Amazon's grocery sector is experiencing tremendous growth.

Even though traditional retailers like Walmart and Target are selling groceries online, more customers than ever before are turning to Amazon for food purchases.

According to a new survey from Cowen and Company, the number of people who participated who shop for groceries and other consumable goods via Amazon increased 18% in the first quarter of the year, compared to the same period in 2015.

Meanwhile, the number of Walmart grocery shoppers fell close to 5% year-over-year, while Target's grocery sales decreased nearly 4%, according to the same survey.

Cowen's monthly consumer survey is based off of responses from 2,500 US consumers, and it has charted Amazon’s swiftly growing grocery business for the last two years.

The financial services firm believes that this is just the beginning for Amazon’s increasingly prominent position in the grocery industry.

"Amazon will be a top-10 player in the approximately $795 billion US Food & Beverage Grocery market by 2019… driven by its multi-platform Prime offering and a generational shift of rising online food and beverage spend, led by millennials," Cowen analysts wrote in a note on the topic in March.

However, despite recent growth, Amazon still lags behind competitors when it comes to market penetration. Fewer than one in five respondent had shopped for groceries using Amazon in the most recent quarter. Meanwhile, 54% had made a grocery purchase at Walmart, and 48% percent had shopped for food and other consumables at Target.

A number of analysts are skeptical that Amazon can make a dent in the online grocery business, as competition heats up from both traditional retailers investing in digital initiatives as well as tech startups committed solely to breaking into the food and beverage industry.

Amazon’s grocery arm, AmazonFresh "will have to duke it out in the highly competitive urban market against cheaper options like Instacart, increasingly popular meal delivery services like Blue Apron, and dozens of traditional grocery chains," Jeremy Bowman recently wrote for The Motley Fool, noting that Amazon makes up just 0.8% share of total US grocery sales. "With a $299 annual fee and little traction after nine years, that's going to be a tough sell."

Other analysts have questioned the online grocery business more generally.

"We remain unconvinced of long-term viability of home deliveries for grocery," HSBC retail analyst David McCarthy wrote in a recent note that called the category the "emperor’s new clothes."

Customers value lower prices over delivery of online grocery, McCarthy argues, noting that the online grocery market continues to grow at only half the rate of discounters that aren’t online, like Aldi and Lidl.

On the other hand, Cowen argues that as millennials become a greater portion of American grocery shoppers, these trends will change. The firm estimates that close to half of older millennials will shop online for groceries in the future, as they purchase homes and form families of their own.

Target and Walmart have both already seriously invested in the online grocery business. 

In October, Walmart announced it would invest $900 million in its web development, with plans to spend $1.1 billion in the coming year, working to expand online grocery and scale its online assortment. Target is planning on spending even more, announcing in an analyst call in March that the company planned to spend $1.8 billion this year and $2.5 billion next year on supply chain and technology.

However, despite these efforts, Cowen argues that with the growth of Amazon Prime, Prime Now, and Prime Pantry in addition to Amazon Fresh, Amazon will be one of the companies best prepared to offer customers what they want from their online grocery experience.

In the past two years, Amazon grocery shoppers have increased on average by about 26% year-over-year every quarter, according to Cowen data. For comparison, Walmart purchasers have declined 3% year-over-year on average, while grocery shoppers at Target have declined by about 1%.

SEE ALSO: Walmart and Amazon won’t stop investing in a category that is 'bleeding cash'

Join the conversation about this story »

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Negotiation is sometimes thought of as a competition between two opposing parties -- a process that’s not entirely antagonistic, but also couldn’t exactly be called collaborative. 

This mindset is particularly understandable -- and dangerous -- in sales. During a tough month or quarter, it’s all too easy to slip into the mindset that your buyer is just a roadblock to hitting your quota, and that attitude lends itself to a combative approach to negotiation.

But this approach is treacherous. If you try to suck every last cent from your buyer and don’t work with them to come to a mutually agreeable settlement, chances are you’ll lose more deals than you win. Avoid these four negotiation mistakes to keep your negotiations productive and beneficial to both parties.

4 Fatal Sales Negotiation Mistakes

1) The “left at the altar” strategy

This strategy calls on one party to back out of a deal just before you’re about to come to an agreement with the end goal of pushing the other to make last-minute concessions.

It’s not difficult to see why this is a terrible negotiation tactic. Not only does it treat the buyer as disposable, it destroys trust that’s taken you time to build. You should always keep your prospect at the center of your sales strategy, and that means being open and honest. Don’t use a slimy sales tactic to try and scare or pressure your prospect into buying.

2) Giving a discount to win the business

This isn’t to say that discounts have no place in sales. They absolutely do, and giving strategic discounts is helpful in getting deals across the finish line when a prospect simply can’t afford your asking price or is still locked into a contract with a competitor.

However, a discount shouldn’t be offered as part of your attempt to convince the prospect to buy. Discounts should come at the end of pricing negotiations when your prospect already sees the product’s value. If your best argument for why your prospect should buy is, “I’ll give it to you for 50% off,” you’ve already lost the battle.

Instead, sell value. You should be transparent about price throughout (see #7), but cost should never be your go-to concession. Bring price down only once your prospect believes they need the product.

3) Not making the first offer

A commonly-heard piece of negotiation advice is to avoid making the first offer so you don’t “anchor” your prospect to a price that might be too high or too low. But in the era of modern sales, this is just silly. Your prices are probably listed on your website, and if they’re not, prospects can easily discover that information through reviews or asking their peers in the space.

Furthermore, price shouldn’t ever be a secret. Budgetary considerations and objections are just as real as objections rooted in functionality or product value, and should be discussed in just as straightforward a manner. While outright asking, “Do you have the budget for this?” early in the process is obnoxious, always be open so your buyer knows whether they’re even in your ballpark. If you’ve been transparent throughout the sales process, the first offer shouldn’t be some big reveal -- it should be the natural outcome of a conversation that’s been ongoing since day one.

4) Giving a “take-it-or-leave-it” ultimatum

There’s nothing wrong with putting a time limit on an offer. If you’re going to do something for your prospect -- say, offer a discount, or throw in a little extra something to sweeten the pot -- they should be prepared to commit to something in return.

The rationale behind this kind of ultimatum is that its inherent time-sensitiveness will overcome the prospect’s objection and compel a purchase. The problem is that it puts an unnecessary burden on the buyer -- buy now or lose your opportunity to buy under these conditions, forever. You can’t force a buyer onto your timeline.

You also can’t let deals drag on forever. But ultimatums fail to uncover underlying issues that are at the real root of a buyer’s hesitation, so while you might sometimes get the “yes” you’re looking for, you’re more likely to discover the crux of your prospect’s objection by asking: “What’s stopping you from pulling the trigger today/this week/this month?”

Their answer will tell you whether you’re dealing with a cashflow issue, a request for information, or a true blocker. And that’s the information that’ll keep your deal alive.

What negotiation tactics would you like to see fall by the wayside? Let us know in the comments below.

In years past, sellers controlled all the product information, and buyers were at reps’ mercy if they had questions. But now, the internet has turned the buyer-seller relationship completely upside down.

Today, the information that buyers need to make a purchasing decision is just a click away. The power has completely shifted from the seller to the buyer.

And in light of this power dynamic change, salespeople’s reputation is more important than ever. Unfortunately, sales has a perception problem. HubSpot recently surveyed nearly 1,000 people about the trustworthiness of the sales profession and only a measly 3% of respondents believed salespeople are trustworthy.

Ouch.

A former teacher of mine continuously preached, “Perception becomes reality.” That phrase has stuck with me since Mr. George’s class, and you know what? It’s so true. We all want a career that our children and grandchildren would be proud of. The time is now to revamp the perception of sales.

Do you have something to say about the state of the sales profession? If so, now’s your chance to speak at INBOUND 2016.

In November, thousands of salespeople and marketers will pack the Boston Convention and Exhibition Center for INBOUND. It’s an annual event for business leaders of our time, aimed to inspire, educate, and connect people to transform their businesses.

And for the first time ever, it’ll have a dedicated breakout track for salespeople.

Have you delivered presentations on sales tactics? Do you have an interesting story to tell about how your company adapted to the new world of sales? Does your organization offer sales consulting services and you can share tactics that actually work? Have you battled with the perception problem in sales and come up with a creative solution?

Apply to speak at INBOUND 2016.

Here are a few tips for crushing your speaker application:

1. Read How to Land a Speaking Gig at the Event of Your Dreams.
2. Outline the session, who should not miss it, and what they'll get out of it.
3. Take a look at last year’s INBOUND agenda, track descriptions, and watch some speaker videos to get an idea for topics that work.
4. Draft your session description, title, and a tweet-length one liner pitching it, and share these drafts with colleagues you trust. Tweak the content until it rocks.
5. Record a speaker video if you don’t have one.
6. Submit your application by May 3rd.

Not quite ready to share your ideas pubically? Join the new Inbound Sales public Slack channel and talk with the speaker manager.

Let your thoughts be heard by applying to speak at INBOUND 2016 here. 

paul garbett FOR HBR

For decades, Sales and Academia remained worlds apart and the business world did fine. But Sales is changing, Academia is out of touch, and this is bad for business and the academy.

Compared to professions like engineering or business disciplines like Finance or Operations, the concept of a dedicated salesperson is relatively recent. Sales was traditionally seen as a form of service work, with an emphasis primarily on developing moral character. The Order of United Commercial Travelers, for instance, was founded to “improve character and instill temperate habits,” and Gideon bibles were originally put in hotel rooms to help “eliminate gambling, drinking, dirty jokes, Sunday trading and other forms of temptation peculiar to traveling (sales) men.”

As Walter Friedman documents in Birth of a Salesman, sales wasn’t seen as a function that required specialized training or education until well into the 20^th century. And companies performed the training, not schools. Salespeople were told what to say (word for word), how to dress, what expression to wear, how to hold their hands, and even how to hold a pen when handing it to a customer to “sign on the dotted line.” You still see this Taylorite assumption that selling can be deduced to a series of behaviors in various areas: generic assessment tests, selling methodologies and “pitches” that allegedly apply across all sales situations, and chic “neuro-marketing” factoids about buying and selling.

For their part, universities viewed sales as “trade-school” stuff and didn’t typically offer sales-related courses. Even when the boom in MBA programs coincided with the rise of Marketing as a discipline, Sales was treated like a stepchild at best. As Theodore Levitt, the great former-Harvard marketing professor and editor of HBR, once put it, “Selling is preoccupied with the seller’s need to convert his product into cash; marketing with the idea of satisfying the needs of the customer by means of the product and the whole cluster of things associated with creating, delivering, and finally consuming it.”In other words, why serve hamburger when you can teach people to cook steak?

This mentality is still prevalent. More than 50% of US college graduates, regardless of their majors, are likely to work in sales at some point. But of the over 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.

This gap used to be less of a problem, for a few reasons. In the past, MBA programs often favored applicants with work experience, and many incoming students already had some sales experience. So a school could legitimately prepare a student for a business career while omitting training in sales. Now, however, students’ college and pre-MBA experience is more likely to be in a finance area or perhaps in coding. Similarly, years ago, selling in most industries was less data-intensive and more dependent upon contacts and extra-curricular social relationships than now. Many Wall Street firms, for example, were unabashedly overt about hiring the “Harvard or Princeton man” (rarely a woman), and it wasn’t because of their grades in economics courses! In its own blunt and unfair way, the world outside the classroom bridged the gap in education and preparation.

But a lot has changed.

Take, for example, the impact of online technology. Buyers now have easy-click access to information about products, prices, and other buyers’ opinions and usage experiences. Does this mean that all business goes online? No, despite the fact that the internet has existed for over 20 years, eCommerce accounts for less than 10% of retail sales and less in most B2B situations. But this contextual change does impact how sales people must navigate the needs of clients and customers as well as their own organizations.

Selling is increasingly a research-based activity. If you want to see big-data analytics in action, don’t just go to Google or Facebook. Look at what consumer goods salespeople must now do to get shelf space, design promotions, and garner in-store support at retailers. You might assume that wholesale distribution, where firms resell products manufactured by others, is a simple transaction sale. But a study for the National Association of Wholesaler-Distributors finds the same need for business-acumen and analytical selling skills in this sector — in part because transactional sales can migrate to the web. As one interviewee stated, “Relationships are retiring every day,” which requires distributor sales reps to do more to secure their place in the channel.

Web sites, blogs, and other digital media have also made vendors’ organizations more transparent to buyers. Prospects now touch a company at many points during their buying journeys and they expect the rep to purposefully orchestrate those interactions. As the phrase implies, a sales representative represents her company to the customer. Academics call this a “boundary role”— someone who operates at the boundaries of different organizations and must respond to the often conflicting roles and procedures of each.

Salespeople must work across their firms’ functional boundaries, and, depending upon the buying process, with multiple people and functions at clients. Each group has its own operating procedures. Many salespeople (typically a majority in our experience) now cite navigating their own organizations as a bigger challenge than managing customers and clients.

Because of these changes, companies are having trouble finding suitable people to fill sales roles. According to Burning Glass, a labor-market analysis firm, almost 60% of job postings for wholesale and technical sales reps now require a bachelor’s degree at a minimum and employers spend an average of 41 days trying to fill sales jobs compared with 33 days for all other jobs. Further, “quality of fill” is not tracked; if it were, the results would generally be more discouraging.

Better dialogue between Sales and Academia is timely, and society can benefit: studies show that jobs in sales are among the highest in career lifetime value, and, given the amount spent on sales forces in our economy (about $900 billion annually—by far, the most expensive part of strategy execution for most firms), this is also a significant productivity issue.

What can colleges and universities do to mind the gap? That’s a big topic in its own right. Selling is not a science reducible to timeless rules, and many variables affect market performance and sales success. But effective training and development should begin with awareness and shelf space in the curriculum: making sure that sales is a topic in management education worthy of the name.

It should continue with the cross-disciplinary study relevant to realistic training in the area. Right now, there is a significant supply-side problem: PhD programs for future faculty rarely focus on Sales, and academic promotion increasingly relies on big data-set research within a discipline, not the interplay of economics, psychology, and dyadic behaviors that are at the heart of most sales tasks.

And it should probably culminate in action-learning practicums that require the help, support, and sponsorship of companies. These would expose students to real-world customers and experienced practitioners.

It’s in the best interests of companies to support Academia. As markets change more rapidly, relevant selling behaviors will change as well. If students are better prepared, companies will have a better supply of talent to choose from.  And make no mistake: it’s still human talent, not websites, that is the key in sales. Despite hype about the death of the salesperson, the Bureau of Labor Statistics indicate that in 1999 there were 12.9 million workers in sales occupations in the U.S. In 2014 (the most recent data available), the BLS indicated an increase to 14.25 million.  Almost all serious research about talent underscores the abiding necessity of training and development, and, at 10.5% of the total employed workforce, salespeople should be a major focus for companies and educators.

Please don’t misunderstand: we are not arguing for old-time trade-school courses, glib “pitch” fests, or making university research and course development a subsidiary of corporate R&D. There should always be creative tension between forward-looking educational institutions and profit-maximizing companies. But there’s a difference, and a mutual value-destroying gap, between creative tension and ignorance or indifference.

Okay lead generation marketers, red pill or blue pill?

Anyone in marketing understands the continuous state of change we’ve endured since mobile and social technology entered the picture. Lots of amazing innovation that turned marketing practices on their head. I don’t know about you, but to me it feels like we’ve kind of got a handle on things for the first time in many years. We tackled SEM and SEO. We’ve got an advanced lead nurture program. Our websites are optimized for lead generation. Many of us have even found ways to adopt a level of personalization into our digital experiences. So what’s next?

Whether you realize it or not, marketers are living in a “matrix” of their own creation. A matrix that has kept upper management happy for a while. But take a good look around. Is everything as you think it is? If you take a close look at your data, you may start to notice some interesting things.

• Your lead nurture email open and click through rates are likely eroding
• Teleprospecting success rates are slowly declining
• Paid search costs are rising
• Advertising and even syndication are losing their luster
• Activities like tradeshows and webinars that used to be for lead generation are now predominantly for awareness

But why is lead gen declining? It was going so well…

The answer depends on which pill you take.

If you take the blue pill, you can live in bliss for a few more years. Your results will still be decent, but you won’t be able to achieve demonstrable growth. That’s okay, you’ll still keep your job, mindlessly doing what you’ve been doing for the past 5 years.

If you take the red pill, you’re going to have some hard work ahead of you. You’re going to need to rethink your lead generation methods and how you engage customers. For those of you ready to take the leap, here’s what lies ahead.

1. First, you need to stop putting so much effort into traditional outbound marketing. That’s what is collapsing. Take a hard look at the resources (both people and spend) that you are putting into activities where you are paying for leads. Take note of what’s still working and what is losing its luster so that you can reallocate those resources.
2. Next, invest in customer advocacy and referral marketing. While your target buyers have started ignoring your message, they have some key people in their network that they trust. Referral marketing allows you to leverage those trusted advisors like customers and partners and have them approach your target buyers on your behalf. This drastically scales your lead generation efforts at a low cost.
3. Then, you need to put focus on customer delight. Per the point above, your customers can expand your reach, but you need to make sure they are thrilled with your product and service.

Taking the red pill means you are going to have to shepherd a new lead generation strategy and culture through marketing, sales and customer success. It won’t be easy. But it is the only clear path to marketing success.

What will you decided? Will you take the blue pill and continue to add to the marketing noise? Or will you take the red pill and wake up to a whole new way of marketing?

Millennials and their $200 billion of yearly buying power have brands searching high and low for ways to earn their attention. It has been an uphill battle thus far, as traditional marketing tactics don’t seem to resonate too well with these young consumers.

They grew up using DVRs to skip 30-second TV spots, they can’t be troubled to crane their necks and squint their eyes at billboard copy, and they’re the reason ad blocking exists.

With so much buying power at stake, I went straight to the source to try and crack the Millennial marketing code: an app called Yik Yak.

What Millennials Are ‘Yak-ing’ About

Yik Yak is a Millennial hotbed that allows users to send out thoughts — kind of like a tweet — and then encourages others to comment and vote “up” or “down” depending on whether they agree with the sentiments.

I posed a simple question to Yik Yakkers: “What do you expect from an app’s user experience?” Their responses will help marketers better utilize apps to connect to this demographic.

Here’s what I learned:

“I Do It for the Likes”

On the surface, a like might seem like a simple, mindless feature. However, recent studies reveal a deeper story behind this act of digital appreciation.

One study in particular describes how likes activate the brain’s reward center (known as the nucleus accumbens) — an area that is also stimulated by things like food, money, and social acceptance. Another study finds that browsing Facebook can evoke what is called a “flow state,” which is the feeling you get when you’re totally engrossed in a project or new skill.

All of these powerful and highly addictive feelings come instantly from just the click of a button, so it’s little wonder that Millennials have such a strong affinity for likes. This user experience (UX) feature has evolved into the social currency that validates a Millennial’s digital presence. Marketers who incorporate something similar to a like into their apps gain large psychological advantages.

“Can You Keep a Secret?”

Millennials are increasingly concerned about their social image and the damaging effects it can have on their future educational and employment opportunities. However, that doesn’t mean they want to constantly conduct themselves as if they’re being vetted by HR.

That’s why impermanence is such a popular UX feature for this demographic. Being able to express themselves authentically (without worrying about a public relations disaster) is paramount for Millennials. The fact that Snapchat automatically deletes images is a major reason for the app’s success — and you can achieve similar results by keeping your young users’ secrets under lock and key.

“Where Are All of My Friends?”

Millennials will happily try just about any app that promises interconnectivity, community, and sharing opportunities. Apps like Snapchat and Instagram are hitting home runs in this area.

From location-based filters to Snapchat’s new feature that allows users to swap faces, these apps have become one-stop shops for checking out friends’ day-to-days in a way that is constantly refreshing and unique. It’s a combination of immediacy, intimacy, and fleetingness that drives so much interaction on these apps.

Building a community around your app — and allowing your Millennial users to connect with each other based on their locations and interests — is a recipe for success.

“I Need it Now”

In the age of binge-watching, patience is far from a virtue. Millennials want what they want as soon as they want it. Any other approach is just wasting their time.

Take a look at a typical night out for this demographic. Instead of dealing with the headache of hailing a cab, a Millennial presses a button on Uber and a personal driver comes to pick her up. It’s no big deal if she forgets to bring cash; she can use Venmo to pay back her friends with a click of a button. And once she and her friends get to the bar, they can log on to Tinder and swipe right until they find others ready to own the dance floor with them.

What These Habits Mean to Marketers

Convenience is the name of the game, and for a generation of people who view dial-up Internet as ancient history, convenience means “immediately.”

Millennials like things done a certain way: exactly how they want it, when they want it. With a strong focus on what drives them, marketers can cash in on this increasingly lucrative market.

Before we know it, Millennials will be our primary consumers; grabbing their attention today means success tomorrow.

Porsche just unveiled the latest version of its Cayman sports car ahead of the 2016 Beijing auto show.

The update re-badges the Cayman as the 718 Cayman — joining the Boxster which was rebranded earlier this year as the 718 Boxster.

As a result, the Boxster and Cayman will no longer exists as separate models. Instead, they will now serve as the soft- and hardtop versions of the Porsche 718.

The 718 designation evokes a classic race car from Porsche's past. It also distinguishes Porsche's 4-cylinder engines from its legendary 6-cylinder power plants.

With the 718 name also comes the company's new turbocharged, flat-four-cylinder engines.

Currently, the Cayman and the Boxster are the only two cars in the world the feature the new engines which Porsche recently developed at great cost.

In base trim, the standard Cayman comes with a 300 horsepower, 2.0 liter version of the engine, while the upmarket Cayman S get a more powerful 350 horsepower, 2.5 liter unit.

Porsche claims the Cayman will be able to hit 60mph in a brisk 4.5 seconds with a top speed of 170 mph.

At the same time, the Cayman S has a claimed 0-60 time of just 4.0 seconds and a top speed of 177 mph.

Porsche and parent company VW Group are said to be exploring more avenues to recoup their investment in the new engine.

Last week, German car magazine Auto Bild reported that the company is believed to be working on a derivative of the 718 Boxster that will be badged as an Audi called the R6. Both Audi and Porsche declined to comment on the rumored sports car.

The Cayman is the most overlooked car in sports car maker's vaunted lineup. It doesn't have the iconic status of the 911, nor does it have the distinction of saving the company like its sibling, the Boxster. It doesn't have the massive sales figures of the Cayenne and the Macan, nor does it have the at-times derided look of the Panamera.

Despite all of this, the Cayman is generally regarded as one of the finest driving vehicles Porsche has produced in recent memory.

It's light, compact packaging and mid-engine layout provide the Cayman with particularly desirable driving dynamics.

The 718 Cayman starts at $53,900 while the 718 Cayman S will require at least $66,300. Both versions are available for sale in the US. Although the cars won't reach showrooms until November of 2016.

SEE ALSO: VW is about to unleash a full-blown SUV offensive to reverse its slide in the US

Join the conversation about this story »

NOW WATCH: This hidden subplot of 'Game of Thrones' spells out the real trouble for the Lannisters

Right before the start of the Beijing Auto Show Sunday, Audi decided to drop its newest high-performance sports car into the world. That'd be the new 400 horsepower TT RS, in both Coupe and Roadster form. 

We've seen the TT RS before, but this new 2017 model isn't that. This new RS is built on the new third generation TT that's been in production since 2014. 

The Roadster looks ready to fulfill its duties as the ultimate summer car.

Even with the hard-top Coupe trim it looks fierce and ready.

The new car has 60 more horsepower than its predecessor. The coupe is capable of doing zero to 60 miles per hour in a blisteringly-quick 3.7 seconds. The roadster comes in a 3.9 seconds.

Those quick launch times can surely at least partially be attributed to the TT's Quattro all-wheel-drive system. 

In a new interview with The Verge, Microsoft cofounder and richest man in the world Bill Gates explained the potential for chatbots — programs you can text with like they're human — in education. 

Gates lauds the potential for what he calls "dialogue richness," where an chatbot can really hold a conversation with a student, essentially making it into a tutor that can walk them through even the toughest, most subjective topics. 

It's actually similar to how Gates himself likes to learn, he tells The Verge:

You know, part of the reason I’m so willing to tackle new subjects is that for each of those subjects, if I get utterly confused, I know somebody I can send an email to, and they’ll straighten me out.

If you can’t have somebody straighten you out, and say, is this as complicated as I think? Am I missing something here? Then you’re probably not as ambitious. For a lot of subjects, as they get older, people are not willing to take that learning risk where they are confused.

In other words, if you have someone to check your assumptions and gently guide you in the right direction, you'll learn better and more thoroughly. Chatbots could do that for every kid, at their own pace, on their own devices, at their leisure.

As Gates points out, there are online services where human tutors walk kids through their math lessons. But by using chatbots, a major area of investment for companies like Facebook and Microsoft, these robo-tutors have the potential to be free — while simultaneously reaching millions of kids.

Gates is a big fan of lifelong learning, reading 50 books a year and encouraging others to do the same. It's clear that he has a lot of passion for applying his technology expertise towards making that kind of learning more accessible to all.

SEE ALSO: The dumbest things Bill Gates ever said

Join the conversation about this story »

NOW WATCH: This teenager got accepted into all 8 Ivy League schools — here are her secrets to success

These days, it’s popular to talk about all the ways people are addicted to their smartphones and how they should use them less. But is it really that bad? Could your smartphone actually make you more productive in a healthy way? Not long ago, Mihir wrote about how smartphones can affect your body and your mind, but what about how much smartphones can boost your work and life productivity? What about how much extra time you can save each day by using your smartphone to do multiple tasks at once? What about how much healthier you can get by taking care...

Read the full article: 5 Expert Ways to Use Your Smartphone Productively Every Day

When you think about it, intelligence is a fairly broad term. Most of us are completely sharp in some areas but dull in others. Psychologist Howard Gardner asserted that we actually have “multiple intelligences,” and this infographic sums them up.

Read more...

If you need help jogging your memory, you might try your hand at drawing. A recent study found that we remember items better when we draw them rather than write them down.

Read more...

Clockwise from top left: Joe Thacker, Sarah English, Sajan Choksi, Kevin Higgins, Kevin Danylchuk. (Photoillustration by Gerrit de Jonge)

Small business owners learn (sometimes the hard way) that cash flow can make or break your business. We asked some masters of cash flow from the PROFIT 500—Canada’s fastest-growing businesses—how they keep the money running:

How to grow your company without going into debt

Think long term

“We believe in leveraging cash flow to drive additional growth, so we recycle a very large percentage of our cash back into the business. Though it initially slowed our growth down, by having low debt we never put the company at financial risk and built a strong foundation we can now leverage.”

Joe Thacker, CEO, Fusion Retail Analytics (No. 249 on the PROFIT 500)

Build a war chest

“Since Day 1, we’ve put aside three months’ worth of operating expenses in a high-interest account to use in the event we have cash-flow issues. We call this our ‘cash cushion.’ Once or twice a year we will dip into it to cover bills, and then we’ll replenish it when cash flow is back on track.”

Sarah English, Managing director, Usability Matters (No. 317 on the PROFIT 500)

Play the dates

“We try to get at least 30-day terms from our suppliers and use our credit cards to pay those invoices on the 27th day. We pay the credit cards 30 days later, which effectively ensures that our cash outflow is at least 55 days. With our cash inflow at 30 days, we’re always in a positive cash position. We also rack up a lot of travel points, which is an added bonus!”

Sajan Choksi, CEO, Innovative Vision (No. 241 on the PROFIT 500)

Don’t wait

“We have a line of credit at the bank, but we rarely use it. We’ve found it helpful to obtain credit when we’ve qualified for it, even when we don’t anticipate needing it. Asking for credit when you need it exposes you to the risk that it could be denied, or insufficient, based on your company’s current position.”

Kevin Higgins, CEO, Fusion Learning (No. 338 on the PROFIT 500)

Ask your bank to get creative

“Since our company isn’t one with much capital—our ‘assets’ are our employees and contracts—we have been able to finance new programs under an accounts receivable margining system, in which the bank will loan us short-term funds based on our current contracts and receivables. This does require monthly reporting, but it allows our cash availability to grow with our company.”

Kevin Danylchuk, President, Vanguard Pharma (No. 347 on the PROFIT 500)

Five simple ways to get paid faster

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• Five sources of financing every small business needs to know
• Why Canadian companies need access to higher-risk financing
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• How direct sales companies reach customers, no store required
• Why the future of global trade deals could be small businesses
• Business New Year’s Resolutions: Focus on small data, not big data
• Four ways to make tax time less painful for small business

The post Five proven strategies for maximizing your cash flow appeared first on Canadian Business - Your Source For Business News.

Want to be seen as ‘the expert’, want more media profile and visibility? If so, and you’re not using Twitter then you are missing a trick – because so many journalists are using it each and every day.

There are many ways to use Twitter to get noticed, get found and find and connect with precisely those journalists who want to hear from you. But, if you don’t know what you’re looking for, or how to go about it, then it can be a bit like looking for a needle in a haystack.

So, let’s get started on making the most of Twitter to get you on the radar of the journalists who want to hear from you.

1. #Journorequest

I’ve mentioned this a few times in blog posts and it’s a quick and easy way to find relevant journalists. Use the hashtag #journorequest to see what journalists are looking for. You can do much better by using keywords alongside the hashtags that are relevant for your niche. It’s then a case of identifying the relevant opportunities and making contact. There’s only so much you can do with 140 characters so you’ll want to move the conversation off Twitter as soon as possible.

2. Journalist interests

But, don’t just think of the hashtag #journorequest in terms of specific opportunities that you can jump on. Also, use it to help you identify interest areas for journalists that give you insight. A specific media request may not be the right fit for you but if it highlights that a journalist is interested in something related to your niche then they could be a useful contact to track and connect with further down the line.

3. Other hashtags

Journalists use hashtags to search out experts, information and views on topics. So, it’s a good idea to ensure that you ‘label’ your tweets to make them easy to find. And, you may well find that your target journalists use particular hashtags. If so, then make a note of them because that is all useful information – you can really start to get a feel for what interests them and how you can help them.

4. Your profile

Many journalists will head on over to Twitter to search for an expert. They will type keywords into the search bar just like you and I do and when we want to find information, relevant people or the conversations around a specific topic. So, think about the keywords in your profile and whether you are making it easy for journalists to find you as the expert in your niche.

5. Breaking news

It’s become increasingly common for online and broadcast media to refer to conversations on Twitter. So, if you see a relevant breaking news story then head on over to Twitter and check out what is being discussed. And, if you have a view to share then do so but use the hashtag that’s being ‘attached to that news story so that it can be picked up by any journalists scanning responses.

6. Sharing

These days, the journalist’s job isn’t just about finding the stories, reporting on the news, getting information and insight from experts. A new role has been added – to share content. Media outlets want people to access/read their content and so journalists use Twitter and other social media platforms to promote their content. They want more eyeballs on their content. So, that gives you a great foot in the door. You can get on their radar by sharing their content and commenting on it too.

7. Twitter lists

If you’ve already identified a number of journalists covering your niche, and who you want to connect with, then set up a Twitter list to keep them in one place. This will enable you to more easily review what they are tweeting and what they are interested in. It makes it easier for you to connect and engage.

And, another way to find journalists it would be useful for you to connect with is by tapping into other people’s lists. Think about who already has a profile in your niche – collaborators, competitors any relevant PR companies. Check out their lists on Twitter and you may well find lists that give you useful contacts.

And, use search engines too for lists of journalists posted on websites. Check this out for a list of UK business journalists I found with their Twitter handles. It’s always worth hunting around to see if someone else has already done the hard graft research for you. Why re-invent the wheel, right?

And, finally, finding the right media contacts on Twitter is just part of the puzzle. You then need to connect and engage with them. But, don’t rush into it and shove your pitch down their throat. Take your time to monitor what they are tweeting and find ways to add value – by sharing their tweets, commenting, responding to their questions, helping them find sources. This is a slow burn not a mad rush to the finishing line.

In a nutshell: Twitter is a great way to find journalists who want to hear from you but you need to watch and listen first so you can connect and engage with them in the right way.

How have you used Twitter to find and connect with journalists?

“Who is more influential to you than the people closest that you respect and trust?” – Lee Odden

In the time that I’ve been at TopRank Marketing, I’ve had the opportunity to witness first-hand how influencer marketing can be an incredibly powerful way to build credibility for a brand, and create connections with the right people.

I remember that one of my first experiences with influencer marketing was an interview that I did with Avinash Kaushik (that was of course facilitated by Lee Odden). I was overwhelmed by how humble and happy he was to collaborate with me. Why? Because Lee and the team at TopRank Marketing had found ways to feature him previously and begin building that relationship.

Today, it has become much more difficult to capture and hold the attention of many in-demand influencers. Many companies are unsure of how exactly to effectively identify, qualify and recruit influencers into their digital marketing strategy.

Last week, TopRank Marketing CEO Lee Odden presented to a packed room at Social Media Marketing World with the intent of enlightening, inspiring and instructing marketers on how to effectively add influencers to their digital marketing programs. Below are what I would consider to be some of the top takeaways from this information packed presentation.

5 Important Benefits of Influencer Marketing

The long-term benefits of influencer marketing are often overlooked for the short-term gain. Some of the top benefits of collaborating with influencers include:

• Advocacy: The credibility that often comes along with collaborating with influencers can be incredibly important as a tool for building brand advocacy.
• Quality: When you tap into influencers, you’re gaining input from a knowledge base outside your own. Their expertise can help increase the quality of the content being produced to better serve your target audience.
• Variety: Again, an outside perspective is a great way to add variety to the content being produced by your brand. While the messages should be aligned, their unique perspective may speak to your audience in a way that your brand content may not.
• Engagement: It’s no secret that customers buy from people that they know and trust. And that people trust individuals over brands. Armed with this knowledge, brands can incorporate influencers to increase the engagement of their target audiences with the content that is co-created with influencers.
• Scale & Reach: Not only does working with influencers help companies create more quality content, but it exposes that content to audiences that they may not otherwise have access to.

16 Ways to Engage Influencers with Content

The options for incorporating influencers into your content strategy are nearly limitless. While some marketers may think that interviews, or videos are the only way to go, there are so many more options including:

• Quotes
• Social Content/Shares
• Short Interviews
• Long Interviews
• Blog Posts
• eBooks
• Video
• Visual Content
• Events
• Contributed Articles
• Contests
• Twitter Chats
• Event Panels/Presentations
• Webinars
• Product Reviews
• Endorsements

Influencer Marketing Tools 

The evolution of influencer marketing has been largely due to the tools made available today. Depending on the needs of your influencer marketing, you can use one, a few or many of the following tools to aid your efforts:

• LinkedIn (client)
• FollowerWonk
• Klear
• Kred
• Klout
• Keyhole
• BuzzSumo
• Onalytica
• Nimble
• Brandwatch
• GroupHigh (client)
• Little Bird
• Traackr (client)

Top Influencer Engagement Fails & Wins

FAIL: Too Much, Too Soon
Many marketers make the mistake of trying to squeeze too much out of influencers before building the appropriate amount of time building the relationship. If you haven’t had any previous content, then you should avoid asking an influencer to participate in a big project.

FAIL: Forgetting to Ask for Permission
It can be tempting just to include influencers in your content without reaching out to them first. However, when you publish a piece of content that includes any amount of content from an influencer and you haven’t made content to let them know, you absolutely should not reach out to them cold and push them to promote the content.

FAIL: The Bait & Switch
It is always important to be honest and transparent with influencers that you ask to collaborate with you. Whatever you promise when they agree to participate should be 100% what is delivered to them.

WIN: Research influencers
In order to find influencers that are the right match for your brand, it’s important to understand:

• What they care about.
• How your company can offer value for their collaboration.
• What you can offer that is unique.

WIN: Make it Easy for Influencers to Participate
Many companies fail at influencer marketing because there is too much complexity in the things that they are asking of influencers. To stand out in a sea of emails, make it as easy as possible for influencers to get on board and share their insight with you.

WIN: Continue to Feed the Influencer/Brand Relationship
If you want to create a sustainable influencer marketing program, you must continue to nurture your relationship with influencers. That means, showing your appreciation, providing feedback, finding ways to stay connected, refer them business or other influencer opportunities and citing them in ongoing content.

Is Your Influencer Marketing Strategy Aligned with Marketing Goals?

Influencer marketing has evolved significantly over the past few years and will only become more competitive as more and more brands continue to develop a savvy approach. There is no denying the immense value of incorporating influencers into your digital marketing strategy, but understanding where to start (or where you may have gone wrong) is not always easy.

If you’d like to learn more about how to find, engage and collaborate with industry influencers to boost the reach and performance of your content marketing programs, check out our influencer marketing services page and contact us for a consultation.

Gain a competitive advantage by subscribing to the
TopRank® Online Marketing Newsletter.

© Online Marketing Blog - TopRank®, 2016. | Learn How to Create a More Effective Influencer Marketing Strategy | http://www.toprankblog.com

The post Learn How to Create a More Effective Influencer Marketing Strategy appeared first on Online Marketing Blog - TopRank®.

In today’s blog, we’re going to try something a little different. Rather than explaining the consequences of these actions and instead of prescribing solutions for leaders who inadvertently behave in these ways, I’m just going to give you these 10 warning signs you aren’t listening as well as you should.

My hope is that with some reflection and discussion in the comments field, you’ll finish the work describing why this matters and offer each other ideas on how to fix it.

Just start with a little candid self-assessment on these 10 warning signs. Then come back to the comments and share your thoughts!

You Aren’t Listening If…

• You have an agenda.

You aren’t listening for the sake of hearing what someone else has to say. You’re listening to buy yourself an obligated audience or for some other hidden motive.

• You interrupt others.

You get revved up and can’t hold back, jumping in to add your own experiences or ideas even before the speaker has finished sharing their own.

• You are very quick to respond to what’s been said.

You’ve been preparing your response the whole time the speaker was talking. Early on, you heard a snippet, and you were “off to the races” crafting what you would say.

• You “one up” the speaker to try to match each point made.

You’re looking at conversation like a competitive sport and would hate to lose the opportunity to have your two cents’ worth known on each and every detail.

• You jump to conclusions.

You allow your similar experiences and what you already know to prematurely influence your response in this situation.

• You ask close-ended questions more often than open-ended ones.

You are less interested in hearing the story, nuances and details than you are in getting just the facts. Sometimes, you find long-winded conversations to be tedious, so you try to limit what the speaker shares.

• You prefer to offer your ideas before hearing the other person’s.

The best defense is a good offense. If you can control the conversation by quickly, loudly and forcefully putting your thoughts on the table first, maybe you can efficiently end the excess of others’ ideas.

• You immediately judge what is being said.

You take the words at face value and react accordingly. You don’t consider context, feeling or motivation behind what’s been said, so you don’t see a problem with saying things like “that’s stupid” or “you’re wrong.”

• You try to solve the problem as soon as you hear about it.

You misunderstand the value you can offer to another person. Sometimes people want to be heard more than they want your solution. And sometimes they want your solution – but only if they first see that you understand the problem from their perspective.

• You frequently shift your attention to other people or tasks.

You are very busy, and you multi-task to get it all done. You do two things at once without thinking about what it signals to others when your attention is divided instead of devoted to them.

Okay, I can’t resist offering just one tip to kick off your contributions in the comments field. When there’s something important to be heard, make the time to listen. Set an appointment if needed and prepare for it by eliminating distractions (including the mental ones!). Your turn! Give us a warning sign that you aren’t listening and/or a tip to improve.

Deb Calvert is a Certified Executive Coach, keynote speaker and leadership development program architect and trainer. Book Deb today to speak at your leadership events, and subscribe to our blog for weekly articles on building your leadership skills.

The post The 10 Warning Signs You Aren’t Listening appeared first on People First.

Getting broken up with sucks—especially when you’re completely blindsided by the news. Oftentimes, when you look back on the situation months later, you realize that there were actually plenty of warning signs that things were on the rocks. Maybe you ignored them, hoping things would get better with time. Maybe you even denied them, avoiding the subject altogether.

Either way, I bet we can agree that, had you identified and dealt with these issues head on, you may have been able to repair the relationship or at least end on better terms.

When a client cancels, it feels a lot like a break-up. You’ve spent years building a strong relationship with them and when it goes south, it can be a real slap in the face (and a major hit to your business). Wouldn’t you be better off had you identified the warning signs and been prepared for the tough conversation?

Earlier this week, the #ppcchat crew had a fascinating conversation about this very subject (check out the stream cap here). At WordStream HQ, we’ve been working hard to develop a better sense of our clients’ health, so we can get involved and make adjustments before breakups occur. When things aren’t going so hot with your PPC clients, there are plenty of tell-tale hints. Here are the top five signals that we keep an eye out for:

#1. They’ve Granted Access to Someone Else

This is like finding a tube of someone else’s lipstick in your boyfriend’s medicine cabinet. It’s a pretty glaring signal that he’s getting intimate with another woman. Sure, it could belong to his mom (yeah, right) or left over from last year’s Halloween costume (sure) but it’s much more likely that he’s two-timing and your relationship is in jeopardy.

Typically, when a client grants access to someone new on the account, it’s a good indication that they’re shopping for a new agency. They’re giving prospective account managers the opportunity to dive into their account, assess its setup and create a proposal for what they would do to improve it.

In this case, you certainly could play dirty and delete your competitor’s access, but we recommend going the more ethical route and engaging in some real-talk with your customer. Take the time to ask them whether their needs are being met and have a good discussion about what they’re looking for. This allows you to better understand their pain points and gives you the opportunity to resell them by proving you’re the best man for the job.

#2. Your Primary Contact Has Changed

When your go-to contact moves on to a new position, it’s time to gear up for a tough conversation. The person who inherited their role wasn’t involved in your original sales conversations and may not be sold on your services. Even worse, they may be inclined to make big, sweeping changes to prove that they’re different from their predecessor.

When changes like this occur, make the effort to get to know your new point of contact and be ready to sell them on your services. We like to walk them through a brief history of the account and the goals that were set initially to demonstrate the progress we’ve made thus far. In addition, we take the time to understand their objectives, which may differ from those of our previous contact.

In circumstances where you lost your previous contact due to a merger or acquisition with a larger firm, you may find that the new company has a dedicated in-house team to manage their paid search efforts. In cases like these, be prepared to offer different services, like regular audits to hang on to the client (albeit in a different capacity).

#3. Your NPS Scores Are Plummeting

At WordStream, we measure customer happiness using the Net Promoter Score (NPS) method. When we first enacted this program, we discovered that these survey scores had a direct correlation with churn. Now, when a client submits a low NPS, we jump into save-mode to intercept the issue, understand its roots and fix it before it escalates to a cancellation.

Of course, we aren’t able to salvage all of these relationships—sometimes it’s just not the right fit—but addressing them makes a big difference. In some cases, these conversations have helped us reset clients’ expectations or understand that our goals are misaligned. Through others, we’ve identified our team’s weaknesses, and it has spurred us to take action to improve our internal processes. Even if we aren’t able to win over the client in jeopardy, we glean a ton of useful information and typically close out the relationship in a more amicable fashion.

Don’t have a regular NPS program in place? Even if NPS isn’t the metric you elect to measure, implementing an ongoing customer health survey will be well worth your while.

#4. Their Communication Style Has Shifted

During #ppcchat this week, Julie Bacchini posed this question to the group and nearly all of the responses warned to be weary of changes in the client’s communication style. This comes in many flavors. We’ve all worked with super-quiet clients and clients that like to check in pretty frequently—everyone has their own way of doing things—but, it’s a red flag when you see an abrupt change in their communication style.

For clients whom you talk to regularly, be on guard for abrupt radio silence; it may be a sign that they’re disengaged. On the flipside, if a more hands-off client is suddenly barraging you with questions, it may be an indication that they’re questioning your performance.

That said, their shift in behavior may have nothing to do with you. Rather than jumping to conclusions, we aim to address these situations directly with the client. Having an open conversation will help you understand what’s driving the change and what (if anything) you can do to resolve it.

#5. They’ve Dramatically Reduced their Spend

The only time your clients should be cutting back their PPC spend is if you’ve made their accounts more efficient and they’ve elected to pump their savings into another branch of the business. Otherwise, it’s a not-so-subtle indication that they’re scaling back their paid search efforts and, likely, are questioning the value it brings to their marketing engine.

When a client informs you that they’re reducing their budget, take the time to understand the motivations behind this change and whether it’s something for you to be concerned about. If they’re questioning whether paid search is the right solution for them, be sure to have data on hand to prove why it’s the right direction to go!

Now That You Know the Warning Signs, Be Ready to Combat Them!

When you’re faced with any of these scenarios, the key is to open the lines of communication. Rather than being defensive, take the time to listen and understand the client’s pain points. Once you understand the problems, you can make a plan to salvage the relationship. Depending on the size of the accounts in question, you may even want to appoint a team member to devote extra attention to reenergizing these high-risk clients.

dave wheeler FOR HBR

No matter what industry you are in or what job you do, you probably have experienced the frustration of working within a dysfunctional team — one marked by drawn-out discussions that led nowhere or heated conflicts that made communication difficult. To function properly, teams need to communicate effectively. How can you improve the odds of that happening?

Consider that when joining a team, people have a strong desire to feel accepted by the other members. This desire can lead individual members to prioritize “fitting in” over contributing unique information and adding maximum value to the team. For example, research has shown that teams are biased toward repeating information rather than adding new information to the discussion. Why? Because repetition helps members appear competent in the eyes of others.

In addition, members are more likely to talk about information that they share with other team members than information that only they have. Thus, individual team members’ need for social acceptance may hinder the team’s ability to share and integrate information they need to accomplish their tasks.

One remedy is for team members to devote some time to highlighting their different ideas, backgrounds, and perspectives. Robin Ely of Harvard Business School and David Thomas, the current dean of Georgetown University’s McDonough School of Business, found in a qualitative study of diverse teams that openly discussing the unique qualities of different team members and integrating diverse perspectives allowed individuals to feel valued and respected. The team members were able to apply their unique knowledge, perspectives, and identities to the task at hand, which enhanced their cross-cultural learning and performance.

One psychological process that can heighten individual team members’ contributions and the team’s outcomes is relational self-affirmation, I recently found in my research with Julia Lee of the University of Michigan, Dan Cable of the London Business School, and Brad Staats of the University of Carolina in Chapel Hill. Relational self-affirmation involves asking individuals from a team member’s preexisting personal network (friends, family, and coworkers) to write narratives about times the individual made a distinct contribution.

In our studies, we asked participants to provide a list of names of people in their professional and personal network. We then reached out to these people to ask them to share a story of an experience when they had seen the participant at his or her best. Here are two such narratives about participants in our research (their names have been changed to protect their privacy):

Laura has good forethought for business and does anything and everything she can to help keep us employed. In 2012, when Hurricane Sandy hit the East Coast, here in Florida we did not really think much of it. But Laura was obviously worried that it would impact her business, because a lot of our accounts receivables are in the NYC/New Jersey areas. She ended up borrowing from her retirement savings to keep the business going. I even suggested that maybe she could let the couple of part-timers go, but she responded that the people there always gave their best, so she wouldn’t want to do anything less for them. It took about six months to get things back on track, but we all managed to keep our jobs thanks to Laura.

I first met Mike in the early ’80s. He was in a wheelchair and smiling, I remember. When he could come to school, he was in pain but was full of grit. As teenagers, we did not see Mike as special [i.e., different]; he wanted to be one of our classmates, and he was the one with a smile that could light up the room. Today, I realize just how much determination was transmitted in his smile.

We gave each narrative to the person discussed in it and asked them to identify the strengths highlighted in the stories about themselves. By making individuals more self-aware of their unique strengths, this exercise made it more likely that they would contribute their unique information and qualities to the team, we found. In fact, this approach reduced individuals’ concerns about social acceptance, resulting in better information exchange within the team.

Thanks to the various strengths they bring to the table, teams have the potential to outperform individuals yet often fail to capitalize on this potential. Finding ways to let team members know about how their behavior positively affected others in the past can offset concerns about social acceptance that come with exposing one’s unique perspectives and identity to others. Making people aware of their own strengths results in better communication among team members and thus higher levels of performance.

A defined sales process has consistent steps that align the way you sell with the way your buyers buy. Requiring your reps to make X number of calls a day is not a sales process. Outlining the fields that need to be entered in Salesforce isn’t a process either.

Rather, when you define the specific activities that move a prospect through the buying process, your team is able to improve deal velocity and consistently qualify opportunities.

If you don’t have a defined sales process, here are four reasons why you should take immediate action for your sales organization.

Execution is Repeatable

The most direct benefit of a defined sales process is repeatable execution. Sales representatives have clarity on what resources to leverage and what they need to qualify with the customer. They don’t have to waste time and energy on cumbersome processes. Instead, they can focus on effectively executing in each buying cycle stage.

More Consistent Evaluation

A defined process is also instrumental in your ability as a leader to evaluate the performance of individual reps, and to consistently apply the same objective criteria to your entire team. You know where your reps are with a particular opportunity and, more importantly, you know where they’re not.

Simplified Customer Decision-Making

A defined sales strategy aligned with your buyer simplifies the buying process. A defined process helps a salesperson create the roadmap for the buyer. When buyers can easily connect the dots between their specific problem, your solution’s value, and differentiation, it’s easier for them to make a confident buying decision.

Better Long-Term Results

Collectively, the benefits to you, your sales reps and your customers will drive long-term business and financial performance. Salespeople are more efficient and productive because they optimize lead generation activities, utilize resources more effectively and maintain higher closing ratios.

With a consistent sales process, your company can more accurately analyze data, which allows your teams to work smarter and faster, all of which contribute to optimized profit margins.

If you’re looking for an opportunity to change up your digital marketing or to give your readers a different way of experiencing your content, podcasting can be an easy, inexpensive option. Podcasting is the regularly scheduled production and distribution of audio content.

While podcasting is a commonly overlooked marketing medium, podcasts offer a number of benefits over text- and video-based content. Here are six key reasons you should consider adding podcasting to your company’s digital marketing toolbox:

Podcasts last longer than blog posts

In today’s Internet ADD world, online readers are skimming more and reading less. This forces bloggers to write shorter posts, leading prospects to spend less time with your brand. But with the average podcast lasting anywhere from five minutes to an hour, the prospect is making a bigger commitment to your brand and your content. Thus, it’s easier to create that sense of attachment and drive top-of-mind preference.

Podcasts make information personal

Forming a relationship with text is really hard. Podcasting, on the other hand, lets the listener hear your voice, which means they can hear your passion, concern, and enthusiasm. Just as radio listeners form a bond with talk radio personalities, your listeners can develop a sense of attachment to you and your personality.

Podcasts are convenient to consume

Your buyers are increasingly grappling with managing their most precious resource: time. One of the greatest benefits of a podcast, unlike text- and even video-based content, is your buyers’ ability to consume it while doing something else. People are listening to podcasts while driving to and from work, while working out, or during the work day.

Podcasts are easy to create

Though a truly world-class podcast does require an investment in tools and learning techniques, that isn’t absolutely necessary. Podcasts can be created with any computer, with tablets, and even with a mobile phone. And with an interview-based format, you even minimize your prep time. So for the time-strapped marketer, podcasts can serve as a fairly easy and time-efficient content creation platform.

Podcasts are great twofer content

Since converting audio content into text-based content is really easy, a podcast interview can serve double duty: It can work as a piece of audio content, and you can then transcribe the interview into text and use that text in blog posts, white papers, and e-books.

Podcasts can expose new audiences to your brand

Because podcasts are indexed and offered on platforms such as iTunes, podcasts are
sometimes more discoverable than text-based content. Buyers aren’t scanning for new text content, but with platforms such as iTunes and Stitcher, channel surfing for new podcasts is easy. Thus, podcasting gives your brand the chance to be discovered by buyers who wouldn’t otherwise seek you out or consume your content.

In order to create a great podcast, focus on creating helpful, educational content. If it sounds like an infomercial, your podcast won’t be very successful! So your first priority has to be helping your audience and solving problems for them. It’s also important to deliver your podcasts on a regular schedule. If you publish erratically, it becomes easy for your audience to forget that they haven’t seen a new episode from you. Regularly scheduled episodes help them remember when to tune in.

According to a 2012 Edison Research Study on the Podcast Listener, awareness
of podcasting has grown 105% since 2006. Likewise, the percentage of people indicating they have listened to an audio podcast has grown 163%, from 11% in 2006 to 29% in 2012. With smartphones, tablets, iTunes, and mobile podcast player apps making it easy to download and stream podcasts at broadband speeds, I think we will see continued growth in podcast listenership. And with such an easy avenue for creating content, you have the opportunity to be at the forefront of this content creation platform.

We are all storytellers. Then again doesn’t that sound like another invitation to create noise with no direction just because you can assume a new enriched title?

I know I am getting a bit uncomfortable with the term ‘storytelling’, as it conjures up different meanings in others peoples heads.

A popular response I find is, ‘well…we create content for our customers, the last thing we are is storytellers.”

Lets just put being tagged with a name to one side and recognise that the days of putting an advert in front of the eyes of others will result in a sale.

You only need to look at Google’s Zero Moment of Truth to confirm that customers are shopping around to see what resonates with them. One of the biggest highlights was that buyers are looking at more sources of information (5.27 in 2010 to 10.4 in 2011) before they commit and spending more time with these sources.

Alternatively the storytelling approach becomes the trigger to create content that resonates with an audience because it creates real value to someone else.

Companies have to stop thinking that just because they paid for media they can create a reaction.

Take for instance, this photo below from a busy roundabout in the centre of Poole (my home town in the south of England) that is there for all to see at the moment.

The message highlights to an audience of complete strangers that two law firms have merged (and if anyone is interested, no website URL to find out the history behind both companies).

This becomes a reason to wallow in own self-indulgence and importance that this company can spend money and advertise where they want.

This idea of advertising where a company wants because they have money is also exemplified by the Vape Shop within this double page spread within my local newspaper.

Whilst press has a control over editorial, doesn’t it make you think that press titles also need control today of advertising? Another point of discussion for another time.

What I am trying to highlight with the above two examples is that thought and creativity can move to one side and in its place throwing money to borrow space from someone else.

People are looking before they make a decision. According to The Digital Evolution in B2B Marketing (Marketing Leadership Council), 57% of customers’ progress through the purchase decision process before starting a conversation.

Deep down these two companies (as well as everyone else) are made up of stories. Even though the two examples are adverts, they are still miles away from delivering value to an audience.

It is this role of delivering value that is the difference between a company turning their head the other way or having a purpose for an audience.

The stories that you provide is the validation of what you stand for and what you believe in.

In the words of Robert Mighall, author of Only Connect, “Stories are a great way of showing the possibility of change without preaching, but only if they illustrate real, tangible and achievable outcomes.”

When it comes to taking on board a storytelling approach and not resorting to throwing money down a drain by meaning nothing to no one, here is what you need to consider to build momentum and consistency.

If this is an approach that you are seriously considering investing in or just beginning, here are six key questions to always come back to and ask yourself.

Can you provide a different view?

There has to be a way to provide an opinion, backup up via facts and real world experiences. I highlighted in my last article that businesses need to step up from just dictating an opinion to now solidify a point of view.

A tirade of opinion is the equivalent of walking a tightrope, whereas the facts represent the safety net.

Taking an opinion and shaping it via facts and experiences is something that no one else can take as their own as you provide a viewpoint.

An alternative view on an industry topic that has been around for a long time provides a good start. For instance an estate agent going with the popular ‘how to choose the right estate agent’ article becomes ‘is selling your home via an online site, the way we will all sell houses by 2025?’

By this I mean:

• fact: people will be selling their homes as long as there is day and night
• experience: there is a disruption of online estate agents
• opinion: is being responsible for the sale of your house, something you are prepared to take full responsibility for?

Can you make peoples lives easier?

Perhaps it is time to look beyond solving problems and just make peoples lives easier. In The Content Revolution I highlight a more emotional pull to what you do. “Customers do not want to be sold to; what they want are their hopes, needs and wants catered for.”

For example if you are a personal trainer, don’t sell training packages sell self-confidence. If you own a business centre renting office space, don’t sell office space, sell the opportunity to build credibility and new connections that can lead to a bigger audience.

Ask yourself, would you read it?

You have to put yourself in someone else’s shoes. My podcast partner, Ian Rhodes mentions in his workshops for others to ask themselves would they take the articles that sit in the blog section of their website and to give them pride of place on their homepage.

Is there that moment of hesitation? If there is and you can’t stand with belief that your content (whether written, spoken or filmed) represents what you stand for and believe in, it’s time to think again. You need to be committed to finding ways to deliver value.

This is one of the reasons why Ian and myself and taking on board a new approach for the third season of The Marketing Homebrew where we are creating a challenge for others to ask questions related to their marketing and we can create an interactive experience for others.

Are you relentlessly curious?

Is there a way of sharing an approach that you do have a genuine curiosity about? If the prime reason for having a business is to make money, then finding a story that represents value and interest for someone else becomes a lot harder.

You only need to look at the success of Kickstarter (founded in 2009) as a way to connect people with the creators of a product they want to see and what someone believes in.

Can you move from transaction to emotion?

The story that you create has to be based on making a connection with someone else so that they can relate to you.

Take for example Martin Lewis, the self proclaimed Money Saving Expert who estimates around 8.5 million people receive his weekly email updates. He represents the consumer revolution for making a stand and having more control over their budgets than ever before.

This is something that people connect with that. This was more than a logo and a churn of articles on how to save money, it was one man that people could connect with and more importantly believe in. Isn’t this what we want our audience to see in us.

The ability to talk with conviction and belief far outweighs a one-dimensional tone of voice where the whole concentration is to make that sale and then move onto the next prospect.

Can you connect with your customers on a level far deeper that paying an invoice?

In Joe Pulizzi’s new book, Content Inc. he states, “if you focus on listening to customers first and selling second , it will open up new opportunities to position your company.”

Are you ready to acknowledge that being vulnerable is ok?

A lot of what I share is about the mistakes that I have made and the instances that haven’t worked. This provides me with a point of view.

This isn’t about having a weakness, it’s about acknowledging that you don’t need to take yourself too seriously. For others to buy into your story there has to be that element of normality.

During the recession, the local business papers/magazines always papered over the cracks by presenting a façade that the local economy was still booming.

It didn’t matter that businesses had paid for the privilege so they could take the half page ad, alongside the half page editorial. Let’s just be believable and open to an audience.

Let’s Round Up

By asking yourself these six questions represents the objective for you becoming the place where people get the information they want.

Your role within the marketplace changes from competing with everyone to building an audience around your approach.

A storytelling mindset is one of the key elements to creating an owned media approach that can build and grow your audience. It’s time to stand up and say to yourself that you are a storyteller. It’s time to get others around your campfire to listen and share.

When you’re conversing with a prospect, a teenager, or a team member, how does your brain choose the most effective words to connect your message to that particular person – and how do you know if there is a problem before it’s too late? How do you determine what to say, exactly, to effect real choice and change with folks who may have different mindsets and goals than you?

We’ve been through decades of Why, then What. But without the How, the Why and What can’t initiate choice or change: Recent brain research has proven that humans actually have no conscious access to the associations that drive our beliefs, biases, or behaviors. How do we get to our own, and Other’s, unconscious to enable change? How do we go beyond our own beliefs, biases, and behaviors to enable all that’s possible in any communication? How?

CONVENTIONAL QUESTIONS AND LISTENING FAIL

To get to the unconscious and real change, our habitual skills are inadequate:

Questions: our natural curiosity and inquiry-based questioning processes are biased – posed by Questioners from their restricted subjective experience (and curiosity, and assumptions) and predisposed goals; our conscious curiosity restricts possible outcomes and butt up against the limits of our Communication Partner’s (CPs) biases, assumptions, history, expectations and knowledge base.

Listening: we only hear what CPs mean to convey (and they hear us) according to habitual filters (bias, assumptions, triggers, memory). I spent 3 years writing and researching a book on how our brains prefer to reject anything we hear that makes us uncomfortable.

Goals: ‘Gather information’ and ‘Understand’ are biased by our own goals and biased questions and listening skills. Plus, we may be making false assumptions:our CPs have no conscious access to the full range of possible responses or change vehicles, and may not be in a position to accurately represent stakeholders. We’re gathering incomplete and inaccurate data; we’re sharing data our CPs can’t make sense of.

TOOLS FOR HOW

Doing what we’re doing now, it’s hard to facilitate the How of change which demands that the underlying beliefs, values, agreements, and structural elements of a system (individual or group) must shift congruently. Here’s the How of unconscious change:

Beliefs vs. Behaviors: our behaviors are representations of our beliefs – our beliefs in action, if you will. And our beliefs are what makes each of us ecologically sound. Until or unless beliefs (mostly unconscious) are engaged, buy-in occurs, and any potential threats to the underlying system are managed, change will not happen. Too many of us – coaches, sellers, doctors, leaders, parents, to name a few – base our connections on offering and gathering information (which accesses conscious behavioral data) causing us to succeed only with CPs whose unconscious beliefs are aligned. Otherwise, we’re merely pushing good data into a closed system and facing resistance. This is where we lose buyers, fail coaching clients, offer unheeded information to patients or teens, and have difficulties collaborating, implementing, or changing. To enable change, we must have an array of unbiased communication tools to engage our own and our CPs unconscious beliefs, which can’t be done by gathering or offering information. [Note: information gathering and sharing is necessary once the unconscious is ready for change.]

Change: change occurs only when all of the elements (all) of our unconscious that have created and maintained our status quo buy-in to the new. If we try to push change without first getting buy-in, our unconscious thinks there’s a foreign element pushing in and rejects it. This is the problems with implementations: even when the change is ‘discussed’ beforehand, it faces resistance due to the nature of the ‘information-in’ approach without engaging the unconscious systems elements necessary.

Insider vs Outsider: only insiders can understand, figure out, and make their own changes. Facilitators are outsiders and can never understand the system that re-creates the status quo every moment.

‘HOW’ DEMANDS REACHING THE UNCONSCIOUS

I have spent decades developing a ‘How’ model that’s used at the front end of questioning, data gathering, and data exchange. I know most folks prefer their habitual skills, intuition, and experience; but they rationalize any failure by calling buyers stupid, or patients un-educated or lazy, or say that clients don’t really want to change. Rather than considering the possibility that it’s our own skill sets that need enhancement, we continue what we’re doing and built our failures in (i.e. a 4% close rate in sales is deemed ‘normal’) as ‘acceptable’.

The real How requires helping CPs engage and manage their own unconscious. Facilitators must stop trying to meet their own expectations and facilitate Others in reaching their own – their way. Offering advice, pitches or information doesn’t make a dent, and as Outsiders, we’ll never understand anyway.

As a student of ‘How’ since I’ve been 11 years old, I’ve spent decades developing (and then training to global corporations) a ‘How’ process by unwrapping and scaling my systemizing Asperger’s brain, using NLP as a structural frame, and studying systems and brain science (a very cursory explanation of my lifetime of study and trial). My material uses a sequenced process of unbiased, systemic questioning and listening that gets precisely to the unconscious to make change, choice, and new decisionspossible. I’m eager to teach the material to anyone involved in facilitating excellence (sellers, marketers, coaches, negotiators, leaders, etc.) as I begin my retirement process.

Facilitative Questions: These questions engage unconscious systems and are NOT inquiry-based. They follow the brain’s sequence of systemic change, and use specific words, in a specific order, to engage specific elements of our unconscious in the specific path our systems take to reorganize around change without disruption. Note: these questions have been tested and trialed over 30 years.

Listening for Systems: We’ve never been taught to listen for the underlying system or metamessage or unconscious patterns that form the status quo. By hearing what’s meant we can formulate the right FQs. When listening for what we want to hear rather than what’s being meant, we circumvent success.

The Sequence of Change: There’s a generic, specific, systemic sequence that all change takes regardless of the circumstance (or industry, or situation. Change has identifiable, explicit, generic steps). Until or unless all elements (or stakeholders, or beliefs, etc.) are recognized, all the elements that maintain the status quo buy-in to change, and the system designs a route toward systems congruence, no change can occur.

Goals: We must become Change Facilitator first. Starting with ‘I need to know’ or ‘I seek a prospect with a need’ or ‘I need to offer this information’ impedes success. Without win/win, and Servant Leadership as goals, you’re a solution seeking a problem and merely find the low-hanging fruit.

WHAT TO DO?

So if you can’t ask questions, gather data, understand needs, or offer advice, what should you be doing instead? Here is the approach to How:

1.       Enter as a Change Facilitator/Servant Leader. Help others examine their unique unconscious system of beliefs and biases to determine what’s missing within their system to reach Excellence in the area of your solution. Ultimately, they’ll need to recognize what’s standing in the way of them having the beliefs and steps to support the congruent change and determine a way forward that incorporates all (all) of their unique criteria – and maybe your solution. They do this anyway – just without you.
2.       Begin the communication by listening for metamessages to trigger the
3.       formulation of your Facilitative Questions that
4.       lead your CPs through their unconscious status quo and enables them to discover
5.       what’s missing (at the unconscious level) for Excellence to occur, and notice any incongruencies.
6.       They must gather the appropriate people, policies, relationships, etc. and begin the change process. Once this is completed, THEN you can…
7.       Ask information gathering questions or give advice to those who are able to change congruently.

Always remain in a Witness, or Observer stance to remain unbiased. Obviously there comes a time when gathering/sharing data, or offering important advice, is vital. But save it for end when there is a readiness for change. It’s a systems thing. And I can teach you how to do this.

If I had my way, every scientist, teacher, doctor, seller, coach, lawyer, leader, and parent would know how to do this. For me, we all should be Servant Leaders to each other to enable good decision making for effective interactions. Sellers can find the right prospects on the first call and attend meetings with every stakeholder present; marketers can enter the Buy Path much earlier in the decision cycle by using Facilitative Questions; parents/doctors can inspire appropriate action; leaders can eschew their biases and facilitate change without resistance. I’m here to help those companies and individuals interested in learning the How of change.

Uses: Questionnaires, prospecting, advertising, assessments, teaching, therapy, leadership, coaching, relationships, sales/marketing, prospecting, closing, coaching, implementations, decision science/analysis, negotiation, consulting, doc/patient, legal, meetings, presentations.

___________

Sharon Drew Morgen is the author of 9 books on decision facilitation, Buying Facilitation®, and listening. Her award winning blog (www.sharondrewmorgen.com) has 1600 articles on sales, facilitation, change, bias, listening, questions, etc. She has trained over 100,000 people in dozens of corporations globally, and is recognized as a visionary and thought leader. Sharon Drew trains, keynotes, consults, and coaches sellers, coaches, and leaders. www.didihearyou.com; www.dirtylittlesecretsbook.com 512 771 1117. sharondrew@sharondrewmorgen.com

The What of How: ‘Why’ and ‘What’ are inadequate to enable action is a post from: SharonDrewMorgen.com

So you’ve been hired as the new VP of Sales in a manufacturing or distribution company and are excited about the opportunity to build a rock star sales team within a great organization.

Sounds great, doesn’t it? Well, don’t get too excited just yet. We hate to burst your bubble, but you should know that you’ve just been promoted into one of the most difficult jobs in the executive suite. Sales leadership is a great opportunity, but it also has an extremely high failure rate. The average tenure of the newly promoted or hired VP of Sales in most B2B organizations is about 18 months. This number reflects the difficulty of building a new sales organization, and the even more difficult task of rebuilding a sales organization when things have gone wrong.

But, it doesn’t have to be this way. In this post, we’ll walk you through some of the reasons why sales leadership often fails, who these failures affect, and what to do in the first 90 days to ensure sales leadership success.

Sales Leadership: Who it Affects

Of all the roles in a B2B leadership team, sales leadership might just be the one with the biggest potential to help or hurt a company’s business.

Consider this: in most manufacturing or distribution companies, when a manufacturing leader fails at his job, a new leader can simply be brought in to get things back on track, without it necessarily impacting sales and customer relationships. There may be some impacts related to the company being unable to meet production quotas, missed shipments, or problems with inventory, but these can be rectified more easily than rebuilding an entire relationship, as might be necessary if sales leadership hasn’t been doing their job.

So who’s impacted by sales leadership?

Companies: When sales leadership fails, companies miss their financial targets. Owners and stockholders lose money, and the cycle of belt-tightening may begin.

Employees: When companies miss their targets, employees may have to be laid off or miss out on bonuses.

Sales Teams: Ineffective sales leadership means that sales teams may not be meeting their full potential.

Customers: Customers bear the brunt of ineffective sales leadership, as instability in the sales team puts the customer in the position of having to retrain new reps about their preferences and needs.

Competitors: When a sales leader fails, who benefits? Your competitors.

Why Sales Leadership Failures Happen

Incorrectly diagnosing business problems and needs. This leads to implementing the wrong solutions to the problems that have been identified.

Lack of business understanding. Sales leadership fails when strategies are selected that do not reflect a strong understanding of the business, industry, or product.

Right programs, wrong execution. While the solutions that sales leadership selects may be workable, they can also be executed improperly.

Lack of engagement with the company. Sales teams that do not understand the importance of their role and potential impact on the company may lack motivation.

90 Days to Make It or Break It in Sales Leadership

As with any new job, the first 90 days are the most critical. This is the time when you should be gathering information, building relationships and beginning to develop the solutions that will deliver the results your company is expecting.

So what should you be doing in those first 90 days?

Gather Data. You are not going to be able to solve the problems in a new sales organization if you don’t know the issues you’re facing. The first and most important task is to gather the information you need to make a correct diagnosis. This doesn’t just mean looking at your team’s sales numbers, it also means getting to know the business, the members of your sales team and your customers. You should also be looking at the tools your team has to do their job. Perhaps they lack the tools necessary to be effective. These are the kinds of problems you should be looking to identify and address.

Identify Problems. Once you’ve gathered data, you’ll start to see patterns and be able to identify what is or isn’t working within your sales organization. Identify two or three problems that need to be solved right away, and prioritize a timeline for any other issues you may be seeing.

Seek Low Hanging Fruit. You’re setting the foundation for your tenure at the company in the first 90 days, so this is the time to seek out some quick wins that will inspire confidence in your sales leadership. However, it’s important to remember that quick wins and low hanging fruit do not make a strategy. Make sure these wins fit with your long-term strategy and use them as a business case that proves the solutions you are bringing to the table will work.

Develop Your Strategy. You won’t have budget or bandwidth to do everything at once, so you’ll need to pick the two or three solutions that will be most likely to work given the business issues you are seeing within your sales organization. This strategy should be fully fleshed out by the end of 90 days and ready to implement. It should include a budget, expected ROI, priority, timing and ownership – who will execute the strategy and how.

Communicate! Make sure to communicate your strategy and obtain buy-in from your team, company owners or executives, and any other department leaders whose cooperation you need or who may be affected by the strategy you plan to implement.

Are you a sales leader or looking to hire one at your manufacturing or distribution company? We’d love to hear what you think it takes to succeed in the comments.

Richardson’s 2016 Sales Challenges Study Highlights Issues in Conveying Value and Understanding Client Motivations

By Meghan Steiner

There is never a bad time for sales teams to take a good, hard look at their current processes and evaluate where they are running into issues. By identifying commonly occurring challenges during the different phases of the sales process, teams of all sizes can work toward refining their approach and mitigating the impact of those hurdles.

According to Richardson’s 2016 Selling Challenges Study, sales teams across industries often share common issues in their sales processes and run into similar challenges while negotiating and closing deals. The study surveyed more than 400 sales professionals, 85% of whom operate in B2B sales. Responses to several questions throughout the study highlighted issues with conveying value and understanding client motivations.

Conveying Value and Overcoming Commoditization

When asked about sales negotiations in 2016, 29.2% of respondents said “gaining higher prices” would be their toughest challenge for the year. This was the second year in a row that this concern topped the list, rising from 20.11% of responses in 2015.  

Conveying value to justify higher prices has always been difficult, but is even more difficult in a worldwide marketplace where commoditization can happen in the blink of an eye. The added layer of procurement to the process – with procurement coming in at the end of the deal and maintaining a laser focus on the overall cost of services – makes it more difficult for sales professionals to effectively negotiate. 

To meet these challenges in sales, sales professionals will have to retool their skill set and research processes to not only better convey the value of their product, but quickly dispel price-related objections with facts and statistics that speak directly to the client’s needs. Prioritize potential trades and do not make concessions without asking for something in return.

Changing Tactics and Strategies to Overcome Challenges in Sales

An overwhelming 48% of respondents stated that competing against low-cost providers was their single largest challenge in closing a deal, followed by positioning a competing value proposition (differentiating your product/service) coming in at 14.8%.

Competing against low-cost providers has been a recurring theme in the Richardson Sales Challenges study each year. Sales professionals are constantly tasked with finding new ways to bring insights and value to the sales meeting. Investing more time in understanding a prospect’s business, industry and metrics of success can go a long way in making a pitch stand out compared to more commoditized products. In fact, according to a Forrester report, 73% of buyers do not believe salespeople are knowledgeable about the business they are pitching to. Richardson recommends spending more time on industry research before a meeting to learn how to best address the prospect’s needs and the ROI they can expect with your offering. 

Responding to Changes in the Marketplace

Over 27% of respondents believed that finding ways to add relevant value for various stakeholders was their greatest difficulty in terms of managing an account.

Richardson’s study makes it clear that finding ways to convey value and align that value with the decision making processes of clients is the single biggest issue facing sales professionals today. This is facilitated by a rapidly evolving marketplace and a worldwide economy that has made it easier than ever for products and services to quickly become commoditized.

There has recently been a shift in earlier parts of the sales cycle – qualifying leads and lead nurturing – being driven by internal sales departments, sales development resources, and even marketing departments. To ensure success with these different departments, thorough training must be implemented from the start, instilling team members with strong sales skills, knowledge of a given product, and a deep understanding of clients / prospects and their respective industries.

Although the year is young, it’s important to take a deep look at the challenges facing your sales team and arm them with the tools to overcome them. Richardson’s 2016 Selling Challenges Study offers greater insights into the concerns of many sales professionals today. Download the full report here.

Meghan Steiner is the Director of Marketing at Richardson Sales Training. Meghan manages all demand generation and sales enablement efforts within the organization with the goal of creating new business opportunities.

Ten years ago, I hired a salesperson with incredible drive. He had recently lost everything—his job, his house, all his money. But he was hungry to get back in the game and work his ass off. He was under-qualified, but what he lacked in experience, he made up for in energy. So I took a chance on him.

I spent an excessive amount of time trying to train him, because I desperately wanted to be right about him. I worked nights and weekends with him. I coached him to nail down his sales pitch and aggressively pursue leads. But a year later, we weren’t seeing any improvement. He just didn’t have hustle—that killer instinct you need in sales.

I ended up wasting my own time and my new employee's time, just trying to get him to be good enough. By the time I let him go, not only was he out of a job, but he had just wasted a year trying to fit a role that wasn’t right for him.

He was one of many hiring mistakes I’ve made. And while I still believe in hiring based on attitude and not just experience, I’ve realized that risky hires need to be carefully and systematically managed to ensure they become successful.

Jack Welch’s hiring quadrant

The best sales hiring exercise I ever learned came from the infamous Jack Welch, former sales manager and CEO of General Electric. His classification system for employee archetypes has helped me better understand how to work with different kinds of people.

According to Jack Welch, every hire scales somewhere on the chart above in terms of capability (x-axis) and willingness (y-axis). Here’s how I’ve broken up these different archetypes:

• Capable and willing: I call these employees the rockstars. They’re both great at their jobs, and excellent culture fits. Rockstars work hard to cooperate with other team members, and their sales skills are spectacular.
• Capable and unwilling: These are the assholes. These are the employees that have an outstanding resume, close lots of deals, but are just nasty to work with. Assholes will sabotage your company culture and will end up destroying your team—if not your whole company—from within.
• Incapable and unwilling: The misfits are neither qualified, nor do they have extra zeal to make up for it. Similar to the rockstars, the misfits are super easy for hiring managers to spot.
• Incapable and willing: The underdogs are my personal kryptonite. These are the employees that have the heart, but don't yet have the skills. They're hard workers and have the highest growth potential in the company.

While most managers run straight to the rockstars, the best hires usually end up being the underdogs. The underdogs are enthusiastic learners, eager to absorb the ins and outs of the business. Coming in as rookies, they often have the greatest growth potential because while anyone can learn sales skills, no one else can learn the underdog’s hunger.

But underdogs present the toughest hiring decisions, because you have to bet on whether they have what it takes to catch up to the rest of the team. As a result, you need to walk a fine line between giving them a chance to meet their potential and knowing when it’s time to cut your losses and part ways.

How to work with underdogs

Underdogs are such tempting hires because they are often greatly undervalued candidates. They’re not applying for the job to work for a few years and then move on. They are looking for a growth opportunity to kick-start their career, so whoever offers them that opportunity will earn their allegiance and undivided attention.

But not every underdog is a success story. Sales requires a grit and hustle that they might not have. The trick in dealing with underdogs is knowing when to call it quits, since the more time and money you invest, the more emotionally invested you become, and the more difficult it will be for you to make a rational and objective decision when to call it quits.

By setting up a bullet-proof system for evaluating the performance of a new hire, you’ll accomplish three things:

1. Weed out underperformers by setting your expectations in stone.
2. Enable those who have what it takes to succeed by holding them to high standards.
3. Set the same expectations for all your sales reps.

Gauging your expectations will help your underdog achieve top results and succeed within your company. Here are four questions to ask yourself when preparing to hire them.

1. Does the underdog walk the walk?

Due to the psychological concept of illusory superiority, most people overestimate their capabilities. For example, in one survey of Stanford MBA students, 87% of the student body claimed that their academic performance was above average.

Likewise, people tend to exaggerate their work ethic. They think, “Well, I could be hardworking if I wanted to be.” So some applicants will fool managers into thinking they’re underdogs when they’re actually just cleverly-disguised misfits.

Since their performance won't be up to par yet, pay particular attention to how new hires spend their time to see if they’re as hungry as they claim:

• Check to see if they are eagerly taking notes and learning the processes
• Get feedback from their peers to see how well they’re absorbing new information
• Ask for concerns from the hires themselves to get a sense of how motivated they are to improve

You hired the underdog because you thought they’d dig deep and give you their all. If their work ethic is anything less than excellent during onboarding, think about how they’ll act in six months. Cut your losses quickly if you were duped in the interview process by an undercover misfit.

2. How long are you prepared to wait for them to catch up?

In just the US and UK, companies spend about $37 billion dollars annually to keep on unproductive employees who do not understand their jobs. To stop yourself from falling into this trap, set a time limit before you hire the underdog in the first place.

You’ll need more time than you think. Sales managers drastically underestimate how long it should take someone to get the hang of the processes. Training a new sales rep typically takes 7 months, but over 27% of employers judge the success of an entry-level employee in just two weeks.

So I recommend that you decide how much time you think catch-up should take for someone with no sales background, and double it. Setting time expectations before hiring the candidate lets you know when to cut your losses should his passion and work ethic not make up for his lack of experience.

3. How will you onboard this hire?

Training a new sales rep is a time-consuming process, so it might be your first instinct to let the underdog have at it himself. But studies have shown that 40% of employees who receive poor training leave their jobs within a year. You hired the underdog because you thought he had the right zeal for success. The last thing you want to do is set him up for failure.

Underdogs will require more attention than more qualified hires to succeed. That means that the training responsibility falls entirely on you, as the manager. Since underdogs have the greatest growth potential in the company, you want to make sure you equip them to meet their full potential, and be the stars of your workforce.

You can do this by having a metrics-based training program set in stone:

• Measure performance through things like time to close a sale, or amount of emails that resulted in a qualified lead.
• Use these metrics to pinpoint their strengths and weaknesses, and work with them on improving them.
• Delegate some training responsibilities to more experienced staff members to improve team dynamic.

To see whether your training program is working, have a weekly 1:1 with the new hire yourself. This way you can see first-hand whether any progress has been made.

4. How will you measure success?

Being data-driven is a surefire way to stop yourself from making excuses for the sympathetic underdogs. So make sure that your final evaluation of their performance is quantitative and not qualitative.

Too many managers set expectations either unreasonably high (equivalent to their top performers), or unreasonably low (because they’re newbies). The ultimate benchmark should be equal to the average performance among your sales reps.

This benchmark is the minimum performance expectation—anything below, will indicate that the employee wasn’t worth the investment. You are not hiring an underdog because you want an employee with a free pass— you’re hiring an underdog because his hunger and energy gave you the impression he was capable of not just catching up, but excelling.

So, if doubling the amount of time you anticipated isn’t enough for the underdogs to meet your standards, then you'll know that it’s time to let them go.

Turn your underdogs into rockstars

Keep in mind that every rockstar employee once started out as an underdog. While an underdog requires more training and work than other applicants, should they persevere, their allegiance and passion will make them some of the best employees you’ve ever worked with.

What sets underdogs apart from other hires is their contagious passion. They are so energized by their ambitions that they will stop at nothing until they’ve reached their goals. And while most sales skills can be taught, this superb attitude cannot.

If you catch these gems early, you’ll find that the underdogs can have a spectacular, long-lasting impact, both on overall sales performance and on the team dynamic—making them well-worth the risk and the investment.

Recommended reading:

The ultimate sales hiring guide for B2B startup founders!
This is the ultimate sales hiring guide for startup founders. Learn when to hire salespeople, who to hire and how to manage them at every stage of your sales process.

My startup hiring interview hack: Why? Why? Why?
Interview hack: Why? Why? Why?  This is a simple strategy to x-ray through the bullshit answers applicants give you and get real insights into what makes them tick.

The sales rep onboarding hack
Want to accelerate your sales ramp up, train new reps in less time? Here's a scalable strategy for onboarding new sales hires.

As I sat on a sales and marketing panel last week, the question came up, “How do I get through to my prospects? Should I email them or call them?”

The audience member sat down, and I blurted out, “Phone Flank! Use the phone flank!” It was as if I was looking out at a herd of deer staring back into my high beams.

“The Phone Flank is a strategic mix of email marketing and phone sales,” I explained. “Not only does it save you valuable time; it helps you pinpoint your warm prospects to make quick sales.”

Now, I was Tony Robbins and I had just shared the secret of eternal success. I’ve never seen pencils hit paper that fast…

So what is the Phone Flank?

Well, let’s put ourselves in the shoes of Emperor Julius Caesar. It’s 48 BC, and our Roman forces are facing the army of Pompey in the Battle of Pharsalus. We’re outnumbered four to one, but we are in friendly territory.

(In business, we are outnumbered by competitors, but the digital identity we create through our website, landing pages, and email marketing campaigns is what generates an environment for warm leads.)

Our army’s size has been cut in half, and we can’t reach our supply cache. What’s more, we face an army of thousands (competitors) hurling javelins through the air (messages, calls, and posts.)

Instead of battling this deadly roadblock head-on, we spread the majority of our troops to engage on multiple sides (email marketing) and call up a special battalion to ride directly toward our opposition (phone calls.) With this coordinated assault, we’ve now found our open flank, and we can attack and win the day.

By emailing our prospects, we engage our target with a custom-branded, professional looking email campaign offering something of value to the reader. Let’s say the value comes in the form of an eBook download or a link to your latest sales promotion — our readers will feel like it was worth their time to open and click. And that’s what matters in this battle… CLICKS!

The Phone Flank incorporates the AIDA principle in a two-part strategy: a targeted email marketing campaign and a timely outbound calling campaign.

By first emailing our prospects, we can draw attention and create interest with a professional-looking campaign while gauging the level of desire by measuring our open and click results. We can then drive action by performing a targeted phone call campaign to those who clicked on our email.

Ready to get started? Check out this video for a step-by-step look at using the Phone Flank for your business:

When I joined Abacus, I was the first business hire on a 5-person team. At the time we were trying to figure out how to structure the sales machine, the marketing machine, the support machine and almost everything else.

Thankfully, we live in a time where you can accomplish much more with the right technology in place. We were able to stay lean by adopting systems that helped us work smarter and faster. There’s a SaaS solution for almost everything.

One of the first things we wanted to do was make sure we had the right tool set, so we spent a lot of time evaluating solutions. After a bunch of hits and misses, we eventually came up with an approach for buying sales software.

Conduct an Internal Audit

Take some time to become familiar with the tools your team is using. It’s more than likely that reps have gone ahead and adopted new tools just to help their own individual workflows.

Whether those are tools such as Salesloft, Clearslide, or Join.me, knowing what is currently in place can help you shy away from software whose features may overlap with your existing tools. Most importantly, you need to get real feedback about what they like, dislike and need.

You’re likely trying to architect a workflow that solves for 15 different pieces, and your reps have probably independently solved for a few of them – now you can focus on the gaps.

Identify Your Needs

Before soliciting feedback from my team, I map out my ideal workflow for whatever the solution does. After collecting feedback, it’s easy to figure out where the misalignment is. It’s either going to be something where you have visible gaps, or it’ll be something where it’s tough for reps to stick to the right process and they skip steps.

Building a ranked list of your needs is a key step. There’s so much sales software out there that solves different and overlapping areas, so it’s important to understand your needs first to make sure you find the solutions that specifically target your focus areas.

I like to categorize my needs into two buckets:

1. Productivity optimization
2. Doing things “the right way” (ex: correctly storing leads in a CRM so you can efficiently recycle, assign and suppress against).

Now you can start to research and reach out to vendors you think could be a good fit.

Question Your Vendors

Sales reps know how they want to present their software – what features to hit on and what order to go through in their presentation.

Since reps are used to mechanically following their presentation plan, I like to start the demo by laying out everything I’ve discovered about my needs up to that point along with the things that I am looking to solve. It helps me ask the curve ball questions up front and also helps the rep better tailor the demo.

Asking the curve ball questions keeps them on their toes, and informs me of how their software solves my unique needs or whether I’m thinking about the process all wrong. I’ve definitely been coached into re-working my strategy a few times.

It’s also important to give the sales rep the time to go through all the features that could be relevant to you. It’s not always easy to understand a certain feature from the start but it’ll be something you want to keep reference of as your team scales and new things become relevant.

After a demo, here are some typical questions I hit on:

• What does your typical buyer look like?
• When your customers are successful, what features do they love?
  • What other tools are they using with this?
• Why did you lose deals in the past?
• What questions did you wish I asked?
• What’s on the product roadmap?

I also love talking to other companies about what tools they’re using. It’s the most helpful gut check. Asking around, especially with peer companies that are about 12-18 months ahead of you, can help you understand what sales tools they used to use and what triggered changes.

Testing

I try to do demos and evaluations with at least three vendors (rule of 3’s). After that, it’s time for trials, the fun stuff.

I pick one or two people internally to test the software for a week and get their feedback. I’ll check in with them every day to get general feedback on how it’s going and then at the end of the week, really dive into what they liked and didn’t like about the software.

You will have already mapped out your ideal process in step 1, so you can do an audit of whether everyone is sticking to the plan.

During the trial, stay engaged with the sales rep – make sure what they said before holds water now. They may have said something during the demo that isn’t on point with how things actually works. Call them with any problems that may come up during the demo to make sure you’re getting the most out of the trial. I really value buying software from responsive teams that are able to make adjustments quickly.

Purchasing

After the trial process, there’s almost always a clear winner. You’ve already screened for budget, you’ve seen the features and how they work for you and now you’re ready to buy.

For the most part we don’t negotiate price because we jump for the month-to-month contracts instead of an annual deal. As an early-stage company, we love the flexibility. There’s also so much advancement in the market, that you want the optionality to review new vendors.

After The App Is Live

Always be screening. As mentioned, we like to go month-to-month because of how easy it is to switch if need be.

If people reach out to you for new software, it’s worth it to look at a demo (live or recorded). You never know, it could make your work more productive or solve a problem that has recently cropped up in your organization. It’s what we see with Abacus all the time.

It’s what we see with Abacus all the time. We talk to companies already using Expense Management tools, but once they look at what we do, it becomes an entirely new conversation that surfaces up opportunity. Constantly be open to new and better software.