and use, minimizing services, support and account management burden. Add limitations around product usage, number of users or features to make it clearly inferior to your core offering while still being attractive enough for smaller or less mature prospects.

Option 2: Hold Firm

Holding firm is a painful strategy, requiring both discipline and patience. It can feel like you’re doing nothing, sitting idly by while your competitor eats your lunch. In reality, this may be the most rational option for a business that’s operating in a small market or that wants to focus on profitability. Doing it right entails doubling down on customer retention and investing in smart product innovation. It also requires redesigning compensation plans to retain a Sales team that’s not allowed to discount and keeps getting beat on price.

First, make it as difficult as possible for competitors to pick off your existing customers. Ensure you have top-notch account support and that you listen closely to their feedback. Migrate loyal customers from month-to-month contracts to longer-term deals, even if it means throwing in some extra services or product in the process. If customers remain happy, they won’t be tempted to rip-and-replace your solution and all of the pain that entails. Loyal customers are your bank while you wait out competitors’ aggressive pricing. (Once their venture funding starts to run dry, odds are they’ll start focusing on profitability and raising prices, too.)

Second, continue to invest in a targeted set of new capabilities that will create more competitive differentiation, justify your premium price point and lead to ancillary revenue streams with existing customers. This again requires significant time and attention collecting feedback from your customers and prioritizing your product backlog based on customer interest and willingness to pay.

Revisit your Sales compensation plans both to correct any misaligned incentives and to continue to retain high performing reps. Perhaps reduce the size of quotas since reps won’t have the ability to substantially discount to close deals. Consider adding a price quality element to your plans to further reward reps when deals come in at or near list price.

You can also hold firm by focusing on a few key segments of the market that you know the competitor will have a hard time going after. This entails splitting your market into different categories, for instance based on company size (SMB, Midmarket, and Enterprise), industry vertical or tech stack, and prioritizing pieces of the market. Prioritize the market segments that are attractive to you (i.e. they’re large, growing), where you’ve already seen traction (i.e. you have a high win rate, top-tier logos) and where you have a sustainable advantage. This might be a pocket like Healthcare or Financial Services, for example, which both have specific requirements, deep pockets and a limited appetite for risk.

When you pick your battles and focus on a subset of the market, you have a better shot at expanding your competitive moat with differentiated features, market leadership and a robust partner ecosystem. It increases the amount of effort for competitors to follow you, helping you maintain pricing power.

Option 3: Retreat

Nobody wants to talk about this last option. If all else fails, you may be forced to strategically exit the existing business and sell something else. Oddly enough, this could lead you to actually raise your prices to squeeze more out of legacy customers and fuel innovation in another part of your business. Evidence shows that when a market starts to be disrupted by technological innovation, the least loyal and most price sensitive customers are the first to go. Those who remain tend to either highly value the product or face significant barriers to switching.

AOL makes for an interesting case in point. Back in the early aughts, AOL’s dial-up internet business faced stiff competition from broadband, which would of course spell the company’s demise. Instead of fighting back with lower prices, AOL raised them from $21.95 per month to $23.90 per month. This move generated an estimated $100 million in additional revenue, which AOL plowed into other ventures like content and advertising.

Similarly, when confronted with a declining subscriber base due to free online competitors, newspapers have responded by raising the price of their print versions. This has helped newspapers buy time to change their business models and invest in new revenue streams like digital subscriptions, paid content, native advertising, membership programs, events and eCommerce. While their outlook is by no means rosy, newspapers have owned up to their future and smartly retreated to sunnier skies.

Choosing the Right Path for Your Business

Each strategic option comes with its own benefits and drawbacks so think carefully before selecting which is best for you. Once you’ve decided the best path forward, you need to fully commit to seeing it through. A half-hearted execution, with Sales, Marketing and Product all operating independently, will get you nowhere.

Have you found yourself in this situation? What have you done to compete? Was it successful? We’d love to hear from you in the comments!

The post How to Compete with the Next Big Thing: Fight Back, Hold Firm or Retreat appeared first on OpenView Labs.

What’s the biggest mistake I see content marketers make? They spend too much time talking about themselves instead of learning about what their potential customer needs. They forget that you can’t sell a solution until you know the problem. And even then, as a marketer, you shouldn’t be selling anything.

To put it bluntly: Too many marketers are making a case for their company prematurely in the buyer’s journey.

To avoid this, make sure you know the difference between marketing and sales.

Sales activities vs. Marketing activities

Marketing is when you address your clients’ problems, then make a case for solutions.

Sales is when you talk about yourself as the best solution.

Marketing’s job is to ease people into the sales stage of the relationship, creating the best possible experience along the way so that people are excited to buy.

For this reason, marketers should focus on talking about their clients’ problems and offering solutions. Not only does this lead to more excited and engaged customers, it helps your sales process and team as well.

So how do you create content to engage your audience at different stages? When should you talk about your company and what it has to offer? When do you pass it off to your sales team?

Welcome to the buyer’s journey.

Mapping Your Content to the Buyer’s Journey

The buyer’s journey has five distinct stages:

• Stage 1: Awareness
• Stage 2: Consideration
• Stage 3: Analysis
• Stage 4: Purchase
• Stage 5: Loyalty

The best thing about this approach is that these stages integrate both marketing and sales:

• Stages 1, 2, and 3 = Marketing
• Stages 4 and 5 = Sales

Even better, it allows you to create different types of content to match each specific stage of the Buyer’s Journey.

This is the basic framework we use at Column Five to strategize content for ourselves and our clients.

The goal: Introduce yourself to your customers and acknowledge your target customers’ pain points or issues they’re struggling with.

The buyer’s mindset: They want, need, or have an undefined yearning for something. This is your opportunity to articulate what that might be, to produce content that resonates with them so they begin to think about exactly what it is they want or need.

Content messaging: Focus on content that helps as many people as possible get to know you. Sometimes this requires piggybacking on other people’s audiences.

• Articles
• Blog posts
• Partnership content + collaborations
• Features
• PR collateral

The goal: Demonstrate your value and the value of working with a partner to solve your customers’ problems.

The buyer’s mindset: They now have a clearer understanding of what they want or need and are looking for people to help satisfy this desire, whether it’s a product, service, etc. They are in the early stages of research, looking to get the lay of the land. They want to see who the players are and who they could (and should) be giving their business to.

Content messaging: Showcase your familiarity with the problems your clients are trying to solve. Publish thought-leadership that showcases your perspective and experience in addressing these problems.

• Posts in industry publications
• How-tos or tips
• Roundups/resources

The goal: Give people the info they need to make an informed decision about working with a company in your space.

The buyer’s mindset: This is the stage where most buyers have whittled their options down to a handful of choices. Now they start comparing unique value propositions.

Content messaging: Produce thought-leadership that showcases that you are the definitive leader in the space by demonstrating your successes or legitimacy.

• Case studies (when applicable)
• Client testimonials
• High-profile or industry-leading endorsements

The goal: Turn prospects into customers.

The buyer’s mindset: This is the point at which pricing, purchase details, and post-buying experiences are scrutinized. Would-be buyers start asking themselves questions about the transaction: What will it mean to become a customer (read: “a supporter”) of this business? Am I sure I want to go through with this?

Content messaging: Provide information that will support their purchase decision.

• Sales collateral
• Webinars

The goal: Nurture and maintain the relationship.

The buyer’s mindset: They want to be reminded of why they are working with you or supporting your business. They want to feel and believe their relationship is not just transactional and that you care about them beyond their conversion into customers.

Content messaging: Deliver content that reminds them why they might want to work with you again—or why they started working with you in the first place.

• Gifts
• “Thank you” content
• Offers for deals
• Exclusive content
• Partnership opportunities
• Events
• Co-marketing opportunities
• Exclusive access (depending on your business)
• Additional and ongoing education in the form of webinars and newsletters

Focus on The Right Message at the Right Time

If you come on too strong from the start, your customers may perceive it as a red flag. Instead, work around a sustainable strategy. Marketing is an art, not a one-size-fits all prescription. Take the time to understand your audience, form a relationship, and convert them over time.

Remember that they’re humans. Be sympathetic and tactful, and you’ll build an authentic base of supporters.

Here’s an important, and often overlooked, fact about B2B sales and marketing: Your customer data holds all the keys you need to grow your business.

To succeed, you need to trust the data and step into predictive sales.

It’s not as easy as it sounds, though. Many sales and marketing leaders try to get cute and overthink their targeting, messaging, content creation, etc. I’ve been guilty of this myself, trying to imagine who my buyers might be and what they want to hear — versus letting the data lead my decision making.

This post is a simple walkthrough of the why and the how behind predictive sales and marketing strategies, and why it all starts with your own customer data. Let’s dig into it.

How Customer Success Drives Predictive Sales and Marketing

Today, the best B2B marketers and sales professionals are best because they know what makes a successful customer. They know what their buyer looks like… what his or her pain points are… why they’re buying… and other important details about their overall situation.

Customer experience (CX) and machine learning, together, are likely to be the defining element in B2B marketing and sales strategy in the coming years. 

An increased emphasis on customer success will lead savvy companies to link customer data (account info, demographics, and behavioral data) with business data (account spend, renewal rate, etc). 

RELATED: Digital Sales Data: The (Real) Secret to Moving Deals from Prospect to Closed

The revelations that emerge from uniting these two sets of data will not just align marketing and sales but all revenue-generating and customer-facing departments.

How does machine learning come into the picture?

The terms, Predictive, Machine Learning, and A.I. may sound expensive, hype-driven, and essentially meaningless to the modern B2B sales and marketing leader, but not so fast. We’re reaching a tipping point in the capabilities and availability of predictive technology in B2B sales and marketing.

The premise: History repeats itself. Past performance is the greatest predictor of future events, whether we’re talking international politics or the success rates for various B2B sales and marketing efforts. If your company is struggling to sell into one industry but is closing at a massive clip in another industry, you can bet that trend will continue.

Unfortunately, in many cases, these trends are hard — if not impossible — for a human to spot and keep up with. 

This video on the Future of Sales dives deep into 8 sales strategies that are expected to drive sales.

The tipping point: In B2B, you used to need a massive budget or a committed business intelligence team to get great predictive insights for sales and marketing. That period has come to end. Today, the sophistication and mass availability of data intelligence software means just about any company can have a sophisticated system to do predictive sales analytics. 

Building a Foundation for Predictive B2B Sales and Marketing 

There are three primary reasons every B2B company should make customer metrics the core of their sales and marketing strategy, with predictive analytics serving as the connector behind past and future success.

We’re going to look at each one, and how you can set it up in your own business.

1. It creates a better customer experience.

Reason #1 for predictive sales is that it makes it easier to create a powerful, positive customer experience.

And that’s the basis behind the wish list for every B2B sales organization: 

• More customers 
• Higher average contract values
• Negative churn 
• High renewal rates 
• Increased referrals
• Shorter sales cycles 
• Stronger inbound lead generation. 

In other words, a better customer experience is the solution to everything that makes life easier for the entirety of your front office.

All those things on the wish list? They’re organic revenue drivers. They’re the true north for sales and marketing in a time where there are, on average, 7 decision-makers in the B2B buying process.

The data behind client success is incredibly powerful. It can point your organization towards ad geo-targeting for marketing, industry verticals for sales, and product road-mapping for developers, to cite just a few examples. 

How to Get Started:

The starting point here is data collection. You need three sets of data about your customers to properly understand them:

• Firmographic and technographic data (who they are)
• Pre-Sale Behavioral Data (why they bought)
• Post-Sale Customer Success Data (how happy they are)

RELATED: The Data Points You Need for an Effective Account Targeting Strategy

The first set of data is easy. You just need a data enrichment service like Clearbit, Everstring, or SalesIntel that populates your CRM database with all the information you need about who your buyers are. 

The second set of data starts with a marketing automation platform such as Pardot, HubSpot, or Marketo and tracks your buyer’s journey through your marketing and sales funnel. 

For added firepower, invest in an attribution platform such as Bizible that shows you every touchpoint your buyer has en route to purchasing your product.

The third set of data requires the help of a good customer success measurement system. Nextiva, for example, tracks every engagement your customer has with your company, from outbound call to support case submission, and scores their overall satisfaction with your platform using sentiment analysis — whether you are at the office or working remotely.

2. It improves targeting, messaging, and [everything].

84% of B2B decision makers start the buying process with a referral. The more you focus effort and attention on customer experience, the better your targeting, your messaging, your marketing collateral — everything. 

This is why sales enablement initiatives containing a formal process for cross-functional collaboration are most likely to hit expectations (source).

Database enrichment, predictive analytics, and client communications technology have decimated the silos around CX in many B2B sales organizations. Affordable and integration-ready, these tools are equipping SMB and mid-market B2B companies with insane insights across all functions. 

Fully enriched client database? Searchable support channel? Client satisfaction and engagement scores? All are readily accessible to your entire organization.  

How to Get Started:

Once you have all your data points about your customer experience, you can reverse-engineer your ideal customer persona and roadmap, creating the one true nexus for your entire company. 

Which customers closed the fastest and for the highest dollar values? How did they discover your company and what channels did they come in through?

Which customers are enjoying the most success? Are they in a specific industry or city? 

What content are your successful customers and high-converting prospects ingesting pre and post-sale? Are there recurring assets or conversations offering premium value to their success?

The answers to these questions should inform ALL of your future sales, marketing, and customer success activities.

Once you’re aligned on who your ideal customer is, you can draw up customer referral programs aimed at bringing in customers who match your ideal profile. 

You can launch new content, directly attacking the problems that lead your ideal customers to your platform. 

You can team up with ideal partners, whose clients overlap with yours, to amplify your brand across channels.

All of this starts with mapping your customer experience using data, and creating a composite of your ideal customer and roadmap.

3. It drives long-term growth and prosperity.

If you’re not here to create a positive experience for your customers, good luck achieving long-term growth and prosperity.

The companies that deploy successful B2B sales and marketing initiatives will look first to their existing customer data. Beyond that, successful companies will work aggressively to establish a customer success-based foundation for future revenue growth.

It’s the Digital Age. The information gap between businesses and consumers has all but evaporated. 

For the first time in the history of commerce,  B2B companies no longer have total control over product messaging — as Brian Halligan and Daniel Pink noted in Hubspot’s initial How to Sell Like a Human interview. Instead, who has the power? Their clientele does — on review sites, message boards, and social media.

Nowadays, the buyer’s journey can begin without any meaningful interaction with your polished marketing campaigns and silver-tongued sales talent. 

Your clients define your brand, your value, and ultimately, the potential of your business. In that respect, every organization must make a choice when it comes to customer success.

How to Get Started:

Using predictive analytics and real-time customer data, your B2B company can become smarter about guiding what your customers say about them. 

Track metrics that indicate customer satisfaction, and then use these insights to hand your happiest clients a megaphone to sing your praises. This helps you avoid accidentally requesting reviews and referrals from clients looking to take a sickle to your business online.

Use your ideal customer persona and the roadmap you created in Step 2 to guide your marketing and sales efforts. Continuously revisit and refine your personas and processes as your business evolves. This will enable you to keep the machine running and stay ahead of the curve when your competitors start copying your tactics. (Trust me, they will.)

Beyond the Hype: Bringing Predictive to B2B Sales and Marketing

We have reached a tipping point in the B2B sales profession. Customer data enrichment, analytics, and predictive forecasting are more powerful and available than ever before.  

Companies with reliable, high-quality customer data and a client-centric focus will be best-suited to activate predictive analytics, machine learning, and AI to accelerate revenue growth dramatically.

Best of luck to your B2B sales and marketing organizations going forward. Get data. Get customer-focused. Get predictive sales… 

And get smarter with your sales and marketing initiatives.

The post The New (Breakout) Growth Formula: Customer Success + Predictive Sales appeared first on Sales Hacker.