How can you find the right sales training company? Here are five insider tips.

Voice search is changing how users search for information--and, more important for marketers and businesses, how websites provide that information in order to be featured in voice search results. Here's what you can, and should, do about that. Read the full article at MarketingProfs

Learn how the Sandler Enterprise Selling program addresses the idea of cross-functional sales teams with Brian Sullivan, Vice President of Sandler Enterprise Selling.

Watch Time: 4 Minutes

This is an excerpt from a story delivered exclusively to Business Insider Intelligence Digital Health Briefing subscribers. To receive the full story plus other insights each morning, click here.

Artificial intelligence (AI) and analytics are generating significant buzz in the healthcare sector, but among the 93% of hospitals and health systems that have outlined an analytics strategy — just one-third have executed it, according to a survey of 110 senior leaders at hospitals and health systems conducted by HIMSS Analytics and Dimensional Insight.

Failing to execute an AI strategy is a missed opportunity for health firms: The majority (57%) of executives at health firms currently deploying predictive analytics expect the tech to save their organization at least 15% over the next five years. 

Here's what it means: Hospitals’ dearth of effective analytics implementations is partly a byproduct of disparate tech solutions and siloed decision making.

• Hospitals haven’t identified a single tool that satisfies their analytics needs.Hospitals use an average of four analytics tools, and 17% use 10 or more tools. This may stem in part from a lack of mature healthcare analytics offerings on the market, as 42% of health firm execs say there aren't a lot of ready-to-deploy AI and digital health solutions available. Hospitals' patchwork approach to analytics further suggests that there's a lack of strong solutions on the market and may create inefficiencies that impede on executing a successful analytics strategy.
• And the fragmented nature of analytics-powered decision making across departments may be hindering analytics investments. The majority (58%) of senior provider organization leaders say they can only influence decisions made based on analytics at a departmental or single-hospital basis only, as opposed to across their entire organization. This limited scalability of the insights generated by existing analytics solutions might make providers reluctant to expand analytics investments, as new tech solutions with a narrow use case may be less likely to yield a positive return on investment.

The bigger picture: The gap between hospitals' interest in analytics and knowledge of best practices leaves a lucrative market opportunity for early moving providers and health IT vendors.

Health firms’ top IT priorities in 2019 are accelerating digital health initiatives and investing in AI and analytics, and most (54%) health firms expect that their IT budgets will grow at least 10% this year. Hospitals’ willingness to spend more on analytics suggests that IT vendors that can commercialize an effective software solution will attract a lot of interest.

Meanwhile, early moving providers like Pennsylvania-based health system Geisinger — which cut the time to diagnose internal head bleeding by 96% by implementing an AI algorithm into its radiology workflow — can reap the rewards of being an analytics market leader; becoming an analytics and AI leader now creates an opportunity to form strategic partnerships and commercialize new products down the line.

Here's the industry opinion, as told to Business Insider Intelligence:

“Early on [in providers’ analytics implementations] the best use of third-party vendors is for developing the data architecture that allows you to generate insights from your data . . . and then once you understand how this process works you can bring your data back in house, because it’s expensive to rely on third-party vendors — especially for smaller organizations.” — Griffin Myers, CMO Oak Street Health

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1. Sign up for the Digital Health Briefing to get it delivered to your inbox 4x a week. >> Get Started

2. Subscribe to a Premium pass to Business Insider Intelligence and gain immediate access to the Digital Health Briefing, plus more than 250 other expertly researched reports. As an added bonus, you'll also gain access to all future reports and daily newsletters to ensure you stay ahead of the curve and benefit personally and professionally. >> Learn More Now

SEE ALSO: THE DIGITAL HEALTH ECOSYSTEM: An in-depth examination of the players and tech trends reshaping the future of healthcare

Join the conversation about this story »

Email marketing is the elixir for most marketers who wish to attract new prospects while maintaining the relation with existing customers. Even though most marketers are drawn towards email marketing owing to claims of getting $34 in return for every $1 spent on email marketing, they fail to understand a crucial point – how and where you invest the $1 determines the returns you can reap from your marketing campaigns.

This article will highlight the areas where campaign managers invest their money (and time).

Your ROI depends on your marketing budget

Your marketing budget as well as the different channels you use along with your emails define your ROI.

It generally depends on:

• Your annual revenue
• Type of company i.e. B2B or B2C
• Your products / services
• Overall online revenue generated
• Goals of your campaigns

A break up of email marketing budget

Ironically, a fraction of your marketing budget goes to develop the heart of your email campaign i.e. the email template. Most of the budget goes in preparing and supporting the campaign.

Tools Subscription

Email marketing involves sending emails to thousands of subscribers at a time. It is advisable not to use free webmail services such as Gmail or Yahoo! to send your emails as they come with certain limitations:

• You can only send 500 emails each day using Gmail SMTP
• You can only send plain text emails with images and other multimedia as attachments
• Restricted scope of personalization
• High chances of emails being marked as SPAM by ISP filters.
• No scope of segmentation

So, you need to avail the services of an ESP in order to send emails to all your subscribers at once and a CRM to store and process the information collected from your subscribers. A chunk of the marketing budget goes in availing the subscriptions of tools that you need to manage your email campaigns.

Most common tools that an email marketer uses are:

• ESP
• CRM
• Lead generation forms
• Email validation services
• Email list management

You can further read about the different tools you need in an email campaign here .

Email and Landing Page Templates

Even though most ESPs provide a library of pre-designed email templates, you need to develop a custom email template in order to avoid looking like a run-of-the-mill brand. An email template is made of a hero image, email copy, relevant visual elements, an actionable call-to-action and a CAN-SPAM compliant footer.

Depending on whether you create one yourself or get it developed, you need to allocate a budget for your email templates. This involves developing the template, testing it across different email clients and making ESP specific changes.

EmailMonks can create a pixel perfect email as per your design file within 8 hours TAT for $49. You can avail your first order for free as well.

The landing page should be consistent to your email templates and you need to factor this cost too, when planning an email campaign.

Advertising

While emails are a great way to acquire new prospects, you need to rely on ads to rope in new customers. Investing in solid Search Engine Marketing (SEM) is vital for reaching your target audience solely on the base of your customer persona. Bidding to remain visible in the search results of different search engine platforms such as Google and Bing! means you need to calculate and accommodate the cost per click and cost per acquisition.

Copy writing costs

While this may not be applicable for every brand, seeking professional help for writing engaging and actionable copy for your emails and landing pages also needs to be factored in. Be it for writing an email copy or even for translation into different languages, campaign managers need to avail these services in order to ensure a perfect email.

Staff costs or agency outsourcing cost

Whether you manage your email campaigns in-house or outsource it to an agency, you can easily spend $9 ~ $1000/ month on staffing costs or $300 – $500 / month to agencies. This includes the cost of hiring & training resources for your team.

Time

As the old adage goes “Time is Money”, every second you invest in your email campaigns impacts your marketing budget and in turn the returns expected. While email automation has reduced the time spent on email campaigns, setting them up and testing the workflows has a running cost to it.

How to reduce cost without cutting corners

Every campaign manager has to work around tight budgets and deadlines, while good performance is expected from them. Here are some common tips to subsequently reduce costs.

Modular Email Templates

While one-off emails have a visual flair that sets them apart from other emails, creating a new email template for every email campaign can dry out your marketing budget soon. By investing in a modular email template, you can create ready-to-send emails on the fly without compromising on the visual attractiveness of your email templates.

Periodically scrub out dormant and low LTV customers

Trying to revive a lost customer is like flogging a dead horse. They both result in wasted efforts. Most ESPs charge you on the basis of subscriber count in your mailing list and if your mailing list is filled with dormant customers, low lifetime value (LTV) customers or wrong email addresses, you will lose money on them. Periodically cleaning your mailing list not only improves your email campaign performance, but also helps monetarily by saving extra dollars.

Invest in an agency

Managing your email campaigns in-house gives you more control over the campaigns, but it eats up a large chunk of your time, especially when you hit a roadblock. By outsourcing your email campaigns to an agency, you gain the expertise at a fractionally higher cost, but it saves money in the long run.

EmailMonks’ own campaign management service has a strong team of 150+ campaign managers who have the expertise of working with 50+ ESPs and setting up hundreds of email campaigns.

Wrapping Up

Based on your business model and your target audience, your marketing budget may vary. By analyzing the above given factors, you can get a clear picture of how to allocate your budget and gain the most out of it. By investing in a good email marketing platform, charting out a strong campaign strategy and reaching out to the correct audience can significantly reduce the chances of you wasting money.

Everyone in your local shopping street wants something slightly different. Even though you are all from the same geographic and economic area and even though you are similar in age and background, you still want something different from the person next to you. Demographic and geographic data are poor predictors of what people want to buy. Yet they are frequently the only factors that businesses consider.

The value of psychographic segmentation

If you want to succeed in your online business you need to consider psychographic segmentation. This is where you profile your potential customers in fine detail according to their personal wants and needs. By doing so you can much more accurately pinpoint what your customers are likely to buy.

Imagine that you know that your audience is business women aged 25-40 who live in the South of England and that most of them have at least a university degree.

So, you start creating content for women who are business owners in this age bracket and geographic region. You are using demographic and geographic data. But what if they’re mostly single parents? How does that change the picture? And what if these single mum business owners are high achievers? They’re not struggling, they’re goal-oriented, and attracted to stable and compassionate brands.

This information changes the way you market to them surely? It gives you more information to brand, to build relationships, to market and to change how you offer your products or services. Relying on demographics and geographics alone means you would have missed your target.

Here are ten ways you can profile your customers so that you can gain a better insight into the potential for psychographic segmentation.

1. Interests

What is your audience interested in? Are they interested in pets, politics, entertainment or technology news? Your prospects’ interests help you position and create the right marketing message. For example, if you have a prospect who’s interested in politics, writing a headline that integrates entertainment news or gossip isn’t going to work as well for them as an analogy to a political event.

2. Opinions

Opinions matter and your audience’s opinions can spread quickly. It’s important to both understand and manage your audience’s opinions about your products or services so you can provide immediate feedback and an appropriate marketing response.

3. Beliefs

What do they believe? We’re not just talking about personal beliefs. What do they believe about success, money, happiness and other elements of life? You can connect with shared beliefs or challenge their beliefs to get them to open their mind to new ideas, products, and services.

4. Values

Your audience’s values are their broad preferences concerning appropriate courses of action or outcomes. It’s their sense of right and wrong and what’s important to them. For example, do they value family over success? Do they value fame or fortune? Connect with your prospect’s values to really engage with them.

5. Goals

What do they want to achieve? For example, are they a bargain hunter looking for the best price or are they oriented toward brand recognition? Understanding your prospects’ goals can help you craft a message that speaks to them.

6. Attitudes

Attitudes play an important role in marketing content creation. An attitude is a positive or negative evaluation of people, events, activities, or ideas. It’s also an evaluation of your organization.

7. Purchasing motives

Why does your prospect make purchases? What is their motive? For example, are they motivated by fear of loss or by pride and prestige? Do they want to save money? Avoid pain? Feel comforted and connected?

8. Personal characteristics

Personality is difficult to measure but it can play a role in creating your customer’s psychographic profile. For example, is your audience complacent or determined? Are they inquisitive? Are they demanding? This information can help you provide the content and information your audience needs to make a buying decision.

9. Activities

What does your prospect do? What are their hobbies? What are their travelling habits, working habits, and so on? How do they spend their weekdays and evenings? This information can help you craft personal messages and it can also help with the timing of your marketing messages.

10. Social class

Where does your customer or prospect fall on the socioeconomic scale? Are they a professional or a manual worker? The language you use and the products or services you provide can be promoted differently depending on the social class you’re appealing to.

Few businesses know enough about their customers. Does yours? To ensure you improve your chances of success online you need to gain a deeper understanding of your customers and potential clients. That’s why you need to use these ten factors to help you understand the psychographic segmentation of your audience.

Digital transformation is a burgeoning change in the world of business and technology. Organizational leaders are piping with excitement at the wealth of opportunities to grow their business and seize a considerable return on investment. As a result, these leaders can be blindsided by the risks of digital transformation. One considerable risk that initially seems innocuous revolves around software compliance and auditing.

It’s no secret that software helps employees perform their jobs more effectively. However, as the software environment becomes more complex, the risk of noncompliance with software agreements increases. Keep reading to find out software compliance risks associated with digital transformation, and what actions are required to avoid unnecessary challenges.

Lack of Software Compliance Facilitates Cybercrime

Cybercrime is at an all-time high. Over the span of just 10 years, the cost of cybercrime across industries has increased more than fivefold – up to $1.4 billion. One of the biggest driving forces behind this stark increase is data breaches.

Unfortunately, digital transformation exacerbates data breaches by granting organizations the ability to store massive amounts of data online. This increase in available data storage exists alongside the growing value of personal information. The growing popularity of IoT, the cloud, and other new networking technology has also dramatically increased the attack surface and number of entryways into an organization’s network.

These cyber incidents no longer are just a challenge for IT. Today, cybercrime often disrupts the entire organization with potentially devastating consequences. According to IDG, 85% of CISOs said that security issues during digital transformation have had a somewhat to extremely large impact on their business. The average organization has also sustained an attack that resulted in data loss or compliance issues. However, a select number of well-prepared organizations that experienced breaches did not suffer from data loss or compliance issues.

One major way to become one of these well-prepared organizations is to update your software asset management plan. The first step to take is to acknowledge that any security risk is a business risk. Then, use software compliance to uncover where these digital security risks lie, and secure your business. This requires a security effort that is integral, holistic, and automated from the beginning, rather than put together over time. To assist in this, consider leveraging a managed security service provider.

The key outcome of a mature SAM program is understanding the data within your estate, and the risks inherent in having this data. A mature program can give visibility to software in need of patching and updating, which security software is running, and determine which software is no longer supported or soon won’t be supported. By utilizing these traits of a mature SAM solution, your organization will be able to eliminate some of their risk.

Evolving Mandates

Partially due to cybercrime, software manufacturers have rewritten or reinterpreted their regulatory requirements. This has spurred organizations to re-examine their established business models. This is wise, as change is the only constant in the age of digital transformation. No compliance program will ever be a “one and done” process. It has become the norm for software providers to implement new standards, and enforce new interpretations of existing standards. These new interpretations are needed because the effects of digital transformation disrupt the traditional network infrastructure through technology like virtualization and cloud computing.

Being compliant with these evolving mandates isn’t easy. Staying up-to-date on such a complex subject requires reading and interpreting each individual document, and then determining how it interacts with other parts of your software environment.

It is a painstaking process just to ensure that the legal terms have been considered within the End User License Agreement (EULA). There could be restrictions for each software application that will impact your compliance or anticipated costs as you continue on your digital transformation journey.

The internal costs of the legal team reviewing these documents can be cost prohibitive, so many organizations choose to have other members of their organization review these documents – or, they just don’t review at all. By using external services, your organization can effectively manage these legal risks and identify key challenges within each contract or EULA.

After evaluating the state of your software compliance environment, it is important to partake in risk assessments. This will help your IT team prioritize which parts of software are most vulnerable to auditing. By regularly ensuring your organization understands the requirements of changing software agreements, full compliance will become feasible.

The Solution

Now that some of the biggest risks have been defined, it is time to forge a complete solution for software compliance. The first step is to implement a strong communication line across all of your departments, but especially to your IT team. It is important to realize that every team and department in your organization must be dedicated to resolving any software compliance issues.

Then, initiate a conversation with IT about putting software compliance as a serious priority on their radar. Achieving a suitable level of software compliance is a lot of work, but don’t get overwhelmed or discouraged. Break your effort down into bite-sized pieces to ensure everything is being done accurately, and avoid any overwhelmed feelings. To help identify software across your network infrastructure, be sure to find ways to increase the visibility of software on your network.

Last, think about how to get buy-in. Make sure your CIO and other members of upper management are aware of how digital transformation is affecting your compliance and internal audits. Communicate how improper software management can create major business risks. To help bring the point home, ensure everyone involved understands that a mature SAM program can bring an average spend reduction of 30%, ultimately acting as a boon to the business.

Final Thoughts

Don’t get lost in the hype surrounding digital transformation. While organizational leaders certainly should seize as many opportunities to grow their business, they must be aware of the potential software compliance risks spurred by digital transformation. With this information, your organization will be better informed of the risks involved with digital transformation and have a better idea of how to stay compliant and avoid unnecessary risks.

Sophisticated 16QAM modulation sends data through a transatlantic fiber-optic cable with record efficiency

The thing, however, is that a business will not be successful if it does not sell. Whatever product or service you are offering, you need to sell it to people, or it will never count for anything.

Why is Training Important for Sales Skills?

Training your employees to have the right skills is important. You create a very important asset: the asset of differentiation. By giving your employees sales skills, you will give them (and by extension) your company an advantage that cannot be replicated by your competitors. It will set you apart in the market.

In the marketplace of today, differentiation makes all the difference.

Where it was once enough to offer a product or service that is unique, it is becoming more important to find ways to differentiate yourself from the competitions in other ways since products and services are becoming more and more uniform with lower barriers to entry.

Why not differentiate yourself through the selling skills of your company?

A Closer Look at Selling Skills

Selling skills are the collection of all the skills that make a salesperson good at their job. Think of them as a collective muscle that the salesperson uses when they’re trying to close a sale, and they have to consistently exercise if they’re going to remain strong.

There are at least 2 ways to develop sales skills: experience and training.

• While experience is a powerful way to develop these skills, it takes a long time and a lot of mistakes.
• Training, on the other hand, especially in the hands of a professional and using the right methods, takes much less time and takes most of the guesswork out of sales.

While the strategies a salesperson will apply change with the time and the situation, the basic principles that all salespersons should have tend to remain the same.

7 Crucial Tactics to Include in a Proper Sales Training

If you’re going to make great salespeople out of your employees, there are 7 crucial tactics you’re going to have to teach them.

One of them is all about the mindset they should be placing themselves in.

The other 6 is about various ways they can effectively close a sale and get a prospect to buy. While there are many aspects to effective selling and the subject is certainly wider than 7 core elements, these tactics are definitely important and should not be overlooked in any sales training class.

1 Remember That Sales Is Not About What You’re Selling

This is perhaps the most important thing a salesperson should know. If you teach nothing else to your sales team, then teach this one principle, and they might still go on to become a great sales team.

It may seem counterintuitive, but it is the heart of sales. Most entrepreneurs have the problem of focusing too much on their product. They toil and toil to create this wonderful product or service, and they fall in love with it; it’s their little baby,and they are very proud of it. However, that pride will not get them any customers, and it certainly won’t help their sales efforts.

The modern customer is a discerning one.

They know what the industry is like and they know what your competitors are offering relative to you. When you lead with your product or service, you are taking the wrong approach to a sale.

The customer really doesn’t care about your product, especially if it’s one in a sea of identical products from many different businesses. What the customer is really looking for is a solution. They really want help solving their problems, which are countless and keep increasing every day.

Your job as a salesperson is to figure out what the customer’s problem, their needs, are, and then try to meet those needs and solve those problems.

The customer should not see you as a salesperson; they should see you as a problem solver; their proverbial savior. If you can show them how your product meets their needs, and in a way that the products of your competitors cannot, then they will most likely buy it. That is the secret.

Types of Sales Closes

The next section is about important types of sales closes you should train your team about to improve their chances of closing a sale. Without these crucial tactics, they can never hope to convert a prospect into a buyer.

2 Closing with Urgency

When a salesperson uses the urgency close, they try to close with a benefit or feature of the product that encourages the prospect to purchase immediately. You see this everywhere as it is a fairly common tactic.

For example, the salesperson could point out that the item is the last one being offered at that price and that all subsequent identical items will be at a raised price.

The salesperson could also offer a discount to all customers who purchase the product on a given day. If it’s an online product, it could be an x% discount on the item for all those who sign up on that particular day.

If it’s a service with an especially long queue, the salesperson could promise to fast track the process and take the prospect to the front of the queue, provided them make the commitment to purchase the service immediately.

This particular tactic is very effective because urgency is a good motivator for buying things. The inertia the customer may feel is overcome and they pull the trigger immediately. The trick, however, is to make the product or service seem valuable first before you actually introduce the sense of urgency. It won’t work if the customer isn’t convinced of the value of your product.

3 Closing by Summary

This tactic involves repeating all the benefits and valuable features of a product to the prospect in order to give them that final little impetus that gets them to make the purchase. If you’re selling a washing machine, for example, you could summarize its technical features, any guarantees or warranties, and any extra offers on it in order to encourage the prospect to purchase the washing machine.

The whole idea behind the summary method is to make the features and benefits of the product appear as a compact package. The assumption here is that you have already given the prospect an in-depth explanation of all the features previously.

If the product has a lot of features, explaining them each in-depth has the danger of causing the customer to lose track of what truly matters. The summary at the end brings their attention back to the most important features of the product in order to ground their perception of the product.

By summarizing the good aspect of the product in the form of a package, you basically draw a picture for the customer that shows them how they stand to benefit from the deal.

4 The Sharp Angle

Customers often know they have the upper hand in negotiations and they will use it to ask for extras or reductions in price. They often also know that you expect that angle in the negotiations and so you probably already have approval from your manager to offer these discounts and add-ons.

You can regain the upper hand in the negotiations using the sharp angle close. If the customer asks for add-ons, for example, you can tell them you could offer them the add-ons provided they close the sale immediately.

The customer will be surprised on two counts in this case: they will be surprised because you agreed to their request so quickly and they will also be surprised because you used it to hurry the deal.

This technique can prove quite effective, provided the customer finds the product valuable enough. The fact that they asked for add-ons or a price reduction means they are already considering a purchase; they just need that little extra value. What this tactic does is offer them that value they’re seeking while extracting value from them in return.

5 The Question

This is a more modern type of sales close. Basically, there are two goals a modern sales rep should have. One the one hand, they should seek to discover the needs of the customer; on the other, they should seek to convince the customer that their product or service will meet those needs in a manner that is both satisfactory and affordable. As long as those goals are accomplished, the sale should be easy to close.

The question tactic seeks to achieve those goals by probing the prospect with questions. By asking questions, the salesperson seeks to build up desire for the product in the prospect while getting rid of any objections they might have.

You could ask the prospect if they feel the product you are offering meets their needs. If they answer in the negative, then you have to keep going until you can turn that answer into a yes.

6 The Assumptive Close

This modern sales technique is based on positive thinking. Basically the salesperson is supposed to believe, right from the beginning, that they will close a sale. It tends to make the whole process miraculously successful.

As a salesperson, to apply this technique effectively, you should constantly watch your prospect for their level of engagement and interest. Ask them questions along the way to figure out whether the product and interaction are aligning with their expectations while assuming that they have good intentions. This allows you to take the sale in a direction that you would find hard otherwise.

7 The Take-Away

This is based on the old psychological principle that people tend to focus more on what has been taken away from them. Rather than what’s given.

If you notice that the prospect has issues with the price, you can offer them a discount while removing a feature from the service or product. This puts more focus on what you took away than the discount you offered.

Conclusion

Selling skills are invaluable to teach your employees. Their ability to sell can either make or break your business. By teaching the right things in training, you set them, and your business by extension, up for massive success in the field.

This is an excerpt from a story delivered exclusively to Business Insider Intelligence E-Commerce Briefing subscribers. To receive the full story plus other insights each morning, click here.

Amazon is doing away with a pricing policy in the US, dubbed “pricing parity” by critics, that disallows third-party sellers on its site from offering the same items on other platforms for a lower price, according to a person with direct knowledge of the decision cited by Axios.

This choice may have come in response to heightened antitrust scrutiny from politicians that the company's been experiencing recently. For example, Senator Richard Blumenthal asked the Department of Justice and the Federal Trade Commission to investigate the requirements for possible antitrust violations in December.

And 2020 Presidential hopeful Senator Elizabeth Warren said that Congress should pass a law preventing large companies from owning a marketplace and selling on it simultaneously. The fact that Amazon dropped this pricing parity requirement for merchants on its marketplace in the EU due to regulatory pressure in 2013 further suggests that the prospect of regulation was the reason for its repeal in the US.

This pricing parity requirement gave Amazon a subtle but profound degree of control over the e-commerce market. The size of Amazon’s marketplace, combined with a pricing parity requirement, meant that the best Amazon’s competitors could do was offer the same price as the e-commerce giant on a number of products.

Furthermore, if Amazon were to raise a fee that caused a seller to elevate the price of a product on its platform, the change could ripple across competing marketplaces because the seller would theoretically have to update its prices on other platforms to achieve parity.

Terminating this policy removes this major advantage for Amazon and could alter the e-commerce landscape as the e-tailer loses its iron grip on minimum prices for many products.

• This change will be liberating for merchants, which will gain more control over their pricing when selling beyond Amazon. Third-party sellers will now be able to set pricing on a more case-by-case basis across the different platforms they choose to sell on, as opposed to having to adhere to a minimum that matches their Amazon price. This could encourage merchants to sell on more marketplaces, potentially leading them to a lower degree of dependence on Amazon, a major shift given that a solid 44% of brands say they get more than half of their e-commerce sales through the e-tailer.
• Marketplaces that compete with Amazon will now have a chance to gain an advantage. Perhaps the biggest beneficiary of the end of Amazon’s price parity practice will be competing marketplaces, as they're getting a much better shot at outpricing the e-commerce giant than they previously had. For instance, if one of Amazon’s competitors can make it cheaper for a seller to operate on its platform than it would be to sell on Amazon, that merchant can now consider selling at a more competitive price with that marketplace, giving it an edge on Amazon. If Amazon’s competitors can employ this strategy with major brands selling on their marketplaces and Amazon’s, it could start to cause subtle shifts in the US e-commerce competitive landscape.

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SEE ALSO: The three types of Amazon buyers — and how other e-tailers can lure them away

Join the conversation about this story »

Welcome to "The Pipeline" — a weekly column from HubSpot, featuring actionable advice and insight from real sales leaders.

Today's buyers are busier than ever before. So for a sales rep to connect with a prospect, they must supersede all the other tasks, priorities, emails, meetings, and notifications the prospect has on their plate at that very minute. They have to convince the buyer to put everything else down and listen to them.

Sounds like a Herculean task. And it is … if you take the same approach as every other rep. Most reps go into prospecting calls projecting an air of authority and credibility. After all, why would a buyer listen to someone who doesn‘t know what they’re talking about?

But there‘s a critical difference between coming off as amateurish vs. curious. When reps take the role of a curious student rather than an informed expert, buyers are much more inclined to engage. Most initial sales calls last about 30 to 40 seconds. So, how do you get someone’s attention in that incredibly brief span of time?

The Best Attention Grabbing Techniques

1. Use your time wisely.

Your first call with a prospect isn‘t likely to be a long one, and that’s okay. Instead of trying to cram in everything you want to say before the buyer hangs up, tailor your message for the allotted time. I recommend that reps come to connect calls with a topic that can be easily explained in 30 seconds.

Every good sales call includes an ask. Does this mean you should use your 30 seconds to ask for a meeting? No — that's not enough time. Instead, ask for another two to three minutes to talk and then use that longer amount of time to request a meeting. You just lengthened your conversation by 300%!

2. Start with them.

Reps are dying to deliver their pitches, but you‘d be wise to start your conversations with something about the prospect. Kicking off the call this way helps to interrupt the buyer’s flow and get them to focus on you.

However, there's a caveat here. Make sure that your customized question or observation is totally independent of you.

Here's what I mean:

Bad: “I saw your company does X, and that's great because I can help you … "

Good: “How does your company do X?"

If a buyer senses your sales pitch coming, they'll tune you out right away. Leave yourself out of the conversation (at least in the beginning) to hold their attention.

3. Be curious.

As I mentioned above, curiosity trumps credibility when it comes to sales calls. Why? Well, if the rep approaches the buyer like a student, the buyer is likely to assume the role of a teacher. And how do teachers instruct their students? They're calm, patient, kind, and forthcoming — exactly how sales reps would like their prospects to treat them.

On the other hand, what happens when a rep takes on the role of an expert-turned-teacher? The buyer tunes out immediately. If the salesperson knows everything, the prospect has nothing to contribute.

No contribution, no engagement, no sale.

Playing up curiosity over credibility can be scary for reps. But if you maintain confidence and courage alongside your curiosity, I guarantee you will grab and hold your buyer's attention.

Here are some fantastic conversation starters that are borne of curiosity:

• I really don't understand what your company does. Could you explain Y?
• I was on your website and I'm confused about ...
• This is my first time calling your company and I don't know who I should speak with.

4. Embrace the silence.

At some point during the call, you'll ask a question. The best thing you can do afterward? Stop talking.

The longer the silence on a first call, the better. If a prospect falls silent after you pose your query, it means they‘re thinking. Clearly, they’re interested in the conversation and getting you the best response. So whatever you do, don't interrupt the silence.

Remember that this prospect likely wasn‘t ready for or expecting your call. You need to allow them time to catch up with you and really consider what you’re asking them. Interrupting their thought process with another question or an explanation breaks their engagement and shoots you in the foot. Don't do it.

5. Use one close per attempt.

When reaching out, limit yourself to a single close. It's important that this close gets the prospect engaged, rather than being a deal advancer. Here are a few example closes you could use.

• What's the easiest way for me to learn more about your organization?
• Do vendors need to be approved by your finance department?
• What do you do/what is your role?
• I just read your article on X topic ...
• Where can I get a copy of your slide deck from the presentation you gave last month at X event?

When you‘re trying to capture the prospect’s attention, it's more important to engage them in a conversation than to move the deal forward.

6. Have a cadence plan.

Before you attempt a phone call, you should have a clear plan for the cadence of your outreach. You should know how many calls you'll make and how much time will lapse between your outreach attempts.

If you make a decision about outreach cadence after the initial call, you‘ll undercut yourself. For example, if you leave a voicemail about a close, the prospect doesn’t respond, and you didn‘t create a cadence plan, you’ll get discouraged and drag your feet on following up again.

But, if you prepare beforehand and the prospect doesn‘t respond, that initial attempt won’t be life or death. Let‘s say you settled on making four attempts with this prospect. The plan you created ensures you’re committed to those close attempts. And it will be less discouraging if the contact doesn't respond after your first call.

Attention is an incredibly valuable commodity in sales. Use these six steps to earn and keep it in a very short period of time.

A lot of people mistake being busy for being productive. You might get to cross 15 things off your To-Do List, but unless these items are directly related to sales, chances are you are being incredibly unproductive. Productivity is a measurement of the progress you are making on important outcomes. You can say “yes” to all kinds of work and projects that consume your time and energy and while interesting, they do nothing to move you ahead toward your major initiatives or goals.

Being more productive requires a broader shift in thinking. It can be tough to improve your productivity overnight but there are some simple steps you can take to meaningfully boost productivity over time. Some of these strategies require lifestyle changes, while others require getting more organized and comparing your progress against peers. Read up on these tips to help you build a foundation for killer productivity.

Set Yourself Up For Success

You can’t have a great day without a little preparation the night before. Every night I set the coffee pot to go off 10 minutes before I wake up. I also get water bottles ready if I am running in the morning. I start the day in the office with mindfulness meditation, a journal entry and writing. Then I set to work with a cup of coffee and a blank page on my computer.

Everyone has different daily routines. But the more you can do to get your day in order before you are up and running, the faster you will get to work and the more you will accomplish. You set the tone for your whole day during the very first few hours. Review your calendar for the next day the night before so you know what to expect. It only takes a few minutes but it’s important to know what you’re doing and where you have space to fit in last-minute tasks that pop up. Make sure you are prepared for meetings and commitments you have planned.

It’s also important to write down your priorities or To-Do list – this can help you achieve three or four major outcomes each day. You can try to do this on a weekly basis, but if you’re really staying busy, chances are you will want to revisit your schedule and renegotiate commitments on a daily basis. Review the list and schedule time to do the real work – the proactive, intentional stuff, not the reactive stuff like responding to emails, answering calls, etc. Doing this work the night before lets you do purposeful work starting right at the beginning of your day.

Don’t Skimp on Sleep

Getting a full night of sleep is critical to boosting productivity. The average person needs at least 7 hours of sleep each night and some need even more than that. Figure out how many hours of sleep you need to function most effectively and set a “cut off” time for when you need to go to bed every night. You can even set that cutoff time on your smartphone so you get an alert when it’s time to get some sleep. It’s also important to detach from electronics an hour or two before bed. Studies show that the light emitted from electronics can disrupt your natural sleep rhythms. Instead of checking email or watching TV, try a book or other activities. Maybe get some exercise or use that time to pursue your hobbies. Getting enough sleep may require a significant change in your daily habits. When you set a time to get out of bed, stick to it. People that keep hitting the snooze alarm just come to work feeling groggy and lethargic. You want to pick a wake up time when you can jump out of bed and start your day.

Narrow Your Focus

Being productive is about prioritizing your top goals and narrowing your focus. You have to carefully select what is important in your day and eliminate the things that aren’t adding up to anything so you know you are spending your time wisely. A successful day is not just one where you are so busy you don’t have time to sit down – it’s a day where you make progress on the things that are the most important.

Keeping a time journal is a great way to take measurements and make adjustments. Write down everything you do from the time you wake up until you go to sleep. If you do this for a few days in a row, you will see exactly how much time you are wasting in between tasks or on tasks that just aren’t helping you stay productive. This is anything from lying in bed scrolling through social media to spending an hour on the phone talking through someone else’s issues.

Raise your standards by looking at what you really do and how little of it is related to the outcomes you want to produce. This will create the awareness you need to lead to positive change. Decide and act on the idea that you are going to prioritize what is most important and is moving you closer to your goals.

Set Long-Term Goals

You can’t be productive unless you have broader overarching targets to guide your efforts. Long-term goals help you frame your thoughts and give you a roadmap for success. The ideal timeframe for these goals is 1-3 years, but figure out what works best for you. This process might involve really taking the time to consider what kind of personal growth is important to you. Where do you want to be at the end of those three years? Think about what promotion you’re gunning for or what milestones you want to hit, then think tactically. The next step is figuring out the short-term goals that will get you there.

Set Short-Term Goals

Short-term goals are goals over the next few days or months that can help you reach your long-term goals. These goals might include developing a certain skill, learning more about the broader company, or attending conferences to network with peers. It’s not enough to just write down a few short-term goals. Make sure to evaluate your progress at the end of the week to make sure you’re on the right track. Think about what you did well and what you could have done better; there might be some lessons learned that you haven’t considered. Short-term goals are the tactical steps you need to take to reach your long-term goals and require a lot more detail. Depending on your progress towards your short-term goals, you might find it necessary to adapt your long-term goals. Setting goals, striving for them, and reaching them is an iterative process that requires periodic reflection.

Set Three 90-Minute Blocks

It’s not enough to just have goals for each day. You need to think about the little steps you’re going to take to get there. Break the day into 90 minute blocks of time (or another interval) and decide what work you want to accomplish in each particular block. This ensures you don’t have long stretches of time without a specific focus. Blocking time doesn’t mean you have to schedule your entire day with no room for last-minute meetings or other work that arises. It just means you need to have a plan and that you work that plan as best you can.

If you schedule three 90-minute blocks of time each day for your most important work, you’ll find you get more important work done, the work is higher quality and you finish your tasks faster than you would have if you stretched them out throughout the day.

Also, these three blocks account for just 4.5 of the 24 hours in your day. That leaves you plenty of time to be reactive or responsive to other things that come up. You are simply using about half of your work day to protect yourself from distractions and small work that doesn’t move you closer to your goals.

Use the first 90-minute block (say between 8am and 9:30am) to finish the most important task you need to complete. This is often the LAST thing you will want to do first thing in the morning but that’s even more reason why you should. Then no matter what else happens in the day you will have been productive and completed an important task. See how it works?

Using the second block in the late morning to work on your second most important task boosts the odds of you being doubly productive. Then you can take a break around noon to reenergize and refuel. Even if your day ended at this point you still will have accomplished more than most of your peers!

Having a third 90-minute block in the afternoon is a good chance to bang away at one of the important projects you haven’t yet finished or start a new task. If you’re interrupted by something urgent, and we all will be on some days, don’t worry about it. Just get back to it as soon as possible and try to devote the full 90 minutes to it even if it is broken up.

Be Aware of Demands on Your Time

When you create your workday budget, one of the most important things to do is to set periods of time when you won’t check your phone or email. An email is a significant demand on your time and so is a phone call or text. It might not sound like a heavy burden in terms of taxing your brain or energy, but it does require you to step outside of your current task and consider what to do, how to respond, etc. These interruptions are demands on your time without your consent.

Setting limited windows to check messages can stop you from constantly switching your attention from projects to responding to routine emails. Setting aside these blocks of time give you a chance to focus on one specific task and get it done faster.

It’s often impossible to ignore demands on your time, but you can bundle them together so you can control your focus and attention. If you landed your dream client, you want to be available to them when they call, text or email you because they are in need of your help. You want to honor your commitment to them but also make sure that every little distraction doesn’t end up keeping you from accomplishing anything with your day.

Double Activity or Increase Effectiveness

What if your sales results are off by 50%? You’re only producing half of your number. In order to close that gap, you can do one of two things: Double your activity or Increase Your Effectiveness.

Doubling your activity begins with the assumption that sales is just a numbers game. There is nothing but activity and more activity leads to more opportunities which leads to more wins and so on. Doubling your prospecting efforts might not be a bad plan for those who aren’t doing enough to create the results they need. However, only increasing your activity level doesn’t account for all the other things that one could be doing to improve their sales results.

Increasing your effectiveness assumes that better results will happen when the sales force is more effective and sales teams aren’t struggling as much. This involves training, development and coaching that help your ability to target dream clients and go after bigger opportunities. It requires more of a time investment but also improves win rates and creates a higher percentage of wins than just increasing activity alone.

Some people need more activity for better results and others need to get more effective at what they are doing. Implementing both strategies at once means more activity as well as new mindsets and skills – usually a winning combination.

Benchmark

Once you’ve got that personal feedback, it’s time to benchmark with counterparts inside and outside your company. It’s time to see how you stack up against the competition. Compare your productivity to peers you admire. Those comparisons are another objective way to evaluate your performance. Figure out exactly what metrics are going to be important when benchmarking. Is it sales growth? Number of new accounts opened? Invitations to speaking engagements? Any metrics can be valuable if they are relevant and easily measurable. Also look at what those people are doing to boost their productivity. Maybe they spend more time networking and getting to know people across the company. They might be more aggressive about finding ways to work smarter instead of harder. Observe your peers and if possible, have a chat; you might learn some new strategies to boost your productivity.

Conclusion

The time you spend at work is no indication of productivity. Neither is the number of dials you make per hour or day. The number of face-to-face sales calls or ear-to-ear sales calls or video face to video face sales calls are also no measurement of productivity. They are activity, and not all activity produces the right outcomes. You can have meetings in which nothing is accomplished. They may even be necessary, but that does not mean that any initiative was advanced.

Productivity is the measurement of the outcomes you create divided by the time and energy you invest in those outcomes. Time and energy invested in activities that do not produce an outcome do not mean that you were productive. This is true even when the non-productive activities are necessary. If you are vigilant and honest with yourself about the way you spend your time and can cut out or minimize the unnecessary tasks, you will become much better at focusing your time and energy on producing awesome outcomes.

The post The Ultimate Guide to Productivity appeared first on The Sales Blog.

Sales affect the entire business, and your sales staff requires an in-depth plan to succeed. A good sales plan is specific and lays out tasks, realistic goals, and a base strategy for individuals to develop. Creating ideas and plans for marketing is time-consuming and difficult – which is why most businesses opt to do that once a year. Although you can always change your sales plan, having one that’s done correctly sets the tone for your entire fiscal year. This document isn’t easy to make, but once it’s done, it should include detailed goals, tools, metrics, and estimated expenses. It’ll save time in the long run, and that’s time you can spend building up your enterprise rather than focusing on minute details.

To create the right sales plan, there’s a lot to consider. You’ll have to start with a lot of preliminary research to figure out your target market, your customer base demographics, goals, marketing possibilities, and more. A marketing plan is different for the simple fact that it is used differently: the purpose of marketing is to generate leads and then turn those leads into sales. Your sales plan will include all of this, and then some.

If it sounds like a lot of work, that’s because it is. But whether you have a huge sales team and an established business, or you’re a one-person operation just getting your start, having a detailed and realistic plan to follow can make all the difference. Not only are you setting the stage for future expansion, but you’re also laying out the details of how you’ll get to that point right there in the sales plan template. Once you’re prepared with the right information, it makes it simple to identify future opportunities and obstacles. Use this guide on how to create a sales plan template to create your new strategy for 2019.

Prepping to Create a Sales Plan Template

When you’re working out a budget for the upcoming fiscal year, there a lot of factors to keep in mind. Create a checklist and have it handy in the days before as you prepare research and paperwork to create a good sales program. You’ll need last year’s KPI’s (if available), market predictions for 2019-2020, a budget to work with, and a team that will help you create the best program possible. Your sales, marketing, and accounting teams should participate in shaping the methodology everyone will use for the next year.

A sales plan will lay out strategy, but it is meant to focus on the bigger picture. If you search how to improve your sales this year, you’ll find hundreds of websites that suggest actions like changing the subject in your email or updating your blog content. While that is all part of increasing your sales, these aren’t quite the particulars you’re focusing on. In the war that is business, these details are just small battles. Sometimes they win a lot of ground, but to get to that point, you’ll need a sales plan to set the stage for these maneuvers.

A good plan targets the right customers, sets realistic revenue goals, involves strategies, looks at pricing and options for promotions, outlines deadlines and responsible individuals, creates a team structure, and observes market conditions. When you’ve got all the research you need and can gather your team to start this document, here’s a good formula to use for a sales plan template.

Step 1 – Mission and Objectives

Most companies have a mission statement and operate based on that concept. For sales, you must use that idea to create a specific aim for the sales department. Does your company have certain principles that separate it from the rest? You can use that as a basis when you’re writing out a sales plan. Your business strategies shouldn’t stray far from your original goals as a company. Your establishment’s identity is rooted in these factors, and by starting your sales template by laying out a mission and objectives, you’re making sure your brand stays on-message.

Next are your sales objectives. This part shouldn’t just include revenue. You should lay out full goals for where you want the company to be next year. How many new customers do you want to bring in? Is there a marketing campaign you want to start? Consider your goals in terms of events. This will create a framework for strategic and budgetary planning.

Step 2 – Monetary/Revenue Goals (SMART goals)

Once you’ve outlined a particular set of concrete intentions for your business, you can begin to estimate the financial objectives. Using the SMART format (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, Time-based), most enterprises can construct a formal sales plan at this point. This is where you work with your teams to estimate the costs of what you want to achieve this year.

The reason the SMART acronym is so widely used is the emphasis on creating reachable goals. With relevant goals that measure success and assign appropriate time limits, you can stay in control of your sales department and still be able to adjust any plans that aren’t working in your favor throughout the year. Realism is essential for staff and morale. Having grandiose plans is excellent, and you may want to get your team to really “try hard” and reach for those goals, but if the goals are too unrealistic, it creates a sense that the company is floundering, which discourages employees. Once your team feels like they can readily attain those marks, they can see and feel a real sense of accomplishment – and you will too.

Your projected revenue should be based off previous years or market research. Look at your top competitors and see what their yearly earnings are (tax records are publicly available for many enterprises) and the predictions for your industry.

Step 3 – Identifying Your Base

A business can’t exist without customers, and the digital age has taken that idea to heart. Technology offers all company the chance to track their customers and learn about their demographics, so that marketing campaigns are more specific and therefore more profitable. When you’re laying out a sales plan, you have to lay out the details of your base.

For new companies that don’t have past KPI’s to go by, you have to build a profile for your ideal customer. This has to be an accurate representation of your product or service and the type of individual that would seek it out. Demographics should include the usual things like age, location, and gender. Use technology to go one step further and create a psychological profile for your customer. Some programs allow you to see the type of items they buy, stores they shop in, what programs they watch on Netflix or Hulu, social media habits, public interests, political views, etc. All of these factors make a difference in how potential buyers view your merchandise. It will also make a difference in the rate of sales, which market conditions to focus on, and which type of marketing strategies you will use.

To make it simple, you can create a chart that you can fill in year after year as you continue to gather statistics on your consumers:

Age	Relevant age, could be more than one age group
Location	Ex: NYC, exception: Long Island
Memberships and organizations	Ex: Non-profits, political groups, etc.
Sales Channels	Where do they shop? Facebook, Instagram, Apps, Catalogues, etc.
Personal information	Ex: Job titles, companies worked for, marital status

Continue this sales plan template chart until you can list all available information. Everything is relevant in sales. With so many companies to compete with, your marketing campaigns have to address these small details to make a difference in revenue.

Step 4 – Strategies and Tactics

Based on the information you’ve charted about your potential buyers, you can then work with the marketing department to create specific strategies that they will use throughout the year to generate leads and improve conversion rates.

For example, if your consumer base is primarily made up of younger millennials, your marketing team should have a specific tactic to address those clients. All age groups shop using different methods, have different needs, and particular ideas about which companies they choose to spend money with. Younger clients might use Instagram more often to influence their decisions, whereas an older demographic might respond better to a direct mail campaign.

You should have two definitive sections: one where you lay out the long-term strategies that your enterprise will use to generate leads, and a method for day-to-day operations that will enable them to reach those goals at the end of the year. So as you create a template, each goal should have a number of different approaches you can use to reach it. For example, increasing the rate of return customers is an umbrella goal. To get there, you’ll need to initiate a media campaign that includes things like blogs, weekly newsletters, or an eBook. Those are the steps that your team will address on a daily basis to make your goals happen. Be specific with these tasks so you can lay out an accurate budget.

Step 5 – Fiscal Budget

You have your revenue goals, and now you have a proper detailed sales plan. To succeed, you need a strict budget from the get-go. Based on the tactics you’re using to reach your customers, create your business plan with projected goal figures built on market calculations and past yearly revenue. It’s likely that you’ve already set up a majority of your business plan and allocated a certain amount to each department. A sales template is only one part of your yearly fiscal plan. With the amount the sales department gets, this is the step where you research and lay out a budget for every detail.

Create a budget for each department. Decide who needs to spend the most (are you hiring more customer service agents? Is your marketing team taking out a billboard? Figure out what the most expensive costs are) and where you can make the most returns (like sales, marketing, etc.). Don’t forget expenses like travel, supplies, paid advertisements, and outside charges. If you’re going to use an agency to hire new staff that’s a detail you want to include your overall expenditure, along with any tech services that you plan on engaging with. Programs that increase sales (MailChimp campaigns, QuickBooks, daily trackers), or equipment expenses should be considered. Keep checking your budget periodically to make sure everything is working.

Step 6 – Lay Out an Actionable Plan

This is your last step. You’ll need all the information you’ve charted above to create a daily, actionable plan that your sales staff will refer to and you can measure the success of. This is the organizational process. Decide here and now who will be in charge of dolling out these responsibilities and make sure there’s no confusion as to where each department comes in. These individuals will arrange the daily targets for your sales staff to follow.

This is where you put in the minute details. If you’ve decided this year, you’re going to improve your Google rankings by updating your website and creating a blog, you should have weekly due dates and topics laid out a year ahead. Create a plan for holiday sales, exclusive freebies, and any other customer offers you want to try. Anything that affects the daily life of your company should be laid out clearly, along with the goals and time limits for each tactic.

Depending on how big your staff is, you can create many large actionable goals. Under each one, you should list specific tactics that your team will use to get to the end objective. With these particular strategies should come the details on how to achieve this. You can create a chart or a bulleted list to organize all of these details so any staff member can take a look and see where the company is headed.

Finally – Put Your Plan in Action and Don’t Forget to Evaluate Often

Once your collaborative sales plan is up and running, don’t forget to schedule regular intervals to meet with your sales and marketing teams and evaluate your business tactics. While every company should have strict a strict order to things, flexibility is critical when it comes to leads and conversion rates. A successful plan has to be monitored carefully. If you notice areas of success, don’t be afraid to rewrite your program to focus on these methods. When something isn’t working, and you’ve given it a significant period, it’s best to re-route those funds into a tactic that truly brings value to your brand.

With six simple steps, you can create a basis for a marketing plan that will work for you every year. Once you have a sales plan that you’ve deemed successful in place, you can continue to build, which will make creating a new business template easier the next year.

How much of a rainmaker are you, or are you more like a rain barrel? Rainmakers own their destiny and set their own course. Rain barrels depend on others to feed them. Sales is about being a rainmaker. Let marketing be the rain barrel, because you don’t have time to waste on being one.

Join me for the discussion on Rainmakers Vs Rain Barrels happening tomorrow. Click here to sign up!

Rainmakers are the ones who go out and make it happen with customers that others didn’t see the potential in.  How do they do it? It is easier than you might think. You just have to commit to seeing your role as the rainmaker.

Rainmakers are about creating incremental opportunities. They never hesitate to pick up the phone and engage the prospect. When the prospect declines a meeting, the prospect doesn’t give up. They come back with another question, another value statement to engage the prospect. The reason they do this is because they know that they can help the prospect. They believe 110% in their ability to help others.

Rainmakers ask the tough questions. In the meeting, they aren’t timid about asking the questions that a typical salesperson is scared to ask. The rainmaker knows that the only way to uncover the really big opportunities is by going deep with customers. It’s about having discussions that challenge everyone’s perspective.

Rainmakers know that the key to opening doors is often through other people. On a daily basis, they strive to create relationships and nurture their network. The network is an asset full of opportunities. A big part of nurturing is helping others.

Rainmakers are ruthless with their time. They are always on a mission to help others succeed. If they slow down or don’t move fast enough, they will lose out to their competitor.

Rainmakers never stop learning, because they see it as their duty to inform the customer and others. They know that by being the one with insights and knowledge, customers will value them more.

Rainmakers view prospecting as an activity that they want to do and not something that they have to do. Rainmakers do not run from a difficult lead that they see as having merit. Rather, they run to it and see that challenge as an obstacle to overcome.

Rainmakers do not think for a moment that they are a rain barrel. They never allow themselves to waste selling time on rain barrel activities.

Join me and over 8,000 other salespeople for the 2019 Virtual Sales Kickoff. It’s happening Thursday, March 14 at 11AM EDT! In this Outreach sponsored online event, you’ll hear me, Anthony Iannarino, Mike Weinberg, and Jeb Blount talk about this exact topic: Rainmakers vs. Rain Barrels. There will be an “after the show show” where we’ll share more important info about OutBound. You don’t want to miss out on this straight talk, fast paced “unplugged” conversation with four sales experts. It’s free and happening tomorrow! Sign up now!

Can’t make it live? Still sign up and you’ll get the replay. Share the link with other rainmakers and even rain barrels that you know, because we all need more rain!

Copyright 2019, Mark Hunter “The Sales Hunter.” Sales Motivation Blog. Mark Hunter is the author of High-Profit Prospecting: Powerful Strategies to Find the Best Leads and Drive Breakthrough Sales Results

In an increasingly digital world, investment in tradeshows may seem like less of a priority for marketing teams. But for many businesses, tradeshows are still a lucrative opportunity. In the B2B world, the show may be the only opportunity to get some face-to-face time with key prospects and reach out to valued customers. Many attendees also use industry tradeshows as a way to complete continuing education and certification credits.

Although it may seem outdated, the tradeshow market is still a huge sector and brings in $80 billion annually in the U.S. Clearly, these large-scale events still make an impact on businesses and marketers.

For smaller companies, tradeshows can seem like daunting endeavors. Although your target markets may be attending the shows, there are many upfront costs—registration, exhibition, marketing, employee travel—balanced against an unknown return on the investment. For many marketers, attending or exhibiting at a tradeshow is just too high of a budget risk.

The good news is, times have changed. With the power of social media, you can leverage the online conversations happening around a show or event without being there in person. With careful planning, content creation, and social monitoring, you can stay in your office while building your brand, developing relationships, and generating leads through the tradeshow.

Start with Planning

Even though you’re not attending the tradeshow in person, you should still take time to plan your marketing strategy. If you’ve done your buyer persona research, you may already know which associations or events are important. Talk to your current customers and prospects to figure out which shows and events are high priorities for them.

Once you have a show in mind, do your research: What topics covered are relevant to your business? What is the show-specific hashtag? Are there any particular journalists or influencers of that industry that you should be following?

Then, it’s important to set goals similar to those you would set if you were attending: Do you want to create awareness for your company? Generate leads for your sales team? Conduct market research based on the conversations happening?

Create Content Tailored to the Show

After researching the topics that will be discussed at the show and the pain points of your buyer personas in attendance, you can create branded content to specifically address your personas’ needs.

You can create landing pages and blog posts with messaging that speaks to the attendees’ motivations for going to the show. If you’re unsure of what priorities the attendees have, your sales team should have a good pulse on trending topics and discussions. They can be a great resource for developing relevant messaging.

Some other considerations when you’re creating content:

• For blog posts, share how your business relates to the topics covered in the keynote speeches or show theme.
• With landing pages, offer a free consultation for attendees of the show if you’re able.
• If you know that the tradeshow is a marquee event for many of your prospects, consider developing a long-form premium content offer, such as a guide or checklist for those attending the show or event.
• Visual content will be key for building social engagement. Plan on creating infographics, short videos, and company-branded images for the show.

What can you do before the show? If you know that many of your contacts will be at the show, send them an email prior to the show with recommendations for educational sessions or other must-see events during the show. Start utilizing the show’s hashtag on social posts to draw attention to the content you’ve created.

Monitor Show Discussions and Ensure Timely Follow-Up

During the show, social monitoring will be a key component of driving demand. Keep these tips in mind when you’re planning your social strategy for the show:

• Plan to block off times during the day to monitor the conversations happening at the show and engage where appropriate.
• It’s not necessary to flood the show hashtag every minute, but plan to schedule social posts regularly throughout the day.
• These posts should include a mix of content promotion, interactions with other users, and industry articles covering the show.

After the show, be sure to follow up with leads that converted on your landing pages within a couple of days. The timeliness of the show wears off quickly, but if you follow up quickly, you can have a relevant conversation about their experience at the show. Creating automated lead nurturing emails is a great way to ensure that you are following up in a timely manner.

It may seem like a lot of work, but tradeshow attendees are highly targeted audiences that you can reach if you address them with the right content. If it’s not in the cards for your team to attend tradeshows, stay relevant by utilizing the social media storm around them!

The Donnelly Group, a high-profile Vancouver-based pub and restaurant business,  is going for the trifecta: pot, booze and food.

On Monday the company released a statement confirming its new cannabis retail venture.

“Nine locations of Hobo Recreational Cannabis Store are set to open in rapid succession across B.C. and Ontario beginning April 2019,” the statement read.

Eight of the nine stores were confirmed for B.C., including locations on Robson Street, Granville Street, Main Street, and Commercial Drive. A provincial government spokesman said the Donnelly Group had not yet been issued any operating licences from the B.C. Liquor and Cannabis Regulation Branch.

Related

• B.C.'s first hit of cannabis tax revenue much lower than expected
• Cannabis Culture to close three of its illegal pot shops in Vancouver
• B.C.'s marijuana cops not yet ready for action
• B.C. woman wants pot testers in Vancouver schools as vape use rises
• Outrage after 'microdosed candy' placed on car windows following Vancouver cannabis conference

Harrison Stoker, vice-president of brand and culture at the Donnelly Group, said the group used its expertise in “sourcing viable lease locations and navigating the regulatory framework around licensing” to secure an Ottawa location that was previously home to one of that city’s most popular dispensaries. Stoker said the Donnelly Group had received one of only five Eastern Ontario pot retail licences.

“With two decades of consumer hospitality experience and regulatory know-how, Hobo Recreational Cannabis Store felt very natural for Donnelly Group,” he said.

“While the venture may be new, our ethos remains the same,” said Jeff Donnelly, president at Donnelly Group. “Be true to yourself and your neighbourhood; the people will follow.”

In B.C., in order to open a cannabis retail store — which is allowed since cannabis was legalized in Canada in October, 2018 — the operator needs a municipal licence and, more importantly, a licence from the B.C. Liquor and Cannabis Regulation Branch.

In its most recent statement, the B.C. Liquor Distribution Branch — which is responsible for stocking and supplying retail marijuana in B.C. — said it was continuing to roll out its network of B.C. Cannabis stores across the province.

The first store, operated by the liquor distribution branch, opened in Kamloops shortly after legalization. Since then, the B.C. Liquor and Cannabis Regulation Branch has issued 14 private licences across the province. There are still some illegal pot dispensaries in Vancouver, but not many, as the province’s new Community Safety Unit prepares to go after illegal ventures.

Stoker said the business would attempt to integrate the feel of each community that the pot retail outlet opens in. Hobo planned to hire 200 retail positions in the coming months.

The Donnelly Group operates pubs, cocktail taverns and barbershops in Vancouver and Toronto.

In Vancouver, the Donnelly Group operates pubs Blackbird, Lamplighter, Butcher & Bullock, Library Square, Cinema, New Oxford, Tavern, Three Brits, Railway Stage and Sing Sing, cocktail clubs Granville Room and Clough Club, five barbershops under Barber & Co, as well as restaurant, Royal Dinette. In Toronto it operates pubs Belfast Love, Death & Taxes, Walrus, Pong Bar, cocktail club Gift Shop, two barbershops under Barber & Co, and Lovejoy Cafe.

dcarrigg@postmedia.com

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• Megan Gerhardt is a professor of management and leadership at the Farmer School of Business at Miami University.
• Society has spent years developing the potential of millennials, and now we are squandering it, she said. 
• With Gen Z, we need an approach where younger employees can use their unique insights to innovate and older generations can provide guidance for how to help those ideas get needed traction.

We blew it with the millennials. 

They were confident, bold, very educated, and startlingly different from any generation we had seen before. But when they entered our classrooms and our boardrooms ready to contribute with a new perspective on how things could be done, we had to make a choice: to welcome them as partners in navigating our changing world or resist them, viewing them as a threat to the way things had always been. We most definitely chose the latter. We took them to task — interpreting their boldness as narcissism and their proactive approaches as entitlement. We spent years developing the potential of our millennials, and now we are squandering it. 

More than a decade ago, "60 Minutes" introduced millennials to the world with a news segment positioning them as a plague we must survive. This negative framing has endured despite evidence that millennials tend to have shared values with previous generations and have an even greater interest in social responsibility. Research shows millennials desire meaningful work and are committed to learning and development, but we’ve instead created a narrative that they’re entitled, self-centered, and lazy. We've blamed them for everything from killing American cheese to the disappearance of bar soap. 

While the term “millennials” has become a catchall for young people, it’s no longer an accurate label. The oldest millennials will be turning 38 years old in 2019, meaning many of them are approaching middle age and obtaining positions in middle management. The youngest millennials are 22 years old and graduated from college last spring. That means your youngest employees most likely belong to an entirely new generation — Generation Z.  

Let’s do better with this next generation, shall we? 

Speculation abounds about Gen Z: Will growing up in the shadow of the recession make them financially conservative? Will the novelty of career hopping be lost on them, prompting a return to careers with more longevity, or will they continue to embrace the gig economy and radically reshape what it actually means to have a “career” at all? None of this is certain, but one thing is: We cannot treat them as adversaries like we did with millennials. 

Why? Quite simply, we cannot afford the continued loss of human potential. The rate of change in every industry in our business world is unprecedented, and to survive, we need everyone fully invested in their work. As Einstein once said, “We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.” The challenges we face will not be overcome using old ways of thinking, and they will not be solved by one generation, young or old.

Our contentious view of millennials has contributed to a fundamental misunderstanding of how to productively motivate and lead this vital part of our workforce. Only 29 % of millennials report being engaged in their work. This low level of engagement has implications for organizational productivity, absenteeism, turnover, and commitment. In other words, our largest generation in the workplace is our most disengaged, leading to a loss in vital talent and energy. 

What we desperately need is a "gentelligent" approach to working together. Gentelligence is an organizational strategy that views the perspectives and talents of different generations as an opportunity, not a threat. This approach paves the road both for younger employees to use their unique insights to innovate and solve problems, and for older generations to work with them to provide context and guidance for how to help those ideas get needed traction within our organizations.  

There are a few organizations out there that have begun to crack the code on how to engage their essential millennial employees and illustrate the power of a gentelligent approach, but not nearly enough. Fortune’s list of the best workplaces for millennials showcases a few model examples. A millennial employee at Kimley Horn, No. 4 on the list, said, “It’s amazingly powerful to know that not only does our management find value in making sure we understand why we do things the way we do, but that they value the knowledge we bring to the table.” Evidence of the potential of gentelligence can be found at places such as Papa, where young people are seen as valuable partners and companions in a “grandkids-on-demand” business model, or at companies such as SoulCycle, where even the CEO has a millennial mentor. 

We now have a new generation entering our workplace. This time, it will be the millennials meeting Gen Z at the door, serving as their supervisors and showing them the ropes. This is their opportunity to lay out the welcome mat that was not given to their generation when they arrived and to do what millennials do best: show us a new way of doing things. 

Megan Gerhardt is professor of management and leadership at the Farmer School of Business at Miami University.

SEE ALSO: How to tell if a normal job is actually a dream job in disguise

Join the conversation about this story »

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It’s tedious, every day a scroll through my various news feeds, there are any number of articles declaring the death of something in sales, or sales itself.

• Cold calling is dead
• Social selling is dead
• ROI is dead
• SaaS selling is dead
• The telephone is dead
• Email is dead
• CRM is dead
• The selling process is dead
• [Name a methodology] is dead
• AI replaces the need for sales people
• Sales is dead…….

There are endless proclamations, often by vendors or consultants who are selling whatever has displaced the thing that has died. Often, these proclamations are accompanied with faux data supporting whatever conclusion the author is presenting.

The majority of these posts are click bait, they stimulate endless mind-numbing comments for or against the death sentence. I have to confess, self righteously, I allow myself to get sucked into these senseless debates. I’m trying to stop it, even when someone calls for my input.

Frankly, discussions are a waste of time, they don’t move our profession further, they don’t help us get better. They don’t enable us to engage our customers more effectively. Instead they waste time and create polarization. More importantly, they don’t help us get better!

For years, the majority of data shows decreasing results from sales people. There are year over year declines in the percentage of sales people not making goals. There are increasing numbers of customers failing to complete their buying processes. Customers increasingly look to alternatives to dealing with sales people.

Ironically, when one starts to look at high performing sales organizations, we see something completely different. These organizations consistently set themselves apart. They continue to grow, productivity and performance continues to improve, attrition (voluntary/involuntary) is very low, costs of selling are well managed and in control. They are unexciting–they execute with discipline every day, every week, every month, every quarter.

They are learning organizations. How they execute, what they do, the skills and processes that enable them to be effective are probably very different than 5 years ago, they know they must continue to improve and change if they are to remain relevant to the customer.

But there are some constants in those organizations. They have strong cultures, they are learning organizations, they are “systems thinkers,” they focus on developing and retaining the best talent possible, they focus on continually coaching and developing the capabilities of their people. They are customer focused, viciously focused on how they create value in each interaction with the customer, not wasting time on customers where they cannot create value.

They focus on the fundamentals, driving consistent execution. They do the work.

Too many in sales focus on miracle cures or the latest new technology. Too many don’t want to do the work.

I’m tremendously optimistic about the future of selling. If anything, selling is becoming more important. Our customers face increasing levels of complexity, disruption, risk, confusion, overwhelm, and turbulence. They are looking for help and want to work with those that help them. But it takes work, focus, disciplined execution.

The future of selling is very bright–for those committed to doing the work. For everyone else—well they will continue to waste time producing just enough to get buy, but never really achieving success.

The inventor of the World Wide Web, Sir Tim Berners-Lee, has published an open letter to mark the 30th anniversary of the day — March 12, 1989 — when he submitted his original proposal for an information management system that went on to underpin the birth of online services.

The proposal, dubbed “vague but exciting” by his boss at the time, married hypertext with Internet TCP and domain name system ideas. Berners-Lee also had to design and build a web browser and put together the first web server. The first website was put up a couple of years later, running on a NeXT computer at CERN, where Berners-Lee had worked.

The rest, as they say, is Internet history.

Thirty years on from the free and open online information playground Berners-Lee had envisaged it’s fair to say today’s web isn’t quite the academic, egalitarian paradise he dreamt of.

In recent years Berners-Lee has made a series of public interventions, warning especially about corporate capture of the online sphere. He’s also working on new decentralization technologies to try to break the grip of dominant digital walled gardens.

The academic turned entrepreneur certainly cannot be accused of shying away from the societal challenges his invention now poses.

But his anniversary letter urges people not to give up on the web. “If we give up on building a better web now, then the web will not have failed us. We will have failed the web,” he suggests.

The letter, which can be read in full here on the Web Foundation’s site, boils the problem of web misuse into three distinct categories:

1. Deliberate, malicious intent, such as state-sponsored hacking and attacks, criminal behaviour, and online harassment.
2. System design that creates perverse incentives where user value is sacrificed, such as ad-based revenue models that commercially reward clickbait and the viral spread of misinformation.
3. Unintended negative consequences of benevolent design, such as the outraged and polarised tone and quality of online discourse.

“While the first category is impossible to eradicate completely, we can create both laws and code to minimize this behaviour, just as we have always done offline,” Berners-Lee continues, setting out an action plan for tackling disinformation and web misuse. “The second category requires us to redesign systems in a way that change incentives. And the final category calls for research to understand existing systems and model possible new ones or tweak those we already have.”

He also warns against reacting to online problems with “simplistic narratives”.

“You can’t just blame one government, one social network or the human spirit. Simplistic narratives risk exhausting our energy as we chase the symptoms of these problems instead of focusing on their root causes. To get this right, we will need to come together as a global web community,” he suggests.

Though that argument elides the problem of digital information being maliciously and deliberately weaponized in order to sew social division — which works against the kind of collaboration and compromise he’s saying is essential to successfully manage and maintain a healthy online space and thus society.

Last year Berners-Lee’s Web Foundation launched a set of core principles — billed as a “Contract for the Web” — seeking to loop in governments, the private sector and citizens to work together on tackling problems of online abuse and misuse by collaborating on contributions that drive “equality, opportunity and creativity”.

The letter points again to this initiative, with Berners-Lee writing: “Governments, companies and citizens are all contributing, and we aim to have a result later this year.”

Albeit, it’s difficult to read his plan for action without thinking of the old adage that “falsehood flies, and truth comes limping after it“.

“The Contract for the Web must not be a list of quick fixes but a process that signals a shift in how we understand our relationship with our online community,” Berners-Lee suggests. “It must be clear enough to act as a guiding star for the way forward but flexible enough to adapt to the rapid pace of change in technology. It’s our journey from digital adolescence to a more mature, responsible and inclusive future.

“The web is for everyone and collectively we hold the power to change it. It won’t be easy. But if we dream a little and work a lot, we can get the web we want.”

While you wouldn’t expect the ‘father’ of the World Wide Web to give up on his now adult-aged child, however wayward in habits it’s become, the letter is still striking on account of the breadth of societal problems being linked to the Web — from competitively distorted markets; to human rights infringements and threats to democracy, privacy, diversity and security; to the undermining of science fact and public safety; and even a conduit for further increasing inequality via digital divides.

Equally, nothing on that list of negatives is surprising anymore.

Though that’s to concentrate the negatives, of course.

Berners-Lee also writes positively that the web has become “a public square, a library, a doctor’s office, a shop, a school, a design studio, an office, a cinema, a bank, and so much more”.

And in another upbeat moment he had praise for tech workers who have taken individual ethical stances against tech-misusing employers — “to demand better business practices”.

“We need to encourage that spirit,” he writes, calling for more ethical activism from tech workers.

From celebrity endorsements to ultra-niche micro influencers, the use of influencer marketing doesn’t show any signs of slowing down. There’s power in its ability to help brands stand out and expand their reach to audiences they normally wouldn’t have access to.

As an ecommerce seller, influencer marketing—especially through the Amazon Influencer Program—improves your chances of selling more products, increasing brand awareness, and growing your customer base.

But here’s the thing: you can make your influencer marketing campaigns even more powerful by optimizing your content for image search. On their own, image search and influencer marketing each offer huge opportunities to sell more products across multiple platforms. For example, think about a platform like Pinterest where users spend countless hours scrolling, saving pins to themed boards, and exploring with the visual search tool. Combining these two marketing strategies is like adding fuel to the fire—but in a good way!

Together these strategies help you form mutually beneficial partnerships with leading influencers in your niche and cater to people’s proclivity to gravitate to visual content during their shopping experience.

Here’s a look at how image search and influencer marketing work and how to use them together in the Amazon Influencer Program to boost your product sales.

Image search is revolutionizing how people shop

With billions of Google searches taking place every single day, it’s no surprise Google is the go-to place to start online research. Another more engaging option though is image search. Instead of searching based on text, users search based on images. A platform like Pinterest is designed to help users find new content and the products they need based on images.

For example, when a user finds an outfit or accessory they’re interested in on Pinterest, all they have to do is click on the visual search icon on the image, and they can immediately see variations of the product with links to stores to buy from.

If a user’s interested in the leather jacket, the visual search tool lets them select it and find shoppable options:

Shopping based on image search is revolutionizing how people spend money online. The experience is more engaging and makes it easy for people to shop quicker online vs. going to multiple brick-and-mortar stores to find what they’re looking for. Instead of the customer journey taking days or weeks to complete, it takes minutes.

Image search in ecommerce works kind of the same way. If you use a marketplace like Walmart or Amazon, image search helps shoppers easily find similar products, research purchases beforehand, and compare products. Since visual research appeals to the vast majority of people, image search makes it possible for you to close sales quicker and sell more.

We’ll explore this more next, but when you add influencer marketing into the mix where influencers showcase your products, the fear of missing out (FOMO) kicks in for shoppers, and you create a demand for products your audience is curious about.

Let’s look at how influencer marketing fits in and helps you sell more products and grow your business.

Finding the right influencer fit has the potential to boost sales

Before you choose an influencer to partner with, make sure their audience is similar to your ideal customers. Don’t spend your marketing budget on popular influencers if they aren’t going to drive relevant traffic back to your store. Also make sure that your products are actually what your influencer’s audience wants.

For example, Instagram influencer Ali Fedotowsky-Manno has 665K followers and posts a lot of content on family, motherhood, and style.

[Source]

Her followers are most likely made up of millennial women with young children. So even though she has a visually appealing Instagram feed, solid engagement, and posts regularly, if you’re an ecommerce brand that specializes in gourmet snacks, her audience might not be an exact fit. Another influencer who targets millennial women with content focused on meal planning and recipes might be a better fit since this audience is likely interested in what you have to offer.

In addition to confirming if your partnership is a good fit, you also need to know where your audience spends time online, so you can find the right influencers. Your audience uses multiple social media platforms, so focus on the ones where they’re most likely to click to your store and buy. For example, if your ideal customers use Instagram to research products before they buy—let’s say Instagram drives the most traffic to your Amazon shop—then focus on partnering with Instagram influencers.

Before you get started, ask your influencers for the following information to make sure they’re the right fit:

• Demographics. Find out who follows the influencers you’re interested in working with. You’ll have to decide if these followers are people who’ll find your product useful.
• Location of the majority of followers. Only if it’s applicable to where you ship products. This is good to know if your products are only available to ship to certain countries.
• Number of followers. This helps you to gauge the amount of potential reach your influencer campaign will have.
• Types of engagement. It’s important to know how many likes, comments, shares, and follows influencers get. This will impact your click-through rate (CTR) from social media to storefront.

Knowing more about followers and their behaviors makes it easier to guide influencers on the types of content they should post and share. This is especially useful if you have multiple product lines—you’ll have to be specific about what’s to be shared.

Improve marketing campaigns with the Amazon Influencer Program

The Amazon Influencer Program was introduced in 2017. It’s meant to give influencers another platform to share their product recommendations, but more importantly, since Amazon has over 310 million customers already shopping on the marketplace, the influencer program makes it even easier for shoppers to buy something they see promoted on social media.

The Amazon Influencer Program is still new—not many sellers know about it—but it’s growing to include more influencers. So far there’s a good mix of influencers and products for shoppers to choose from, so there are lots of opportunities to use the program to increase sales.

The way the program works is influencers apply to join the program:

It’s open to influencers on YouTube, Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook. To give sellers the most value from the program, only influencers with posts that are relevant to Amazon shoppers, have a large and engaged following, and post high-quality content on their social channels are accepted.

Amazon does the hard work of finding quality influencers who are a good fit for you. Once approved, influencers get a vanity URL to share on their social channels to drive people to Amazon. In return, they receive a fee—like with the Amazon Affiliate Program.

Once influencers have access to the platform, they set up their profile and list the products they already share on social media:

When shoppers land on the influencer product pages, they’ll find that the pages look similar to Instagram in the way the product images are showcased. When you partner with the right influencers, all shoppers have to do is scan the product page to find different products to buy.

To drive traffic to their Amazon storefront, influencers share links on their social media pages. For example, they can create Story Highlights on Instagram with images of products they’re promoting:

And include a “see more” tag that links followers to a product page on Amazon:

Where followers can learn more about the product and browse through images of similar products:

At the bottom of each of these product pages, there’s a “Sponsored products related to this item” section with more images of similar products. If you have a product line, your products will also appear here.

Amazon also shares a “Frequently bought together” section with an image of the searched product and a companion product to encourage shoppers to buy more—and save at the same time.

There’s also a “Customers who viewed this item also viewed” section that incorporates image search to make it easy for shoppers to browse similar products.

These image-heavy sections act as guides to help move shoppers to a purchase decision quicker.

Finally, keep in mind that you can also spread your product line across multiple influencers to increase brand awareness even more and boost the potential for more sales.

Key takeaways of image search in the Amazon Influencer Program

• The Prime badge appears on images to make it easy for shoppers to find the products they want that will ship fast.
• Influencer pages are very product specific. This makes it easy to know if your products are a fit for influencers’ followers.
• Influencers promote their storefront—with your products—on social media, which drives traffic to your store to search for more products.
• Other than what it costs to pay influencers for their partnership, Amazon sellers don’t have to do any additional advertising or make payments. Plus, sellers don’t have to spend thousands of dollars on influencer marketing where costs range from a few hundred dollars per post to hundreds of thousands of dollars for more popular influencers.

Next steps with the Amazon Influencer Program

There’s lots of potential to increase sales with the Amazon Influencer Program. The key is to choose influencers carefully and optimize your product pages to boost sales.

To make sure your products stand out so that shoppers click on them, make sure images are high quality, close up, and include multiple angles. The easier and more appealing it is for shoppers to browse through product images, the better it is for your bottom line.

Remember, image search is becoming more common, so use it to get your products found and bought sooner.

• Businesses that adopt a circular philosophy are more likely to survive and thrive going forward, says Anne van Riel, Head of Sustainable Finance Americas at ING.
• Following a difficult 2018, IKEA has decided to reevaluate its business and shake things up.
• The company has decided to start leasing its furniture — a prime example of a company addressing disruption but also one of the most high-profile cases of the circular economy.

For so many years, IKEA has seemed unrelenting in its domination among home furnishing retailers. However, even the Swedish giant, known for such items as the Billy bookcase and Malm bed, is not immune to disruption from changing customer behaviors and demands. For IKEA, the answer may well lie in disrupting its own business.

Following a difficult 2018 which included a fall in profits and job losses, IKEA has decided to reevaluate its business. As a result, the company has announced that it is set to start leasing furniture, signaling one of the most significant shifts from its traditional model for decades. This product-as-a-service (PaaS) trial — or Sofa-as-a-Service as some are calling it — is a prime example of a company addressing disruption but also one of the most high-profile cases of the circular economy.

IKEA and the retail sector are not alone. A combination of shifting consumer behaviors and rapidly-evolving digital technologies is disrupting long-established business models across many industries and putting increasing pressure on traditional growth models.

Disruption is underway

What do cars, printers and clothing all have in common? Or perhaps the question ought to be framed as “what will they have in common?”, because it’s easy to envisage a future where consumers no longer ‘own’ any of these things but opt purely for an ‘access’ model.

If we look at the automotive industry, as one example, new vehicle sales have traditionally accounted for the lion’s share of revenues. Yet the future could look quite different.

Increased connectivity through smartphones and the Internet of Things (IoT) coupled with urbanization could lead to a surge in demand for car- and ride-sharing or e-hailing services like Zipcar or Uber. As consumers place more value in the digitally-driven services in their vehicles, product-as-a-service models may be preferred because it makes it easier for them to keep their technology current. What it means to be a car owner and manufacturer could be very different.

Similar forces are at work in other industries too. It is becoming increasingly common for businesses to access rather than own electronic devices such as printers because of the flexibility it provides them with — and to avoid falling behind as technology upgrades come along. It may not be long before personal computers follow this trend and consumers migrate to a subscription model there too.

Meanwhile, in healthcare, some providers are now placing their bets on offering managed equipment services for medical technology, to respond to demand from healthcare institutions to future-proof their assets and reduce maintenance costs.

Read more: Here are IKEA's secrets to keeping its prices so low

The circular advantage

As these product models become more dominant within certain industries, those businesses that have adopted a circular mindset should be able to make a more natural transition to deliver them.

One trait that is central to the implementation of circular practices is a high propensity to innovate. Companies that adopt a circular economy philosophy become masters of redesigning products to enable remanufacturing and repair.

They learn to embrace organizational agility too, rethinking existing processes, adapting supply chains and collaborating with a broader ecosystem of partners.

These qualities will deliver a strategic advantage as companies seize the initiative to uproot old product models and bring new ones to market.

When implementing circular frameworks, one of the first areas that companies often address is to increase their recycling levels, working toward the ultimate goal of creating a closed materials loop. Achieving this requires developing closer connections and more frequent engagement with customers, as they must play their part in enabling companies to recover materials in their products.

In turn, this may help companies to bring their customers along with them on their circular transition. It may smooth the path to service-based models and subscription models too, as customers become engrained in the process of purchase, use and return.

A more open dialogue and more frequent interactions with customers — whether business or retail — could also help in moving to new pricing models that will accompany subscription-based and sharing models. It may be necessary to work with customers during the development of new pricing and payment approaches.

The businesses that adopt a circular philosophy are likely to be more future-oriented in their strategic vision too. They will naturally recognize the potential sustainability and revenue win-win of some emerging product models.

For example, PaaS models will be high on their radar given the potential to increase product longevity, reusability and the sharing of materials. And product sharing too, which facilitates the sharing of overcapacity or underutilization, so improving the efficiency of resource use.

Read more: I lived in Japan for 20 years and learned 4 powerful lessons from watching businesses there explode

In fact, the businesses at the forefront of introducing these new product models — whether by intention or not — are already driving increased circularity. In many cases, these businesses are also some of the most mature within their industries on sustainable thinking.

In today’s fast-changing environment, the pace of business model disruption is only set to accelerate. And while there are many factors that will enable businesses to ensure they are on the right side of change, there are good reasons to believe that those which embrace a circular economy philosophy, such as IKEA, will have something of a head start.

Last week marked the first Circular City Week New York, an open festival for events in support of the circular economy with the aim of inspiring industry professional across sectors to go circular.

Anne van Riel is the Head of Sustainable Finance Americas at ING.

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Revenue recognition seems like one of those dull technical topics, better left to accountants and the CFO, and not all that relevant to the business design. This is a limited way of thinking. Lack of attention to revenue recognition can damage a business. Just ask the investors in Saba Software which was delisted and sold to private equity largely as a result of revenue recognition issues in its services business.

Fear is a good reason to pay attention to revenue recognition, but there are positive aspects to this as well. Good design is aware of the constraints within which it operates. Pricing is something one designs, ‘Don’t set prices. Design pricing!.’ Revenue recognition rules are a useful framework to help you think through the design of your pricing.

Let’s take a look at the basics of revenue recognition under IFRS (International Financial Reporting Standards) which has replaced GAAP (Generally Accepted Accounting Practices). The relevant section is IFRS 15.

Here is a simple overview from the Corporate Finance Institute.

Conditions for Revenue Recognition

According to the IFRS criteria, for revenue to be recognized, the following conditions must be satisfied:

1. Risks and rewards have been transferred from the seller to the buyer.

2. The seller does not have control over the goods sold.

3. The collection of payment from goods or services is reasonably assured.

4. The amount of revenue can be reasonably measured.

5. Costs of revenue can be reasonably measured. 

Conditions (1) and (2) are referred to as Performance. Regarding performance, it occurs when the seller has done what is to be expected to be entitled to payment.

Condition (3) is referred to as Collectability. The seller must have a reasonable expectation that he or she will be paid for the performance.

Conditions (4) and (5) are referred to as Measurability. Due to the accounting guideline of the matching principle, the seller must be able to match the revenues to the expenses. Hence, both revenues and expenses should be able to be reasonably measured.

Pricing is the combination of performance and measurability. Pricing needs to be based on the performance of a service or provision of a good that has value to the buyer, and the price must be measurable in some way.

One of the critical questions is whether revenue should be recognized at a point in time or over time. This question parallels one of the key questions in pricing design. Should there be a one-time fee on performance (which covers everything from software license, to the provision of professional services, to transactional models) or should there be a fee for access to a service over time?

Subscription pricing models basically assume that revenue is collected and recognized over time. When can we do this? IFRS 15 has three criteria for when revenue should be recognized over time (from BDO ‘Does IFRS 15 change the pattern of revenue recognition?’)

Criteria	Comments and additional guidance	Examples
The customer simultaneously receives and consumes the economic benefits provided by the vendor’s performance	Typically applies to contracts for services The concept of control of an asset applies because services are viewed as an asset (momentarily) when they are received and used or consumed Consider whether another vendor would need to substantially re-perform the work completed to date	Cleaning services Transportation services Some professional services
The vendor creates or enhances an asset controlled by the customer	Typically applies when an asset (tangible or intangible) is being constructed on the customer’s premises	A building constructed on land owned by the customer Customised software written into a customer’s existing IT infrastructure
(1) The vendor’s performance does not create an asset for which the vendor has an alternative use; and (2) The vendor has an enforceable right to payment for performance completed to date	Typically applies to construction/development of assets to customer specifications Consider the terms of the contract and any relevant laws or regulations	Construction and real estate (developers) Manufacturing/engineering contracts for customised products/assets Some advertising and professional services Software development projects hosted on the vendor’s servers while under development

The criteria that would govern most SaaS subscriptions is (c) ‘The vendor’s performance does not create an asset for which the vendor has an alternative use.’ This seems like a bit of a stretch, and one wonders if the IFRS were really designed for the world of digital assets (where copying is virtually cost free) and digital services, where many people can use what is virtually the same service simultaneously. Revenue recognition does provide a useful way to classify pricing models, and there is a straightforward mapping from one to the other. Making this mapping explicit is a useful step in pricing design and can provide some structure to conversations between the CFO and pricing leaders.

Zuora, a leading company in the subscription economy and organizer of the popular Subscribed conference, has a revenue recognition solution for subscription pricing called Revpro. This application is a good way to model out the revenue recognition implications of different subscription models.

The real challenges come up when one needs to blend different pricing models. Many modern pricing systems combine two or even all three of the different approaches. Imagine a system that requires professional services (where revenue is recognized at point of performance), complex configuration (where revenue is recognized on transfer of control) and a subscription. That describes many large enterprise systems. Making sure each revenue component can be clearly mapped to the correct revenue recognition policy is critical and needs to be considered in both the pricing design and in the contracts.

In The Strategy and Tactics of Pricing by Thomas Nagle and Georg Müller there is a classic figure showing how to choose a pricing metric (the unit in which one prices). I am tempted to add another layer here ‘optimizes revenue recognition.’

From Thomas Nagle and Georg Müller The Strategy and Tactics of Pricing 6th Edition.

So, when designing a pricing model it is critical to factor in revenue recognition and make sure that legal, finance and pricing are in alignment. The product and delivery model should clearly align to revenue recognition.

Ask, the following as you design your pricing model:

1. What are the revenue recognition goals? Are you trying to bring forward revenue recognition or spread it over time?

2. Which of the three revenue recognition principles are you applying to each aspect of your revenue model?

3. Does your delivery plan map to your revenue recognition model?

4. Are the pricing, revenue recognition and delivery model aligned in your contracts and invoices?

Revenue recognition may seem like an obscure topic, only of relevance to the CFO and legal team. It is not. It actually provides some useful ways of thinking about the design of pricing and delivery models. It is a critical lens into pricing best practices.

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If you wear glasses, you might have noticed that they've been getting steadily more expensive in recent years, no matter which brand you buy and no matter where you shop.

That's because a giant-but-obscure company called Luxottica bought out Sunglass Hut and Lenscrafters, then used their dominance over the retail side of glasses to force virtually every eyewear brand to sell to them (Luxxotica owns or licenses Armani, Brooks Brothers, Burberry, Chanel, Coach, DKNY, Dolce & Gabbana, Michael Kors, Oakley, Oliver Peoples, Persol, Polo Ralph Lauren, Ray-Ban, Tiffany, Valentino, Vogue and Versace); and used that to buy out all the other eyewear retailers of any note (Luxottica owns Pearle Vision, Sears Optical, Sunglass Hut and Target Optical) and then also bought out insurers like Eyemed Vision Care and Essilor, the leading prescription lens/contact lens manufacturer.

Controlling the labs, insurers, frame makers, and all the major retail outlets has allowed Luxottica to squeeze suppliers -- frames are cheaper than ever to make, thanks to monopsony buying power with Prada-grade designer frames costing $15 to manufacture -- while raising prices as much as 1000% relative to pre-acquisition pricing.

It's even worse for lenses: a pair of prescription lenses that cost $1.50 to make sell for $800 in the USA.

LA Times columnist David Lazarus wrote a column about skyrocketing eyewear prices and was approached by Charles Dahan, who once owned one of the largest frames companies in America, Custom Optical, which supplied 20% of the frames sold at Lenscrafters prior to the Luxottica acquisition. Dahan describes how Luxottica cornered the horizontal and vertical markets for eyewear and pushed out or bought out every other company (Oakley refused to sell or lower prices, so Luxottica boycotted it from its retailers, forcing the company into such a precarious position that it Luxottica was able to buy it for a fraction of its peak book-value just a few years later).

This is a good example of how decades of far-right ideologically driven antitrust malpractice has hurt everyone. After all, glasses aren't just a fashion item: they're a necessity for people with poor vision, a prerequisite for driving, walking, cycling, reading, getting an education or doing your job.

Luxottica grew through acquisition, by buying up its competition. This was banned under classic antitrust law, until the Reagan years. This pattern has been repeated in many other domains: beer, whiskey, retail pharmacies, and so on. In every one of those domains, we are getting screwed, as are small businesspeople and the families they serve.

Luxottica purchased Sunglass Hut in early 2001. It promptly told Oakley it wanted to pay significantly lower wholesale prices or it would reduce its orders and push its own brands instead.

Within months, Oakley acknowledged to shareholders that the talks hadn’t gone well and that Luxottica was slashing its orders.

“We have made every reasonable effort to establish a mutually beneficial business partnership with Luxottica, but it is clear from this week's surprising actions that our efforts have been ignored,” Oakley’s management said in a statement at the time.

The company’s stock immediately lost more than a third of its value.

Luxottica acquired Oakley a few years later, adding it to Ray-Ban, which Luxottica obtained in 1999.

“That’s how they gained control of so many brands,” Dahan said. “If you don’t do what they want, they cut you off.”

How badly are we being ripped off on eyewear? Former industry execs tell all [David Lazarus/LA Times]

(via /.)

By Joshua Baez, Engagement Manager at Heinz Marketing

We’re now four weeks into the Road to Webinar Success! After having covered Panel Webinars, Webinar Operations, and Internal Alignment, it’s time we shift our focus to using webinars to build an ABM program. With webinars driving your ABM program, you can create scalable, highly-personalized, highly-targeted, and engaging experiences for your target accounts. And all while thoughtfully measuring performance, qualifying leads, and pushing those leads closer towards a purchase decision.

Why should you use webinars to build your ABM program?

Webinars are, potentially, one of the most engaging tools both sales and marketing have at their disposals. They can present high-value offers, be personalized to different personas across all stages of the sales cycle, are highly-interactive, and they allow you to easily gauge the level of interest and intent from those who attend.

With webinars in your ABM program, you have an opportunity to reach the entire buying center and tailor content for decision makers and influencers in a much more scalable way. Plus, they are an excellent way to spread your marketing messages to a large number of prospects, both on the day and with the on-demand version, making it possible to continue to share your content, ideas, and messages well-beyond the live webinar.

Give Your Audience a Highly-Personalized Experience At-Scale

Successful ABM relies on your ability to be highly relevant and highly personalized with each of your target accounts. With webinars, you have the ability to personalize your content in ways other formats just don’t support, and you can do so at-scale. This is especially true for on-demand recordings where you can re-record or edit certain sections to align with your specific audience.

Get More Content to Your Target Accounts

Getting tailored content to prospects at the perfect time within their buyer’s journey is difficult enough. Adding in factors like email responsiveness, messaging points, and channel preference makes this task even harder. With a webinar platform, however, you can provide access to your downloadable assets like whitepapers, guides, product information, or case studies right within the webinar console itself.

You don’t have to deal with a handful of other factors that come into play when balancing email sends, targeted ads, and overall timing because now, the assets are right there in front of the prospect. All you need to worry about is getting them to watch.

Drive More Meaningful, Direct Engagement Among Target Accounts

Webinars provide a channel for two-way engagement, setting them apart from other mediums where communication is either one-way (videos and podcasts) or completely non-existent (whitepapers and their counterparts). Through webinars, presenters, moderators, salespeople, and consultants are enabled to make one to-one connections on a far more efficient, authentic, and meaningful way, at-scale

Your webinars give attendees the ability to ask questions, respond to questions, or take polls, and they give your team the ability to engage back. The engagement is also immediate, unlike social media where comments and questions aren’t always responded to in a timely manner.

Gain Enhanced Engagement Metrics

While it’s nice seeing metrics like views, clicks, and downloads, those don’t do a great job of showcasing actual buyer intent. Webinar engagement metrics, on the other hand, show these as well as time spent watching, responses to questions asked, questions asked themselves, and surveys taken. Advanced webinar platforms also provide algorithmic engagement scores that summarize all activity into one, easy-to understand number. These metrics can then be viewed on an individual contact level or can be aggregated for account-level views making it much easier to know where prospects are in the sales cycle

Stakeholders and roles

ABM, in general, is a cross-functional effort across your sales and marketing teams, so it’s important to ensure that both teams are aligned and working towards similar goals. Remember: Webinars aren’t just a marketing activity.

It’s especially helpful for at least one representative from sales to either act as a presenter or at least be available to answer any questions participants may have because sales teams are often grouped around verticals and industry segments.

Having such an approach allows a more seamless transition from a webinar to a sales conversation, as the person presenting can pick up the conversation directly with the customer.

More specifically, consider these roles and responsibilities as you conduct your ABM program with webinars:

• Marketing:
  • Program Director: ABM Strategy and Approach, Target Account Alignment with Sales
  • Webinar Manager: Webinar Strategy, Webinar Production, Tracking and Reporting
  • Program Execution: Content Creation, Webinar Promotion
  • Operations: Webinar Set-Up, Webinar Tracking
• Sales: Target Account Alignment with Marketing, Promotion, Follow-Up

Want more?

There’s so much more to learn about a webinar program’s role in an ABM strategy. Stay tuned, because in the next few weeks, we’ll revisit this topic to better understand the ins and outs of how to implement this kind of initiative in your own ABM efforts.

The post Building an ABM Program with Webinars — The Road to Webinar Success (4 of 8) appeared first on Heinz Marketing.

Think you know everything Google is capable of?

Think again.

Google is so much more than a search engine.

You can use it as a unicorn tool do everything from converting currencies to tracking your physical location, all without ever leaving the confines of Google.

Keep reading to discover Google tricks, including lesser-known hacks, time-savers, Easter eggs and search shortcuts.

1. Use Google as a Timer and Stopwatch

You can use Google as a timer or stopwatch with a simple query.

Enter a search phrase like “set timer for 15 minutes” and you’ll see Google do just that.

2. Pinpoint the Time of Sunrise and Sunset

Enter “sunrise in” or “sunset in” followed by a geographic location in Google to find out what time you can expect the sun to rise or set.

For example: “Sunset in Los Angeles.”

3. Weather Forecast

Check the weather to know if it’s a good time to go out or do something outdoors.

Enter “weather in + geographic location” in Google.

For example: “Weather in New York.”

4. Use Google to Calculate a Tip

Search for “tip calculator” to have Google help you with calculating exactly how much you should leave as a tip.

5. Convert Currencies

Google can help you with how much one currency is in another currency.

Type in “amount + currency A to currency B.”

For example: “20 USD to JPY.”

6. Books Written by Favorite Authors

If you’re looking for books by a specific author, simply type in “books written by + author name.”

For example: “books written by Salman Rushdie.”

You’ll get a carousel showcasing their work.

7. Calculator

You can use Google as a calculator if you don’t have one lying around.

Just type in a formula and have Google calculate it for you.

8. Find the Origin of Any Word

Want to know the etymology of a word?

Google can help with that, too.

Put “Etymology + word” to discover the origin of any word.

9. Use Double Quotes to Find an Exact Search Phrase

If you wish to make your search more exacting, you can enclose your search phrase in double quotes.

That will make Google search for results that contain only that exact phrase.

10. Results from a Specific Site

Use “query + site:website.com” to get search results only from that specified website.

For example: “marketing tips site:mobilemonkey.com.”

11. Use OR Operator to Find Two Different Things At Once

Search for two different things at once with the OR operator.

For example: “Iphone OR Android.”

12. Use AND Operator to Get Results Containing Two Specific Items

If you’re looking for search results that contain both two of your queries, use the AND operator.

For example: “chatbot AND messenger.”

13. Search by File Type

You may be searching for a particular file type on Google.

Enter “query + filetype:extension.”

For example: “Truecaller filetype:apk.”

14. Find Related Websites

If you’re looking for websites related to a specific website, use “related:website.com.”

For example: “related:facebook.com.”

15. TBT: Google in 1998

Type “Google in 1998” and the search engine will automatically show you what the search engine looked like the year it was created.

16. Discover Fun Facts

Are you bored at the moment?

You can type “fun facts” or “I’m feeling curious” in Google and get some awesome trivia factoids.

17. Do a Barrel Roll

If you haven’t tried this yet, get on it.

Type “do a barrel roll” into Google and watch the magic unfold.

18. Look at Old Accounts with Inactive Account Manager

Google’s Inactive Account Manager lets you look at accounts you may have in Google that are not being used.

You can then delete accounts you’re no longer using or make them active again.

19. Adjust Your Ad Settings

Did you know you can choose what type of ads you want to show up on your browser.

Head to ad settings and adjust the ad types you see.

20. Report a Gmail User

Unwanted or abusive emails on Gmail can be problematic.

You can report them to Google using this form and Google will deal with the problem for you.

21. Use Startpage

StartPage isn’t actually a Google-owned trick, but it’s still a good service to know about.

StartPage is like an incognito version of the Google search engine — your searches there are totally anonymous, and StartPage pulls results from Google itself.

Unlike the incognito version of Google, however, your IP address is not tracked or stored, giving you more security.

22. Download Search History

You can obtain a list of all the search queries you’ve entered throughout your history of using Google.

This is super helpful if you’re trying to track down a particular webpage you visited but can’t recall the name of.

23. Make Sure Your Downloads are Safe

Google’s safe browsing site status tool can check if a file you wish to download is safe.

24. Google Newspaper Archive

Google Newspaper Archive is pretty much the most comprehensive online news file there is.

You can read newspapers from 1798 to present day from all over the world.

25. Google Timeline History

You can use Google Timeline History to see where you have been at a particular date and time.

If you need to be able to track your own whereabouts, then this is a powerful tool.

26. Google Trends

Google Trends is an excellent tool for identifying the hottest topics at the moment from around the world.

Digital marketing mastermind Neil Patel considers it one of his top seven marketing tools.

Like Neil, you can use Google trends to identify topics to incorporate into your content strategy.

27. Google Password Manager

Google Password Manager is one of the most convenient features on Google.

You can have Google save passwords for your various online accounts.

It makes having different passwords for different accounts easier to manage.

Just make sure your Google password itself is both secure and easy enough to recall.

Originally Published on Inc.com

Landing pages play a huge role in your advertising campaigns. Although creating a landing page is often the final step you take in your advertising campaign, it should always be at the forefront of your mind. We round up the top questions you need to ask yourself before publishing a landing page. If you can answer yes to every question below, your landing pages are off to a good start.

Does my landing page match my ads?

A well-crafted advertising copy brings people to your landing page. Whatever your ad offers, your landing page needs to deliver it. It can be tempting to focus on higher traffic, but when it comes to web traffic, quality is more important than quantity. It won’t matter if you get thousands of visitors to your site if they all immediately leave because the landing page is not what they expected. If your landing page delivers exactly what you are advertising, there is a seamless ad-to-landing page transition. As a result, more visitors will stick around and potentially convert.

Does my headline clearly define my product or service?

Building a consistent ad-to-landing-page experience can be achieved through your headline. Remember, your headline is the first thing visitors notice. This helps them identify whether or not your landing page matches their expectations. With your headline, you can confirm what you do and what your offerings are.

When crafting your landing page’s headline, keep it simple and straightforward. It should make a strong value proposition to your target audience. Instead of saying, “Content Marketing SEO Strategies,” it is better to say “Expert SEO Strategies to Boost Your Content Marketing Campaign.”

And don’t forget to include the exact terms that convinced a visitor to click on your ad in the first place. If your PPC ad says “Get a Demo Now,” your landing page should make it easy for them to find that demo. An inconsistent message will make your audience think that they are in the wrong place and they will likely leave the page.

Here’s an example from HubSpot:

Does my content address my customers’ problems?

Advertising landing pages are not the ideal place to showcase your business. You see, your potential customers will not pay attention to your business unless it can help solve their problems. That said, use your landing page to highlight how you can address the common challenges your target audience faces. Once they understand the value they can gain from your product or service, they will be more likely to convert.

If you are giving away an eBook, it would make sense to offer a preview. Not only does this show that you are proud of your product, it also builds your customer’s trust. Whether you are offering an ebook, a free trial, or product demo – if you can convince your prospects that what you are offering fits their needs and interests, it will be hard for them to ignore your offer.

Does my Call to Action urge readers to take action?

Your CTA decides the fate of your landing page conversions and therefore your overall campaign. Through a strong call to action, you make it easy for your visitors to decide what step to take next. But like all investments, you need to state what your audience can get in exchange for their contact information, money or something else. If they know how they can benefit from you, they will feel more compelled to do what you want them to do.

When it comes to the placement of your CTA, you might wonder whether it should go above the fold or below. While above the fold immediately draws your visitors’ attention to your CTA, below the fold can also work wonders for your campaigns. This article from Instapage might help you decide the right position for your CTA.

Does my landing page contain only relevant elements?

Every element of your page – such as links, video, testimonials – should be aligned with the topic and goal of the page. If you want to include links to your social media profiles, it is better that you place them at the bottom of the page. Avoid unnecessary links as they can divert your visitors’ focus to another page instead of them sticking to your page and potentially converting.

On the same note, too many words and graphics draw your visitors away from the real message. Incorporate high-quality images that add, not distract, from your copy. If elements on your page cannot encourage your intended customers to take that next step, it is probably better to remove them.

Designing a high-quality landing page is half the fun. When it comes to creating the most effective landing page, optimization is integral. Thus, perform continuous A/B testing on your landing pages. Even the slightest test, like the placement of your CTA, can create a difference in your conversion rate. When done properly, landing pages can transform your website into a lead generating machine.

Originally published here.

It surprises and shocks me how many sales organisations still regard BANT as a practical way of qualifying sales opportunities. For those who are unfamiliar with the term, it dates back to the steam-driven days prior to the emergence of the Internet, SaaS and modern buying behaviours and stands for Budget, Authority, Need and Timeframe.

Now, at some point, any significant purchase decision probably requires all four elements, but using BANT as an early stage qualifier is madness - something that is reinforced by recent research by Gartner that revealed that over 40% of software buying efforts were ad-hoc rather than formally budgeted in advance.

That means any sales person insisting that leads are “BANT” qualified before they are prepared to engage with them is missing out on nearly half of their potential opportunities - and by the time that all four BANT boxes can be ticked, other more astute salespeople are likely to have reached out to the prospect and influenced their thinking...

Given that (according to Forrester) nearly three-quarters of significant buying decisions go to the vendor that does the most to shape the prospect’s vision of a solution, insisting on BANT as a basis for opportunity qualification feels like an act of reckless self-harm second only to the UK’s decision to vote for Brexit.

The Gartner study (“Tech Go-to-Market: The Quest for Enterprise Agility Creates Opportunities, and Challenges, for TSPs”) revealed that 43% of enterprise technology buying efforts are currently being driven by ad-hoc rather than pre-budgeted projects. And the study projected that by 2021 the figure will have risen to more than 60%.

Those figures are of course averages: Gartner found that enterprises that undertook multiple buying efforts in a given period were even more likely to prioritise ad-hoc projects - and identified significant behavioural differences between different enterprise personality profiles.

There’s an increasing tendency for enterprises to aspire to be agile, flexible and dynamic, and these agile enterprises are even more prone to prioritise ad-hoc initiatives over long- planned and formally-budgeted projects.

This ought to cause great disquiet amongst sales organisations who still insist on applying BANT qualification criteria: it means that there is a real and growing risk that their precious “BANT qualified” opportunities are likely to be pushed aside by more urgent and timely priorities.

Instead of their competition coming from the other vendors that are also pursuing the same opportunity, it will increasingly come from alternative projects and investment opportunities that they may never have identified and which their existing sales methodology probably never encouraged them to consider.

In an increasingly agile, dynamic and ad-hoc world, sales people need to be looking for critical business issues rather than already funded projects. Rather than responding to the customer’s already defined requirements, they need to help their prospects to recognise previously unacknowledged or undervalued needs.

They need to strive to establish the maximum possible value gap between their prospect’s current situation and their future potential. They need to develop both the costs and consequences of inaction as well as the benefits of change.

They need to recognise that the presence of a formal budget is no guarantee that the project will go ahead, and that the absence of a budget for an otherwise well-justified initiative is unlikely to hold a properly qualified prospect back.

It means that they need to assess their initial contact and the rest of the decision group and identify who the “budget shapers” are - the people with the ability and inclination to reallocate funds around the organisation in response to shifting business priorities.

These budget shapers don’t need to wait for new money to be allocated in a future budget cycle - they have the power to strip money away from already funded projects and allocate to new and more important initiatives.

Is your sales organisation still insisting on BANT qualified opportunities? Or have they woken up and recognised that factors like business need, organisation fit, reason to act, urgency and the involvement of a budget shaper are actually far more important indicators?

And have they acknowledged that their best chance of working on deals with these critical characteristics is to get engaged early - before a formalised, budgeted project exists - and shape the customer’s thinking?

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Bob Apollo is a Fellow of the Association of Professional Sales, a member of the Sales Enablement Society, a regular contributor to the International Journal of Sales Transformation and the Sales Experts Channel and the founder of Inflexion-Point Strategy Partners, the leading UK-based B2B value-selling experts.

Following a successful corporate career spanning start-ups, scale-ups and market leaders, Bob is now relishing his role as a pro-active advisor, coach and trainer to high-potential B2B-focused sales organisations, systematically enabling them to transform their sales effectiveness by adopting the proven principles of value-based selling.

B2B buyers receive hundreds of sales emails each and every day. They open only a small percentage of these sales emails, read even fewer, and it’s only a very small amount that they actually act on—whether by writing a reply or clicking on a link.

So how do you overcome all of these hurdles and rise above the crowd?

How do you make sure your sales emails not only get noticed and opened, but also read and acted upon?

In this guide you’ll discover how to write sales emails that get results, generate pipeline, and ultimately close deals.

Why are we qualified to talk about this? Well, for one, thousands of B2B sales teams all over the world are using our Close to send emails, make calls, and close deals every day. What’s more, before we built our CRM software, we were running sales for more than 200 venture backed startups in the Bay Area.

"Close has helped us tremendously to increase the efficiency of our sales strategies at Bonsai. The email sequences tool specifically has helped our team maximize outreach and results and the customer support team has always been a great help whenever we needed them. I would strongly recommend Close to any company that is looking for a CRM that is easy to use and delivers results." - Julian Golden, ShopBonsai.com

Want our best advice on writing winning sales emails, plus ready-to-use templates? Download our book “Cold Email Hacks” for free today!

Fair warning: We’re going to cover everything you need to know about how to write sales emails that actually convert. That means this is going to be quite an extensive read. I suggest you bookmark this, or save it as a PDF, to come back for reference at a later point. Here’s a quick overview of what you can expect:

Ultimate guide to sales emails: How to write sales emails that convert

5 key components of the best sales emails

10 most common types of sales emails (templates and examples)

4 helpful sales email tools (to support your outreach)

When to send sales emails (for maximum effectiveness)

Without further delay, let’s dig in!

5 key components of the best sales emails

There are five essential elements to any effective sales email—the subject line, opening, body, closing call-to-action, and signature—each of which need to be thoughtfully constructed around the goal of capturing and retaining your prospect’s interest as they move through each stage of your sales email.

We’re going to break each of these components down and share examples from some of our own most effective sales emails, but remember—it’s crucial that you adopt a mindset of perpetual experimentation (and optimization) when it comes to improving sales emails over time.

What works well for you today may not be as impactful tomorrow, so challenge yourself to run controlled tests and try something new every now and then. Now without further delay, let’s get into the key components of every great sales emails.

1. Subject line

Ah, the sales email subject line. This is where the pros truly stand out from the average Joe’s.

This subject line, “Your feature on my blog,” has landed me many more deals than any of the other dozens I’ve tested over the years. It’s incredibly simple, doesn’t sound like an overt pitch, and leads into a sales email that actually delivers value before immediately asking for the recipients business.

We’ve all been on the receiving end of a disastrous subject line—from glaring spelling mistakes that tell the recipient you’re not detail-oriented, to misleading phrases or dramatic attention-grabbing lines that trick recipients into opening, the subject line is by far the most important part of a winning sales email.

Why? Well, if your sales prospects never open the email to read your message, it’s as if the email never even existed. You’re still left sitting at square one.

Therefore, your primary objective with any sales email campaign, is to do everything you can to guarantee that your subject line will be interesting to your recipient (in the context of your offer)—based on the knowledge you have about them beforehand.

Write subject lines like a real person

Nothing gets a sales email rejected without ever being opened like seeing clear evidence of something gone awry with an email automation tool—brackets showing form field labels, extra spacing, or the wrong name in a subject line all show an obvious lack of care.

Keep it simple and this won’t ever be a mistake you’re liable to make.

Think about how you’d write a subject line if you were crafting this sales email for an acquaintance or mutual connection. Not too overly familiar, but certainly void of the need for complex subject line customization tactics, right?

If your sales email subject line sounds like it’s leading into a fancy newsletter-style message jam-packed with marketing lingo and buy buttons, it’s likely to be the first thing that gets archived as your prospect skims their inbox—and it’s also a big red flag that could land you in the Promotions tab of Gmail or even worse, the spam folder (thus decreasing your open rates even further).

Here are a few more best practices for sales email subject lines to keep in mind as you’re crafting messages to your prospects.

Avoid catchy slogans

If you got a sales email from me with the subject line, "Close is the Best New Innovation in the CRM Industry," what would your initial reaction be? I can tell you what my reaction would be—delete. This sounds like more of a PR pitch than an email I should care about.

Many people think a sales email is supposed to look and sound like this. But if you want your emails to actually be opened and taken seriously, you’ve got to know your audience.

Most importantly, remember to just write like who you are—a real human opening up a line of communication, not a Buzzfeed headline copywriter.

Capitalize the first word and use lowercase text for the rest

Don’t Capitalize Every Word of Your Subject Line. It’ll make it feel like a marketing broadcast that went out to half a million people—not exactly the best first impression with a sales email that’s intended to be somewhat personal.

Even though using a lowercase structure might not be as formal as capitalizing the first letter of every word, the data shows that using a lowercase format significantly increases sales email open rates—likely because normal email communication behavior wouldn’t include the capitalization of every word.

Ask a question in your subject line

As long as you’re asking the right question and not just baiting your recipient into opening your sales email, having a question in the subject line can dramatically increase open rates.

Learning how to ask the right questions is a form of art, and the more you improve over time, the more you’ll sell. Just keep in mind that the structure of the question should follow the normal way you’d ask that question in conversation—using multiple question marks (or any multiple punctuation marks) in your subject line can quickly land you in the Promotions tab or spam folder.

People fall into this mistake of using abnormal punctuation so often it blows my mind.

Literally as I was writing this, I went to quickly check my email and lo and behold, a subject line with a “...” from a salesperson just landed in my Promotions tab.

Not only does this subject line contain the “...” you probably wouldn’t use in normal email communications, but the opening line addresses me with my full name AND it proceeds to ask a (silly) question that for some reason ends with two question marks. So many fails all in one outreach email before I even open it—which I definitely didn’t.

Please don’t write sales emails that start out like this, you’ll be doing yourself a disservice.

And remember that just asking a question for the sole purpose that it should increase open rates on your sales email will often backfire and actually decrease your stats. That’s why asking a good question that’s relevant to the recipient is so important.

Tread lightly and adopt the experimentation mindset to this tactic, because according to a study by Touchstone, using question marks resulted in a 8% lower click rate on emails with question marks in the subject line.

Four of our most effective sales email subject lines (real-world examples)

These sales email subject lines have been field-tested with hundreds of thousands of prospects both here at Close and from our days running an outsourced sales team for hire. They’ve proven to consistently get open rates of 35% or more.

• "[Introduction] [your name/company] <> [their name/company]"
• "Quick request"
• "Trying to connect"
• "[Name of their company]"

Notice that none of these sound like they’re written by a robot, or make a PR-style sales pitch directly in the subject line? That’s intentional.

We can’t stress enough how important it is to be genuine in writing your sales email subject lines—if they read like a marketing department spent weeks crafting a catchy headline, you’re doing something wrong.

Write like you’re addressing another (real) person on the other end of the computer, strive to quickly capture their interest in a way that’s fully delivered on in the rest of your sales email, and you’ll be well on your way to a winning campaign.

2. Opening lines (how to start a sales email)

The first question to ask yourself when drafting the opening line of your sales email, is how you want to address your recipient—should you go straight to a first name basis?

Are your prospects more formal and traditional in that they’d appreciate a Mrs. or Mr. opening line in order to start off on the best note? Would they respond better to Hey, Hi, Hello, or Dear?

You should know the answer to these questions before hitting send on your sales emails. If you’re not immediately clear on this, refer back to your ideal customer profile to solidify the understanding you have of your customers—and consult with others on your team to make sure you’re going in the right direction.

While I can assure you I’d treat a Dear Mr. Robinson opening line with a healthy dose of skepticism, others may not feel the same. Know your prospects and you won’t go wrong.

Connecting the beginning of your sales email to the subject line

There’s nothing worse than getting an email with an interesting subject line, just to be immediately disappointed within the first few opening lines.

Taking one of our sales email examples from above, let’s say you lead with the subject line of, “Quick request” where you plan on pitching the prospect to hop on a call and hear more about your marketing automation software…

What should your opening line be?

Let’s start with the fundamentals. A strong sales email opening line does three things:

• Quickly establishes context for why you’re reaching out
• Takes a meaningful step toward building trust and credibility
• Offers a natural transition into your sales pitch

With that in mind, work on crafting just one or two short sentences that can do a good job of accomplishing these three things while still remaining relevant to the subject line that started this initial sales email. Here’s an example you can gather inspiration from:

Hey [prospect name],

I wanted to reach out because I saw that your team is publishing a lot of great content at the moment, and I’ve been working with several similar companies [like recognizable brand X, Y and Z] to help generate significantly more leads from that content with our marketing automation tools.

From here, you’ll be able to naturally lead into a pitch that’s relevant based on the context you’ve laid out in the opening line.

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Cut to the chase (your prospects are busy)

Recently, I got a cold sales email from a freelance writer I’d never met before—and his email started with the very clear subject line, “Joining your team,” which gave me a quick sense of the purpose of his email (✔️).

From here, he immediately jumped into establishing relevant context around why he was reaching out (✔️), gave a quick genuine compliment that showed he actually took the time to do his research on me (✔️), then jumped straight to the purpose of his email and delivered his pitch (✔️).

If you’re a freelancer or otherwise selling a service, this is a fantastic sales email example to learn from. Give it a quick read right here:

For a prospect like me that receives dozens of sales emails from writers every day, this stood out from the crowd as being very genuine and straight to the point—two things I value greatly (and talk a lot about in my content).

After giving him a quick thumbs up to send over his portfolio, I reviewed his samples and we started working together on a test project that'd help me make money blogging and see a return on my investment in his content services.

This sales email worked so well on me because of the clear the subject line and how short, genuine and straight to the point it was. Whereas if Daniel had instead sent over a few paragraphs of word vomit walking through a more detailed pitch straight out the gate, I would’ve likely taken one quick look at how much was written and either dismissed it entirely—or snoozed it to review “someday.”

Three examples of killer opening lines to use in your sales emails

Let’s review. A great opening to your sales email (quickly) establishes context, takes a step toward building trust and credibility, then offers a natural segue into your pitch. Use one of these opening lines that we’ve finessed with thousands of recipients over the years.

• The context builder: I hope this email finds you well! I wanted to reach out because [explain how we got their contact information: talked to a colleague, saw your company online, etc] and we’ve been working with a lot of similar companies to [quick description of the problem you solve/value you provide].
• The trust builder: My name is [name] and I'm with [company name]. We work with organizations like [similar company name] to [insert one sentence pitch].

• The referral request:I'm sorry to trouble you. Would you be so kind as to tell me who is responsible for [insert your biggest pain point here that resonates with your ideal customer; OR insert function like “sales” or “recruiting”] and how I might get in touch with them?

Try deploying one of these opening lines within your sales emails, depending upon which you feel best suits the communication style your recipients crave most—you’ll be glad you did.

3. The body and delivering your pitch

Before sitting down and writing your pitch—it’s crucial to first think deeply about what you want to achieve with your sales email. It’s only after you know exactly what you’re hoping to get out of this conversation, that you can structure a sales email to reach these means.

So, what’s the primary goal of your your sales email?

• Is it to immediately encourage a click through and sale right then and there?
• Are you hoping to capture interest and book a short exploratory call?
• Is your aim to get them on a free trial of your product?

Depending upon your goal, the body and pitch of your sales email can vary greatly.

Let’s pick up where we left off. At this stage of writing your sales email, you’ve just wrapped up an opening line that’s designed to quickly establish context around why you’re reaching out to this prospect.

With that in the rear view mirror, now you need to deliver a compelling pitch that’s designed to set the stage for accomplishing the goal of your sales email—which you’ll soon seal the deal on in the next step with a clear call-to-action.

How to craft a strong pitch in your sales emails

For our purposes here (and because most of our customers are selling B2B with higher priced offerings), we’re going to work off the assumption that the goal of your sales email is to get your prospect to book an exploratory call.

With many B2B products or service offerings, the first step in your sales process is often getting prospects on the phone to discuss their needs, learn about their challenges and gauge whether or not they’d be a good-fit customer before diving into the specifics about which plan to choose.

It’s a critical first step in determining if the sales conversation should move forward—so that you can stay focused working only on strong leads at all times, and thus avoid wasting precious time on leads that’ll never close.

With that goal in mind, the pitch in your initial sales email should do these three things:

• Give enough additional context about who you are. If your opening lines don’t establish enough credibility or offer up a level of detail to instill confidence in you and your company, then start by bolstering that at the beginning of your pitch. It helps to quickly reference the names of other relevant companies using your product or service (lending their credibility to you), or highlight a quick clear result similar customers have already gotten from using your product.
• Clarify the problem you’re solving in one simple sentence. What’s your most relevant one-sentence pitch for this prospect? If you don’t have a quick elevator pitch that sums up your offering and benefits in one sentence, then it’s time to write one right now.
• Highlight ultra-clear benefits that your prospect can relate to. Beyond just the quick elevator pitch that sums up your offering in a relevant fashion, pull out a few quick bullet points that do an even better job of driving home the benefits of your offering for your prospect’s specific use case.

Strive to make it clear to your prospect that this sales email has been hand-crafted based on real research you (or your team) has conducted, take this value-driven approach to starting a conversation and you’ll be well on your way to having stronger leads.

Two examples of a (short) compelling pitch to use in your sales emails

We can’t emphasize enough, how important it is to ensure that your sales email—especially when it’s an initial cold outreach email—strikes a balance between being short and to the point, while still delivering enough context and information to get your recipient interested enough to want more.

Here are a couple examples of how to walk that fine line and deliver a compelling pitch without taking up your prospect’s time on useless information.

The abbreviated benefits approach:

Hey [First name],

My name is [my name] and I'm with [my company name]. We work with organizations like [relevant company name] to [insert one sentence pitch].

[One sentence unique benefit geared toward their organization].

Could you point me toward the right person to talk to about this at [company name] so we can explore if this would be something valuable to incorporate into your workflow?

[Your name]

The expanded benefits approach:

Hey [First name],

[My company] has a new platform that will help (your team at) [their organization name]. [One sentence pitch of benefits]. We do this by:

• Benefit/feature 1

• Benefit/feature 2

• Benefit/feature 3 (optional)

It seems like we could be a really great fit for what you and your team are working on. I’d love to share some more details, do you have a few minutes to quickly connect this week?

[Your name]

While both of these sales emails simply lean on a tweaked variation of the same overall structure when it comes to the pitch, they do so using slightly different formatting and methods of building credibility.

Keep your sales email copy simple, relevant to your prospect’s needs, and void of any fluff.

4. Closing statement and call-to-action (how to end a sales email)

Let’s get one thing clear: If your sales email doesn’t end with a very simple and direct call-to-action (CTA) that makes it obvious which action you’re asking your prospect to take right here and now, then you’ve failed.

The purpose of reaching out and establishing a connection with your prospect is to determine whether or not they’d be a good customer of your product or service, right? Well, it’s your job (as an inside sales rep) to guide them through the step-by-step process of making it from the entrance of your sales funnel, to signing on board as a customer.

That requires guidance—and it’s your job to take the first step by telling them what needs to happen next if they’re interested in hearing more.

Now, throughout the various sales email templates we’ve already shared in this guide, we’ve illustrated several different ways you can close the conversation and end with a strong CTA.

If you’ve done everything right up to this point in your sales emails, then the CTA you close with is what determines whether the prospect responds to your email (and moves through your funnel) or sends your email to the trash.

While on the surface it may seem like writing a great CTA is a simple activity, it can actually be quite deceptively complex. And it’s actually something many sales reps make disastrous mistakes with.

The five biggest mistakes you need to avoid with sales email CTAs

The reason you’re sending anyone a sales email, is because you want them to take an action. Set up an exploratory call. Book a demo. Start a free trial. Sign a contract. That’s it.

Naturally you still want your prospects to open and read your sales emails—and of course connect with what you’re saying. But if they get to the end of your sales email and are left scratching their head, wondering what to do now, you didn’t accomplish your mission.

If your prospects are opening your sales emails, but taking no further action, it’s likely that you’re stumbling on your CTA—and making one of these common mistakes:

• You don’t have a clear CTA: If you don’t tell your prospect what you want them to do, how can you expect them to take the next step? Always include a CTA. Even if you think the email is clear enough, add one in your closing statement anyway.
• You have too many different CTAs: More CTAs won’t increase your chances of getting a conversion started. In fact, the more you ask of someone in a cold email, the less likely they’ll do anything, because your asks are overwhelming.
• Your CTA is confusing or unclear: If your CTA isn’t specific enough as to what the person needs to do, they’re probably not going to reply—or take that action. If you want someone to pick a time for a call, give them the dates and times or include a scheduling link with a tool like Calendly. If you want them to click a link and take an action, say that.
• Your CTA is too difficult of a decision: Tough decisions create friction, and that’s the last thing you want to lead with in a sales email before you’ve developed any rapport with your prospect. Even if they’re interested in what you’re saying, if the CTA puts pressure on them, they’re probably going to pass.
• Your CTA is asking for too much: With a cold sales email, you haven’t yet earned the credit to ask for much from your prospect. If your CTA is asking for sensitive material or for the prospect to invest serious resources straight out the gates, it’s too much. Moreover, they’re not going to do it.

The best sales email CTAs do the opposite of the mistakes we just covered. They’re simple, straightforward, and very reasonable requests for a cold outreach request.

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Three high-converting sales email CTA examples

Great sales email CTAs reduce friction and they’re focused in what they ask the prospect to do. Here are three examples of CTAs we regularly employ in our own sales emails here at Close.

• Give specific dates and times if you’re asking for a call or demo: What if you need your prospect to schedule a time for a call or a demo? You might think it’s a good idea to leave it up to them to pick a time that works for their schedule, but a CTA that says “let me know when you’re free” creates way too much friction and isn’t going to inspire action. Instead, try giving your prospect clear and specific options to choose from:

“Does next Tuesday at 11am or Thursday at 3pm work for a 15-minute call?”

By offering 2 options, you’re doing the work for them and all they have to do is say either yes or no—leaving you with the option to still propose a few more days/times if they reply with the latter.

• Make complex requests incredibly simple: If you’re asking someone to take an action that requires a bit of effort—like signing up for a trial and testing out your product—your CTA needs to be especially compelling. This means going out of your way to somehow personalize the link you send them, and make the action as simple as possible to complete. For example, you could say:

“Here’s a unique link that’s expiring soon—it’ll give you an extended 30-day free trial. Just click this link and in one minute you’ll be able to test out the product and see the results I’ve been talking about for yourself.”

• Use the 1, 2, 3 email hack if you haven’t been getting replies: Let’s say you’ve been following up with a prospect and haven’t gotten a response. In this scenario, you want to make your CTA so simple it would take more effort not to answer it. One technique that works well is our 1, 2, 3 email hack where you present the reader with 3 clear options and say:

“Just hit reply and give me a number: 1, 2, or 3.”

As the prospect in this situation, I only need to hit 3 keys on my phone or computer in order to respond. Reply. 1, 2, or 3. And send. That’s it. There isn’t a simpler CTA in the world, and any response will give you valuable information about how to move forward with this prospect.

To sum it all up, end every sales email with a clear, direct call-to-action that leaves no room for ambiguity or misinterpretation around which action you’re asking your prospect to take in order to move the conversation to the next stage.

5. Signature (what needs to go in your signature & using it to sell)

Your email signature is one of the most valuable, underutilized pieces of real estate in an email. To most salespeople, it’s an afterthought—rather than a tool that can be used to further sell to the prospects you’re emailing with.

Most average email signatures have your name, title, contact info, and a logo. Like so:

Joe Smith
Sales Manager, Acme Solutions
Phone: 555-555-5555
Email: joe.smith@acme.com

What’s your first thought after looking over this very common email signature?

It’s BORING. And it certainly isn’t doing anything to further your sales conversations.

It’s not building credibility. It’s not offering your recipients something interesting. It definitely isn’t selling or showcasing anything relevant to the prospects you’re communicating with.

We’re big believers of selling in your signature. Our CEO, Steli pitches recent product news, his book, his podcast—whatever it is we have going on right now that he wants recipients to see in his signature and think, “Hey, that looks interesting!”

Four genius ways to intelligently sell in your email signature

Here are just a few of the best ways we’ve tested when it comes to selling through a useful signature in our sales emails.

• Press features: One of the best ways to passively sell (and boost your credibility) is by including a link to a positive press article in a relevant publication that highlights the company’s accomplishments. Have a recent write-up about your stellar growth? Show it off. If you’re not yet at the stage of landing article features, take the initiative to publish your own stories about recent successes and new landmark customers on a company blog (check out my guide to starting a blog the right way if you don’t already have one).
• Webinar recordings: Another way to intelligently use your email signature to call your prospects to action, is by including the link to a recent webinar your company gave. Whether it’s a product demo, or a customer interview, case study, or keynote speech from your CEO that was recorded, most prospects who are seriously considering your product will be curious about learning more.
• Case studies: Linking to a positive (relevant) case study can add a massive amount of credibility because your prospects get the opportunity to hear about the benefits and use cases of your product from the mouths of other customers—rather than you (who could be a biased salesperson).
• YouTube videos: One of our favorite things to include in an signature is a YouTube link. In Gmail, when you add a YouTube video link, it displays a thumbnail of the video. Why is this so effective? According to MIT researchers, the most memorable photos are those that contain people. Psychologists have also found that color images are more memorable than black and white. As a result, a video thumbnail (especially if it’s a video of you or someone at your company speaking) really catches the reader’s eye. We can’t tell you how many times someone has replied to one of Steli’s emails saying, “I ended up watching that entire speech from your email signature,” before addressing his original message. If your company has any kind of video marketing, your email signature is a great way to get prospects’ eyes on it.

For more inspiration, here’s an example of what Steli’s email signature often looks like:

Alright, now that we’ve broken down the essential elements of effective sales emails, let’s go into further depth exploring the most common types of sales emails.

We’ll be highlighting all of our best sales email templates, showcasing real examples that are working out in the field (today), and explaining the exact use-cases for when it’s best to send a particular type of sales email.

Let’s do it!

10 most common types of sales emails (templates and examples)

1. Cold outreach sales emails

The most common type of sales email. When most people think of sales emails, they're more often than not conjuring up images of cold email campaigns queueing up en masse to unsuspecting recipients that (may or may not) need their product. 

Contrary to popular belief though, cold sales emails can actually still be refreshingly human—and effective at opening up a line of communication. Here's our most effective, simple cold sales email template:

Hey [First name],

My name is [my name] and I'm with [my company name]. We work with organizations like [company name] to [insert one sentence pitch].

[One sentence unique benefit].

Do you have a few minutes available on [day of the week] to chat quickly and explore if this would be something valuable to incorporate into your events?

[Your name]

While one of our most effective cold sales emails over time, the one major assumption this template takes into account, is that you know your recipient is already a qualified prospect.

2. Prospecting sales emails

Let's start by defining what exactly a sales prospect really is. The difference between a lead and a sales prospect is that a "lead" comes first—and once that cold lead is qualified by a member of your sales team, they become a (warmer) verified sales prospect within your overall sales process. 

So with that context in mind, a prospecting sales email is being delivered to a warm lead once we have a reasonable degree of certainty they'd be a good fit to become a customer of our product.

Here's our most effective prospecting sales email template:

Hey [First name],

I've been following along with all of your growth at [their company] these past couple years and I wanted to see if you'd be up for quickly chatting about how [my company name] has been helping similar brands like [company name] to [insert one sentence pitch].

[One sentence unique benefit].

Do you have a few minutes available on [day of the week] to chat quickly and explore if this would be something valuable to incorporate into your marketing efforts?

[Your name]

The main difference with this prospecting sales email, as opposed to the more generic cold email above, is that this approach has a more personalized, direct approach that's designed to make a very confident first impression to your prospect.

Pro tip: You can use the P.S. line in your email signature to link to a relevant case study or work sample that'd get this prospect more interested in your sales email.

3. Pitch emails

Similarly to our previous sales email that really starts conversations on a confident note, delivering a pitch email means coming on very directly. You strongly believe your product or service can help this prospect (and that they'll get a massive return on their investment), so it's your job to make sure they come on board. Pitch them.

Here's our most effective pitching-focused sales email template:

Hey [First name],

I hope this email finds you well! I wanted to reach out because [explain how we got their contact information and how we relate to them: talked to a colleague, saw your company online, etc.].

[Name of company] has a new tool that'll help [organization name] to more effectively [One sentence pitch of benefits].

I know that [our product] will be able to help [name of your company] [insert high level benefit here] in less than 3 months like we've already seen with [relevant customer] and [relevant customer].

Are you available for a quick call at [time and date]?

[Your name] 

4. Introduction (referral) sales emails

When you're not sure who the right decision-maker is at your target organization, it often pays to skip additional layers of research and jump straight to sending a sales email to the closest fit person you can  quickly track down.

That's where the introduction referral approach comes in to play—because you'll be asking for an internal referral to the person who's most well-suited to field your incoming request.

Here's our most effective referral sales email template:

Hey [First name],

My name is [my name] and I'm with [my company name]. We work with organizations like [company name] to [insert one sentence pitch].

Could you direct me to the right person to talk to about this at [company name] so we can explore if this would be something valuable to your sales team?

[Your name]

That's it—short and sweet!

5. Appointment request sales emails

This one is relatively straightforward. You've got a qualified prospect, now it's just time to reach out and get an appointment scheduled to further qualify them for your product.

Here's our most effective appointment request sales email template:

Hey [First name],

I hope this email finds you well! I wanted to reach out because [explain how we got their contact information and how we relate to them: talked to a colleague, saw your company online, met at a conference, etc.].

[Name of company] has a new platform that will help your team at [organization name]. [One sentence pitch of benefits]. We do this by:

• Benefit/feature 1
• Benefit/feature 2
• Benefit/feature 3 (optional)

I'd love to explore how [your company] can specifically help your business. Are you available for a quick call around [time and date]?

[Your name]

With this approach, you have one very specific goal—to get your prospect on the phone at a specific time & date. When you make your call-to-action very clear and direct, you stand a much higher chance of getting an equally clear response—whether that's a yes or a no. 

If that answer is a no, you can either take it from here on attempting to schedule a better time to connect or probe for other reasons your prospect is objecting to taking the call.

6. Follow up sales emails

Here's our most effective follow up sales email template for once you've already delivered your first outreach attempt & haven't heard back yet:

Hey [First name],

I wanted to show you how [my company] can help you to better [the thing your product or service helps customers to do]. We've helped companies like [relevant customer] and [relevant customer] to achieve great results already this year.

Do you have a few minutes for a quick call later this week?

Let me know a good time, or you can pick a spot on my calendar by clicking here.

[Your name]

Pro tip: Include your link to a calendar booking tool like Calendly or Pick to streamline the scheduling process for your prospects to find a mutually available time to connect and review your product.

7. Reminder sales emails

Here's our most effective reminder sales email template that's geared toward getting your prospect to take that final action on the last outstanding task after they're already interested in buying:

Hey [First name],

Hope all is well. When we connected yesterday, you said that you'd be ready to get started with using [my product name] by the end of this week.

Here's the link to where you can create an account, input your billing information and start inviting teammates to join your organization.

We're excited to get you on board! Do you need anything else from me in order to get set up this week?

[Your name]

8. Thank you sales emails (after a positive meeting or demo)

Alright, so you've delivered your pitch and it went over well. Now, it's time to close the sale and get this customer on board.

Here's our most effective thank you-driven sales email template to send after you've had a strong meeting or delivered a demo:

Hey [First name],

Thanks for taking the time to connect this morning. I think you'd be a great fit for [plan type or option] and we're excited to get you on board.

Here’s what I’ll need from you in order to get started:

• Onboarding Item 1 
• Onboarding Item 2
• Onboarding Item 3

What day/time works best for you to a set up call and get the final details locked in? Or you can pick a spot on my calendar by clicking here.

[Your name]

9. Post-transaction (hand off to success) sales emails

Here's our most effective hand off sales email template to help ease the transition to a success or support member of your team that'll be handling your (new) customer from here on out:

Hey [First name],

Thanks again for coming on board today! We're excited to have you and are really looking forward to seeing the impact we can help drive in your  [area of the company your product helps].

Here on cc in this email is the head of our success team, [name], who's going to be assigning you a rep from our team that'll be available to answer questions and help with troubleshooting as you get up and running over the coming days & weeks.

Also, here's the link to our product guide that's packed with tutorials, helpful screenshots, video walkthroughs, examples, templates and more.

It's been a pleasure—thanks again!

[Your name] 

10. Check-in (long-term follow up) sales emails

Here's our most effective long-term follow up sales email template for those mildly warm prospects that asked to be kept in loose touch with for future opportunities to work together:

Hey [First name],

It's been a couple of months since we last connected and you asked me to check in at the start of the next quarter. 

How are things going at [their company]? We recently released a new feature that [what it does] and I think it could really turn things up a notch for your marketing team.

Do you have a few minutes to chat about it this week? I'd love to give you a preview.

[Your name]

Send variations of this simple follow up email at reasonable intervals of time, based on either when your prospect requested to be followed up with—or at a frequency that doesn't burn them out.

4 helpful sales email tools (to support your outreach)

Now obviously, we believe that our CRM with built-in emailing is the best tool for your sales email outreach.

But whether you’re using Close or another solution—here are some valuable tools to make your sales email workflow more effective.

1. Email address lookup tools.

For your sales emails to succeed, no matter how well-written they are, you first need to have the right email addresses for your prospects. Here are two tools we recommend for this:

Hunter.io

Hunter.io allows you to find the email address of any professional one by one or in bulk using their Email Finder. Their Email Verifier then does a complete check of an email address, giving you complete confidence when sending emails.

2. Meeting/demo scheduling tools.

If you succeed at getting a prospect to want to talk to you, make it as easy as possible for them to get to the conversation. Scheduling tools that enable prospects to just choose an available slot have become increasingly popular for a reason in recent times: they save a lot of the tedious back-and-forth that an unfold when you try to schedule a call by sending emails back and forth to figure out a time that works for all parties involved.

Calendly

Calendly is an automated scheduling tool that takes the work out of connecting with others so you can focus on the important tasks at hand. Easily integrate your existing Google, Outlook, Office 365, or iCloud calendar, let Calendly know your availability, set buffer times between meetings, create/share/embed your Calendly link with others, and more—all within one central location.

3. Conversational selling tools.

These tools will help you send more effective sales emails, ways to employ them to convert more leads (ex: who click through and view your pricing page, these tools pop up and call them to action for booking a meeting, etc).

Intercom

Intercom is a suite of messaging products for businesses to acquire, engage, and support customers throughout the entire customer lifecycle. You can use bots or live chat to convert leads, engage customers by sending targeted emails or app push notifications, and integrate a help desk and knowledge base to support customers.

4. Virtual meeting tools.

How these kinds of tools will help you send more effective sales emails, ways to employ them, list of an example or two and screenshot of them in action.

Zoom

Zoom combines video conferencing, online meetings, and group messaging—all in one easy-to-use platform. Zoom's features include HD video and audio, built-in collaboration tools, end-to-end encryption, recording and transcripts, streamlined calendaring, chat, and more.

Here at Close, our sales reps love using Zoom for virtual meetings. It makes connecting with clients simple and convenient.

When to send sales emails (for maximum effectiveness)

What’s the best time to send your sales emails? A quick Google search will show you that there are literally dozens of studies on this subject, many based on large datasets (oftentimes many millions of emails).

However, while all of this data and statistical analysis is great—there’s one thing you need to consider:

The best time to send your sales emails depends on your prospects!

There’s no one-size-fits-all answer to this question. Everything that we, or anyone else has to say on this subject, is generalized advice that could very possibly be wrong for your specific situation. Which is why we recommend that you constantly test what works best for your sales team!

One general piece of advice: Strategically vary the days and times when you’re sending out your sales and follow-up emails. This will increase the likelihood that prospects notice, open, and respond to your sales emails.

The best sales email tools enable you to do this: with Close for example, you can set up email sequences that will go out on specific day and time intervals, with a variation built in to maximize the probability that you’ll get a response.

"Close was a game changer for our sales process. I immediately saved hours of time by automating email follow-ups with email sequences and closed more deals in five days than I ever had in a given month!" - Tim Griffin, Founder & CEO at Cloosiv

What’s the best day of the week to send a sales email?

Again, the answer is: it depends. But for many companies, the best day of the week is Tuesday or Wednesday. People are often too busy getting their week started on Mondays, and too busy wrapping up their week (or mentally already checked out) on Fridays.

What’s the best time of day to send a sales email?

Many studies say 8am (of your prospects’ local time) is best. The truth however is that it absolutely depends. For some prospects, 8am might be just the right time because that way it’ll be relatively fresh in their inbox when they check it. For others, sending them the email at night could be best because they check their email before wrapping up their day to make sure nothing urgent is there that needs to be taken care of.

For others, around 2pm, right after lunch break might work best, because that’s often the time when they’re not doing much focused work, and “checking email” is the kind of task you can do even when your mind is already drained.

How to use automated email sequences to increase sales email response rates

With Close, setting up and sending email sequences to your contacts is simple. You can write and schedule email sequences by creating templates and setting delays between emails in your sequence. Here's how:

1. Navigate to your account settings and select "Your Email Templates."

2. Click "+ New Template" to create a new email template to add to your email sequence. Don't forget to save your new template! 3. Next, go to your "Email Sequences" (located in the left-hand menu), and create a new email sequence. When creating a new email sequence, you can choose your email templates, add multiple steps, create delays, and set the sending schedule. 4. After you have created your new email sequence, you can then send it to a single contact (first video) or a bulk list of contacts (second video).

Now enjoy seeing an increase in your sales email response rates!

Hear what one Close customer has to say about email sequences:

"The email sequences on Close have been invaluable. They have enabled us to streamline and more efficiently manage our workflows, and have personally allowed me to improve my productivity by at least 50%. The time saved using sequences is worth the additional price of the Professional package, let alone the other benefits—indeed, we have upgraded our account purely for this feature. I'd highly recommend using them to automate your sales process." - Conal Maguire, Business Operations Manager at TalentPool

5 steps to writing great sales emails

Finally, here’s a word from our CEO and one of the foremost authorities on B2B sales for startups and SMBs, Steli Efti on writing great sales emails: 

 
Want our best advice on writing winning sales emails, plus ready-to-use templates? Download our book “Cold Email Hacks” for free today!

GET YOUR SALES EMAIL GUIDE HERE