Rnordman

My friends Bethany and Daniel, founders of Technology Will Save Us, have developed the "world’s first active wearable that kids, young and old, can make and code themselves." It's called the Mover, and it looks like a lot of fun to build, program, and use!

The Mover Kit is part iconic accessory and part education tech toy. It is the latest make-it-yourself kit from the award-winning London startup Technology Will Save Us, who make amazing products designed around kids getting creative with technology.

The Mover Kit is a little different from their other kits as it encourages imagination and play through movement and activity. All the while, it teaches kids fundamental skills around programming, electronics, and how to solve problems creatively.

Tech will Save Us tested prototypes with over 300 kids, and learned that kids love technology that they can wear as it allows them to be engaged and active while having fun. They used this feedback from kids to define the form factor of the Mover Kit -a wearable. The technology they chose - motions sensors, a compass, and rainbow lights - gave kids responsive, active and stealth learning experiences. And they wanted to keep using it again and again.

The Mover Kit also comes with access to a digital platform called Make, which provides endless ways to create games, costumes and inventions with the Mover Kit – from making brushing teeth more fun, to inventing a light sabre or kaleidoscope. The core of the Mover Kit is its rainbow-colored lights, which respond to movement. Kids think of tons of ways to invent and move to trigger the lights. What I love about the Mover Kit is that it encourages what comes naturally to kids: active play. It makes learning and being active fun.

The Mover Kit launches on Kickstarter today with special pricing beginning at $45, a 40% discount off retail. Backers that pre-order now can expect delivery in the fall 2016.

A recent Harvard Business Review article pointed out that “more than 50% of US college graduates, regardless of their majors, are likely to work in sales at some point.” It also explained that of the “4,000 colleges in this country, less than 100 have sales programs or even sales courses, and of the more than 170,000 students who earn MBAs annually, only a tiny fraction learn anything about sales.”

And yet, surprisingly, sales has always been one of the hottest professions in tech.

This is becoming more obvious as founders of startups and early-stage seed companies increasingly understand that their products don’t create value, customers do. And that the only way to gain customers is to sell.

Until very recently, revenue generation has taken a back seat in tech, with most founders focused exclusively on engineering and product development. However, as we move further and further into the age of applied technology, founders can no longer hide from the reality that they need someone to help create a market for their product. Without revenue generation, many — if not most — startups will fail.

This is an incredible opportunity for smart, talented communicators interested in working for early-stage companies but disinclined toward the engineering side.

To that end, we’re launching GrowthX Academy at Galvanize, a 15-week intensive program designed to prepare smart, driven individuals to step into sales and business development roles at high-growth companies. Students will learn best practices from tech industry leaders in a rigorous classroom environment, while also working directly with early-stage startups and gaining real world experience.

What is needed to move into a sales or business development role at one of these companies? Top sales professionals often spend about ten years on the job developing their expertise in eight core competencies. Having an awareness of what those are and starting to pursue them now, before you land the role, or as you begin at entry level, can help you accelerate your progress and your path up the ladder.

Business & Marketing Acumen

The foundation for any successful sales person is business acumen. The most successful sales professionals are true partners to their customers, and fully understand business models, know how to quantify value, and help their customers be more successful by providing a competitive advantage. You’ll need to understand in every situation who the customer is, what do they do, and how your business can help them.

Resource: Look at the Lean Business Model Canvas by Alex Osterwalder to gain an understanding of unit economics, the relationship between sales and marketing, how businesses make money, and how the people in those businesses are measured. Knowing how to maintain relationships with the customer is vital to you and your company’s success.

Sales Communications

Once you fully understand how a potential customer’s business works, you’ll need to know how to hypothesize the value you can bring to them, along with a strategy for attracting them. How can you best communicate that value in a way that creates conversation? Everything communicates, and everything you communicate should be designed to generate a response from your prospect. This gives you the chance to listen and learn, so that you can communicate that feedback back to your team.

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Everything communicates, and everything you communicate shld generate a response from your prospect
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Resource: How to Speak So That People Want to Listen by Juilian Treasure is a fantastic Ted Talk that (once you get the bad habits out of the way) will help you communicate value and generate the feedback you need from any business conversation, including those with customers. The trick is to be sure to listen when you get that feedback.

Sales Models & Methodologies

Look around and you will find there are myriad ways to sell. Each approach has value, but some are more relevant than others to your product and market. For example, the way you approach selling in an early-stage company is very different than the way you would approach selling in a more mature and established company.

Exposure to the more widely adopted models and methods of selling and marketing will give you context, and perhaps even best practices you can bring to a company to help you both be better at selling. As a bonus, knowing the different models and what you are best suited for can help you find the right role in the right stage company, and avoid the pain that comes with being in the wrong place.

Resource: The Sales Learning Curve by Mark Leslie details the learning curve of the sales department of an organization, and his methodology works well as you take a new product to market.

Sales Customers

Products don’t create value, customers do. To navigate the marketplace as a successful sales professional, it’s critical to gain a deep understanding of who people are, how they make decisions, what motivates them, and why.

Resources: Four Steps to the Epiphany: Successful Strategies for Products That Win by Steve Blank is an invaluable book for learning the customer development process, and Crossing the Chasm by Jeffrey Moore can help you understand where customers fit in a product and company’s lifecycle.

Sales Management

One of the great tragedies of sales is when the top salesperson gets promoted to the role of sales manager with little to no experience. The great mistake is in not having first learned how to be managed. Management opportunities in sales can be very rewarding if you know how to get the most out of others, while making the relationship mutually satisfying and productive.

Resource: Find the type of leader that you wish to be and seek them out as a mentor. You should also be doing the same thing as a prospective employee — choose to work for those who inspire you and will make you better at what you do.

Sales Productivity

Seventy-five percent of the average salesperson’s time is spent doing things other than selling.  What if you could flip that?  How much more could you accomplish?  How much more money could you make and how quickly could you advance, if you optimized productivity?

Resource: Essentialism by Greg McKeown is one of the best books I’ve read on prioritizing what really matters. It’s not about time management, but rather offers a disciplined approach to being intentional about what you say yes to.

Personal Development

In the business of talking to humans, there is no distinction between personal and professional development. Becoming a life-long learner always seeking ways to improve, being more mindfully aware, and embracing opportunities to develop as a person will translate into an ability to develop as an individual contributor, team member, manager, leader or even an entrepreneur.

Resource: Do a self assessment of any sort. It can be MBTI, 16Personalities or something else. It doesn’t matter which one — awareness is half the battle. Once you have the results, you can decide what areas you want to improve on. When you are in sales there’s no distinction between personal and professional development.

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When you are in sales there’s no distinction between personal and professional development.
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Professional Development

Person-company fit is just as important as product-market fit. If you’re considering a career in sales or business development, take the time to find out what you love to do, and how to connect that with the work you want to do. Once you find that path, you’ll have a better understanding of what skills you need to develop to land the role that’s appropriate for you. Checking the boxes other people say you should check is not the key to happiness, and happiness breeds success.

Resource: My deck called “Build Your Own Career Funnel to Get Your Dream Job.”

Conclusion

A 2013 Gallup poll found that few business leaders and employers feel colleges are preparing graduates for the workforce. One of the best things you can do if you want to take advantage of the growing demand for sales and business development professionals is to prepare yourself — whether that be through a combination of self-study and lucky breaks, or by pursuing specific training like that offered at GrowthX Academy at Galvanize, which sets you directly on the track to secure the job you want.

For driven, talented individuals, there’s never been a better time to enter the startup world in a sales or business development role.

The post A Top Sales Professional Has Never Been More Valuable – Here’s How to Seize the Moment appeared first on Sales Hacker.

In a typical day, Dina Theodoropoulos will make multiple calls and at least one visit to check in on her elderly mother, Helen, who has numerous health conditions that necessitate a rigorous medication schedule. Theodoropoulos, a 47-year-old interior designer living in Toronto, also works full time, chairs a hospital committee and volunteers regularly. She is one of eight million unpaid caregivers in Canada who are thrown into the role without formal training after a loved one—usually a parent—becomes chronically ill, according to the Canadian Association of Retired Persons (CARP). As the population ages, their ranks are swelling: By 2020, one in three Canadians will moonlight as a caregiver. And their work is significant: The typical caregiver spends 20 hours per week tending to a loved one. Collectively, the value of their unpaid service is $25 billion a year in Canada alone.

These caregivers are under a tremendous amount of physical, emotional and financial pressure—especially if they also have children of their own to attend to. “Stress is a huge issue among caregivers,” says Gary Hepworth, who owns a Toronto franchise of Premier Homecare Services and chairs a local chapter of CARP. “They’re looking for ways to manage things.” Yet the resources currently available to help them tend to be complicated, inconvenient and, when it comes to private care, expensive.

Technology is poised to offer the solution. In the U.S., entrepreneurs and health-care providers have created many digital products to help caregivers, from pill- and appointment-management apps to monitoring systems. In Canada—an environment with radically different processes and supports for dependent patients—the supply of such tools is nowhere close to meeting the surging demand, signalling that caregiver-focused technology may be the greatest untapped niche in health-care tech north of the border.

The time is right: Not only are today’s boomer and gen-X caregivers comfortable with digital technology, but so too are the parents they’re caring for. According to Pew Research, three out of five seniors use the Internet, aided largely by the intuitive design of iPads and smartphones. Nonagenarians accustomed to regular FaceTime chats with their great-grandchildren don’t resent pings about their pills, and the Fitbit-wearing, smartphone-toting adult children tasked with their care need little convincing of the convenience of scheduling a neurologist appointment through an app.

John Whitehead knows first-hand how helpful tech can be. His own mother’s diagnosis of Alzheimer’s—and his sudden move into the role of caregiver—prompted the Sudbury, Ont., entrepreneur to start Care Link Advantage in 2009. The home-monitoring company installs sensors around the patient’s home that notify caregivers of falls, night-time wandering and sleep irregularities. “Our ultimate goal is to support caregivers and enable seniors to be safe and continue living independently,” Whitehead explains. Demand has been strong, and as more Canadian public health agencies fund it, he expects business to grow further.

Such caregiving technology is rife with opportunity, says Rajiv Mehta, the Silicon Valley–based founder of Bhageera Consulting, which specializes in consumer health. Mehta has been studying family caregiving for more than a decade, and his research suggests companies pursuing this niche will find success with solutions that are comprehensive (with the product’s services available at all times, even if it’s only needed sporadically), intuitive and designed for the interruptions that proliferate in caregivers’ busy lives. “We’re finally starting to understand caregivers’ needs well enough to build great solutions,” says Mehta.

Theodoropoulos is seeing it happen. A few months back, in order to co-ordinate her mother’s care, she started to use Elizz—a new online portal developed by the Markham, Ont.-headquartered not-for-profit agency Saint Elizabeth Health Care to centralize services and resources for both caregivers and patients. With Elizz, she can arrange virtual checkups for Helen, schedule in-home visits with professionals and, if she needs it,  resources to attend to her own well-being. This provides tremendous peace of mind: “I feel less stressed knowing help is only a click away.”

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MORE ABOUT MOBILE APPS & INNOVATION:

• How to run a high-performance office (without the office)
• How to run your whole company from your phone
• How a wave of delivery startups are remaking grocery shopping
• How Joshua Landy built an app to help doctors swap insights
• How tech startups are bringing the digital revolution to hospitals
• How teachers are using digital tools to truly personalize learning

The post A wave of tech startups are changing how we care for our elders appeared first on Canadian Business - Your Source For Business News.

The robots are invading — from above.

A new report from PwC finds that drones could replace $127 billion worth of human labor and services across several industries. 

Infrastructure and agriculture make up the largest chunks of the potential value — some $77.6 billion between them — including services like completing the last mile of delivery routes and spraying crops with laser-like precision.

Economists seem to agree that robot automation poses real threats to human labor within the next few decades. The best evidence suggests automated robots will replace 50% of all jobs by the 2030s. Some evidence even suggests that today's technology could feasibly replace 45% of jobs right now.

Drones are a cheap, versatile first step toward that future. According to the new PwC report, they're also a solid cost-cutting measure.

Along with infrastructure and agriculture, drones will help tech giants like Amazon deliver packages, allow security companies to better monitor their sites, help producers and advertisers to film projects, allow telecommunication firms to easily check on their towers, and give mining companies a new way to plan their digs.

And those are just the biggest effects.

People have already turned to drones as replacements for soldiers, pilots, and lifeguards. In fact, any job that relies on human vision and judgment, specifically from hard-to-reach vantage points, will likely have to confront the possibility of drones in the future.

 

Join the conversation about this story »

NOW WATCH: This robotic surgeon could be more precise than a human

Hello and welcome back to the 2016 social media series for relative beginners to business social media. Today we turn our attention to LinkedIn Ads.

Small biz, local biz, franchisees, every flavor of private consultant from estate planners to wedding planners, massage therapists to art therapists. “Social media is not for everybody” in the same way that “This office will never use email for important business transactions and documents. That’s what we have manilla interoffice memo envelopes for.”

If you’re too young to remember those raggedy folders kept private by a thread wrapped figure-eight style around two circle things…

With the list of names on the back, so you could almost literally watch how news traveled in your org chart — downhill, namely…

And, for that matter, if you’re too young to remember being taken aside by the boss’s secretary and told, “Ladies in this office wear pantyhose”…

…then welcome, dearie! We’re so glad you could make it. Get yourself a name tag. Drinks in the cooler, maybe even some pizza left, and find a seat. We’re about to start.

Don’t be the old codger who sniffed that “Our office will not get into this electronic mail fad.”

While the digital “social media” are still relatively new, they have been and will continue to reshape how we conduct every aspect of our daily lives. (“Social media,” as a practice of using whatever medium is to hand to communicate a message socially to other humans… Well, that goes back to fire, cave paintings, and trees trained to point toward the meeting place.)

Time for a Brave Full Disclosure about LinkedIn Ad Campaigns

Believe me, I’d rather tell you not to look at the chick behind the curtain. But, thanks to L. Frank Baum, Dorothy, and her little dog, too, we all know that the curtain gets pulled aside anyway. And the wizard is just another lost dude with cool gadgetry and an amplified voice.

You see, well, derp. I’ve never run a LinkedIn advertising campaign. I’ve only watched one unfold. And the goldarnedest thing is that when I wrote our series here on Facebook, I skipped — er um “saved for later” — writing about Facebook ad campaigns because they’re so much more tangly and like Tolkien’s Mirkwood. (To me, at least.)

Ain’t that embarrassing?

And so, dear reader, here’s what I propose: I will give you resources for set-up and best practices. I will share links to Other People’s Content (OPC) and thought leadership. And, I will continue to share what I know about crafting a social footprint that welcomes, educates, invites, connects, encourages, nurtures and generates leads. Deal?

Use LinkedIn Advertising to Target Your “Prosumers”

Many times in job interviews, I’ve been asked if I have any experience with B2B writing. (Business to Business, as opposed to this very obviously “just us folks” vibe that I prefer.) I’ve tried in vain to make this assertion: Business people are consumers, too. But, LinkedIn just says it better, that business people are consumers with buying power.

Nothin’ But Ambivalence for LinkedIn Ads

Not everybody’s buying what they’re selling, literally.

Recent commentary from the social media intelligentsia on the utility of LinkedIn ads seems to run from the slightly apologetic to the downright annoyed.

In the former, Jamie O’Brien of Sprinklr opens with this caveat:

Given the timestamps of each post, O’Brien is probably responding to latter in which Larry Kim published a manifesto at WordStream about LinkedIn Ads a few months prior.

Experiment with LinkedIn Ads on Their Dime

Viveka von Rosen, writing for Social Media Examiner, has put together a helpful how-to do LinkedIn Ads post. And she reminds me, when you first open your LinkedIn Company Page, you’ll receive come-ons from the platform, like a mark visiting the circus. Only in your inbox. Like so,

Here’s what I would do… Sponsor an Update

1. Set aside a few hours for the next rainy day or the next two or three not-yet-committed lunch hours.
2. Read the outbound links I’ve provided here. See, I saved you all that research. If Kim or O’Brien go over your head, forget about them. Move on to Ms. von Rosen.
3. Get your code for LinkedIn play money and go play.

After all, the first taste is free.

Depending on what kind of buzz you get from that, you’ll know whether you want to make a habit of it or not even hit it again.

Which update should you sponsor?

Basically, your favorite. More to the point, your audience’s favorite. (Should be same-same.)

By now, I hope you’ll have a half-dozen or so under your belt. You’ll have been watching how they perform. You have begun developing a sense of when is the best time to post for your audience, as well as what materials resonate best with them.

You already know not to broadcast spam or talk about yourself too much. Nobody wants to hear that. Not at a cocktail party, and not in the social feeds. Your social currency is only in the value you can add to their day. Value can be humor, information, insight, heads-up, news, encouragement, beauty, and inspiration.

Caught a double-rainbow across Main Street the other day after the rains? POST THAT! (It could be a triple.)

Whereas the other ad formats may lend themselves to broadcasting, when you sponsor your best performing update you get to target and reach more people who might like to follow you. You also get toshow them the content that did well among the people who already follow you.

Bing bang boom — you’re already delivering value. Who doesn’t want in on that?

Don’t let the fine print scare you.

You’ll need your credit card for this. LinkedIn will charge you $5 to make sure you’re legit. Eventually, they’ll refund it back to you, if you don’t use it towards future ad spend. I just double-checked my credit card statements. They didn’t refund it for five months and ten days. I congratulate them for collecting on the float.

But, in the end, friends, I got my latte money back.

Innovation suffocates in a culture of mediocrity. Here’s how to breathe life into company culture to compete for the future.

Ideas are a dime a dozen. Everyone seems to have one or more. I just wish that more organizations would appreciate how plentiful and beneficial ideas are to the future of their business.

The challenges are all too common. Often, ideas are shared in fleeting moments with the same zeal as observing the weather. Once expressed they recede from view, a moment and opportunity passed, with life returning to its normal, unvaried routine. Also common is the lack of people or processes to do anything with ideas when they are specifically shared with the intention of causing effect or change.

In a world where the expression of ideas is a commodity but the consideration and implementation of them is a scarce resource, how do we create a more inviting culture that fosters their transformation from concept to manifestation?

To Err is Human, To Create, Divine

From startups to global enterprises I see two things. One, I’ve observed the voicing of ideas that immediately vanish into the ether of complacence, politics or blatant disregard. Two, I’ve witnessed the escape of morale where employees refuse to share ideas to improve or innovate or are uninspired to do so. In each condition, fervor wanes and mediocrity prevails. Weary spirits become a symptom of a diseased culture where hierarchy, process, and survival suffocate a democracy of ideas.

When ideas are extinguished, the ability to evolve and grow is hindered or completely crippled. The compromise of competing for today is simply business as usual. To compete and thrive over time though necessitates a culture of innovation, one where ideas are expressed but also shaped, enhanced, or combined into practice. This is the difference between any company that manages itself toward common goals and efficiencies and one that leads people toward creative destruction. Said another way, the difference between competing for now and for the future is a keen sense and supporting infrastructure to improve or re-invent the way people work and also what it is they create—even at the risk of competing against legacy processes and systems.

Change Happens to You or Because of You

If companies do not disrupt themselves, disruption will eventually disrupt them.

In any risk averse culture, this premise sounds absurd of course. Why would anyone challenge the status quo? Why would anyone dare to think different? As many executives I’ve worked with initially would point out, “We are profitable today why would we rock the boat?”

The number of answers or excuses voiced to these questions is beyond great, it’s blinding.

1. Technology is affecting customer behavior to the point where expectations and values are becoming radically different than what you stand for today.
2. Technology and changes in behavior are opening and closing customer touch points.
3. Today’s executives are out of touch with how younger customers and employees think, relate, and communicate.
4. Workforces are aging and are not challenged to learn new skills or systems.
5. Millennials are overwhelming personnel balances and creating conflicts in how they work versus how they’re trained to work.
6. Supply chains are squeezed as businesses compete in real-time.
7. Competitive threats are rising out of nowhere as anyone with an idea can use new platforms such as Kickstarter and indiegogo to generate customer awareness and support.

The list goes on. This is why any and all companies must accept that this is the end of business as usual. To survive, they must find leverage in digital Darwinism. They must accept that technology and society are evolving faster than current infrastructures, and philosophies, can adapt. Those that refuse to change now and over time will ultimately succumb to digital Darwinism by intentionally competing for irrelevance. Times change. So must you.

A Picture is Worth a Thousand Swords: The New Kodak Moment

Remember that “Kodak moment?” Well, you’re among the last generation to appreciate its true meaning. The Kodak moment was powerful. The words alone struck an emotional connection with human beings around the world. It evoked a warming sense of nostalgia. Kodak’s leadership team however didn’t share the same appreciation for what the Kodak moment could mean to future generations.

Rather than compete for relevance, Kodak ultimately fell to digital Darwinism by becoming irrelevant to new generations of consumers. This evolutionary milestone is particularly sad as Kodak was home to some of the most forward-thinking scientists around digital imaging who helped the company secure industry-leading patents. Competing for the future wasn’t part of the company’s everyday culture unfortunately. Innovation wasn’t woven into the DNA of Kodak’s culture. The executive team was spoiled by profitability and managed business decisions and people accordingly. Ironically, executives feared that digital would cannibalize its lucrative film business. Rather than invest in creative destruction and compete for the next generation of customers, the industry evolved without it and sealed Kodak’s fate.

Now the “Kodak moment” is something students and executives will examine as “that moment when businesses failed to embrace creative destruction to compete for the future.”

The key to innovation is to question everything, challenge convention, and relentlessly pursue relevance.

Practicing without a Safety Bet

For decades, businesses implemented proactive strategies to become recession proof when the economy turned. When companies batten down the hatches, they tend to insulate themselves from any potential storm as a matter of survival. The act of survival is seemingly safe but it also invites new threats from more courageous competitors.

Playing safe seems to be just that…it’s safe. In a time of persistent disruption however, playing safe may in fact contribute to a significant loss of momentum.  Essentially, people stop pushing forward and when that happens, fate pushes back. Why? Leadership cowers to programmatic measures that are as predictable as they are menacing. Spending is cut. Talent is released. Decisions are synonymous with conservatism. Risk aversion is pervasive. Confidence is peddled for vulnerability.

Disruption doesn’t discriminate. The truth is that digital Darwinism and creative destruction are good economic phenomenon for us as consumers, stakeholders and investors. The question however, is which side of markets do you wish to be on, those that are losing or gaining? It’s usually one or the other.

WTF! [What’s the Future] of Business?

Technology isn’t going away.

Change is inevitable.

The unfamiliar eclipses what it is we think we know at accelerated paces.

Nonetheless, what we know isn’t what we need to know. Familiarity, process, and our comfort zones are only holding us back.

Leadership, innovation, adaptation and resilience are traits of today’s successful businesses and also the foundation for mere survival in the near future.

To compete for the future starts with investing in a culture that promotes productive thinking, exploration and experimentation. That’s just the beginning however. Executives need to believe that managing teams towards goals is one thing.  It is leading people in new directions that surface new opportunities. To do so requires vision, transparency and trust.

Innovation is about shifting from a management culture to that of leadership, one where people are empowered to contribute to the destiny of the organization as well as their own.

Everyone must take part…everyone. This includes management becoming accountable for harvesting and introducing new ideas and talent. HR programs require modernization to recognize and reward people for the contributions that go above and beyond their current job descriptions. Older decision makers should learn from younger employees to gain insight and empathy into new generations and how they think and what they value. Most importantly, risk shouldn’t go overlooked. It must not dangle over the heads of would be intrapreneuers.

If we do not empower intrapreneurialism we either nurture the unexceptional or push people toward external entrepreneurialism, which benefits everyone but you.

Risk management is no longer an executive’s leverage. While risk should always be considered, they’re guardrails in the end. Governance, legal, and decision-making as it exists was defined for an era of business that is gone or ephemeral. Creativity, ingenuity, and inspiration are to be celebrated moving forward. The hardest part is recognizing that the culture that lives today is actually stifling breakthroughs.

Over the years, I’ve worked with hundreds of incredible and not so incredible startups. I’ve also fought political and emotional battles within some of the largest enterprise organizations around the world. I’ve won much more than I’ve lost. But in every case, I’ve learned and grown. More importantly, I observed a series of traits that emerged as organizations successfully embarked upon a journey of change.

As time and experience progressed, I compared these recurring traits to highly regarded brands known for their reputation of innovation and leadership. Companies such as Nike, Virgin, Tata Group, Tesla, Google, Burberry, GE, and many others, each share common characteristics that we can study, embody, and integrate into other adaptive organizations to transform. The goal is to more effectively compete for the future by striving to earn relevance today. The goal is to also recognize people and how they can help build an alternative yet complimentary destiny. Allow me to introduce you to the common pillars of innovation to build a foundation for tomorrow…today.

The Pillars of Innovation

Articulate Vision and Inspire: Organizations cannot move in a new direction unless that vision is conceived, articulated and motivating. People, customers and employees, they need something to believe in…something to follow. That starts with communicating where we want to go and why it’s important and different.

Form an Innovation Management Team: True leadership is a rare trait.  Often top executives need to band together to create alignment and build the infrastructure necessary to support a culture of innovation. This team is responsible for establishing the charter and working with the key department heads necessary to research, prioritize, plan, test and learn, and establish best practices. More importantly, its responsible for integrating insights and new programs and processes throughout the organization.

Promote Reverse Mentoring: There’s a disconnect today between older generations and the Millennials pervading the workforce. Older managers feel that younger generations have unrealistic expectations and they haven’t paid the same dues they did to earn success. At the same time, younger generations live life differently and can’t understand why others just don’t take the time to better understand their “day in the life.” Innovative companies such as GE promote reverse-mentoring to foster understanding, create mutual empathy and promote collaboration between disparate generations of team members.

Optimize Decision-Making: Decision-making is the chokehold of corporate creativity. Instead, evaluate how to optimize decisions and also introduce paths for ideas to earn consideration, development and expansion. This may start with the innovation management team, but ultimately, decision-making around ideas and creativity will benefit the entire enterprise and thus requires top-down implementation. Empowerment is key here. Additionally, a RACI chart is renewed or created to account for new scenarios and the people, systems, and rights to make things happen.

Invest in People and Processes: People are a core asset to your organization. At the same time, without the right training, processes, systems, or management, people can also become the hindrance. Everyday businesses practices, how employees are trained and reviewed, and also the time they spend on day-to-day projects versus thinking about or pursuing new ideas are the keystone to a stronger creative and collaborative foundation. We are all students now and learning is how we stay competitive.

Employ Technology as an Enabler: With the rise of social, mobile, real-time, cloud and every new technology trend, organizations are often faced with a confusing and overwhelming set of options to consider for implementation. Some though get caught in the technology trap by fooling themselves that they would become irrelevant without the adoption of everything in some way. This is only partly true. Technology is often the right thing to “do” but the “why” it’s introduced is often the missing ingredient to success. Technology alone though isn’t the answer. Technology is merely a means to facilitate connections, provide direction, learn, collaborate, and remind people why they (and you) matter… their way. It’s tempered with empathy, purpose and aspiration, to do things better than how we did them yesterday. Technology must be an enabler of the greater vision, purpose and bottom line business objectives.

Incentivize Ideas and Reward Risk: Encourage courage is something that most risk-averse organizations chastise or discourage. Ideas are precious and the ecosystem where they are introduced can be fragile. Make it fun or lucrative to introduce them and also spotlight them as part of everyday business practices. The most innovative businesses take ideation further by instilling it in everyday job responsibilities and performance management (up and down). Everyone is expected to contribute and managers are expected to cultivate and consider ideas. At the same time, innovative companies find a way to reward risk. This is key in organizations where corporate “whack-a-mole” prevents people from thinking outside of the box for fear of punishment or ridicule.

Teach Creative Thinking Up/Down: Creative thinking is something that isn’t relegated to just the chosen few. Everyone has the means within them to uncover a problem and solve it or see opportunities when others cannot or will not. Workshops, offsites, events, they must inspire employees, executives and leaders alike. I refer to this approach as the dilemma’s innovator. It’s a combination of design thinking and problem solving that allows for people to not only address quandaries but also create or surface something new. This must be taught as the process for evaluating empathy and context is different than the traditional critical thinking approach many organizations promote today. Most importantly, time is needed to help people think differently. Whether its 5 hours, 10, or 20 hours a month, give employees time to learn something new or develop a concept outside of their day-to-day duties.

Reward Contribution: HR needs a seat in the Innovation Management Team. Contributions must be rewarded. Risk takers deserve recognition. You’re asking people to do something beyond, in most cases, the reason why they’re where they are today. Reward employees for their contributions and also spotlight those that contribute every step of the way. Share insights and best practices. Reward systems and responsibilities will need updating to accommodate new processes and barometers for success.

Foster Collaboration: Enterprise social networks, social media, collaboration tools, these are all designed to help people better work together. In many cases, businesses remove traditional barriers that separate work groups allowing for people who don’t normally see or talk to one another have the chance to comingle. Google will often say that its MicroKitchens in every building allow for sparks of ingenuity that wouldn’t have happened if two or more people weren’t getting a snack at the same time. Give them reason to do so and expand engagement beyond traditional work groups. Bring people together who share common passions and interests and give them the space and the time to work together.

Fail Forward: Ideas are more common than the successes they’re intended to enliven. Without a surplus of meritorious candidates, the vine of ideas will inevitably whither. I understand that “failing” is a difficult belief to personify. After all, failing means just that, to be unsuccessful in meeting goals or standards. Nevertheless, fear of failure contributes to risk aversion. Failing doesn’t have to carry such negative overtones. Failing really means that you tried something and it didn’t work out. At least you tried. As long as you tried and learned…quickly…then you can move on. If it wasn’t for trying something new, we would be forever stuck in routines. And routines lead to complacency or irrelevance. Truth is that people will remember your hits over your misses. Edison failed 10,000 times before he made the electric light. The best companies find and communicate success even in failure. It’s how we learn.

Manage Accountability: In a culture of innovation, accountability is critical. It’s not just employees who are responsible for generating ideas and improving skills and expertise, managers too are measured by how well they cultivate ideas, spark imagination, and encourage collaboration. More so, managers are answerable for how well they promote ideas toward experimentation and implementation programs. Leaders lead. And for a healthy culture of innovation, one that strives to earn relevance, solve problems, and create new and even improbable opportunities and solutions, managers and executives are held to the same if not higher standards as everyone else. Eventually hierarchies fall in favor of flatter, more nimble models that move beyond just competing. This gives way for product strategies and also the way people work together, to become more than just competitive, they become the industry standard.

The Change Heard Round the World

Innovation begins with an idea on how to improve something that may or may not be broken. The secret to change is that it can arise from anywhere led by anyone. Optimism and hope are contagious. To fight for resilience and transformation falls upon those who believe that the path to success is not charted by any one single route or any one person. Instead, the journey toward triumph is actually fought for and realized as you go. It takes change agents and revolutionaries. It takes you.

Remember, it’s the little things that unfold as significant discoveries and alterations over time. When you look backward you will see you’re achievements. But, you cannot just look backward to move forward. Instead, recognize that the path toward differentiation, value and meaningful relationships is oft met by winds of resistance. If this was easy, anyone could do it. That’s why the future of business is up to you.

Don’t look back; you’re not going that way.

Connect with Brian!

Twitter: @briansolis
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Experience is everything…read my new book, X!

The post 12 Innovation Imperatives appeared first on Brian Solis.

How much money are companies spending on sales training? And is it enough to worry about whether or not one is optimizing the investment?

This, as they say, is the easy part. The answer to the first question is a lot; the answer to the second question is – yes. Companies spend a hefty amount of money – so yes, it is worth worrying about. As reported in a research report by Sales Performance International – “In the United States alone, industry estimates for corporate expenditures on sales training and performance improvement are more than 5 billion dollars annually.”

There are several avenues to attack the question: How do you optimize your sales training investment? Perhaps the one that has received the most attention relates to treating sales training as a “process not an event.” Inherent here is the point that what is done before and after sales training to position and reinforce it is as important as the sales training itself.

No question about the merit of that point – it’s a big deal. If you are still parachuting in on Friday afternoon of the national sales meeting and doing sales training with no plans for coaching, then you are totally wasting versus optimizing your investment.

A second, less talked about but equally important, consideration for optimizing the investment relates to how the sales training is designed in the first place. Most companies organize their training in terms of “content topics” like – account strategy, negotiation, or call execution. And, vendors design their offerings using that same organizing structure. When we first founded Sales Momentum we followed the crowd. We designed a separate program for each of these topics, too.

There has got to be a better way

The good news is – there is a better way. It took us less than a year to realize that we weren’t helping our clients optimize their investment. At that point we totally changed how we designed our sales training. We stopped organizing our programs around content topics and started designing around the customer’s business initiative. For example, one client wanted to move from selling individual products to selling an integrated solution. Another client wanted to shift from being the low cost provider to selling a value-added solution.

If a company, for example, is shifting their go-to-market strategy to be a value-added provider that change impacts all aspects of the sales organization from the territory design to market segments to compensation plans to the skill profile of the sales team. Since we are discussing sales training let’s just focus on the skill profile.

For such a go-to-market shift to be successful the sales team needs to adapt and adjust their sales skills and the sales training needs to be designed to help them do that. This means the sales training design needs to be customized from “top to bottom.” It must incorporate whatever skill sets are relevant to selling in the newly defined market. This is the exact opposite of defining every training challenge as “pounding a nail” because you have a hammer at hand.

Branding Packaging Allows You to Excite Customers and Improve Products’ Value

E-commerce packaging doesn’t always get a lot of love, but it can make all the difference to the success of a brand and enjoyment by customers. It’s one of the most under-utilized marketing tools for any online brand, but we’re here to help you take advantage of it.

A branded packaging experience presents your products in a very specific, planned way that excites customers as soon as the box arrives. Smart packaging builds anticipation for opening the current order and creates a desire to repeat that experience, meaning another order.

Increasing Value Through Packaging

The e-commerce experience doesn’t end with the sale or the arrival of a package. It continues through the experience of opening your packaging and using your products. That means packaging not only presents an opportunity to increase your value, but it can also potentially cause you to lose a customer.

The perceived value of your product can shift as soon as a customer opens your box. If a $100 bottle of perfume came in a standard box, wrapped in butcher paper, you might start questioning the price you paid. When materials look common, lack branding, or don’t fit the style of the product, perceived value can drop.

Avoid this concern by using custom boxes, wrapping, and tissue that all create a consistent visual. This will also give you a better chance of creating repeat customers.

One recent study found that:
· 52% of consumers are more likely to repeat an online purchase if it arrives in premium packaging.
· 40% of consumers say they would share a picture of an online order via social media if it comes in a branded or gift-like box.

Please the Eco-Conscious

The fastest way to alienate your environmentally focused consumers is to send them a very small item in a very big box. The wasted space not only drives up your costs, but is clearly a waste of space. You’ll also have to pay for even more packing materials.If your marketing team has worked hard on presentation, even that can be lost as the small item tumbles around in a large box during transit.

Your packaging and fulfillment partner should be able to provide options that not only have the right-sized boxes for your products, but should also support custom boxes emblazoned with your logo.

Pairing the right box with your logo can create an instant impression of environmental thoughtfulness whenever your product arrives at a customer’s door.

Extra Marketing Opportunities Through Packaging

Smart packaging for beloved new products can even help you capitalize on the “unboxing” trend.

If you’re not focusing on this segment, you could be missing out on some premium exposure for your company and its products. Consider this: he top YouTube unboxing channel of 2014 earned more than $4.8 million from its videos, which picked up 380 million monthly views. That’s more views and greater video monetization than Taylor Swift.

Now, not every company is going to be able to target the “unboxing” top earners right away. However, there are plenty of opportunities for your marketing team to make a big impact with custom packaging.

Every second of screen time can be branded if you take advantage of specialty wrapping, such as custom logo tissue paper for infills, branded stickers, and pamphlets laid on top of this packaging. Creating a memorable packaging and unboxing experience is a major boon to e-commerce brands, and it requires the support of your fulfillment service. Custom boxes, tissue papers, fillers, stickers, notes, and even the proper placement of a business card can all improve the value of your goods.

If your prospects are not returning your message or your referral seem to go nowhere, then perhaps you are not providing them with a compelling reason why they should respond.

On May 23^rd I’ll be hosting a free webinar designed to help you develop and communicate a compelling value proposition. While there are many things to consider in developing a compelling message, today I’d like to address 6 critical elements that should be present whenever you talk about your value. 

6 Essential Elements of a Compelling Value Proposition

If you want the most effective Authentic Value Proposition™ possible, then as you craft your messages to prospects and clients (email, voice mail, appointment, website, etc.), make sure your messages fit these six essential criteria.

The 6 C's of Effective Value Propositions

1) Concise

Learn to express your value as concisely as possible. And, yes, you can have different versions of different lengths. 

2) Clear

Make sure your value statement is free of industry jargon and complicated sentence structure. Run your answers by people who have no knowledge of your industry or products.

3) Conversational

You’re talking to a person, not submitting an essay to your English teacher. Write informally, while still following the basic rules of grammar (or at least most of them). 

4) Client Benefit-Oriented

Try to think past features and advantages to the benefits with which your clients will identify. For instance, how long you’ve been in business is not a benefit.

Turning a feature to a benefit usually requires saying something like, “Which means to you…” (Or similar phrase such as, “So therefore…”). Think about how your buyer will use the feature, what they're likely to get out of it, and how it will help their business, then put that in your value proposition.

5) Convey Emotion

People make the decision to work with you or refer you to others based mostly on how they feel about you -- the work you’ve done and who you are as a person. Help this process by using emotional words when you can. Words such as: safe, secure, fear, confidence, risk, dreams, mistake, turnover, profit, commitment, loyalty, and gap.

6) Cite Examples 

Specific examples of what you do, how you do it, and who you do it for bring your value proposition to life. They make it real for your prospects, clients, and centers of influence. Having an inventory of examples allows you to tailor the examples you provide to your target audience.

Remember: How you talk about your value will not only help you increase sales, it teaching your clients how to talk about you as they recommend you to others.

Having a compelling value proposition is fundamental to your ability to increase sales and communicate effectively with prospects. Without a compelling value proposition, your sales activity will be less valuable and you will bring in less revenue.

My proudest achievement throughout my career hasn’t been the contributions I made to the bottom line of the companies I worked with. It wasn’t the growth other companies achieved. Neither has it been leading a high performing team that transformed the way HR operated in that company.

In fact, looking back at my career, the one thing that I am most proud of is that out of all the people that I’ve worked with and had the pleasure of leading, at least 20 of them are now HR Directors in various companies, industries and countries. Of course most of them would’ve achieved that feat without my ‘interference’ but nothing is more satisfying than to see others grow, succeed and make an impact.

For me, the final piece of the puzzle of what defines a good leader is if you help grow your team. What good leaders should do is create a circle of trust, develop a sense of belonging, align people and help them grow to maximize their potential.

Here are 5 suggestions on what you can do to help grow your team.

1. Have the Right Intent

Leaders that prioritize growing their team members demonstrate a credible commitment to an individual’s development.

The key word here is ‘credible’.

I’ve yet to meet a boss who says he doesn’t want to develop his subordinate, however, the actions often don’t match the words. Bosses are afraid of their ‘subordinates’ taking over their jobs. The pressure of daily targets doesn’t allow them to spend time on giving opportunities or developing their team members. Some bosses simply don’t know how to do it. Rather than seeing the big developmental picture they’ll send their team member for training just to keep that individual quiet. In short, their intent is off.

2. Give Guidance

It’s often difficult for people to understand how they can grow in an organization. They primarily base their views on other people’s growth and assume that following a similar path is the only way to move up. As a leader it’s important for you to help guide your team members to understand how they can grow in the organization. Identify the different routes they can take and what they need to do to get there.

3. Provide Feedback

Providing fair, accurate and immediate feedback is a great way to help your team members to improve their performance. Many performance management systems have moved away from annual and semi-annual reviews. Weekly ‘check-ins’ on what you should do more of, less of or simply start doing are becoming more commonly practiced. Giving feedback is of course a skill that you need to train (like any other muscle). Positive intent, preparation and practice makes this skill perfect.

4. Move Out of Comfort Zone

I’ve asked people to recall a time when they made significant leaps in their personal development. Often they’ll identify a period in which they were tasked with doing something extraordinary. Something that was a huge challenge and had consequences if it didn’t materialize. Taking people out of their comfort zones is my personal drive as it challenges people to go think and operate outside their norm.

5. Focus on Strengths

It’s a mixed blessing to lead a highly diverse team. It provides different challenges and requires leaders to be highly adaptive to understanding and dealing with different personalities. On the other hand research has proven time and again that diverse teams deliver significantly better results. The best thing to do as a leader is to focus on the strengths of your team members. Adjust the organization, if necessary, to leverage employee fit and get the best out of each individual.

There’s no one-size-fits-all formula. What works for one individual’s growth will not necessarily apply to the other. As their leader, you need to do a blend of these 5 to really tap into your team’s full potential. And remember, if you help grow your team members you will, without fail, help yourself grow.

Genuinely connecting with buyers: There’s more to it than a handshake and smile. Superficial is no longer sufficient.

So how can a seller succeed in connecting with buyers? After all, sellers are busy people — time is precious, quotas are looming, and buyers aren’t always welcoming and amenable to making immediate connections.

At a minimum, at all times, a seller should know the following to improve in connecting with buyers:

• What the buyer’s top priority is within their buying role.
• What the buyer is motivated by in his or her personal life.
• What the buyer values about the seller’s product.
• What the buyer values about the seller and the seller’s company.
• What recent changes may influence what is valued.

To anticipate what a prospect or new buyer might value, a seller should be mindful of these factors:

• What is the buyer’s job title and what do people with this job title usually focus on most?
• What is the buyer responsible for delivering and to whom?
• How will the buyer’s performance be measured?
• What is the buyer’s history with the seller’s company?
• What is personally important to the buyer?

What NOT to Do in Your Efforts at Connecting with Buyers

A seller should not, however, make assumptions based on these factors. These are starting points so a seller can begin probing with a clear focus. Any assumptions made based on these factors could backfire. In practice, the seller would have some preliminary ideas based on these factors and would ask strategic questions designed to check assumptions and provide a greater depth of understanding.

Next Steps:

• To learn more about DISCOVER Questions® and how to get connected in meaningful ways with your buyers, order your copy of this bestseller from Amazon.com
• When you need sales or management coaching, customized sales training, or a dynamic speaker call us at 408-779-PFPS or book an appointment with Deb.
• Check out these resources for sales managers and front line sellers. New webinars, infographics, research, podcasts and more added every month!

The award-winning CONNECT2Sell Blog is for professional sellers who believe, as we do, that Every Sale Starts with a Connection.

Deb Calvert, “DISCOVER Questions® Get You Connected” author and Top 50 Sales Influencer, is President of People First Productivity Solutions, a UC Berkeley instructor, and a former Sales/Training Director of a Fortune 500 media company. She speaks and writes about the Stop Selling & Start Leading movement and offers sales training, coaching and consulting as well as leadership development programs. She is certified as an executive and sales coach by the ICF and is a Certified Master of The Leadership Challenge®. Deb has worked in every sector and in 14 countries to build leadership capacity, team effectiveness and sales productivity with a “people first” approach.

The post 10 Essentials for Connecting With Buyers appeared first on People First.

Since Mack Hanan coined the term in 1970, consultative selling has been the most widely accepted—and most pursued—sales approach. The approach is characterized as understanding buyer needs and positioning offerings as solutions to problems.

While this has been the go-to approach for many sellers, massive changes in buying technology and the vast amount of information on the internet is significantly changing how buyers buy at an unprecedented pace.

This traditional approach to consultative selling is no longer enough by itself for sellers to compete and consistently win.

China has proven itself to have a voracious appetite for foreign companies. It looks like the buyers aren't done.

Henry McVey, head of global macro & asset allocation at private equity firm KKR, recently visited the country and just reported back.

"Without question, this trip's dominant view centered on the desire by many Chinese business leaders to acquire companies, properties, and experiences outside of China," McVey wrote in a presentation.

Chinese firms have been busy scooping up foreign businesses, striking 607 deals valued at a record $112.5 billion in 2015.  The buying has extended into 2016 with companies like Alibaba saying it will spend $1 billion to buy Southeast Asian online retailer Lazada and ChemChina acquiring Syngenta for $43 billion.

In fact, Chinese outbound M&A is coming close to breaking its 2015 record levels, according to Goldman Sach's Pawan Tewari and Barry O'Brien, who work on deals in the tech, media and telecom sectors. 

"Chinese buyers are looking to gain access to technologies to improve domestic manufacturing competitiveness which will, in turn, help capture a larger share of profits in the value chain," Tewari and O'Brien wrote in a note. 

That echoes McVey's findings that some Chinese companies want to buy talent in technology and healthcare. They also want to better understand consumer behavior in developed markets and prepare for a maturing local market.

Here is McVey on the issue:

Some of this transition is linked to internally building a "fast follower" strategy in certain sectors, but the lion’s share of executives with whom we spoke indicated that the number one priority was to acquire overseas firms with customer knowledge, global supply chains, distribution networks, and superior intellectual property. If we are right, then we should expect more outbound global M&A by China in the near-term as well as more global pricing cuts in the long-term.

To be sure, regulators, both in China and abroad, are getting fidgety about the shopping spree. Insurance giant Anbang scrapped a bid for Starwood Hotels after reports that Chinese regulators disapproved of Anbang accumulating such a large chunk of offshore assets.

Lawmakers in the US are wary of Chinese companies buying access to sensitive technology or information, raising concerns over deals like Haier's $5.4 billion purchase of General Electric's appliance unit and a Chinese-led investor group's bid for the Chicago Stock Exchange.

Neither deal has been blocked, though, and the Chinese government has mostly been seen as supportive of the takeovers.

Here is McVey again:

Getting assets outside of China is clearly a major focus after the August devaluation. There is also some sound industrial logic too. For example, there is clearly a growing desire to shift excess capacity from the country’s domestic economy to new markets, the US in particular.

Chinese state-owned firms that are flush with cash have long dominated these outbound deals, though the Goldman bankers think there'll be more involvement from the private sector going forward. With the government's recent move to simplify merger codes, we can expect to see more aggressive bids from Chinese companies. 

Join the conversation about this story »

NOW WATCH: THE STORY OF GOLDMAN SACHS: From foot peddlers to a powerhouse

Ever been part of a team that skipped over creating personas to get to the “real work”? Or maybe you had personas, but everyone ignored them.

Personas are easy to dismiss.

The problem with ignoring personas – as Ardath Albee pointed out at the Intelligent Content Conference in her talk, How to Develop Audience Personas That You’ll Actually Use – is that companies go out of business if they ignore these questions:

Who the heck are we going to talk to? Why will they care? What are we going to say that’s relevant to them?

Those are exactly the questions that well-formed personas answer.

In this article, I summarize what Ardath identifies as the nine essential parts of a buyer persona. When you include all nine parts, you end up with personas that you and your team want to use – personas that help you make good decisions about the content you create and manage for prospective buyers.

All quotations and images come from Ardath’s talk.

Persona defined

A persona is a composite sketch of a target market based on validated commonalities – not assumptions – that informs content strategy to drive productive buyer engagement (i.e., revenue).

Ardath’s emphasis on commonalities goes against the hyper-individuality that some people expect from a persona:

A lot of us get excited when we find a unique attribute of one of our customers. We think, ‘Oh, this is cool. Let’s focus on this.’ The problem is, if you focus on the interests of the person wearing the red shoes, you miss all the people in the white shoes.

Unless you’re advanced enough to do one-to-one personalization, which I haven’t seen very often except in smaller account-based programs, you need to focus on the commonalities. Focusing on commonalities allows marketers to be relevant to a wider swath of that target market.

To get value from your personas, you have to take the time to build them with enough depth and insight to enable your team to generate ideas and topics that resonate. A useful persona also informs you about tone of voice and style.

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Build personas w/ depth & insight so your team can generate topics that resonate via @ardath421
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To create a persona with depth, include nine parts:

1. Day in the life
2. Objectives
3. Problems
4. Orientation
5. Obstacles
6. Questions
7. Preferences
8. Keywords and phrases
9. Engagement scenarios

Read on to discover how Ardath suggests building each part into a persona that you and your team want to use.

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1. Create a day-in-the-life scenario

A day in the life is No. 1 in Ardath’s list, but because it’s based on all the other components, you develop this one last. This component enables content creators to step into the persona’s shoes. You might, for example, hand this scenario to a new a writer. “When people read this, they should think, OK, I get this persona.”

Don’t describe the persona to the reader. Have the persona talk to the reader in first-person.

Source: Ardath Albee’s ICC 2016 presentation

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Don’t describe the persona to the reader. Have the persona talk in first-person says @ardath421
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In this example, the third-person description (“Diane is a hard worker”) gives some insight into Diane but not as much as the first-person phrasing (“I’m struggling”).

Notice Diane’s reference to “my boss.” That’s probably another persona needed, Ardath says. “You want to incorporate each persona’s relationships with the other personas on the buying committee.”

Often we develop personas in silos. We fail to look at the “overlay.” If personas are going to serve us, they need to include relationships with other personas. The description that mentions the boss, for example, might inspire the content team to create content that helps people like Diane to convince their bosses to make a change.

The day-in-the-life component “doesn’t need to be a novel,” Ardath says. About 300 words should do.

2. State the persona’s specific objectives

Make your persona’s objectives (goals and responsibilities) specific. For example, the objective “grow revenue” is too broad to help anyone create relevant content.

On the other hand, if you say something insightful – and targeted – for example, this persona wants to “eliminate inefficiency to speed time to market” – you give content creators something they can use. Something they want to use.

Source: Ardath Albee’s ICC 2016 presentation

Personas must give content planners and creators something to work with. The more specifically we understand the persona’s objectives, the more likely we are to develop content that makes real people say, “Hey, they’re talking to me.”

3. State the persona’s main problems

Again, express the persona’s main problems in specific terms.

Take “inefficiency.” This general term may accurately capture a pressing problem, but if you want a persona to help your team generate ideas and make choices about the tone and style of your content, you need a more specific description – for example, “Lack of automated workflows adds months to product launches.”

Source: Ardath Albee’s ICC 2016 presentation

If you were asked to write something helpful for readers you’ve never met, which problem description would you rather be handed?

4. State the persona’s orientation toward their job

“I can’t tell you how many personas I’ve seen that say ‘married with two kids and a dog, lives in the suburbs, and makes $125,000 a year,” Ardath says. This kind of description could prove helpful if you sell homes or cars, but for many buying contexts, this kind of information is gratuitous.

Source: Ardath Albee’s ICC 2016 presentation

The more details you include about the persona’s professional demeanor, the more that persona can help your team decide what content to create and how to communicate in a way that engages the people your company wants to engage.

Look for things like ‘He has been in this career for 20 years.’ What does that tell you? You’re talking to someone who has been around the block. He knows how to get a deal done. If you know that you’re addressing a confident leader, you know what tone and style to use. If you know that he mentors his team, you know to talk about how your solution will elevate his team’s skills.

5. State the persona’s relevant obstacles

People often think of price as the main obstacle, Ardath says, but it’s not. “I’m talking about things that get in the way at each stage, at each step, that keeps your buying committee or your persona from moving forward.”

Source: Ardath Albee’s ICC 2016 presentation

For example, let’s say your persona has an influencer or buying-committee member named Tom. She might need information to convince Tom to keep moving forward. Have you provided that information? If not, you may want to create some content that helps people eliminate this kind of obstacle.

6. State the persona’s burning questions

Questions are Ardath’s favorite component of personas: “You need to figure out what questions your persona would ask at every step along the way.” Questions form the foundation of conversations. People ask something, you answer, and then they say, “That’s great, but what about this?” And so on.

Source: Ardath Albee’s ICC 2016 presentation

When you put your persona’s questions in logical order, they form a storyline. For example, prospective customers don’t ask, “What are my options for a vendor?,” until they have an answer to “Why the heck should I care?”

Each time you answer a question, you open the door to the next question. “We need to set ourselves up to be mentors, to help people solve a series of problems,” Ardath says.

When you use this approach, people who engage with a certain set of questions are telling you where they are in the buying process. We can create content that not only informs our prospective customers but also informs us about our prospective customers.

“Getting the questions right for each stage of the buying process is a critical piece of building a persona. Questions can inform a lead-nurture program. They can inform lot of things,” Ardath says.

7. State the persona’s content preferences

You need to figure out your personas’ content preferences:

• Channels: What channels do they prefer?

• Social media: How do they use social media?

• Content: What tone and style and voice engage them? Are they more inclined to engage with content that has a glass-half-full perspective or do they need a stick – “Hey, you’re exposing yourself to a lot of risk if you don’t do this”?

• Formats: Do they prefer text? Audio? Visual? Long form? Short form?

• Interactivity: Do they want ROI calculators? Infographics? Quizzes? Webinars with Q&A sessions?

• Media: Where do they go to get information?

Source: Ardath Albee’s ICC 2016 presentation

8. State some keywords and phrases the persona would use

Your prospective customers are probably not searching on words related to your products. (Bummer.) Discover what phrases they use most. What are they most inclined to type into that search box? Maybe they type something like “reduce time to market” or “product launch best practices.”

Source: Ardath Albee’s ICC 2016 presentation

People typically search on the same phrases they use in conversation. When you talk with customers and prospective customers, notice what phrases come naturally to them in relation to the problems they’re trying to solve. Capture their most telling phrases in your persona descriptions.

9. Sketch out engagement scenarios for the persona

After you’ve gathered all the information about your personas, Ardath suggests pulling it together into an engagement scenario that helps your team use the information strategically. “There are a gazillion possibilities,” she says.

In this example, think of the blue boxes as questions, hesitations, doubts, or concerns that your persona might have. The white statements are answers that your content would provide.

Source: Ardath Albee’s ICC 2016 presentation

Visualizing ways in which your persona might want to interact with your content over time helps you imagine useful ways to link that content together instead of “doing one-off random acts of content.”

In her workshops, Ardath sometimes asks marketers how many are registered for their own nurture programs. “I get very few hands,” she says. “We need to get immersed, understand the experience from the prospective customer’s point of view. How do we improve on our program? How does everything we do connect?”

Conclusion

To build buyer personas that you and your team want to use – personas that help content marketing strategists and content creators make decisions that support your business goals – include the nine parts that Ardath recommends. And make sure that “every piece of information you put in a persona informs something that you can use.”

How do you know what to put into each part? How do you gather the information that goes into your personas? In her ICC talk, Ardath went on to address that topic. Check out How to Build Buyer Personas That Build Sales that picks up where this article leaves off. Better yet, sign up for our Content Strategy for Marketers newsletter to have the next article delivered to you.

In the meantime, please let us know in a comment what you and your team do to create personas that people want to use.

Join us when Ardath is a special guest on our #CMWorld Twitter chat about personas at 12 p.m. Eastern May 24. Or, see her speak at Content Marketing World this September. Register by May 31 for early bird savings and the opportunity to win prizes. Use code BLOG100 to save an extra $100.

Cover image by Joseph Kalinowski/Content Marketing Institute

The post Buyer Personas You Want to Use: The 9 Essential Parts appeared first on Content Marketing Institute.

Buyers' inboxes are jam-packed with sales emails -- most of them terrible. To cut through the noise and differentiate yourself from all the other spammy, pushy, hard-charging sales reps out there, you need to separate yourself and your message from all the rest.

But knowing precisely how to go about that isn't the easiest thing in the world. And despite a sales rep's best efforts, beautifully customized and personalized emails often go unopened and unnoticed. 

What's a salesperson to do?

Mike Pici, head of sales for HubSpot's Sales division, put together a SlideShare on how to write emails that buyers actually want to respond to. The presentation has 295k+ views to date:

History has shown that 60% to 90% of all M&A deals fall well short of expectations and fail to create value. The track record of M&A failures is overwhelming and the odds are such that you have a much better chance of winning by placing a bet on a gaming table in Las Vegas than by playing the M&A game.

So how do you win?

The success, or failure, of any acquisition is forged long before the deal is ever signed and involves strategic rationale, clear objectives, integration planning, and cultural fit.

Success Starts with Strategy

The pursuit of a deal should be driven from a well thought out corporate strategy. The strategy prioritizes how a company’s money and resources will be invested to achieve growth through an appropriate mix of organic and inorganic (acquisitive) objectives. However, I’m astonished how often a deal is pursued because it’s opportunistic; a reaction to competition; swept up in an M&A buying frenzy; or, a short term fix to boost financials. In these cases, the corporate strategy is overly broad; or, tweaked and contorted to rationalize doing the deal. In most companies, commanding and determined CEOs drive the overall corporate strategy and if they decide they want to buy a company, they’ll simply tweak the strategy to justify getting the deal done.

One notable example of this was the acquisition of the $40M VoIP company Skype by eBay in 2005 for $2.6B. In the 75 page presentation eBay’s CEO gave investors justifying this expensive deal, she explained the strategic rationale and spoke of increasing transaction volume and fees by allowing buyers and sellers to talk directly with one another over their PCs. In that same meeting, the CFO was quoted to have posed the rhetorical question, “How do we make 1+1 equal to greater than 2?”. Investors left that meeting scratching their heads.

The reality was that the online marketplace in the U.S. was slowing while Skype (and VoIP in general) was growing rapidly. Skype had 54 million users and claimed to be adding 150K more every day. Internet based companies like eBay were all vying to capture new users as internet usage rapidly expanded globally and skeptics believed the Skype acquisition was little more than a desperate attempt to grow subscribers. Beyond its rapid subscriber growth, Skype was projecting to grow its revenues from $60M to $200M the following year. eBay believed Skype would be a much needed financial shot in the arm and, in the buying frenzy occurring at that time, eBay needed to move aggressively to snap up Skype before competitors Google and Yahoo did.

Unfortunately, the success eBay had hoped for did not materialize and in 2009 they unloaded Skype to a group of private investors (eBay maintained a minority interest) who in turn sold Skype to Microsoft. There were a number of reasons why the Skype acquisition failed; but, the fundamental reason was that buyers and sellers preferred the anonymity and documentation trail afforded by email and they had no desire to talk directly to one another. The acquisition of Skype was a gamble and the strategic fit was unclear, or at best, contorted, to justify it.

Companies that are successful acquirers don’t gamble their future by placing bets on companies that aren’t an integral part of their overall corporate strategy. Corporate strategy should drive deals and each deal should be directly linked to the fulfillment of specific strategic goals. Doing a deal for any other reason is tantamount to gambling shareholder value and gambling is best left to Las Vegas.

Objectives and the Integration Plan Drive Success

Assuming the deal you’re about to do is a direct result of a well thought out corporate strategy; the next key to success is to make sure you define clear, concise, and realistic objectives and Critical Success Factors (CSFs) for the acquisition. Defining clear and specific objectives and CSFs for the acquisition helps to ensure that all the stakeholders are on the same page in terms of what the success of the acquisition means and how it will be accomplished. They’re designed to turn the strategic goals behind why you’re doing the deal into clear and measurable actions that define what success for the deal means. The objectives and CSFs also serve as the foundation upon which the Integration Plan is built and executed upon after the deal is done. The Integration Plan details the specific deliverables for how the objectives and CSFs you’ve defined for the deal will be achieved. The objectives and CSFs also serve as input into the revenue and cost synergies that are baked into the financial models that are used to justify the deal with the board. These same financial models ultimately become part of the company’s operating plans which are used to measure the financial performance of the acquisition after the deal is done.

By far, the number one criteria acquirers’ use for evaluating a deal relies on the financial model and more specifically on the accretiveness of the deal on earnings per share (EPS). In a 2013 AT Kearney survey of M&A stakeholders they found that EPS accretion / dilution was the most used metric for the evaluation of a deal by a 2 to 1 margin over the next closest criteria and nearly three times more important than cultural fit and core capabilities. The focus on EPS has been criticized as questionable and misleading for years and yet this metric is still the number one criteria used for deal evaluation. An overemphasis on financial metrics such as EPS often has an adverse effect on the operational objectives and integration plan that are essential to the success of an acquisition.

I’ve been involved in a number of preliminary deal reviews where the first thing the CEO would do is flip through 100+ slides to the one that showed the deals’ impact on EPS. If the deal was accretive, the meeting would be allowed to continue. If it was only slightly accretive, or worse yet, dilutive, the deal team and executive business sponsor would be dismissed with the feedback that, “If this is the best you can do, we’re not doing this deal”. What this meant was that the team needed to find more synergies by boosting revenues and / or cutting more costs. In some cases this resulted in objectives being built into the financial model that couldn’t realistically be accomplished during the post-merger integration. In one of the worst cases I’ve seen, the deal team was dismissed because the deal was dilutive and they were indeed able find more revenue and cost synergies; however, the objectives and CSFs that would be required to achieve them bordered on the fanciful. Somehow these unrealistic operating assumptions got lost in the 120 page slide deck used to justify the deal. However, the one slide showing the EPS impact did flip the deal from being dilutive to accretive. Needless to say, the post-merger integration plan for achieving the synergies and objectives for the acquisition was dead on arrival.

Culture Eats Strategy for Breakfast

Strategic fit along with clear and realistic objectives and an integration plan to put these into action are essential to the success of any acquisition; however, in my experience, the most important determinant of the ultimate success of any acquisition is the cultural fit between the two companies. As Peter Drucker so eloquently put it, “culture eats strategy for breakfast”.

According to Aon Hewitt, cultural integration was cited as the second most common direct factor for deal failure. In spite of the importance of culture to the success of a merger, it’s surprising how little attention is actually paid to culture prior to signing a deal. In the same research from AT Kearney previously cited, cultural assessment ranked at the bottom of the list at seventh place in emphasis when evaluating deals. Perhaps more startling is the finding from a Pritchett survey where 45% of large cap public companies surveyed said they don’t perform any cultural assessment when acquiring companies.

I happened to live through one of the most notable M&A failures due to cultural mismatch. When I was CIO of Teradata in 1991, we were acquired by NCR. Shortly before NCR acquired Teradata, AT&T had acquired NCR through a hostile takeover with the intention of having NCR take over their troubled PC division in what was intended as a reverse merger. These acquisitions were a tremendous clash of dramatically different cultures that ultimately resulted in epic failure.

At the time of the acquisition, Teradata was Inc Magazine’s fastest growing company for a five year period and the epitome of a rapid growth, high tech company. NCR on the other hand was a hundred year old cash register company with a culture and bureaucracy to match. I recall needing to procure critical servers to support our rapidly expanding business. Shortly after the deal closed, I eagerly met with NCR execs to seek approval of these capital purchases only to run into the bureaucracy of a company forged slowly over 100 years. I was accustomed to near real time approvals to support the meteoric growth of Teradata only to be told that the capital planning process at NCR had closed for the year and wouldn’t be revisited for almost twelve months. Surely, I thought, there must be an exception process within NCR to fund critical out of cycle requests such as mine. Indeed there was; however, I was told it would take at least three months to work through their process and that exceptions were rarely approved. It became immediately clear to me how dramatically different our corporate cultures were and at that point I realized NCR would slowly drain the life out of Teradata, and me. I resigned shortly thereafter. After many years, NCR was still unable to bridge the cultural divide with Teradata and they expelled the company by spinning it out in 2007.

Mergers are a lot like a marriage and every one of them will face adversity along the way. The more you’re aligned in your beliefs, behaviors, values, and vision of the future (i.e. culture), the easier it is to work through the tough times and not end up in a messy divorce. It’s rare when the cultures of two companies align perfectly and the reality is that in most cases there will be gaps. In some cases these cultural gaps can be very wide. In one case where a company acquired another with a culture that was vastly different than their own, it was explained, “we bought the best of the worst”. The key to success is to identify the cultural gaps and put a plan in place to address them before you ever sign the deal. In some cases, the gaps may be a deep cultural chasm that you’ll never be able to successfully bridge and you’re better off walking away from the deal.

Your Fate is Sealed before the Deal is Signed

The success, or failure, of every acquisition is determined before the deal is ever signed. Strategy needs to drive the deals that are targeted. Once a target is identified, clear, concise, and realistic objectives define what success means for the acquisition. Next, an integration plan turns those objectives into the actionable deliverables required to achieve success. Overarching all of these determinants of success; the M&A game is won, or lost, by how close the cultures fit and how well the cultural differences are addressed.

In my next article, I’ll explain the post-merger keys to success.

The post Keys to Winning the M&A Game Before the Deal is Signed appeared first on OpenView Labs.

The sales funnel, as a whole, is a beautiful thing – but the bottom of the funnel is where things really get interesting.

As a lead moves closer and closer to becoming a customer, marketers need to know how to increase the likelihood that the conversion actually happens. That means putting the bottom of the funnel under a microscope to not only understand some of the common pitfalls, but to also know what the appropriate steps are that they need to take next.

A good way to approach this is to think about the bottom of the funnel from the customer’s point of view. Ask yourself: Low in the funnel, what are the final obstacles you need to overcome in order for the final conversion to happen? Are there remaining questions that need answered? Does the customer need a free trial that lets them test drive the product? Do they need a step by step ROI calculation they can show to their internal team members? Considering this viewpoint, you can start addressing these questions and more effectively drive sales.

To help understand this perspective more, we’ve gathered 15 facts about bottom of the funnel marketing that will help you optimize your process for converting leads into customers.

Facts About the Bottom of the Funnel Marketing

1. 79% of marketing leads never convert into sales. Lack of lead nurturing is the common cause of this poor performance. – MarketingSherpa

2. 61% of B2B marketers send all leads directly to Sales; however, only 27% of those leads will be qualified. – MarketingSherpa

3. Effective sales funnels generate 50% more bottom of the funnel leads at 33% lower cost. – Forrester

4. Companies with mature lead generation and management practices have a 9.3% higher sales quota achievement rate. – CSO Insights

5. For 43% of B2Bs, the time it takes to go from attraction to conversion has increased–in some cases it has increased by as much as 22%. – Alinean

6. Nearly 3 in 5 bottom of the funnel leads do nothing, because it’s easier than making a decision. – McKinsey

7. Only 25% of leads are legitimate and should advance to sales. – Gleanster

8. One of the most effective ways to convince leads that they’re ready to start a free trial or to see a demo is to provide relevant case studies. – Bizible

9. Interactive content has been found to convert 2x better than static content. – DemandMetric

10. Effective automated email sequences can help move leads to the bottom of the funnel where they can become customers. – Hubspot

11. When leads are ready, sales optimization should focus on efficient lead management programs that update fields, create tasks, assign owners, and convert leads directly into sales management systems. – Marketo

12. Bottom of the funnel retargeting is all about determining what actions indicate where the customer is in their buying process, and then matching it with the right messaging and content. – Bizible

13. Help bottom of the funnel leads convert with out-of-the-box strategic offers (like partner or reseller programs, co-branding or white labeling) and invitations to join your special in-house events. – B2C

14. Automation is essential: If you wait more than 30 minutes, then your lead is 21x less likely to turn into a sale. – InfusionSoft

15. Many companies miss out on converting bottom of the funnel leads because they simply don’t follow up. – Infusionsoft

Key Takeaways

Leads at the bottom of the funnel have a very specific set of needs, wants, and desires that need to be met to drive up conversions. Let’s review some of the larger concepts we can glean from these facts, such as:

Bottom of the funnel marketing needs to happen quickly. Because customers often go with the provider that most quickly responds to their needs and questions, automation is becoming increasingly important within the overall marketing technology stack. Automated emails are a simple solution that create an immediate response for leads who are finally ready to convert.

Provide reasons to convert, and make it simple. Rather than overwhelming bottom of the funnel leads with many different options on how to move forward, remember to present a single, clear path for action: whether it’s to see a demo, to make a purchase, or to start a free trial.

Personalization is essential. Your lead funnel should help you determine where your buyer is at in the process and what he or she needs to hear next. From here, you can present a customized solution with the right message at the right time.

With these facts and statistics, you can take a hard look at your process for bottom of the funnel leads and make sure you’re encouraging conversion to the best of your ability. Look for areas of improvement, and implement processes and technology that boost speed and quality for potential customers.

 

It’s kinda like spying.

And 30 years ago, it required at least a day at the library…where you could find “approved” information published in a book or study or publication.

Nowadays, you can know EXACTLY what your ideal customer thinks within a few clicks of your keyboards.

You can get their completely unvarnished opinions.

You can even ask them questions directly. …

After all, in order to sell anything, you have to know what people want, right?

You also have to find the RIGHT people who can use your product/service.

This is true whether you’re a dentist, a dog walker or sell a SaaS product. So how do you find those “right” people and know what to say to them?

You hang out where they hang out.

In this post, you’ll discover 9 places you can find your target audience.

Use it as a blueprint to gather intel and make strategic decisions about your marketing – like EXACTLY what to say in your sales copy so your customers are eager to buy from you.

Sound good?

Great!

You’re about to discover the secret weapon successful copywriters use to generate thousands of leads and sales for their clients.

Let’s dig in.

Here’s 9 Ways to Gain the Insider’s Knowledge You Need to Be Successful

1—Market Research at the Largest Online Retailer –

Amazon is a wealth of information about your target customers.

Go to Amazon and type your topic in the search bar. If you’re selling health coaching to the vegan moms then try typing in “health coaching vegan moms” or “vegan moms.” I get an assortment of vitamins, cookbooks and kitchen gadgets.

Or, I can narrow it down to books and this is the top one that appears.

What information already exists for them and what are they saying about it?

Look at the bestselling books – what’s in their table of contents?

Be sure you look at 3-7 different tables of contents at the minimum. Make notes about what you see and if you see any particular gaps?

Read the Reviews!

What do they say? The readers will tell you want they like and what they don’t. What can you gain from this?

Cut and paste any questions or concerns you see surfacing again and again. Keep them in Evernote or a Google Doc for easy reference later.

2–Facebook Groups –

Personally, this is one of my favorite go to spots because the good ones are so active and you can quickly gain a ton of useful information.

You can find relevant Facebook Groups by typing in a topic in the search bar at the top of the page.

There are thousands of Facebook Groups on any topic you imagine with thousands of members. You’re likely to find a mix of peer networking type of groups as well as potential customer pools.

You’re looking for a well-moderated and active closed group. If you were selling premium dog food, don’t you think that joining the Dog Food Nerds of Facebook would give you an interesting window into the thought process of potential customers?

Keep track of the group(s) in your document. Spend a few minutes every day scanning them for questions.

Add the most frequently asked questions to your working document.

3- Run Facebook Ads –

A well-orchestrated Facebook ad campaign can bring you dozens or hundreds of new leads.

Facebook is data rich due to their algorithm and relationships with various data mining companies. Between what we tell them through our actions and what they know through other means, they know more about us than most sources.

This is a huge topic unto itself and worth it’s own blog post.

4– LinkedIn Groups –

You may be familiar with LinkedIn Groups. LinkedIn groups are best for B2B products or services rather than consumer driven ones.

There are broad groups like “Marketing Communications” and there are more specific groups such as Philadelphia Hubspot Users.

To find relevant groups, simply use the search function to type in relevant keywords.

For example, you’re looking for marketers in the SaaS space. To find the related groups, you simply type in “SaaS.” You’ll see a dropdown menu like this one.

I’ve circled “groups” for you. When you designate that, you’ll get a list of related groups. (See below)

Once you have this list, you can click on each group to take a look, see how active they are and what they’re discussing.

This is great fodder for discovering some of the current hot topics and what insiders are saying about them.

You can even drill down into SaaS marketing groups only.

I hope you’re seeing the power! Once you become part of the groups, you can meet people there, just like you would in real life at an event.

But be careful, you don’t want to come bursting into a group and shouting and shoving your business cards into the hands of everyone there – virtually speaking of course. Yet, some people do.

Instead, it’s a good idea to hang back and first and get a feel for the community. Who are the moderators? Who are the frequent contributors?

Be mindful of etiquette.

Whether on LinkedIn or Facebook, you’ll see that each group has its own etiquette.

It’s a good idea to simply review them in the early stages. You don’t even have to comment.

Right now, you’re looking for frequently asked questions. You want to know the hot topics in the minds of your potential customers.

An hour or two spent doing this can be worth gold to you down the road.

But we’re not done yet. There are four more ways you can dig deep into your target audience to see what they’re really thinking.

5— #Hashtags — A filing system for much of the social web, you can use #yourkeywordterm on Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest and Facebook.

Go onto each platform and try different permutations of your term to see what pops up.

If you sell a SaaS solution to help hospital intake staff reduce the amount it takes process new patients and match them to their available health insurance records, then you might try #saashealth or #techhealth or #healthcare on Twitter.

6—Twitter Advanced Search —

If your audience uses Twitter, there’s a good chance you can drill down into their communities fairly quickly with the advanced search. With it you can give a variety of parameters: this exact phrase, particular accounts, dates, etc.

7 – Quora –

Quora is a question and answer site. It’s another good place to find out what your ideal client is talking about. While you can look there for anything, in my experience its best suited for business related questions.

Users vote on the best answers. This means if you give thoughtful answers to questions in your niche, you’ll be recognized as a useful, contributing member.

Here’s an example, you may be familiar with Rand Fishkin, the “Wizard of Moz.” He’s a well-known SEO and always gives great information. So it’s no surprise that he has 13.2 thousand views on his answer to “What is the best SEO secret that you know?”

You’ll see he’s received 195 “upvotes” which is where Quora users vote on the answer. What this means for you is if you see questions you can answer and you take a few minutes to give a good answer, then your answer can receive votes of confidence.

The key is that you provide answers without being salesy or pushing your own agenda.

You can also just read through existing questions and answers in your niche to better define your market.

8 – Niche Forums –

These are interest specific and though they may seem a little “old school” to some, they’re still thriving.

There are SaaS related forums for a specific software product where users ask questions and offer help to one another.

There are bride related forums, WordPress, dog food, and thousands of niche specific forums that are alive and well.

The people who use these are typically rabid about the topic and that’s why they can be GOLD when it comes to discovering top concerns of your target market.

9- Industry Publications –

Every industry has its trade blogs/journals and even private groups housed either on their own platforms (forums) or using tools like LinkedIn or Facebook – in addition to membership newsletters, blogs and physical publications.

These give you a snapshot of current trends in the marketplace as well as provide a forum for though leadership in the industry.

Conclusion

If you want to gather intel in a hurry, pick 2-3 of these potential gathering spots and start reviewing. You’re likely to discover something new about your target audience right away.

If you keep notes and review your top sources on a regular basis, you’ll notice shared values, interests and potential hot button issues that you can use to flesh out your ideal client profile you created earlier.

This gives you a dangerous weapon to wield in the marketplace.

When you know exactly WHAT to say to your target market, you’ll come across as authoritative and one of THEM…and THAT is a powerful place to be.

If you aren’t using LinkedIn for lead generation, you are losing the game of prospecting efficiency to competitors. This particular social medium is a goldmine for connecting and engaging with targeted buyers in many industries.

There have been countless posts, articles and infographics published to help you get the most from your LinkedIn profile. Here are several tips on effectively leveraging the features of LinkedIn to enhance your B2B lead generation if you are starting out in sales.

Search for Prospects

One of the simplest, but most effective, ways to generate leads on LinkedIn is through the search features. The basic search bar allows you to target people with keywords such as a city name combined with a job title. This approach alone typically drives pages of results in the area specified.

However, advanced search enables you to execute more precise B2B lead generation by applying such as filters as location, industry and company size.

Interact and Discuss

A main reason companies include LinkedIn in their B2B lead generation strategies is that it blows other tools away in driving leads. One of the main differentiators is the ability to connect and engage with people through groups and in-depth discussions. You don’t want to pitch a new contact too quickly, as that only alienates and off-puts contacts. Instead, build rapport and project expertise.

LinkedIn has groups and discussion forums that allow you to strengthen connections before you approach a prospect. You can start and join groups centered on particular industries and topics. As you interact and identify people with problems your company solves, make your move for a call or meeting.

Create and Use Content

Whereas many social tools center on brief messages and exchanges, LinkedIn allows you to post exclusive long-form content and share links to your site content. Companies that succeed on B2B lead generation through LinkedIn typically set up a content calendar and post interesting, unique content through the business pages.

Linking your content to your company home page drives interested readers for more information, and propels them farther into the buying journey. Comments on your LinkedIn posts also provide an opportunity for direct engagement and discussion on topics of interest to your prospect market.

Attract Unsolicited Leads

To optimise your B2B lead generation efficiency, create business and representative profile pages that clearly articulate the value of your company’s solutions. Many buyers scour LinkedIn looking for providers of solutions that resolve critical business problems.

For a modest fee, you can get advanced features that allow you to see who has viewed your personal or profile page. This recognition sets the stage for a strong follow-up contact.

This is a great Infographic from the good folks at LinkHumans on the best steps to take to improve your LinkedIn profile.

Conclusion

To leverage LinkedIn for B2B lead generation, you need to focus your effort and recognise what sets this tool apart from other social media networks. Search functionality, engagement opportunities, content dissemination and unsolicited leads are all strengths. Use them, but remember, just because you are behind a screen you should always remain professional.

The Pipeline Guest Post – Megan Totka

Businesses always want to find more leads and turn them into customers.  If you know your products are amazing, your services solve a need in the marketplace, and can back up these claims, then you’re in good shape. Now it’s time to consider how you want to invest both your time and money into this endeavor. There are lots ways to get the ball rolling. Take a look at these ways to get more leads, sales and customers.

Search Engines

Search engine optimization tactics drive visitors to your website via organic search results. All someone does is type a few words into Google and it takes them to your business website – however, some strategies work to get them to your site better than others.

If you have a really good product or service, you probably have done the research. Next, you need to apply what you have learned to your marketing strategy and write content that will speak to those customers. Think about the questions your customers may have, and write a question and answer section to help your current and potential customers. Remember that questions should educate your audience.

As you select keywords, base your decision on research and relevance.  You want to choose keywords that will resonate with your readers to bring in the best traffic. As you place your external links, make sure you have a strategy.  Link to high quality content your readers will find helpful and compelling.

Last but not least: post frequently. It’s important to blog- companies that published 16 or more blog posts had nearly 3.5 times more traffic than companies that published four or less posts, according to Hubspot.

Network

Get out there and talk about your business to potential customers – it will act as a growth catalyst for your business.  Community engagement is not easy to beat. A human connection is powerful, even if it’s in the digital space.  Work hard to connect with online communities on forums and message boards– it’s a great way to forge powerful relationships. Meanwhile, it will help you acquire insight on industry trends, garner feedback on your products, and discover any community needs.

The relationships you foster come from conversations that allow you to build trust within the community. Show who you are, let others know you care, and always be genuine. These actions place you one step closer to more customers.

Social media

Similar to networking, focus on engagement to build a social media following. Ensure you interact with those inside — and also outside — of your circle. Remember to include links to your business website to make it simpler for your audience to find you and learn about you and see just what you have to offer.

If you haven’t yet, figure out how to create a social media automation strategy that works. Tools can help you get serious results and save you precious time — and time is something that you can’t afford to sacrifice.

There are a lot of options and helpful tools to help you get more leads, sales and customers. Make the very most of your available assets, track the strategies you implement, evaluate what works best, and then do it all again.

How have you successfully generated more leads – and turned those leads into conversions?

About Megan Totka

Megan Totka is the Chief Editor for ChamberofCommerce.com. ChamberofCommerce.com helps small businesses grow their business on the web and facilitates connectivity between local businesses and more than 7,000 Chambers of Commerce worldwide. She specializes on the topic of small business tips and resources and business news. Megan has several years of experience on the topics of small business marketing, copywriting, SEO, online conversions and social media. Megan spends much of her time establishing new relationships for ChamberofCommerce.com, publishing weekly newsletters educating small business on the importance of web presence, and contributing to a number of publications on the web. Megan can be reached at megan@chamberofcommerce.com.

Website: www.chamberofcommerce.com

The post Ways to Get More Leads, Sales and Customers appeared first on Renbor Sales Solutions Inc..

Blogging Through the Sales Funnel

In a scant eight months on the job, Jim managed to pull off a seeming miracle at Booker.com. He transformed 50% leads relative to contracts to nearly 100%. Sales productivity went up 240%, lead volume went up 380%, CPAs were cut by 50%, and they managed to get a net positive churn two months in a row.

Impressive, right?

So how does one manage to take a company that had 90,000 dead/dormant leads in Salesforce and change it into a thriving jewel of an SMB platform?

It’s all about content strategy.

With 20 years of work in the SMB space, Jim knows how to quickly evaluate and engage the interests of his clientele. To draw in the largest swath of prospects, it’s not about fancy logos or cutting edge visuals. Success can be accomplished with a simple blend of bite-sized, easily digestible content that draws your readers deeper into your blog.

What’s not so simple is the structured approach to creating this content, which involves multiple teams from across marketing and sales communicating with a dedicated core of content developers. Thankfully he is here to share his experience and insight with Booker.com, giving you a head start on effectively retooling your blog for success.

In This Episode

• How two focused personas can lead to 70% target market reach
• How the sales funnel leads to smarter blog structure
• Why an effective content team means a well-structured marketing department
• How a basic blog structure leads to easy adaptation and expansion to new verticals

 

Quotes From This Episode

“Much of what marketing does for Booker and how big a role marketing plays at Booker is driven by the content strategy.” —@JimDArcangelo2

“The combination of well-targeted, well-positioned content, teed up through a marketing automation system became the impetus for building out a marketing tech stack which helped us further tune our content, how we engaged customers, and how efficient the organization was as a whole.” —@JimDArcangelo2

“There are many common opportunities and problems among SMBs that are fairly uniform.” —@JimDArcangelo2 (highlight to tweet)

“Many marketers make the mistake of organizing content by the format in which it was created.” —@randyfrisch (highlight to tweet)

“We have this constant flowing river of input and intelligence into the content team.” —@JimDArcangelo2 (highlight to tweet)

“We manage our content back and interrelate it into our sales cycle.” —@JimDArcangelo2

“The more you do, the more insights you gain, the better you understand your customers, the better you can segment, the better you can target, the higher you increase the yields.” —@JimDArcangelo2

Resources

• Jim D’Arcangelo on Twitter: @JimDArcangelo2
• Booker.com
• The Booker Blog
• HireFrederick.com
• SheBOOM
• NextWave SMB

 

What did you want to be when you grew up?

Given Jim’s knack for organization and attention to detail, it may come as no surprise that he spent a good portion of his youth heavily invested in the study of history. A chance encounter through an internship at IBM changed everything as he caught the tech bug and moved from a history major to working in data. But it’s not too much of a stretch… as Jim says, “whether it’s history a couple hundred years back or a couple years back, there are stories in all the data and stories in every piece of content.”

The list is lengthy for those popular brands and well-known names we see as options on the Firefox Add-ons site. But, popularity is not always a true tell of a brilliant extension. Many that have terrific features and can make our lives easier simply go unnoticed, sort of like that awesome email that gets buried in our inbox. So, let’s take a look at some of those hidden gems. The Cool Kids There are many big name Firefox add-ons that everyone seems to use. Whether it is because of brand recognition, reliability and features, or pure word of mouth, here...

Read the full article: The 10 Best Firefox Addons You Probably Aren’t Using

 With Silicon Valley pretty much a trash fire right now it would behoove small cities to look elsewhere when trying to create centers of innovation. While Brooklyn, that gem of an island surrounded by bodies of water containing guns, dolphins, and scum, is not perfect, it’s a pretty solid choice for hardware, software, and services startups to emulate. As I’ve traveled around the… Read More

Rajeev Behera knows a thing or two about failure.

As former director of mobile products at Disney Interactive, Behera was in charge of a 100-person studio tasked with churning out some of Disney's most successful mobile games.

"You have to deal with failure quite a bit in the mobile gaming industry," Behera says. "And when you fail, they are pretty huge failures."

Behera's teams would typically spend six to nine months — 10 hours a day, seven days a week — building a single game.

When the game was completed and launched, they knew within just two weeks whether it was going to be a success or a failure.

"To be successful, you have to make it onto the Top 20 list in the App Store, otherwise no one's going to actually look at your game or know it exists, and it'll just fade away and never be relevant," Behera says.

According to Behera, about 30% of the games are successful in some way, and 70% are complete failures.

A 70% failure rate can be difficult for even the most motivated employees.

"It can be super demoralizing," Behera says. "It's very difficult when people have worked so hard over the previous six to nine months, when they've believed in their project, and then so quickly afterwards — you don't even have time to think because you're so busy just launching the game — it's decided you're going to shut it down."

Behera used the same three-step system to manage expectations and failure each time his team created a new game:

1. Manage expectations by assessing risks

Behera emphasizes the importance of being transparent about risks before the point of failure.

"This was huge for us, because later on if a game failed for one of those reasons, we had already assessed that it was a risk we were willing to take," he says. "It gives leadership credibility, and that credibility is needed to turn the corner from failure."

2. Take ownership of failure

Behera says that acknowledging your own shortcomings is key to bouncing back. Taking responsibility for a failure, he explains, demonstrates confidence in your ability to move forward from it.

"If you can clearly explain why something failed, take ownership of that failure, and then come up with a solution or a go-forward plan, people will know you're knowledgeable enough to dissect a problem and resilient in your efforts to solve that problem," Behera says.

3. Learn from your mistakes

You can't take failures personally, he says. Ask yourself, "How can I learn from this?"

"You need to get out of your own shoes and be able to look at the situation objectively to understand your mistakes," Behera says. "Accepting your failures is the only way to move on from them."

SEE ALSO: The 5 worst body language mistakes you can make in a meeting

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NOW WATCH: How a Navy SEAL trained an entrepreneur to appreciate failure

Your move, Indy.

As high rises replace their elevator up/down buttons with panels that you enter a floor into, which then direct you to a specific elevator, they create the possibility of adding more cars to each shaft, radically increasing the efficiency and throughput of a building's lifts. (more…)

Consumption of news via mobile devices continues to increase, but so does the percentage of that consumption occurring via social networks, according to a new report by Nielsen for the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation.

Nielsen found that 89 percent of people in the U.S. with mobile devices use them to access news, with 27 percent spending their time using social media sites and applications, and 54 percent of those who use social networks using them to find news. Social networks were the No. 2 news source, trailing only television and ahead of radio, newspapers, news apps and magazines.

According to Nielsen, mobile news seekers dedicate almost 5 percent of their monthly mobile time, or more than two hours, to news, but time spent directly on news apps and sites has declined in favor of social networks, with one-half of social network users spending time on news and 70 percent of Facebook users accessing news via the social network daily.

Social media users depend on friends, contacts and accounts they follow as trusted news sources, as Nielsen found that 71 percent of mobile Facebook users and 62 percent of mobile Twitter users receive news via friends and contacts, with those figures at 65 percent and 71 percent, respectively, for accounts they follow.

More than 80 percent of Facebook, Twitter and Instagram users take actions after accessing news—predominantly liking on Facebook and Instagram and retweeting without comment on Twitter. As for talking about news offline with other people, 59 percent of Facebook users, 41 percent of Twitter users and 35 percent of Instagram users do so.

Entertainment news dominated Facebook, Twitter and Google+, with 81 percent of Facebook users saying they seek out entertainment news via the platform. Meanwhile, 57 percent of LinkedIn users search for financial and business news, versus just 33 percent on Facebook and 26 percent on Twitter. And lifestyle content is more prominent on Instagram.

Other findings by Nielsen for the Knight Foundation included:

• Younger millennials (age 18 through 24) and people who make $75,000 or more per year were more likely to get news via social media apps.
• Women were more likely than men to search for news on social networks (60 percent versus 40 percent), except for LinkedIn.
• Young millennials were three to four times more likely than typical online adults to get news content from Instagram, Pinterest and Snapchat.
• BuzzFeed and Facebook are among the dominant sites in bringing young millennials to other mobile news sites. Those sites, CNN and Reddit are also more likely to lead diverse audiences, such as Asians and Hispanics, to other mobile news content.
• African Americans were 2.5 times more likely than typical online adults to get news content from Twitter.
• Wikipedia reached nearly one-third of the total online population every month.
• Hard-core Reddit users access the app twice per day and spend some five times more on the app than on other top news apps.

Knight Foundation director for learning and impact Luz Gomez said in a release introducing the study:

Mobile devices allow people to stay constantly connected, affecting how they interact with information in the moment and demanding a different approach to news delivery. The report highlights this shift, offering valuable insights into emerging habits and practices, even as the mobile landscape continues to evolve.

Knight Foundation vice president for journalism Jennifer Preston added:

We need to understand how people are using social and mobile to engage with news. With this in mind, the report helps news organizations and others better understand how to navigate this growing space and explore new ways to engage audiences.

Readers: What did you think of Nielsen’s findings on behalf of the Knight Foundation?

Image courtesy of Shutterstock.

The post Direct from Brazil: Success Secrets of a Digital Entrepreneur appeared first on Copyblogger.

What would happen if you were to suddenly take down the all of the forms, the landing pages and the pop-ups that lead to content on your website? What if you just gave away your content without asking for an email address or contact information? Would you still get leads?

If the answer is no, then it’s time to take a hard look at the content you’re creating. Your content should be strong enough that it stands on its own and leaves the reader wanting more.

We are bombarded by email and unfortunately too much junk. As a result, people are much more resistant to give up an email address or their contact information than they were in the past. Now that inbound marketing has caught on, visitors to your website are trained to know that when they fill out a form, they are giving you permission to add them to your sales funnel and potentially add more junk to their inbox.

“Your content should be strong enough that it stands on its own.”

Put another way, when your site visitors hand over their contact information, they are essentially making a purchase – and it’s important to consider it as such. So if your customer isn’t happy with the “purchase” of your content offer, they are going to feel cheated, and you will lose their trust. Provide them with something valuable when they click “Download your copy now,” however, and your content is no longer seen as a purchase but a favor.

Do someone a favor, and they will feel obliged to return the favor. It’s human nature. If someone does something nice for us, it creates an inherent desire to do something nice for them.

Without value your content is junk. So the question becomes, how do we create value?

1. You Need to Solve their problems

First and foremost, you should create content that is designed to genuinely help your audience. Solve their problems without asking anything in return. When you solve your audience’s problem, you’ve not only done them a favor, but you’ve established trust and positioned yourself as an approachable expert who is informed, as well as willing to help.

2. Share Insights they can’t get elsewhere

Research studies can be a great way to provide value especially when it speaks specifically to your target audience. For example, HubSpot’s annual “State of Inbound” report and Social Media Examiner’s annual “Social Media Marketing Industry Report” provide great information on the latest trends in inbound and social media marketing.

The irony of it is, the data in those reports are directly pulled from the same target audience who will download the report.

3. Build a Library

If you have a strong collection of premium content, group it together into a single resource library. For example, we house all of our offers in a knowledge center you can sort by content type. Not only will this make it easy for website visitors to find what they need and potentially convert into leads, it can be a great way to collect inbound links.

4. Create content that does something good for the reader

Make every piece of content good enough that the reader will benefit from it just by opening it. When you do, you will not only generate leads but create evangelists who will share and spread your message to others. Because if they find something of value in your work, there’s a good chance someone else they know will too.

You’ve got value, now what?

So you’ve gone through your content and turned everything into a purchase-worthy piece. If the gates are still down, how will you generate leads?

If your content really is that good, the reader is going to want more. Give it to them. Tell them exactly what they should do next. And no, “click here” is not a call to action. Create a call to action that is directly related to the document they just read. Did you show them how to overcome an obstacle of some sort? Offer a strategy session to help them implement the steps of the process. Did you teach them something? Offer a free class or access to an on-demand webinar on a related topic.

The important thing is to continue building upon the trust you’ve created by helping, not selling. If your solution is a good fit, the sale will follow.

Bringing back the gates

Now that you’ve got content that stands on its own, share the value through the landing page. Tell your visitors exactly what they will get when they give up their valuable contact information. Bullet point key elements of the content in an easy to read format. And most importantly, hit their pain points so hard that they feel like they are missing something if they pass up the offer. (Because you’ve determined it really is that good, right?)

Inbound marketing lives and breathes on the content we create. So if your content isn’t amazing, it isn’t worth the price of your visitors’ contact information. You are just creating opt-in bait and nobody wants that.