Rnordman

I shouldn’t even have to say this, given we’re all adults and common sense should rule the day, but here goes …

It is one thing to CLAIM authority.

It’s quite another to DEMONSTRATE it.

The LinkedIn Gold Rush

These days, I can’t click a mouse or swing a cat without hitting a “Guru,” “Ninja” or self-proclaimed “Expert” in my LinkedIn news feed.

I call it the LinkedIn Gold Rush … people are starting to realize just how powerful this platform is, and everybody is rushing in to capitalize.

I realize too it’s become hip these days to call yourself a “Ninja,” or “Guru,” “The Chuck Norris of Sales Training” or something similar. (And I’m not here to put others down who brand themselves that way.)

But here’s some free advice for those folks (including myself) who make our living trying to identity as an “expert” on a specific topic, industry or niche … we must PROVE IT before we can CLAIM it.

Teaching Sells

If you want to win more people over, if you want to sell more of your product or service on LinkedIn (or anywhere, really), you need to go back to school.

You need to teach people. And what I mean is this: Give your ideal clients or prospects fun, free and informative lessons on how to achieve THEIR GOALS using your product or service.

Or, alternately, give people a reason to pay attention to you – SHOW them you are an expert. If you do, they’ll be eager to read every post, video or piece of content you publish moving forward.

That will earn you copious amounts of attention and trust, which is critical.

I’ve never forgotten this advice from John Michael Morgan: Your “ask” must be in direct proportion to the amount of TRUST you’ve earned with a prospect or potential client.

It’s one thing to ask someone to sign up for a free webinar based on a blog post or series of free tips … it’s quite another to ask someone to pay for a premium training program.

With all that in mind, here are several steps you can take to utilize the “Teaching Sells” approach with YOUR brand or business.

With the list below, notice how each step builds more trust and offers a proportionate “ask” of your audience.

Level 1 – Small Share, Small Ask

The tactic: Free blog post or quick tip via video.

The “ask”: Sign up for my email list or attend my free webinar.

Level 2 – Bigger Share, Bigger Ask

The tactic: A free training series (multiple blog posts, emails or videos) done via email autoresponder or a series of blog posts or videos housed on your website.

The “ask”: Sign up for my free webinar, jump on the phone for a free consultation, join me for a free product demo, etc.

Level 3 – Biggest Share, Biggest Ask

The tactic: A free webinar, training session, speaking engagement or similar long-form teaching.

The “ask”: Purchase my product or service.

Remember the Bait!

Please understand … you CANNOT sell until you EARN someone’s trust.

And your good looks and winning smile aren’t enough … you must have something of VALUE to give your prospects before you ask for anything in return!

Here’s a simple analogy … if you want to use LinkedIn to go fishing for prospects, you need bait!

It’s not enough to just drop your hook and line into the water. We see this WAY too often – people asking for our time, attention or money without first earning it.

You might as well spot a fish in the water and just yell, “Seriously, bite that hook! Dude, I’m telling you, you won’t be disappointed! Trust me!”

Imagine instead if you slipped a fresh, fat worm onto the hook … wriggling and writhing, doing the dance it does to attract the attention of a hungry fish.

I guarantee you’ll get way more attention – and bites – when you use better bait.

Put serious effort into creating great content that not only demonstrates your credibility, expertise and authority, but also helps your ideal customer move closer to his or her goals.

The Best Bait

As much as I enjoy writing (I spent 15 years as a journalist and have authored 7 books), Public Speaking, Podcasts and Video are the fastest way to build up the trust needed to sell products and services.

The reason is simple: People buy when they’re emotional.

When people see and hear you (video and audio), they react more emotionally then when they just read words you’ve written on a page.

People will hear the passion in your voice, see the expressions on your face … and as a result they’re able to connect with you on a much deeper, more emotional level. It moves them more quickly into the “Know, Like and Trust” zone that is the sweet spot for all things sales.

Testimonials Trump Most Everything

One last thing: When we talk about what our product or service has done for others, how it has transformed their life or business as a result, it makes selling much easier.

There’s a reason every infomercial since the dawn of television features one “real” person after another touting the incredible benefits and transformation of a product or service.

Potential buyers or clients want to know that other, regular people “just like me” have had success not only understanding and using your product or service, but have actually achieved remarkable results in the process:

• I lost 40 pounds!
• I generated 500 new leads in 60 days!
• I saw revenue increase 210 percent!

Understand this: You can NEVER have too many testimonials. Ever. I’ve talked before about how to double the value of the testimonials you get here on LinkedIn, and I’m obsessed with collecting as many legitimate kudos as I can.

I have testimonials EVERYWHERE … on the signup page for my free webinar … on my sales pages … anywhere I can find a place to put one!

Better yet, I work hard to feature the work of my most successful students – professionals who have used my product or service. When I can point to someone like Karen Nierlich or Chad Rippy and show you how they are crushing it on LinkedIn, it provides critical social proof.

To go back to the beginning, it helps DEMONSTRATE authority instead of just CLAIMING it.

Your Turn

Are you demonstrating authority? Or just claiming it?

Also, what type of bait are you using to court customers on LinkedIn? Have you created any yet? Let me know in the comments!

I’ll end with an email just came in from former NFL player Romeo Bandison, who took my tips on headline writing and turned his LinkedIn blog into a monster:

“John – I had over 4,000 views on my blog. But now I have to respond to all the comments. How do you do it? I blame you for teaching me how to write good titles!”

I’ll take a note like that any day … wouldn’t you?

Want More Tips Like This?

Click the image below to download my Free eBook “8 Secrets to Selling More on LinkedIn” and register for my Free Webinar on using LinkedIn to generate more sales leads, clients and revenue:

☞ Click here to register and download the free eBook!☜

New Yorkers are hitting the slopes streets.

While the snowstorm that's currently bashing the East Coast is nowhere near over, hardened New Yorkers have no intention of staying inside just yet. And while a large snow accumulation is a welcomed addition to the snow-less winter NYC has been experiencing this winter, heading to the nearest slopes isn't a good idea until the storm stops.

So instead, New Yorkers are hitting the streets. Multiple people were spotted on the roads, sidewalks and parks of New York City practicing their cross-country city skiing. Or maybe they were just trying to get a bit of exercise. Or maybe they were just heading to the bodega. Read more...

More about Nyc, Skiing, Watercooler, Pics, and Climate

ALGIERS, Algeria (AP) — Algeria's government is raising the alarm over what it describes as a large influx of Moroccans crossing its territory to reach Libya.

Without offering numbers, the Algerian state news agency reported Saturday that the country's minister in charge of North African affairs had met earlier with the Moroccan ambassador to report the unusual number of people crossing from the Casablanca area in recent weeks.

Islamic State has been increasing its calls for Muslims to join its extremists in the lawless parts of Libya, and Moroccans in general make up an unusually large number of its recruits.

Algeria told the ambassador that Moroccans who head to Libya without documentation will be sent home.

Join the conversation about this story »

SlideShare earned its nickname “the quiet giant of content marketing” for good reason. It’s one of the most powerful, influential platforms on the Web.

Repurposing your blog content as a SlideShare deck is a great way to stretch that blog content, give new life to old blog posts, and add more value to the original blog. It helps you publish without having to create content from scratch.

Also, turning your old blog content into a SlideShare deck uses content you’ve already got to drive more traffic to your website and help you build your email list.

In this post, you’ll learn exactly how to turn old blog content into a new SlideShare deck.

Why SlideShare?

LinkedIn believed so much in the power of SlideShare to engage their readers that they bought the company back in 2012. LinkedIn CEO Jeff Weiner noted, “Presentations are one of the main ways in which professionals capture and share their experiences and knowledge, which in turn helps shape their professional identity.”

SlideShare is one of the top 100 most-visited sites in the world, with over 80 percent of its 70 million visitors coming through targeted search.

As of this writing, SlideShare’s global Alexa rank is 142. Just over 24 percent of the people who visit SlideShare come through Google.com, with another 6 percent coming in from international versions of Google.

To sum it up, SlideShare has a lot of authority.

It’s easier for you to rank for a topic in search results if you create a SlideShare deck versus a simple blog post.

(Kissmetrics makes a compelling case in their post, The Marketer’s Guide to SlideShare. This is recommended reading if you want to learn how use SlideShare for more than just repurposing your blog content.)

How to Turn a Blog Post into a SlideShare Deck

Start with a post that already performed well. This way you know it’s a hot topic for your target audience, and it’ll be easier to revive audience interest with the new visual content.

Slide decks communicate content with words and images. So blog posts that have strong visual elements more easily translate into compelling decks.

69 Experts Share 2016 Marketing Predictions by Bryan Kramer smoothly transformed into a fascinating SlideShare deck.

Educational, how-to and list-format blogs also work especially well in slide format. Your latest “Top 10 Tips” post can easily convert into a deck with one tip on each slide.

Kevan Lee wrote If Don Draper Tweeted for Buffer with a list of 27 copywriting formulas. Buffer then turned it into a slide deck with the 10 best formulas specifically for social media headlines.

Use either PowerPoint or Keynote to create your deck.

Then, plan your visuals. Check out the featured decks on SlideShare’s homepage — this will give you some inspiration and help you understand what visuals are speaking to SlideShare users right now. Recent slide trends include:

• Photo backgrounds on title slides
• Screenshots of related social media posts
• Bios within the first few slides, instead of at the end of the deck

Finally, write your copy. Take the most important points from your blog post and put them into your slides. The deck should reinforce what you’re trying to say in your blog post, and simplify the content to get the message across quickly.

Here are some things to keep in mind when you’re writing your slide deck copy:

Keep the Copy Short and Pointed

Think of your slide deck as a visual snack for your audience. Each slide should be a nibble.

Keeping the copy short is important not just because the human attention span is shorter than that of a goldfish (true story), but because how we read slides is different than how we read other forms of content. Slide decks are visual mediums.

You might have heard about the “1–6–6 rule” for creating slides. The idea is that each slide should cover one idea and include no more than six bullet points with a maximum of six words per bullet point. This post from John Zimmer illustrates how that rule can get ugly — fast.

I like the “three second rule” from Nancy Duarte: People should be able to comprehend your slide in three seconds.

Reid Hoffman used only one sentence per slide for his deck about the myths of startup financing.

No matter which rule you follow, use fewer words than you did in your blog post and make every word count. Each slide should have no more than one or two sentences, and should make a single point.

And for goodness’ sake, proofread before publishing!

Use Calls to Action (CTAs)

Using CTAs in your deck allows you to direct the reader to the next step you want them to take — read the full blog post, sign up for your mailing list, etc.

Any object or text in a slide deck can have a hyperlink. Just make sure it’s clear to the reader that the object is clickable.

• Use buttons that visually stand out
• Underline contextual links
• Use clear and active language (download, contact, get the full report, etc.)
• Use arrows if you need to!

Unbounce and Brian Clark put their heads together to create a deck about copywriting for conversion. Check out the double-whammy CTA on slide 26: an underlined link with active language in the URL.

Type Out the URL for Some Links

To make it absolutely foolproof for your SlideShare reader to see, copy and share the links within your deck, type out the URL on the slide for at least one of your CTA links.

Use a shortened URL, such as a Bit.ly link, for this.

If the embedded link isn’t working for the reader, or if they’re worried about malicious links, being able to type the link into a browser can help overcome objections and move the reader toward the next step.

Look at the last slide on Nancy Duarte’s deck about using comedy in presentations for an example of a shortened link in action.

4 ways to stretch the deck

Upload your slide deck to SlideShare and start promoting. Here’s how to stretch that deck — and your old blog content — much further.

1. Post the SlideShare deck to social media

Put the deck on Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook and even Pinterest for improved engagement with your social media posts.

As it says in Copyblogger’s SlideShare deck, The 3-Step Journey of a Remarkable Piece of Content remarkable content starts with the eyes.

Tweets with images receive 18% more clicks, 89% more favorites and 150% more retweets than those without images.

Socialbakers.com looked at the top 10% of posts made by more than 30,000 Facebook brand pages and discovered that posts with photos saw 87% of total interactions.

LinkedIn makes it easy to upload SlideShare decks to your profile page, too. Those decks can become an engaging part of your LinkedIn professional presence.

2. Use the deck as a sales tool

Create SlideShare decks from blog posts that answer your customers’ frequently asked questions. This will help you illustrate your answers while giving your audience unique content they’ll remember (and share).

• Embed the deck in your website’s FAQ page
• Send customers a link when they email you with a related question
• Use the deck in your sales conversations (especially helpful when you’re on a video call and you can share your screen)

3. Embed the deck on the original blog post

Embed the deck on the original blog post page for an added content bonus.

This isn’t a content upgrade in the strictest sense because there’s no email gate, but it still gives readers more value from the post. Plus, the human brain is wired to share knowledge in order to build our social currency — and delivering something new (as opposed to a typical, all-text blog post) triggers that sharing impulse.

Plus, adding a SlideShare deck to a blog post helps illustrate the information for readers.

See how Pamela Wilson did it on this Copyblogger post.

4. Boost your mailing list signups with a CTA

You can link a SlideShare deck back to the original blog post so people who find the deck on the SlideShare site are driven back to your website. But you can also link it to a squeeze page or landing page to turn the deck into an email list-builder.

Include a CTA at the end, or in strategic places throughout the deck, and point the link to a page with a sign-up form.

Content marketer Sonia Quinones placed a link to a landing page at the end of her SlideShare deck about creating white papers.

Make it clear in your slide deck copy what action you want the reader to take, and how taking that action benefits them.

Now Spin That Old Blog Content into SlideShare Gold

For more information about creating a great SlideShare deck, check out this post. It includes more best practices for turning written content into winning decks.

Former B.C. finance minister Carole Taylor is joining Premier Christy Clark's staff as a special adviser, The Vancouver Sun has learned.

The US smart home market has yet to take off. Quirky's  announcement that it was filing chapter 11 bankruptcy — and selling off its smart home business, Wink — highlights this well.

At its current state, we believe the smart home market is stuck in the 'chasm' of the technology adoption curve, in which it is struggling to surpass the early-adopter phase and move to the mass-market phase of adoption.

There are many barriers preventing mass-market smart home adoption: high device prices, limited consumer demand and long device replacement cycles. However, the largest barrier is the technological fragmentation of the smart home ecosystem, in which consumers need multiple networking devices, apps and more to build and run their smart home.

In a report from BI Intelligence, we analyze current US consumer demand for the smart home and barriers to widespread adoption. We also analyze and determine areas of growth, and ways to overcome barriers.

Here are some key takeaways from the report: 

• Smart home devices are becoming more prevalent throughout the US. We define a smart home device as any stand-alone object found in the home that is connected to the internet, can be either monitored or controlled from a remote location, and has a noncomputing primary function. Multiple smart home devices within a single home form the basis of a smart home ecosystem.
• Currently, the US smart home market as a whole is in the "chasm" of the tech adoption curve. The chasm is the crucial stage between the early-adopter phase and the mass-market phase, in which manufacturers need to prove a need for their devices.
• High prices, coupled with limited consumer demand and long device replacement cycles, are three of the four top barriers preventing the smart home market from moving from the early-adopter stage to the mass-market stage. For example, mass-market consumers will likely wait until their device is broken to replace it. Then they will compare a nonconnected and connected product to see if the benefits make up for the price differential.
• The largest barrier is technological fragmentation within the connected home ecosystem. Currently, there are many networks, standards, and devices being used to connect the smart home, creating interoperability problems and making it confusing for the consumer to set up and control multiple devices. Until interoperability is solved, consumers will have difficulty choosing smart home devices and systems. 
• "Closed ecosystems" are the short-term solution to technological fragmentation. Closed ecosystems are composed of devices that are compatible with each other and which can be controlled through a single point. 

In full, the report:

• Analyzes the demand of US consumers, based off of survey results
• Forecasts out smart home device growth until 2020
• Determines the current leaders in the market
• Explains how the connected home ecosystem works
• Examines how Apple and Google will play a major role in the development of the smart home
• Some of the companies mentioned in this report include Apple, Google, Nest, August, ADT, Comcast, AT&T, Time Warner Cable, Lowe's, and Honeywell.

Interested in getting the full report? Here are two ways to access it:

1. Subscribe to an All-Access pass to BI Intelligence and gain immediate access to this report and over 100 other expertly researched reports. As an added bonus, you'll also gain access to all future reports and daily newsletters to ensure you stay ahead of the curve and benefit personally and professionally.» Learn More Now
2. Purchase & download the full report from our research store. » Purchase & Download Now

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What would it take to get your life decluttered and organized? That might be a tall order for many of us, but the truth is, we could do it in bursts and spurts, using a handful of easy-to-follow rules.

Read more...

People have to be ready for the truth before it can be revealed. That’s a theme of the riveting, award-winning movie, Spotlight, which recounts how the Boston Globe newspaper laid bare an ecclesiastical and political coverup of rampant pedophilia by more than 87 Roman Catholic priests and brothers.

With success comes many things — including a greater number of relationships and more requests for help.

The day I declared that I was hosting an angel investment network was the day my circle of relationships seemed to grow exponentially. Suddenly there was a new swath of people who were “friendly” toward me. It’s nice to feel useful, though there is a point at which the number of relationships and requests becomes overwhelming. How on earth do you keep in contact with all these people? How can you meet all the requests they make of you?

The feeling of being overwhelmed can paralyze us — like a rabbit caught in the headlights of an oncoming car, we freeze, not knowing which way to go. Or we can try to please everyone by saying yes to everything — like a rabbit hopping randomly all over a garden. By attempting to do everything, we exhaust ourselves. And whichever way we react, we never get where we want to go.

There is an alternative to people paralysis and people pleasing: review your relational ecosystem and recalibrate your relationship priorities so that you can allocate your resources accordingly.

First, clear out some time on your schedule and use it to write a list or draw a mind map of all the people you spend time with — and all the people you wish you saw or talked to more frequently. It may be helpful here to flick back through your diary, your social networks, or the contacts in your phone.

Once you have a picture of your relational ecosystem, count the total number of names and apply Pareto’s 80/20 rule: Think about your most important relationships and highlight the top 20% of them. For example, if you have written down 150 names, 20% would be 30 names. These 30 people are the ones I recommend you deploy 80% of your time, energy, and resources with. Proactively set up regular lunch dates, walk-and-talks, coffees, and face-to-face encounters. You can get creative and commute to work together, take up a shared hobby or interest, or bring together a small group of peers who could support one another and start a mastermind group.

Now consider how you can invest in the other 80% of the relationships in your ecosystem. This is often the harder challenge because your time, energy, and resource allocation are more limited.

A “networking” approach would say to “drop” or “prune” the other 80% of people and just focus on those who can be most helpful to you. But while you can’t have a deep relationship with everyone you know, building authentic relationships means treating everyone well. So save 20% of your time, energy, and resources for these relationships. Develop an approach for both keeping in contact with these people and finding efficient ways to help them when they ask.

Keeping in touch

If you move the people you see fortnightly to monthly, monthly to every other month, and quarterly to biannually, you double the time you have for these less-close contacts.

Creating a regular social event can also be a great way of keeping up with second-tier contacts. You might want to think about organizing something two or three times a year for just this purpose. Alternatively, you could start an online discussion group to keep in touch. These approaches also have the advantage that you can add value to your relationships by introducing people to one another.

Handling requests

You can’t always say yes to all the requests you receive, so look for efficient ways to meet the requests. Talk on the telephone rather than meeting face to face. Refer the asker to other people who may be able to help, especially if they could be a better help than you could. And sometimes the answer simply has to be “No, I’m sorry, I can’t help on this occasion.”

In these ways, you can continue to invest, nurture, and protect your relational ecosystem — which is the greatest determiner of your ongoing personal happiness and professional success.

The post 3 Sources of Fuel for Sophisticated Content Marketers appeared first on Copyblogger.

Finding myself reading Maria Konnikova's new book, The Confidence Game, as a report broke from the BBC and Buzzfeed this week regarding match fixing in tennis, was an interesting convergence of reading and current events.

Tennis is the only sport I play, and one of the only I’ll wake up at 2 a.m. to watch when streamed from halfway across the world. It was impossible to miss the release of this news. The report invaded the consciousness of even non-tennis fans, and I was asked about it a lot in the first two days following the splash. Because I nerd-out on tennis insider podcasts on occasion, the news didn’t surprise me as much as others. I was aware of match-fixing at the lower levels of the sport, and aware of the few sanctions that had been handed out as a result.

This new report pointed to players in the top 50, players who, one assumes, the casual fan recognizes. But that’s the funny thing about tennis. If you don’t watch the opening week of a Grand Slam, or tune in to top tournaments streamed from places like Acapulco, Kuala Lumpur, Istanbul, and ‘s-Hertogembosch, then you are unlikely to be aware of the next levels of the sport which include the Challenger Tour and the ITF Futures. Much like baseball, there are plenty of professional tennis players who are traveling the country or the world, trying to make a living from a sport that barely pays their expenses.

Despite the million dollar payouts to the very top players who are taking home trophies—if Serena Williams wins this year’s Australian Open, she will take home another $3 million, on top of the monies she has collected from winning over 20 Grand Slams in her career—but someone who traveled to Australia and lost in the first round of qualifying? $4000. And even if you made the main draw and didn’t have to play through the qualifying rounds, and won your match before losing in your next, you’d leave with $35,000. Considering the cost of travel, lodging, food, clothing, equipment, coaching, and, if you can afford it over time, a fitness trainer and a hitting partner, you can imagine that $4,000-$35,000 isn’t going to last very long. The investment, both in yourself and in your team, in order to improve to the levels of the sport that will actually make you money, is incredibly large, and often disheartening.

(The always-excellent Jon Wertheim from Sports Illustrated explains how the economics of tennis make match-fixing possible, if you’re interested in more.)

So when people are outraged by the idea that gambling on the sport has opened it up to corruption in regards to match fixing, offering deals to players to bail on a match, or even a set, or even a number of games, it’s not terribly surprising that some players take the deal. The men’s tour’s top player, Novak Djokovic, now worth something like $50 million dollars says he was offered $200,000 to throw a match a decade ago. We scoff at that in light of the successes of his career, but think what that $200,000 would mean to a player who can’t hope to make that much in one year of traveling the world.

(Wertheim writes more succinctly than I: “You can place a wager on the Tampa Challenger, to pick an event at random. At this tournament, a first round loser earns $104. Someone offers him $200,000 to dump a match and it’s easy to see how temptation could trump morality.”)

There are any numbers of motivations for people to do bad things, things that are considered unethical to the majority. One can understand, to some degree, those tennis players who make somewhat shady choices in trying to boost or elongate their careers, even if you don't empathize with them. (And no doubt there are players who also take these offers to afford less noble pursuits.) But ultimately, when we choose to compromise our values, we do it because we believe that what we are doing is either essential in the short term or will somehow benefit us in the long term. When we want something badly enough, that desire compels us to take a short cut or balance the risk versus the reward. And that’s what Maria Konnikova is intrigued by in her new book, The Confidence Game: Why We Fall for It… Every Time. Why do people con other people? And why do people believe the cons? Of course Konnikova’s other agenda is to give us instruction in how not to be suckered in.

This book is not a history of the con. Nor is it an exhaustive look at every con there ever was. It is, rather, an exploration of the psychological principles that underlie each and every game….

 

I’m not sure how many tennis players (or other athletes) make questionable decisions about their career via scheming managers or questionable advice or skillful cons, but I do think that we all can stand to reflect on how and when there is a risk we get “taken.”

It’s the oldest story ever told. The story of belief—of the basic, irresistible, universal human need to believe in something that gives life meaning, something that reaffirms our view of ourselves, the world, and our place in it.

 

Konnikova goes so far as to assert that it’s actually easier to be conned than to resist a con. Because belief is so essential to us from birth: “it’s better for us to be more trusting. Trust, and not adeptness at spotting deception, is the more evolutionarily beneficial path.” So con artists only have to figure out what it is we most want, how to deliver that thing with some kind of assurance of reward, and then take the money and run, as it were. Do any of the people who approach tennis players first warn the player of the risks they are taking? Do they warn the player that they could get caught, sanctioned, or dependent on a questionable source of income? Likely not. Instead, I would imagine they offer a rosy picture of what that money will make possible. Another year of coaching. A car. A chunk of money to send home to parents who sacrificed for the development of your skills.

I know, I know. I’m totally letting the players off the hook, but is putting the responsibility squarely on their shoulders to blame the victim, and let the perpetrator off the hook? “The confidence game—the con—is an exercise in soft skills”, Konnikova says. “Trust, sympathy, persuasion. The true con artist doesn’t force us to do anything; he makes us complicit in our own undoing.” We aren’t innocent when we don’t do our due diligence of a situation that is unethical or dangerous, and certainly in some situations we are complicit, but the temptation wouldn’t be there if the con wasn’t offered up to us on a silver platter in the guise of our heart’s desire.

Give us a compelling story, and we open up. Skepticism gives way to belief.

 

Certainly we don’t want to live in a constant state of distrust. There will always be ways in which the vulnerable are hurt, and there will always be people whose self-interest makes them behave in unreasonable or inconsiderate ways. So there is only so much we can do to protect ourselves because con artists are labeled “artists” for a reason: they are very good at crafting situations to which we are defenseless. And our own psychology does us no good:

If it seems too good to be true, it is—unless it’s happening to me. We deserve our good fortune. I deserve the big art break; I’ve worked in galleries all my life and I had this coming. I deserve true love; I’ve been in bad relationships long enough. I deserve good returns on my money, at long last; I’ve gotten quite the experience over the years.

 

So, we are wired to trust, and we are adept at convincing ourselves that positive things were earned. And the victim is rarely weak; instead, the victim is usually in a situation of particular vulnerability. Mediums, for example, have a population coming to them who have lost someone important in their lives, who are looking for some kind of reassurance that that person either still exists in the universe or that there is life after death. The victim may be singularly tough in every other aspect of their lives, but open to a con in that one.

All cons, Konnikova tells us, proceed in similar fashion:

The put-up is all about choice of victim: learning what makes someone who she is, what she holds dear, what moves her, and what leaves her cold. After the mark is chosen, it is time to set the actual con in motion: the play, the moment when you first hook your victim and begin to gain her trust.

 

Konnikova is an engaging storyteller, beginning each chapter with a compelling con and breaking up the retelling with examples of smaller grifts and scientific findings. Like the best con and grifter movies, Konnikova’s book spans the globe and is often about the pursuit of the most valuable things: money, love, art, power. But, even as she herself spins wonderful tales, she warns us to be wary of storytelling.

Stories are meant to entertain and educate, to pass the time and record it. They are so natural that we don’t notice how much they permeate our lives.

 

That’s precisely why they are such a powerful tool of deception, and so vital when it comes to the play. When we’re immersed in a story, we let down our guard.

 

And there is no more effective story than one that employs emotions. If we have a visceral reaction to the tale being told, we are far less likely to use reason when judging the situation. Con artists use narratives to entrance their prey, making it difficult to unhook from their part in the story. That’s the Play.

That point from Konnikova reminds me of a decision I made a couple of weeks ago. I don’t often stop to give folks who are begging on the side of the road money. I suppose I am somewhat cynical of their true need to be there, asking for help, and hesitant to ‘buy’ their story, whether that story is written on a sheet of cardboard or through the person’s presence. I don’t want to be caught out as gullible. But it’s also true that I rarely carry change or small cash, so even if I were so moved, I would have nothing to give. I make exceptions occasionally. I’m more inclined to stop for someone with an apparent disability if I have the money at hand. And when the weather is terrible, I am far more likely to give out. It seems to me that the panhandler is telling me a story through his or her willingness to stand out in the pouring rain or the frigid cold. And I believe that this is the only work they can get or do. They certainly are working far harder than I am, sitting in my warm and dry car and driving to my warm and dry house or office.

Most recently, on a deadly cold night, I was driving home from the mall, where I’d done some shopping (and perhaps feeling some amount of guilt?) and I drove past a woman asking for change, and it was evident that she was absolutely freezing, and not dressed to be out for long in the snow and sub-zero windchill in what she was wearing. I passed her by, once again, knowing I had no cash, but then I turned around, pulled beside her and asked her if, sans cash, I could buy her a coffee from the Starbucks down the road. She assented gratefully and requested a white chocolate mocha (which, of course, stood out as being a bit fancier than a coffee, but still… she deserved it for her willingness to stand in the cold) which I bought—venti—and she accepted it gratefully.

Sure, I can look back and wonder if she choose that place in the city to stand particularly because there is a Starbucks. Or if she knows she will make more money if people feel bad for her standing in the cold. But that’s okay. For me, there is little that gives me more of a visceral reaction than the idea of animals, children, or the homeless in the freezing cold. I’m okay with being rooked, if I was, because the weather was unquestionably bad, and if I had been standing there, I’d have been cold. What her designs were doesn’t matter, because the story I’m telling myself I’m sticking with.

And that’s the next stage of the con, Konnikova explains: The Rope.

The rope, then, is the alpha and omega of the confidence game: after finding a victim and lowering his defenses through a bit of fancy emotional footwork, it’s time for the actual persuasive pitch.

 

The story of the Tale is different from the story of the Play: the Tale is that which we tell ourselves. It’s the moment when the con stops being exterior and starts to grow interiorly.

One of our fundamental drives is the need for self-affirmation: we need to feel worthy, to feel needed, to feel like we matter.

 

And because of that need to be right, or, rather, to not be wrong, we tell ourselves all sorts of things. Another way to put it might be “in for a penny, in for a pound.” So when we find ourselves in the middle of a situation, we often would rather plow forward rather than write off our investment. Especially if what we bought into was some sort of grandiose understanding of ourselves.

Whatever you call it, it means the same thing: we believe we are singular, whatever the circumstances … Regardless of the specifics, we hold an unwavering commitment to the notion that we are special—and not just special, but more special than most anyone else.

 

We believe what we want to be true. And that’s why so many Ponzi schemes and other examples of financial fraud happen. The victims wanted to believe that they were clever enough to get in on the ground floor, that they were the few to suss out the special case/great tip/secret sauce. Again, it’s our natural tendency to be positive, to believe everything will work out that makes us gamble even on the unreasonable. Why do most parents believe their children have the makings of greatness?

The confidence artist will do everything in his power to bring our better-than-averageness front and center. Grifters appeal to our vanity not about just anything, but about the things that are most central for us—after all, they’ve spent the entire put-up casing our psychology.

 

Optimistic biases are among the strongest we experience. And so, just as the convincer is irresistible to the mark, so too, can it prove the downfall of the confidence artist.

 

We’ve established a bond of trust with our deceiver—he’s been good to his word so far.

 

 Even after we start to experience the signs that things are not what they seemed to me, we do everything in our power to rationalize or even ignore those obvious indications that we are being conned. Most of the time, this is a helpful tendency. You know of any number of people who have suffered through traumatic events and been able to get through them “being selective in our perceptions.” But that also happens when someone gets conned.

Once we suspect we’ve been taken advantage of is exactly the moment when we are the most inclined to double down. Konnikova explains in chapters “The Send and the Touch” and “The Blow-Off and the Fix” that, again, our internal defense mechanisms are set to protect us from being duped, and, in fact, we aren’t aware even how little we can do in the net of a skillful con man who robs us of our control.

That certainty, alas, is an illusory one. It’s the belief that you can always control your exit, a subset of a broader category of beliefs in your ability to control events even when they’ve gone beyond your reach—the illusion of control. We recommit and are taken for all we’re worth, visions of send and touch at once, because we never get out of any situation in time.

 

And even after our injury has been revealed, the reason we often allow cons to get away their machinations and affront, and to take our losses painfully but quietly is because we simply don’t want people to think we were suckers.

            We are ourselves are the grifter’s best chance of a successful blow-off: we don’t want anyone to know we’ve been duped.

 

Perhaps the con that intrigues observers the most intently is the religious or spiritual cult. While your mileage may vary in regard to which religious orders out there are cults, why people invest their savings and their souls in certain leaders or groups has certainly been the stuff of movies and books. And with “The (Real) Oldest Profession,” Konnikova circles back to the key ingredient to why we all are vulnerable to the con: belief.

Con artists, at their best and worst, give us meaning. We fall for them because it would make our lives better if the reality they proposed were indeed true. They give us a sense of purpose, of value, of direction. […] That, in the end, is the true power of belief. It gives us hope.

 

Some might say that professional sports are the greatest con of all. The NFL touts itself as America’s Game, but hides and ignores the damage done to those who sacrifice their bodies in the name of that game. Baseball is called our National Pastime, but its players got caught up in a game of doping for better endurance and explosive hitting in order to gain more fans. FIFA has Blatter; cycling has Armstrong; boxing had Mayweather and Pacquiao. And now tennis has match-fixing. We believe in the integrity and more important ‘best efforts’ of those who entertain us with their sporting prowess. We want to believe what we see. And we cannot look away. Instead we spend billions of dollars and millions of hours falling for some great con every time.

There’s a fundamental distinction between strategy and operational effectiveness.

– Michael Porter

The sales stack is messy

Last year brought an influx of new technologies to the sales world—ranging from automatic call transcription to social selling engagement platforms—promising no shortage of “solutions” to any and all sales problems. Eager investors followed, spawning a new technology segment representing over 300 companies with $10B in venture funding. However, with change comes complexity. How do salespeople find their way through this sea of new tools?

Your sales team shouldn’t be spending hours looking for solutions and self-testing—you should be on the forefront and solving problems before this happens. Remember: salespeople should be selling, not searching for answers to their problems. That’s your job.
PeopleLinx announces new release as sales tech landscape takes shape – VB Insight

And it gets worse…

The specialized sales model has added further complexity, leading to a fragmented marketplace of point solutions.

Outbound prospecting for highly targeted lead flow – David Skok

This proliferation of tools has done little to help the buyer make a choice. More to the point—who is the buyer? Traditional sales ops departments focus on optimizing sales processes and evaluating tools for efficiency, not necessarily competitive advantage.

Solution: The $500 Framework for Evaluation

As complexity increased in the sales process, many organizations, including Responsys (acquired by Oracle), formed departments dedicated entirely to driving revenue via productivity improvement. During my tenure at Responsys, I had the pleasure of speaking with Jason Lemkin during ToutApp’s Series A fundraising round. Jason made a very pointed directive that stuck with me:

Given $500 per month/rep, stack rank your spend on sales technology one through five

#1

The $500 limit forces us to make a very difficult decision: which technology will actually move the needle for the sales person? This will often lead to the following stack rank:  

1. Salesforce (or similar CRM provider): ~$120/seat
2. ??
3. ??
4. ??
5. ??

Salesforce commands the #1 spot for the majority of organizations, as historical data is required to ensure every individual is up-to-date with the most recent customer interaction—what matters most is 2 through 5. CRM matters, but you need much, much more than a pure data warehouse. Data is the heart of every successful sales organization.

#2 & 3

The highly coveted #2 spot has several placeholders, however, what is often overlooked is how the potential technology can be integrated within a salesperson’s entire workflow. As sales becomes specialized, the Sales Development team has been an early adopter of sales technology. A recent survey of 70 Sales Development teams by sales consultancy firm TOPO found that 100% of teams had adopted LinkedIn Sales Navigator (a roughly $100/month purchase) – indicating a strong-hold on the # 2 spot. While LinkedIn holds the keys to a large dataset, their data is one-dimensional and lacks context.

As a result, sales teams have searched for data beyond the profile, which has spawned the creation of several data tools/services that serve specific buyer personas (DiscoverOrg for IT or InsideView for Sales/Marketing). These providers generally claim the #3 spot.

Sales Development Council #3 – TOPO

#4

Data operates in a silo without customer interaction. Once future customer data is sourced, sales leaders generally shift their focus (and budget) to distribution channels for their message—email, phone, online conferencing, etc. The process of generating a live interaction (either in-person or online conference) requires investment in channels that can activate the buyer: email, phone, and social. Due to a large number of factors, email continues to be the most cost efficient channel for activation—and technology that facilitates lift in effectiveness and/or efficiency often secures the #4 spot.

#5

In 1876, Scottish emigrant Alexander Graham Bell invented the telephone. The phone continues to be a powerful distribution channel in today’s business environment. However, with the advent of mobile phones and reduction in number of land lines, distribution effectiveness via phone has seen a steady decline. As a result, technologies that seek to drive operational effectiveness through power dialing and data are often landing the #5 spot.

The $500 Triangle

The modern salesperson (regardless of specialization) operates in an interconnected triangle:

1. Data: (firmographic/individual): Needed to drive meaningful interactions
2. CRM: Historical record and data source of prior interactions
3. Workflow: Required to activate and conduct interactions

Using this model, sales leaders should assess potential technologies based on derived revenue impact to the associated triangle component. If we assume that the #1 spot is customer relationships management (CRM) then the #2 spot will include technology providers that deliver two-dimensional contextual data.

The race for staying relevant is on—causing consolidation across the technology landscape. This is particularly evident by an increasing number of integrations between technology platforms (Infer and InsightSquared, Outreach.io and Datanyze) and broadening of product portfolios (ToutApp Prospect Builder, SalesLoft Sales Dialer and KiteDesk REACH).

As the market evolves and bundles point solutions into platforms, sales leaders need to rely on their own metrics to make effective technology investment decisions. Death-by-case-study has become common, which is fueled by vendors trying to deliver value.

Therefore, understanding interaction conversion metrics throughout the customer journey will surface opportunities to solve bottlenecks:

Customer Interaction Funnel

Look for problems, not solutions

The sales function can generate differentiated advantage (read: cost leadership vs. differentiated advantage), however you must take a holistic view of the organization. You face a tough choice: New technologies can create value and drive customer experience, but how do you pick the right one? Do you focus on becoming an early adopter of a new platform to get first mover advantage among your industry peers? Do you hone in on existing processes and optimize, optimize, optimize to kill your competition with efficiency?

In part two, we will delve into the murky waters of collecting feedback, technology trials, defining success, and selecting a partner. We will provide a framework for building a business case and describe how technology can be used to beat your stretch goal.

The post The $500 Framework for Evaluating Sales Technology appeared first on Sales Hacker.

With so much content out there on how to increase your landing page conversion rates, it’s easy to get carried away and think that with every new element you add you’ll see a surge of new conversions.

But that’s not always the case.

The last thing you want is to have your landing page looking like a garage sale from the 1980’s. While there might be some interesting trinkets here and there, it’s probably not the best experience for your users.

In this article, I’ll show you how to eliminate distractions and focus your landing page on it’s primary goal: conversion.

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Eliminating Distractions

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It’s natural to want to convey a ton of information to your users as soon as they arrive on your landing page.

The problem is, if you hit your users with too much content, they’ll get overwhelmed, won’t be focusing on your offer, and will probably end up leaving your page.

That’s what we call information overwhelm, and it can cripple your conversion rates if not dealt with effectively.

Below are two case studies of companies who squared off with the problem of information overload by deleting entire sections of content in order to eliminate distractions.

The result?

Let’s just say “mo content, mo problems”.

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Eliminating Distractions Case Study 1:

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The SEO service company TheHOTH tested two variations of their homepage which had been converting at around 1% using a signup form.

They knew a couple factors going into the test:

People converting were mainly coming from direct search, referrals, and word of mouth
These people were already familiar with their brand
Explaining what their business was about might be redundant to these users

Here’s what their original homepage looked like:

As you can see this page is content rich, and follows best practices in the sense that the form is above the fold, includes testimonials, and has a clear value proposition with clear headlines and descriptions.

Despite all these facts, the page was still converting at around 1%. They decided to strip away all content that wasn’t pushing visitors towards their conversion goal.

Here’s what their variation looked like:

As you can see the variation was a very simplistic form which got right to the heart of what the page was designed to do: sign up people who were already familiar with their business.

The result?

A conversion rate increase of 13.3% for the variation! Not a bad boost if you ask me.

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Eliminating Distractions Case Study 2:

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AssesmentDay, a company that specializes in delivering aptitude tests to job seekers, wanted to increase their conversion rates for a landing page located inside of a Wiki Jobs page.

Rather than adding additional content to persuade their users to convert, they decided to test eliminating entire sections of content.

They tested two versions, one with no FAQ section, and one with no screenshots section:

What did they find?

By removing one content section (FAQ’s and screenshots) from each variation, the landing page performed 50- 60% better than the original. What’s interesting however, is that when both sections were removed in tandem, conversion rates actually dropped around 3%.

So what does this tell us?

There was too much content on the page. That was proven. But the page still needed enough content to persuade a user to spend $19.99 on an online test.

When designing a page for conversion, always consider the length of your page in relation to the magnitude of the product or service being offered.

For smaller offers, smaller pages can suffice. For larger offers, longer pages are often needed.

In this case, the best route was testing the removal of entire sections to see what extra pieces of information were positively affecting conversions, and which could be removed.

For more information on optmizing the legnth and content of your landing page, see my colleague James’s article “7 Landing Page Mistakes that are Costing You Conversions.”

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Focusing for Conversion

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Once you’ve cleaned up your landing page by removing unnecessary sections and only providing the information your users NEED to know in order to convert, it’s time to start thinking about how you can focus your page for conversion.

There are a number of different techniques which can be used to focus a page. For the sake of brevity though, I’ll outline the 3 main strategies which I believe will have the greatest impact on your page’s overall focus.

While you don’t need to implement every one of these, using them in combination will help to create a hyper-focused landing page.

1. Directional Cues

Directional cues are one of the most powerful and subtle ways to direct a user’s attention towards your call to action. There are two main types of directional cues: eye direction cues, and arrow and linear cues.

Eye direction cues work by having a person look in the direction of your focal point. As humans, we’re instinctively curious about what other people are looking at. Once we identify a person on the page, our eyes will naturally be drawn to where their eyes are looking.

Take a look at an example of an eye direction cue used by KISSmetrics:

Notice how after seeing the man on the right, your eyes automatically go to the form? While it might appear on the surface that the attention is on the model, the direction that his eyes dictates the focus of the page and in turn focuses the attention on the form.

Another example of a directional cue is a arrow, or linear cue. These types of cues can be very subtle, as in this example of an indented arrow on a salesforce form:

Or they can be very blatant as in this example of a arrow pointing towards a CTA:

Either way, all three versions of these directional cues serve to draw a user’s attention to either the form or CTA, making them a great tool in influencing the way your landing page visitors interact with the page.

2.Color Contrast

When elements of a page are too similar in color, it becomes difficult to differentiate between different sections and naturally guide your user where you want them to focus their attention.

That’s why utilizing color contrast is so important on any landing page focused on conversion.

Take a look at these two landing page variations:

Which one do you think converts better?

Unless you really like blue, most people would rightly say the variation with the orange CTA would convert better.

And they’d be right.

That’s because the call to action pops off the page by using the design principle of color contrasting.

Using heatmaps on both landing pages, we can see the click data that led to difference in conversion rates.

On the all blue variation, we see how dispersed the clicks were throughout the page:

Since there was no contrasting CTA, people were much more likely to click on various elements on the page (most of which were not interactive).

Now take a look at the click data from the second landing page:

As you can see the majority of clicks (75%) are concentrated on the main CTA buttons.

3. Blank Space

The last of element we’ll be looking at in order to focus your landing page on conversion is blank space.

Remember when I said you didn’t want your landing page looking like a garage sale?

If you have a ton of content on your landing page, one way to declutter and increase the level of focus is to add white space around your different elements. This could include headlines, forms, buttons, important images, and text.

By white space I don’t literally mean space that is white (although you could choose the color white). What I mean is blank space in a contrasting color to help emphasize that content area.

Here’s an example of a page that uses the idea of white space well:

You could also try literally adding white space around certain key elements such as your CTA on pages where there’s a lot of stuff going on.

This is one way of really making your CTA button pop out amongst a sea of other content.

Putting it all together

Hopefully understanding and applying these core design principles will help you achieve your landing page conversion goals.

One of the problems we see time and time again is landing pages that are too cluttered, lack clarity, and don’t provide the necessary information that will encourage people to convert.

If you want to focus your landing page on conversion but don’t know where to get started, I’ll leave you with three questions to ask yourself to get going. If your landing page is in alignment with all three of these questions, then you’re off to a good start.

• Who is viewing my page and what do they NEED to know?
• What is my core conversion goal?
• In 5 seconds or less, can a user determine what’s important on this page? (Think directional cues, color contrast, and blank space).

Do you know the value of your customers?

More specifically, do you know the value of your customers throughout their lifetime with you as it compares to what you spent to gain those customers?

I know, I know…we should all place the highest value on our customers but I’m not talking about some ethereal, emotional stuff or your company culture here. I’m talking about real numbers – the true monetary value of your customers. You absolutely MUST know this metric!

The overplayed excuse of “my company is different” doesn’t fly here. (For the record, it doesn’t fly for any core growth or marketing metric. No business is too complicated or different to know how they’re actually performing.)

The good news is that this article will help you figure out your LTV:CAC, along with why it matters to your company’s overall performance. As a reminder, you must first know your Customer Acquisition Cost before you can apply this formula.

Let’s get to it.

What is LTV:CAC?

While the name of this metric sounds long and complicated, the actual definition is quite simple.

LTV:CAC is an estimate of the total value your company receives from each client in comparison to what you spent to acquire that client.

The formula itself is a simple ratio calculation. We’ll dive into how to derive this ratio shortly, but let’s examine why this ratio is even important.

Why Your LTV:CAC is so Important

Put simply, your LTV:CAC ratio allows you to easily define your Return on Investment (ROI) performance and develop a more educated growth strategy.

For example, a higher LTV:CAC means your sales and marketing teams are delivering more ROI to your bottom line. In other words, a higher customer lifetime value coupled with lower acquisition costs always results in stronger ROI.

Yet, believe it or not, the highest possible LTV:CAC is not always an ideal end result. “Are you crazy?! Who wouldn’t want the highest ROI possible,” you ask?

Well, consider this…

A LTV:CAC that’s too high often means that while your current customers are delivering great ROI, your new customer acquisition initiatives may be suffering – reducing the speed of your business growth. Thus, you must use this metric as a benchmark against your general business growth goals.

Like most things in life, the key here is balance.

The LTV:CAC Formula

To determine your LTV:CAC, you must first have a grasp on your Customer Lifetime Value (LTV). Here’s how to determine your LTV:

LTV = (Customer Revenue in a Period of Time – Gross Margin) ÷ Estimated Churn % for that Customer

Now, once you’ve got that figure you can simply compare it to your Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC) expressed as LTV:CAC.

Let’s look at a quick example:

LTV = $500,000
CAC = $150,000
LTV:CAC = $500,000:$150,000 = 3.3 to 1

Beyond Your LTV:CAC

So what makes a good LTV:CAC?

Unfortunately, I can’t answer that for you since you’re the only one that can say whether or not this ratio aligns with your revenue and growth goals.

However, at least you now know how to derive this number from your current metrics and apply it toward your own growth strategies.

Determine how to find several more growth driven metrics in my agency’s free guide: The 6 Metrics Your Boss Actually Cares About

Consumers buy from people they know, like, and trust.

It’s a common saying in the sales world.

Even if you’ve never heard this saying, you still know it’s true.

It’s especially relevant in the world of entrepreneurial sales.

Here’s the bottom line: if you want more people to say “yes” to your offer, they need to know, like, and trust you. What does this mean?

It means you need to focus on building a stronger relationship with your prospects and customers. It’s a key component in building a thriving business. The better you are at building relationships, the more likely it is that you will succeed.

Why? Because people don’t buy for rational, logical reasons. They buy for emotional reasons.

That’s right. Buying decisions are based primarily on emotion. Of course, this doesn’t mean there is no logic involved. It just means that if you want more people to buy from you, it’s a better idea to focus more on what your prospect feels rather than what they think.

That’s where likability comes in. The more likable you are, the better your prospective buyers will feel about you. The better your prospective buyers feel about you, the more likely they are to buy.

You may be thinking “But I’m already pretty likable!”

I’m sure you are. I’m sure everyone loves you. Heck, I love you!

But likability is a skill. Which means it can be honed. You can still become better at being likable.

This post will show you how.

Let The Other Person Do The Talking

Here’s one of the most effective likability hacks you can learn and start implementing today: Shut up and listen. Yes, that’s it. Stop talking and hear what your prospects are saying.

Not only do you need to listen more, you need to encourage your prospects to talk more. You need to get them to talk as much as possible.

If you’ve ever read “How To Win Friends And Influence People” by Dale Carnegie, you know that the best way to ingratiate yourself to others is to show genuine interest in them. When you encourage them to talk, you ARE showing genuine interest.

People love this. No really, they do.

Think about it…everyone wants to be heard, right? Everyone wants to be listened to.

If you choose to be the person that wants to hear what others have to say, they will have a much more favorable impression of you. That’s why listening is so crucial.

The best way to encourage others to talk is to ask great questions. Using open-ended questions is a highly effective way to get your prospects to open up to you.

Try it. You won’t be disappointed. I guarantee it!

Find Similarities

Let’s face it. We’re all narcissists. We are drawn to people who are most like us. We like that sense of familiarity.

It makes us feel more comfortable. It makes us more trusting. It makes us feel all warm and tingly inside.

That’s why you need to identify areas where you and your prospect are similar. Find things that you both have in common and make sure you highlight these areas.

The more you show your prospect how much you have in common, the better your chances are of persuading them to buy from you. This is another area where good questions can help.

Here’s some questions you can ask to discover areas of commonality:

• Where are you from?
• What sports are you into?
• How many kids do you have?
• Have you traveled a lot?

The cool thing about this is that no matter how different you are from your prospects, there will always be things that you have in common. Find out what those things are and make sure you talk about them. Make it a part of your conversation.

Focus On Rapport, Not Selling

Want to know one of the most deadliest mistakes you can make when you’re speaking with a prospect? Showing that you care more about your prospect’s wallet than you do about who they are.

You know exactly what I’m talking about.

We have all had horrible experiences with horrible salespeople who rush right into the sale. They’re not at all concerned with you as a person, they just want your money, and that’s it. They don’t even bother to pretend like they care about you.

Don’t be that guy. Please.

I know it can be tempting to rush right into the sale, but it’s really not a good idea. Try to establish a relationship first. Build some rapport.

Get to know the person you’re trying to sell to.

Even though you may be looking to do business with a particular prospect, it’s okay to “let your hair down” a little. Let them see your human side. Get to see theirs.

Most prospects will appreciate the fact that you’re not “all business.” Take some time to chat about things that are not related to business. You’ll have plenty of time to talk about business later.

If you become good at building rapport, you will greatly increase your chances of closing more deals. Not only that, it will help you increase the loyalty of your customers.

Show Gratitude

Gratitude is powerful. Incredibly powerful. It is one of the most effective ways to become more likable.

If you want to deepen your relationships with your prospects, you must use gratitude. When you express gratitude you show your prospects that you see them as more than just a paycheck. That’s what most consumers want from the companies they decide to do business with.

Everyone wants to feel important. They want to feel like they matter. It’s one of our deepest needs as human beings.

The best way to make someone else feel important is to express gratitude. When you tell someone that you are grateful for something they did, it shows them that they are important. Find things that your prospects and customers have done that you are grateful for.

If it’s a prospect that you’re meeting with, let them know that you’re grateful for the fact that they are taking time out of their day to meet with you. Let them know that you realize they are busy and tell them that you appreciate their willingness to speak with you.

If it’s a long-time customer, tell them how grateful you are for their business and loyalty. It will go a long way towards making sure they don’t go to your competition.

Conclusion

Likability is one of the most important factors in entrepreneurial selling. Without it, selling can be incredibly difficult.

If you want to turn more prospects into customers, focus on the relationship. Show them that they matter to you.

If you do this the right way, you will close more deals. Period.

 

Originally published on Artisan Owl Media.

This is the third in a series of three blogs about what experts feel companies did well in 2015 and what they would do better in 2016. The panelists include:

 

Ardath Albee – Marketing Interactions

Miles Austin – Fill the Funnel, Inc

Jeffrey Hayzlett – The C-Suite Network

Dave Kurlan – Objective Management Group

Matt Heinz – Heinz Marketing

Mike Weinberg – New Sales Coach

 

… plus I pulled some additional comments pulled from Mikogo’s Sales Trends & Challenges in 2016 – 12 Experts Share Their Predictions (I am one of the experts). 

Today we will hear from Mike and experts from the Mikogo post (here's part one & part two of this three part series):

 

Mike Weinberg

Author of New Sales Coach is glad to see the return of “reasonable thinking.”

 

What B2B Companies Did Well in 2015?

One the things I was most pleased to see with many B2B companies (and in the sales blogosphere) in 2015 is a return “reasonable” thinking when it came to inbound marketing and social selling regarding their place in a sales effort. Executives came to their senses and stopped listening to the hysteria that these new methods were the fix for all of their sales issues. The crazies preaching that prospecting and traditional methods of developing new business had died were proven wrong, and if not silenced, many have been quieted. Oh, the new sales “experts” are still making plenty of noise, but it’s generally contained to their own sphere of influence with like-minded Kool-Aid pushers. Companies who were duped into believing that “everything had changed” and that “nothing that used to work still works anymore” experienced a wake-up call once these wonderful new methods didn’t deliver the promised results. It’s a relief to see a return to a balanced approach to selling, and those sales teams who best blend new methods and old, using all means available, had, and will continue to have, the most success.

 

What They Can Do Better in 2016?

To create lasting and sustainable sales performance improvement, sales managers need to free time up to invest in higher-value sales leadership activities. Companies need to remember the sales manager’s primary job and stop burying them with unimaginable amounts of crap that has nothing to do with leading the team or driving new revenue. And mangers must stop playing CRM desk jockey and get back to the basics—meeting 1:1 with their people, conducting great sales team meetings, and getting out in the field with reps. Imagine what might happen to sales results if sales managers actually spent the majority of their time on high-value activities that moved the revenue needle instead of playing firefighter-in-chief, sales administrator, or living with their heads buried in CRM screens and their email!

 

Note from Dan: If you have not already read Sales Management. Simplified. … go out and buy it. Mike provides the blueprint for 1:1 meetings, great sales meetings, and how to work with reps in the field. Here’s part one and part two of an interview with Mike Weinberg about his newest book.

 

12 (Summarized) Expert Opinions on Sales Trends & Challenges in 2016

Read the original article from Mikogo titled: Sales Trends & Challenges in 2016 – 12 Experts Share Their Predictions

 

I was very pleased to have been asked to respond to Mikogo’s Sales Trends and Challenges in 2016. You can read the complete report by clicking the link above, but here is a sampling of responses from me and other experts:

 

Chris Ashley – Kissmetrics: Sales professionals that previously relied on building rapport over the phone will need to adapt and learn how to utilize current technologies to open those same doors…

 

Trish Bertuzzi – The Bridge Group: 2016 is the year we will modify our sales process to truly reflect how our buyers want to buy. Every interaction with them will be well thought out and deliver value. No more making them “earn” the right to information. We will put it at their fingertips.

 

Nancy Bleeke – Sales Pro Insider, Inc.: Smart company leaders will look for ways to remove the process, technology and fluff that keep their company from growing.

 

Matt Heinz – Heinz Marketing (yes, he is everywhere): 2016 will be about more B2B marketers than ever embracing revenue responsibility.

 

Jason Jordan – Vantage Point: Training dollars and accountability will migrate from the sellers to their managers, and improved performance will soon follow.

 

Jill Konrath – JILL KONRATH: Learning agility will emerge as a critical skill necessary for both sales leaders and salespeople. Sales professionals will continue to struggle trying to keep up with increasingly complex decisions, the demand to “know more” and new technologies. All this, combined with an endless flow of information and distractions, will decrease productivity—when their entire organization is focused on increasing it.

 

Andy MacMillan – Act-On: Marketing will expand from predominantly acquisition marketing to retention, expansion and advocacy, and we will see the role of CRM and the marketer evolve into the new stewards of customer relationship.

 

Kyle Porter – Sales Loft: Account-based approach will have prospectors, inside sales reps, AE’s and top of the funnel demand generation professionals focused on a set of very relevant and highly targeted accounts. All of their efforts will be focused on converting these accounts from contact information to paying customer.

 

Dan McDade – PointClear: As lead quality improves (while quantity declines), sales will struggle to approach each prospect as a market of one. Rather they will be in selling mode rather than listening mode early on and lose to a more consultative, insight based approach.

 

Lori Richardson – Score More Sales: We will see one or more companies with more complete technology solutions to help B2B sellers and marketers cohesively.

 

David Meerman Scott – Freshspot Marketing: 2016 will be the year of “Newsjacking”; and educating and informing rather than interrupting and selling.

 

Colleen Stanley – SalesLeadership, Inc.: The “Amazon” effect will continue to force sales organizations to get clear on their differentiators, add more value to the customer experience or resign themselves to be replaced by a drone.

 

Final Thoughts from Dan

I don’t believe the solution to the current alignment challenges is technology (nor do I think our panel feels that way either with rare exception). Marketing needs to work on small battles before they are recognized as worthy of a seat at the table with sales. For years marketing has dumped raw, unfiltered, poor-quality leads on sales which sales has routinely ignored (for good reason.) There is an opportunity to start small with additional contacts and relevant insights into a few target accounts as a way to opening up a new chapter with sales. What sales needs to do is to let marketing enjoy a few wins.

 

I hope you have enjoyed these three blogs and best wishes for 2016!

Full-path marketing attribution is a relatively new concept. As more and more companies embrace multi-touch attribution, one is compelled to “boldly go where no man has gone before.” And full-path attribution is the next stop on our journey across the final frontier of B2B martech capabilities. Thus far, no one’s doing it yet, but it’ll gain traction in 2016.

Full-path attribution is the next iteration of multi-touch attribution. It extends the W-shaped multi-touch model into a full-path phenomenon. Here’s what I mean.

This graphic below shows W-shaped multi-touch attribution. You’ll notice the looping “W” of the model’s shape. Multi-touch attribution tracks the first-touch, the lead-conversion, and the opportunity-creation touchpoints across a buyer’s marketing journey. The major marketing touchpoints (first, lead, opp) are each given 30% of the revenue credit for the sale. The remaining 10% is sprinkled evenly across all other touchpoints that helped the buyer along their way.

While the usefulness of this model is far and above single-touch models, which had been widely used before today’s martech expansions, it still only tracks a portion of the funnel.

The “opportunity” through to the “customer” portion of the funnel remains a mysterious haze of outbound calls, content downloads, nurturing emails, sales collateral, and in-person demos. Using full-path attribution can clear the fog and reveal which touchpoints in the BOFU stage are most useful in converting opps to customers.

Across these four key funnel stages, 22.5% of the credit is distributed across the main conversion touchpoints, and the remaining 10% is still sprinkled evenly across the touchpoints in between.

You’ll notice an interesting point about the above graph — sales does all of their work post-opportunity conversion. So how does that work with marketing attribution?

Does Full-Path Attribution Include Sales Activity?

After a contact has reached the opportunity stage, both Sales and Marketing are involved in moving them through the last stage of the funnel. So, does marketing attribution post-opportunity include touchpoints from the sales team? The answer is no. Full-path marketing attribution is strictly for marketing purposes. None of the sales touchpoints are included in a full-path attribution model. Their performance is measured by a different set of criteria on the sales side.

Now you might be asking, “Then why would I need full-path attribution if sales takes over after the lead converts to an opportunity?” If that’s the case at your organization, then there’s a chance that you wouldn’t need full-path attribution.

But why would an organization need full-path attribution? How can it help marketing? That depends on the type of marketing you’re doing and how focused you are on sales enablement marketing initiatives.

Full-Path Attribution Tracking for Account-Based Marketing

B2B marketers bemoan the strung out sales cycles that plague B2B companies. In fact, a growing number of B2B marketers have abandoned the tired, old sales funnel and decided to flip it on it’s head — they call this “account-based marketing.”

Account-based marketing begins with identifying your ideal persona and finding companies who fit that bill. Marketers and salespeople research those accounts and find the key decision-makers, users, researchers, and influential players that could become advocates for an eventual sale.

Then, using account-based marketing tactics (ads, social, email, outbound calls, etc.) marketing engages those key players and starts to turn each of those influencers into advocates for your product or service offering. That way, when it comes time to make the decision, the unanimous conclusion is a “Definitely, yes” all around.

But how does account-based marketing change how you should track your marketing performance? And how does full-path attribution apply? To answer that question — you have to understand what you’re doing when you use an account-based approach.

Account-Based Marketing Narrows Your Funnel’s Focus

Account-based marketing focuses the entire funnel’s attention on the BOFU stage of the original funnel. Marketing teams decide who they want in their pipeline, and then they begin to engage those specific companies and influencers with targeted content that specifically applies to them. Account-based marketing flips and expands the BOFU funnel stage, using it as a persona-centric marketing machine.

Rather than waiting to see which prospects come to you, marketing goes after their targets first (outbound) and then nurtures them using inbound marketing methods. Half the time, these key players at these companies don’t even realize they’ve been singled out — they assume they’re the discoverers, which is precisely what marketers want. Retain the power of inbound marketing, but focus it using an outbound approach.

Use Full-Path Attribution to Track Marketing’s Nurturing and Sales Enablement Efforts

The reason that full-path attribution is helpful for an account-based marketing approach is because ABM marketers pay far more attention to the bottom of the funnel. They care a lot about which opportunities convert into customers, and they spend a huge investment of time and money on sales enablement tactics to help close those opportunities.

This makes full-path attribution incredibly insightful, as ABM marketers are able to gain visibility into that final funnel stage — a level of transparency that W-shaped attribution can’t provide.

When Should An Organization NOT Use Full-Path Attribution?

For an organization using the normal funnel approach (TOFU, MOFU, BOFU), oftentimes the opportunity-to-customer transition is quick and easy. Perhaps sales enablement isn’t a huge focus, and sales can simply usher the opportunity through to the final close without a hitch. In that case, full-path attribution isn’t particularly helpful, and it would only serve to dilute your model’s attributed revenue credits.

Do You Need Full-Path Attribution? — Answer Me These Questions Three

“Stop.” The bedraggled bridgekeeper appears before King Arthur and his three knights. “Who would cross the Bridge of Death must answer me these questions three, ere the other side he see.”

In the belovedly ludicrous motion picture telling of Monte Python and the Holy Grail, valiant knights set off in search of a valuable and thus far undiscovered object. On their travels, they meet a bridgekeeper, guarding a dilapidated bridge that they must cross to continue their trek.

Marketing teams find themselves on a quest to achieve an elusive goal — granular, accurate data tracking that allows B2B marketers to see and optimize for key funnel transitions and touchpoints along their buyers’ journeys. This level of visibility is the elusive “Holy Grail” — which hopefully doesn’t feel too elusive any longer (because now it’s very easy to find).

But if you have what it takes to find the Holy Grail, you’ll have to correctly answer three questions from the bridgekeeper.

[BRIDGEKEEPER’S Q1] Do You Care About Comprehensive Marketing Attribution Data Tracking

You had better say yes, or the bridgekeeper will assuredly toss you into the mouth of a steaming volcano (as was the fate of two poor knights, if you haven’t seen the movie).

[BRIDGEKEEPER’S Q2] Do You Do Account-Based Marketing?

If so, you should look into full-path attribution because, in addition to w-shaped attribution, you’ll need to see which marketing touches are moving your opportunities closer to closing as customers.

[BRIDGEKEEPER’S Q3] Do You Do a Significant Amount of Sales Enablement?

Even if you’re not into account-based marketing, sales enablement efforts are still important touchpoints to track. Especially for offline sales enablement channels like sales dinners, gift boxes, direct mail, and face-to-face meetings, these touchpoints are hugely important to include in your attribution model. If you’re investing in significant amounts of sales enablement initiatives, it could be time for you to investigate whether full-path attribution is the missing piece in your puzzle.

Ready for one last social media prognostication for 2016? (Yes I know it’s mid-January 2016, but that’s just how I roll. *sunglasses drop in slowly over eyes*)

Good, because there are social media trends that are starting and 2016 will see many changes in the landscape. And the sooner you see them, the sooner you’ll be ahead of everyone else. And topicality is what social media is all about, right?

1. Social Media is now just media. This should not be a big revelation because to be honest, it has always been just another form of communications it’s just that the terms public relations, marketing, and advertising were already taken. When you launch a new product, or in this case, a new medium, you need to simply explain what it is, how it differs with similar products, and list its benefits. At risk of sounding like a famous premature declaration let me just say: Mission Accomplished.

   The change has been gradual but more and more media outlets are avoiding the term signifying social media is part of the collective consciousness. The terms “Like Us on” or “Follow us on” have been replaced by the relevant social media badge. Auto companies just program it into their software whether you Tweet or not. Social media is no longer an option, and resistance seems futile.

2. Business & Facebook part ways. If your business had a relationship status on Facebook it would most likely read: “It’s Complicated”. Not me though. I love Facebook, have written a few columns defending it, and lately with my lack of Tweets and Instagram posts we’ve been pretty monogamous. But for many businesses, it’s not Facebook, it’s them.

   When social media first came around I think one of the most common sentences I heard by company execs was “I don’t know what Facebook is, but we need one.” So people scrambled to create company pages so they would be indexed on Google. New add-in apps were popping up like tabs for coupons and surveys and polls and — oh wait. Facebook killed all those. Yes because it was cannibalizing on its plans for Facebook Ads.

   Today, there are several companies doing quite well generating revenues on Facebook. But I suspect most are not, because the once must destination has lost its allure for buyers. Plus many products and services are just not suited for the social networking site. As more and more people use ad blockers, the less of a tool it becomes. In short, if people want to find you, they want your website, not your Facebook web page.

   What your company page on Facebook is good for is posting videos and articles that can go viral. But that requires thought and planning, which brings us to…

3. Social Media management will move in-house. As a person who offers outsourced social media as one of his services, file this one under “Cuts Off Nose to Spite Face” but it is what it is. This third trend is a natural outcome based on the first two.
   Social Media management is frankly too important to outsource anymore. Let’s be honest, when social media just meant “Say something the millennials will like on Facebook and Twitter,” you didn’t need to outsource it.

   But as more and more companies learned (or better, feared) the power of social media they outsourced it. Hmm. I’m already starting to feel reminiscent with the lack of my nose. OK I suppose you don’t need to bring your social media in-house, but make sure you outsource it to those who specialize in it.

Since social media is just media, it needs to come under the marketing umbrella. It requires setting and adhering to strategies, plans and integrated campaigns that are monitored, adjusted, and leveraged like any other. Do this and you’ll be ahead of the game. Stay tuned for more!

In the last years deals between serious companies and tech startups have become a common thing – small groups of professionals are usually more successful in coming up with innovative ideas, while huge corporations have more experience in turning ideas into good money.

But the process of buying a startup can be quite a tough one with a lot of fear and suspicion from both sides. Sellers usually worry they will not get the fair cost for their idea, and buyers are afraid that actives are not as impressive in reality. Here are some of the pitfalls you might meet if you decide to buy a startup.

Vague Financial Accounting

Sometimes young startups do not have impressive turnover, and it is not the big deal if the idea you are buying together with the startup is worth the investment. And you should not even worry much about ‘grey’ optimization schemes – your own accounting department will take care of that and make fully clear.

Yet, there is a huge ‘But’ you should never ignore. If you look at the startup finances and you see nothing but the mess in numbers and transactions, better step aside and don’t try digging into the swamp, as you may get lost there.

Lack of Documents

Can you imagine buying a startup without an invention? Or without staff?And what about absence of some fundamental documents? The latter would be the least pleasant situation (except for having no clear innovative idea – why even bother to buy such useless company?). If you are told founder cannot find a general meeting minutes or papers were lost during relocation (an adult equivalent of ‘my homework was eaten by a dog), think well if you really need this kind of headache.

Intellectual Property Troubles

Most of the time startup means some innovative know how (or couple of those), and if you are buying it, be sure all the intellectual property and patents are well documented. Believe us, you don’t want to be charged of using someone else’s intellectual property right after your attainment started to pay off. Look through the employees contracts – if it does not say that all the developments belong to the company, cancel the deal and move on to other innovations.

Unresolved Issues with Shareholders and Ex-Investors

All the forgotten promises and long lost investors seem to suddenly come back once someone hears about expansion and good money startup seem to have shortly. Thus, before you sign any papers investigate the company’s contracts and agreements with ex-employees, as well as talk to founders – you don’t want too much buzz on the media, right? But you will surely get it in case someone would suddenly claim a part of your newly acquired business belongs to him.

Contractors and Freelancers

No, we are not saying a good startup should not have any freelancers – on the contrary, outsourcing is a great way to save money, but the main part of the team should still be working together in the office (or whatever working environment they are having). If you are buying a company that used outsourcing for most part of their works, be sure to check that all the contractors and freelancers have no claims towards the company.

And again, another ‘but’ to look at – sometimes such startups can have the most cost formed by talented freelancers that did a good job. So, getting more information about the people working on the project you are currently considering buying would always be helpful.

Vague Management

If you’ve ever met startups managed by two friends, or even brothers, who would tell they are equal partners (but both think they have a little more power that the other), you know how dangerous for your as a buyer this situation might be. The scheme where two, three of even five people are somehow named to own and managing the company, can even be successful at start. But once the decision to merge was made, it may go in two ways – either partners should work it out and choose one who would be the main company manager, or you decide all the rules and all the conditions and settlements in case of any issues in the process.

Hiring poor and underperforming salespeople comes with a costly consequence. Mis-hires account for the vast majority of turnover rates (nearly 80%), have a lasting impact on sales team morale, and can cost businesses >$690,000 per hire, including wasted leads and lost customers. For sales executives with aggressive growth targets, failing to hire great salespeople will ultimately determine whether or not these targets are hit on a consistent basis.

The unfortunate reality for business leaders alike is that the majority of managers suck at hiring salespeople. The Corporate Executive Board found that managers think that one in five hires are “bad” or “regrettable”. In fact, a recent survey from DePaul University revealed that only 33% of new sales recruits made it past their first year of employment with a new firm. So why are hiring managers having such a difficult time recruiting and hiring the elite salespeople?

Here’s the 10 reasons your sales hiring sucks and how to fix it:

1. You don’t fully understand the role 

Many hiring managers mistakenly assume that every sales role is the same and that any sales person could be successful in that role. They fail to identify the behaviors and selling activities required for a new hire to be successful in the role.

Solution: Map out and list the key selling activities and behaviors required to be successful in the role. For many hiring managers, this means determining whether the ideal candidate needs to be a farmer, someone who can manage and upsell to an existing client base, or a hunter, someone who can actively acquire net new business. Farmer and hunter roles require separate skills sets, experiences, and sales DNA to be successful. Using these 5 interviewing secrets to identify Sales Hunter DNA, a hiring manager can effectively spot a hunter during the interview process.

2. You’re not looking in the right places

Hiring managers and recruiters often begin their search for a new salesperson by posting job advertisements on popular job search websites such as Monster or LinkedIn. This approach is bound to fail since the best salespeople are those who are currently gainfully employed and not surfing job sites. With some exceptions, the vast majority of salespeople who are actively reviewing job boards are likely either poor performers who are not focused on hitting or exceeding their sales targets, or are unemployed because they consistently failed to reach quota. These are not the types of candidates world-class companies hire.

Solution: Headhunt employed salespeople who have reached or exceeded sales targets for the past 5+ years in selling environments similar to yours. Hiring or assigning specialized sales recruiters to develop and execute a comprehensive search that only targets and delivers great salespeople will reduce time-to-hire, accelerate ramp-up time, and mitigate your hiring risk.

3. You aren’t listening in interviews  

Since great salespeople only make up a small percentage of the 20 million candidate pool, hiring managers often make the fatal mistake of only selling job opportunities to “A” players, rather than questioning and evaluating the candidate’s competencies and fit in the organization. Particularly with small businesses, hiring managers desperate to hire a salesperson often turn the interview into a sales pitch, where they do all the talking instead of listening and making an objective assessment on the candidate’s skills, experience and DNA.

Solution: Sell the job opportunity during the telephone interview to establish interest among candidates and entice them to continue with the interview process. By choosing to continue with the interview process, they are demonstrating a genuine interest in your company. During in-person interviews, sit back, listen and let the candidate do the talking.

4. You’re hiring who’s available and not who you really need

In a day and age where great salespeople only make up between 10-15% of the total sales population, many hiring leaders are realizing that attracting and hiring the best salespeople takes tremendous time, effort, and resources. Unfortunately, instead of taking time to hire the right sales person, they are exposing themselves and their company to risk by simply trying to fill a seat. When hiring managers are desperate to make a hire, they see what they want to see in candidates and do not look at them objectively – virtually guarantying that they are going to hire the wrong person.

Solution: Develop and implement a talent acquisition strategy that is built upon the principle of “always be recruiting”.

5. You’re not conducting thorough reference checks  

The majority of salespeople are expert interviewees since they have to sell themselves to prospects every day. As a result, inexperienced hiring managers are often tricked into thinking that that they are hiring a great salesperson, and that checking that candidate’s references is a waste of time.

Solution: World-class hiring managers know that a reference can, in many cases, be as important as the interview itself. Embrace a reference check process that is scripted and structured and allow for the questions to reveal information that can be put into quantifiable data for a better assessment. The best references an employer can contact are those who were in a management position, equipped with the ability to comment on a candidate’s work habits and selling success, and those not necessarily provided by the candidate.

6. You have too much trust in your gut 

The saying “go with your gut” shouldn’t be embraced by hiring managers, but it frequently is. The gut is a non-objective, emotional response to external stimuli that often causes hiring managers to fall to the recruiting ‘halo effect’.

Solution: Use a structured and rigorous sales hiring process that includes a standardized interview process comprised of all the hiring stakeholders. A great sales interview process should contain, at a minimum, three stages:

• 1^st Interview – High Level Qualification: Short interview focusing on the core elements of your hiring criteria. I.e. are the activities performed by the candidate in their current and past positions in line with the role and corporate sales objectives? Are they a hunter or a farmer? What compensation package would the candidate require in order to accept the role?
• 2^nd Interview – Skills and Experience Screening: Lengthy interview focusing on the candidate’s specific skills and experience as it matches against your organization’s needs. I.e. What market segments have they sold to? Have they navigated through a complex, multi-stakeholder sale? What is the average deal size they have sold over the past 5 years? Do they abide by a specific selling methodology?
• 3^rd Interview – Behavioral Interview: Lengthy interview that focuses on developing an understanding of how the candidate acts in a given situation by asking about past examples. I.e. What sacrifices have you made to achieve your sales objectives?

*Bonus tip: Ask the same interview questions multiple times in unique ways and be on the lookout for any inconsistent responses. Here is a detailed list of great interview questions you can ask a sales candidate.

7. You don’t have an effective on-boarding program

Contrary to popular belief, the recruiting process does not end after the offer is signed. If a new hire walks in on their first day to chaos and disorganization, it creates a poor first impression and frustration. Without the implementation of an effective on-boarding program, you can expect the new hire to resign quickly or accept another offer from a competitor.

Solution: A hiring manager must ensure that the new hire’s integration into the company is planned, organized and seamless. An effective on-boarding program, leverages key tools and includes: A welcome plan, training details, and standardized progress measurements. It is built around the following tenants: orientation and training, coaching to success, action plans, and accountability.

For more details on how to implement a successful orientation plan and get your sales reps to start producing results quickly, download the free e-book: The First 90 Days.

8. You have a bad online reputation

Often, the first exposure a candidate will have with your company is online. Hiring managers often neglect the fact that if their organization isn’t known as a marquee brand or their company doesn’t have a professional and attractive online presence, that they can forget attracting “A” level talent. Moreover, if their company has a poor reputation on employer ranking sites such as Glassdoor, they should be prepared for the best candidates to pass on the opportunity, regardless of the compensation or future growth prospects offered.

Solution: Work with the marketing department to establish an online presence that promotes your organization as an ‘employer of choice’. An attractive website that has a dedicated page which communicates your organization’s functions, achievements and growth goals is an easy to way to reinforce the message your company is committed to greatness. Monitoring online reviews from current and past employees, and developing a plan to showcase positive reviews and manage and address poor reviews is another way to demonstrate your company’s commitment to excellence.

9. Your compensation plan sucks

Compensation plays a huge role in enticing already successful salespeople to make a career change and join your company. In fact, most salespeople rank it at the top of their list as the most important factor when debating whether or not to consider an employment opportunity. Too often, compensations plans are too flat, handcuffing top performers and their employers from reaping rewards derived from the right selling behaviors and activities.

Solution: Offer a compensation plan that is at or above market and abides by the following 3 principles:

• Simplicity – Simple compensation plans align sales rep efforts with company goals. Complex plans detailing different rates and bonuses for various types of sales activities can cause candidates to be confused as to whether or not they will be set up to succeed.
• Short waiting period between activity and reward – Since salespeople are motivated by immediate rewards for behavior, the compensation plan should avoid long wait times between secured sales and commission payouts.
• Stability– Many compensation plans are regularly altered by managers in order to generate higher outputs and lower costs of sale. However, it is frustrating for sales reps, in particular, to continually reevaluate how these changes affect their effort and reward quotient. Simply put, successful sales comp plans are stable.

10. You’re not evaluating their DNA

Many hiring managers make their hiring decision based off of experience first and sales skills second, with little to no formal evaluation on the candidate’s personality traits or ‘Sales DNA’. However, different selling environments require salespeople with unique characteristics or ‘sales DNA’, which is one of the most important elements a hiring manager needs to consider, yet the hardest to evaluate.

Solution: Look for key indicators of Sales DNA in your interviews or use third-party psychometric assessments. DNA consists of the sum of the key traits great salespeople possess either through genetics, education and learning, or successful job experience.

To meet aggressive sales targets, your organization requires great sales people. If you find yourself engaging in any of these hiring mal-practices, take a step back and consider the solutions proposed or risk high costs and lost sales opportunities.

The post 10 Reasons Your Sales Hiring Sucks and How to Fix it appeared first on Peak Sales Recruiting.

Sales leaders and businesses are paying a hefty price for not developing the selling skills of their people. They’re not only selling less than they could be, they’re also being forced to sell at lower prices than they should be!

There are so few in sales who are truly professional sellers. It’s salespeople’s own approach, attitude, and behavior that is shooting their sales effort in the foot while causing buyers to perceive them as nothing more than vendors and commodity sellers rather than the professional problem solvers and value creators we so badly want them to be.

1. Living in Reactive Mode

Probably the most common and damaging driver of salespeople being perceived and treated simply as vendors is being late to a sales opportunity. Sales leaders allow their teams to spend way too much time operating in reactive mode. Sellers are waiting for leads, waiting for customers to raise their hands, waiting for beautifully teed-up opportunities.

Reactive sellers are often slow arriving to a new sales opportunity. By the time they’re involved, the buyer is far down the path. Buying criteria have been established. Even worse, these reactive sellers end up way at the back of the line.

Often, they find themselves playing catch-up to their more proactive competitors’ salespeople, who got there first, who were building relationships before the buyer started shopping, who were in what I call “Position A”: Sitting in the consultant’s seat, bringing value, sharing insights, and helping define the buyer’s requirements.

Can you see why being late to the opportunity often relegates your salesperson to vendor status? How hard is it to be seen as a value creator and consultant to the prospective customer who is already far down the path? Very hard.

It’s no fun selling from behind, eating the dust of your competitor who already has a relationship and earned a seat at the table because he was in the opportunity early. In fact, it might very well be that your competitor actually created the opportunity by proactively targeting the customer.

Unless your solution is so radically different from and superior to the competition’s, which I hate to tell you is rarely the case, it is very hard to come across as a consultative, value-creating salesperson when you’re tardy.

Typically, from that position, it takes a very low price to earn the buyer’s attention. And that’s a game we certainly don’t want to play.

2. Leading with Product

Adding insult to injury, after they’re slow to get involved in a potential sales opportunity, many salespeople further reduce their effectiveness by leading with their product or solution. Again, it’s untrained or poorly trained sellers who don’t know any better.

They put their product out front and make it the focus of the conversation when meeting with potential customers. What are the consequences of making the offering the hero of the story?

That approach communicates -- loud and clear -- to the customer that the salesperson is self-focused, more concerned with what he’s selling than with the customer’s issues, needs, and desires. Think about it. It’s a truly horrible message to send.

When salespeople lead with their product or service, it is impossible to be perceived as consultants or trusted advisors. It makes it as clear as day that the salesperson believes the relationship and sale are centered on his offering, not the customer and its needs.

It’s as if the salesperson is begging the customer to put his offering’s features and price on a spreadsheet to be compared against every competitors’ features and price.

The salesperson might as well show up wearing a company logo golf shirt embroidered with these words: WE ARE ALL ABOUT OUR PRODUCTS!

Hear me clearly: When you live by the product then you die by the product. Salespeople who lead with their offering are admitting that they bring zero value to the equation, and they’re essentially telling customers to commoditize the purchase decision.

3. Ineffective Sales Calling

Who’s teaching salespeople how to plan and conduct sales calls? If what I’m seeing is any indication, nobody is. So much sales training today is focused on macro theories.

Popular sales blogs and LinkedIn posts are filled with articles espousing the virtues of macro sales theories like social selling and insight selling. But there are few sales experts writing about how to better execute the day-to-day basics, the fundamentals.

Talking about sales call structure may not be sexy, but it has never been more needed, especially as sales managers are spending less time in the field coaching people.

Here are some of the most common sales call sins:

• The salesperson doesn’t establish herself as a professional or assert control by setting up the meeting, sharing her agenda, and getting buy-in from the customer.
• Sellers approach the sales call already in presentation mode and are too quick to jump to a demo or presentation.
• Salespeople talk way too much and listen way too little. It’s very hard to come across as a professional problem solver when you don’t discover the customer’s real issues. As I’m fond of repeating: Discovery precedes presentation -- always!
• Salespeople give off the vibe that they are there to “pitch at” the prospect, which creates an awkward, adversarial dynamic and often provokes a guarded, even cynical, posture from the customer.

Take some time now to replay in your mind the last dozen or so of your people’s sales calls that you observed. Were the salespeople coming across as consultative professionals or product pushers? Did they do more talking or listening? Was their objective to learn as much as possible as to improve the customer’s condition, or to launch into presentation mode as quickly as possible?

And, most important, if you were the customer, how would you view the salesperson -- simply as a self-interested vendor or as a true value creator, advisor, and trustworthy business partner?

Amateurish approaches doom the salesperson to vendor and product-pitcher status. You don’t earn a seat as the expert or consultant at the customer’s table when you’re viewed as a pitchman better suited to doing infomercials than to helping your customer address business challenges.

4. Avoiding Objections

Some salespeople bury their head in the sand whenever they sense their prospects have reservations or concerns. Newsflash: Refusing to discuss these anxieties doesn't make them go away. On the contrary, doing so means reps completely lose the opportunity to resolve them.

If a prospect seems less than enthusiastic about a specific feature or detail, ask probing questions. You might say, “What are your thoughts on [feature]?” or “What challenges or difficulties do you foresee around [aspect of deal]?”

It's also helpful to ask, “Are there any reasons you wouldn't buy?”

There are only two potential responses to this question. The buyer will say, “Yes, I'm concerned about X, Y, and Z,” -- in which case you've successfully brought hidden objections out into the open -- or they'll reply, “No, I think we're ready to move forward.”

Either way, the outcome is positive.

5. Doing Whatever the Customer Requests

When the customer or prospect tells a salesperson to jump, a majority respond with the traditional “How high?” and typically do so with great excitement. They think, what could be better?

The customer wants me to do something and I will show him that I’m the best, I’m the fastest, I’m the most compliant, I have the best attitude, I follow instructions better than anyone, I’m likable, I present better than anyone, and I’ll provide the most creative and in-depth proposal.

The harsh reality is that when the seller does whatever the customer asks and is more concerned with being liked than respected, it often lowers instead of raises the perception of the salesperson in the buyer’s eyes. Sure, that sounds counterintuitive, but it’s true.

In no way am I declaring that responsiveness is unimportant. It’s hugely important. And I’m not advocating that salespeople behave like obstinate unlikable jerks. Not at all.

But I am strenuously making the case that in today’s sales environment, where value is the yardstick by which all potential providers are measured, it is imperative that we think hard about how sellers are perceived by buyers.

Too often, the very likable, highly relational, super-responsive, overly accommodating salesperson gets blown out of the water when going up against a true sales killer who owns his sales process and isn’t afraid to push back against the buyer.

How do your people respond when a potential client they haven’t been working summons them to come in for a presentation or demo, or announces that he’s gathering his team together and wants their best dog and pony show? Do they get all lathered up, enthusiastically preparing for their big moment in the spotlight? Or do they raise one eyebrow, pause to think, and begin to wonder what prompted this prospect’s request? Do they run headfirst and blind into this premature presentation, or do they assert control of the situation and begin an important dialogue with customer?

Put bluntly, are they yes men (order takers) willing to do whatever a customer wants hoping to earn obedience points on the way to a sale? Or are they confident enough to push back on the request, professionally and respectfully informing the prospect that they’d loved to come in and present, but only at the right time, after having had the opportunity to meet various stakeholders, better understand what prompted the request, and learn more about the situation so they can then craft a relevant presentation? 

Let me close this post where we began. Ill-equipped salespeople are hurting sales and profit performance because they are consistently perceived by customers as nothing more than vendors.

Contrary to what many weak salespeople believe, customers are not looking for subservient order takers; they are seeking help and value. And it’s just about impossible to come across as a value creator when you’re late to an opportunity, leading with product, pitching instead of probing, and presenting and proposing prematurely.

Editor's note: This is an excerpt from the book Sales Management. Simplified. It is published here with permission. Purchase the book on Amazon.

Sales Management. Simplified. The Straight Truth About Getting Exceptional Results from
Your Sales Team by Mike Weinberg. © 2016 Mike Weinberg. All rights reserved.

Published by AMACOM Books www.amacombooks.org. Division of American Management Association 1601 Broadway, New York, NY 10019

Lead nurturing is the voodoo we all do to place a potential customer into the proper funnel and guide her to a sale. Rushing prospects too quickly can drive them away. Too soft a sell makes it easy for them to walk.

When you attempt to acquire customers with passive adverting, it becomes imperative for the dynamic items on your landing page to quickly identify if the lead generated is “interested” or “sales-ready.”

On the other hand, social media advertising is the dollar spent that does double duty. It identifies potential customers who have a likelihood of being interested in your product or service, and follows up on that interest if they don’t complete the sale process. And best of all, it does this with measurable results.

Still, simply diverting dollars from passive advertising to social media advertising isn’t going to help your bottom line if you don’t have a clear grasp of the chain of events that creates a sale of your product or service.

Here’s a checklist we like to call: The Anatomy of a Well-Nutured Lead.

Use Your Voice

Successful social media advertising and lead nurturing requires teamwork. Writing copy, creating campaign strategies, defining workflows, and monitoring performance are just a few of the processes you’ll need to create and update.

Social media advertising lets you make the most of your interactions with prospects in their natural habitat on social media platforms within their preferred devices, and today there are plenty of automation and analytical tools that make sure these interactions are personalized and tailored so you’re making the most of your marketing resources.

Use Their Eyeballs

There’s no question that social media sites accelerate sales. When research from Epsilon examined what prompted shoppers to try new brands and products, retailers’ social media usage was the number one influence at 29%.

While a social media account including your brand’s page, its posts and community is great for brand building, social media advertising is the tool you use to break through initial barriers to sales, whether they be from lack of awareness of your company or a reluctance to hear your offer (or, you know, an algorithm not working in your favor).

Offer a Helping Hand

One way to make social media advertising pull more weight is through careful retargeting campaigns.

Retargeting tracks people who visited your website and displays your ads when they visit other sites, including sites like Facebook. It’s a way to keep your brand front and center for prospects and can shorten prospect-to-customer transition time.

Retargeting in social media advertising works best when it includes a clear, simple call to action that attracts the eye. It’s even more impactful when the ad displayed showcases a product or offer that person might’ve been “window shopping” on your site or complementary products to ones they’ve purchased previously.

Retargeting may not be traditionally considered lead nurturing, but perhaps it should be, since it’s personalized and provides a steady drumbeat of brand and product awareness.

The Legwork Comes Last

Once your social media advertising has delivered the lead, you can observe and tweak what drives conversions. Do you collect data for personal follow-up calls? Make a direct sale? Add them to retargeting? Or a combination of these?

If you collect data, make sure your emails and follow-ups feature more specific actions. If you’re not converting sales, consider A/B testing to find better performing calls to action, ad creative, or landing page elements.

Nurtured leads make purchases that are 47% larger than non-nurtured leads. By nurturing these leads with social media advertising, you have multiple opportunities to convert them. By *not* nurturing these leads with social media advertising, you’re missing out on an opportunity to strengthen your relationship with qualified prospects who are already in your funnel.

The single biggest mistake I used to make – and that I still see tons of people making – is what I’ll call apologetic selling.

As someone who has struggled with depression, anxiety and self-hatred, I know what it’s like to feel worthless and lack confidence. When I’m in that state, I feel like I’m bothering people, like I’m selfish to ask them for money, like I’m a bad person for trying to sell them my product or service.

More important, when I’m in that state, I don’t attract buyers.

In fact, I repel them.

Because nothing (and I mean nothing) turns off a potential buyer like a lack of confidence.

The #1 Way to Make More Sales

By the same token, the more confident you come across, the more appealing you – and, by extension, your product or service – become to your prospects.

Now there needs to be an important caveat here: You have to love what you’re selling.

You have to believe in it and feel with every fiber of your being that the product or service you’re offering can help someone else with some aspect of his or her life or business.

Even better, you should feel like someone who has discovered the cure to a terrible disease, or who can supply cool water to a person dying of thirst.

When you get to that state of emotion and feeling about your own product or service and the value it brings others, it becomes contagious:

Why People Buy

The #1 reason people buy from me is always the same: “John, you’re passion and enthusiasm for LinkedIn is contagious. You’ve got me all fired up to do this!”

So you’ve got to have enthusiasm, and (more important) you’ve got to believe in your product.

Because if you’re selling something you don’t believe in, it’s going to be hard to fake it.

If anything you’ll come across as one those fake-smile people that are way too enthusiastic and way too phony. We don’t want that. We can see through it, anyway – smell it a mile away, in fact.

So, hear me well: I’m not calling for false bravado, fake confidence or pretend excitement.

The Preteen Approach to Sales

What I am saying is that you better be the biggest fan and biggest believer in your product or service.

I want you gushing about it like a pre-teen girl promoting One Direction or Justin Bieber to her friends on social media.

If you don’t believe in what you’re selling right now, then go somewhere else. It’s time to leave. Instead, find a product or service you would die for before you’d stop telling others about it.

Otherwise, you’re not going to sell nearly as much as you could, and that’s going to cost you or your employer dearly.

Nobody wins.

So, if you need to, dream bigger. Find a bigger purpose or passion for your life:

And if you sell something that isn’t necessarily going to change lives or save starving children, you can still find purpose in helping someone else in everyday life.

There’s still value in solving someone’s problem – no matter how minor – or improving the quality of someone’s life or business. Your personality, your smile and your attitude can always improve the lives of people you come into contact with each day.

Never lose sight of that!

And above all else, never apologize for trying to help someone else improve his or her life or business through your product or service!

As Zig Ziglar said, “Stop selling. Start helping.”

When you can re-frame your whole approach to encompass that belief, and realize how your particular product or service can serve that end, amazing things will happen!

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This is the part you’ve been waiting for.

The sales pitch.

It’s time to present the right solution to your prospect and turn her into a client.

Since this is the part where you explain how your offering will solve your prospect’s problems, you must make sure you get it right.

However, many entrepreneurs struggle with this part. They either overwhelm their prospect with a long, drawn out explanation of their offering, or they give an uninspired pitch that doesn’t even address the needs of their prospect.

And they get rejected. Over and over again.

Fortunately, it doesn’t have to be this way. There are easy ways to give an effective pitch.

The tips in this article are time-tested and used by high-caliber salespeople. If you perfect these techniques, you will have no problem getting your prospects to buy.

Set The Stage

Before pitching, you must first set the stage. This is similar to positioning yourself, but it’s a bit different. You’re going to position your presentation.

This isn’t as complicated as it sounds.

Basically, it’s a way to transition into your presentation. You’re going to tell them the purpose of what you’re about to propose. Let them know that you’re about to show them how your offering can help them solve their problem.

It might be tempting to skip this part because you may assume that your prospect already knows that you’re about to give your offer. Don’t do it. When you’re selling, you’re taking a leadership role in the interaction.

This is part of leading them to the next portion of the conversation. You want to prime them to believe that you have the answer to their problem. Then, you will get them to agree to move forward.

It may look something like this:

“Okay Mr. Daniels, now I’m going to talk about what XYZ Marketing can do to help you generate more leads and earn more sales. Is that okay?”

See? Easy peasy. Now you’re ready to give your presentation.

Review What Was Said

After getting the prospect’s permission to transition, you’re going to briefly recap what they told you when you were discovering their needs. You don’t need to list every single thing that was said. You just want to touch on the bullet points.

Here’s what you want to discuss:

• What their current state is.
• Where they want to be.
• What’s keeping them from getting there.

This part is important for a few reasons. You want to make sure that you have understood everything they have said. This gives you an opportunity to clear up any misunderstandings.

Also, you want to remind your prospect of the pain points they told you about. You want them thinking about the problem they’re dealing with so that you can provide a little pain relief with your solution.

Focus On Benefits

Ok now it’s time to pitch. You’re going to communicate the solution to their problems.

Note that I didn’t say you’re going to pitch your offering. That was deliberate.

When you’re selling, you must focus on solving problems, not on pitching your offering. What this means is that you’re positioning your offering as the solution to their problem.

One mistake that many people make is to focus on their offering and its features. What you need to do is to frame your offering in the context of their problem.

How do you do this?

By focusing on benefits rather than features. Here’s the difference:

• Features: These are the components of your offering. They are the parts that make up what your product or service is.

• Benefits: These are the things your features do for your prospects. It’s the outcomes they can expect when they use your product or service.

Here’s an example:

Let’s say you sell web design services. Your feature would be the fact that you can update your prospect’s website in a way that makes it look more presentable. You code various graphics and add content.

The benefit would be a professional-looking website that makes a better impression on your prospect’s visitors. Not only that, but it is also optimized to convert more visitors which helps your customer generate more leads.

See the difference?

Features are the nuts and bolts of the offering. Benefits are what the customer gets when they use it.

When it comes to entrepreneurial selling, benefits are FAR more persuasive than features. It’s what your prospects and customers care about. When delivering your presentation, you need to keep the customer’s situation in mind.

You must continuously tell your prospect how they will benefit from accepting your offering. Don’t assume that they will connect the dots on their own. Most of the time, they won’t.

Types Of Benefits

Benefits tend to fall into different types of categories. In some cases, a particular benefit may only fit into one category. More often than not, a benefit will fall into multiple categories.

Here are the categories:

• Profit: The customer makes more money.
• Ease: The customer’s life is made easier.
• Savings: The customer saves money.
• Preservation: The customer is protected from harm (physical, mental, financial).
• Pleasure: Customer experiences something pleasurable.

It’s all about figuring out which benefit(s) your prospect wishes to have. Once you know this, you can tailor your presentation around the outcomes your prospects want to experience.

Provide Proof For Each Benefit

For every major benefit you discuss with your prospect, you should also be ready to provide proof. This doesn’t mean you will always need to give proof for every single benefit you talk about, but you should always be prepared. Giving evidence of your claims makes your prospects more comfortable with accepting your offer.

This isn’t as complicated as it may sound. There are several ways to ensure that your prospects believe the claims you are making.

Here’s a few:

• Tell stories about how other clients have enjoyed the benefits your offering provides.
• Give statistics or metrics that back up your claims.
• If you’re selling a physical product, show them how it works. Demonstrations can be very convincing.

It’s important to build as much credibility as you can. The more credibility you build, the easier it will be for your prospect to accept your offering.

Address Their Pain Points

Don’t forget your prospects’ pain points. This is crucial to your sales efforts. When you asked your prospect what is keeping them from achieving their desired state, they told you what their pain points were.

You need to make sure you address each one.

Remember, you’re not there to sell a product or service. You’re there to solve problems. That is your reason for being when it comes to sales.

You must tie every benefit your offering provides to a problem your prospects are experiencing. This is why it’s so important to understand your prospects.

When you’re giving your presentation, be sure to bring up the pain points they told you about earlier. You want your prospect to “feel the pain” a little bit. This makes it easier to get them to see why they need your offering.

Conclusion

The rule of thumb when it comes to presenting your solution is this: make your prospect’s life easier. When you solve your prospect’s problems, you are easing their pain. That’s what they want.

A great salesperson is more concerned about easing their prospect’s pain than explaining why their offering is so awesome. When you can show your prospect how your offering will make their life easier, it will be a no brainer. They will buy from you.

Note: This is the latest in a series. You can read the previous post here.

Originally published at Artisan Owl Media.

The most personal conversations happen offline.

While a personalized digital experience is certainly enticing and powerful, to really get to know a prospect—their interests, burning questions, and biggest challenges—you talk to them. And what better way to talk to someone than over the phone, where chances for misinterpretation are greatly reduced. I’m sure any sales rep will back me up on this one.

Dial in on call intelligence

Phone conversations are not only personal, but they’re also one of the most common interactions people have with a business. In fact, nearly three times as many people choose to call a business instead of filling out a form, according to Invoca’s State of the Mobile Experience report. And BIA/Kelsey reports that from 2014-2019, mobile calls to businesses will more than double, reaching an astounding 162 billion. This sharp rise in call volume makes sense when you think about how many people engage on mobile devices today.

While digital marketers are certainly able to gather data on mobile engagement, many have little insight into what conversations are going on over the phone, and as a result, their personalization is suffering. Without visibility into these offline conversations, marketers are personalizing their website with the wrong messages or sending follow-up emails that have nothing to do with their prospect’s latest conversation with their company. The missing link is call intelligence.

Call intelligence gives marketers visibility into the conversations that customers and prospects are having over the phone. With these insights, marketers not only get to understand customers on a new level, but their personalization is based off the entire omni-channel journey.

Here are four ways call intelligence can help marketers personalize more holistically—based on both online and offline conversations:

1. Fix out-of-touch nurturing

Lead nurturing is a great way to educate your prospects and keep them engaged with your business. Let’s say a prospect calls your business because they want to find out what differentiates you from your competition. Your sales rep has the perfect answers and makes the competition look pitiful. Well done!

However, without personalization, nurturing can come across more like spam than a thoughtful way to educate and engage your prospects. If your marketing automation system didn’t get the memo about offline conversations because you didn’t have a way to share that information, like call intelligence technology, your leads remain in the same generic, top-of-funnel nurturing track. The next thing you know, your leads get an email talking about irrelevant use cases. Too bad you didn’t send them your new buyer guide complete with competitive advantages instead!

With the right tools, you can automatically sync call data with your marketing automation, which helps you make sure prospects are dropped into the right nurturing tracks and your follow-up message are relevant.

2. Retarget with the right information

Retargeting can re-engage a prospect with a personalized ad. For example, after having an in-depth conversation with one of your sales reps at a tradeshow, your prospect may do a quick Google search for your company and your targeted ad pops up. From there they click on it and head to your landing page. Instead of filling out a form, they want to talk through some question now, so they do what a lot of motivated buyers do—pick up the phone to learn more and get ready to make a purchase. Whoohoo!

But if you’re retargeting based on an incomplete picture, you could be sending a dangerous message. If your retargeting platform is out of the loop, completely oblivious to the offline conversation (or other online conversations), it’ll think it’s time to retarget this “unconverted” visitor with a discount offer. The result is an annoyed customer who is now angry that they were about to pay full price. This is a terrible, impersonal customer experience, but unfortunately it happens all the time.

3. Do Web Personalization right

Web personalization tools empower marketers to create digital experiences uniquely tailored to each visitor by showing them content and creating an experience based on their needs and preferences, as indicated by their previous activity. Sounds cool, right?

For personalization to be truly effective, it has to take the entire omni-channel customer journey into account. If it doesn’t, you could be “personalizing” in the wrong direction. For instance, if you know someone is likely to call your business, why not personalize your website with your phone number and click-to-call buttons for your mobile visitors? Likewise, if a prospect has already called your company, their next visit to your website needs to reflect the conversation.

Integrating call intelligence with your web personalization efforts empowers you to show web visitors content related to the product they mentioned over the phone and encourages them to the next step in the journey.

4. Get your sales reps in the loop

Personalized marketing doesn’t stop after the digital journey, or at least it shouldn’t. If a sales rep answers the phone and goes through a generic list of questions followed by the boilerplate pitch, the personalized experience is shattered. The trick is to give your sales rep access to real-time information on the caller and their engagement history.

Tools like call intelligence, combined with the power of your marketing automation platform, provide demographic data that allow you to share which campaigns and content a prospect has interacted with. The best part? The sale rep can access this data in real-time. This level of insight helps reps customize the conversation. As a marketer, you’ve helped create a seamless omni-channel experience.

It’s easy to get lost in the digital realm, but remember that just as it’s important to explore new channels, it’s critical to go back to your roots and dial in on the basics. Use customer conversations, both online and offline, to personalize for your customer’s entire journey. Each conversation has valuable insights that can be used across channels and touchpoints to make your audience feel that they are valued and heard. If you don’t know what’s going on over the phone, you’re probably put your foot in your mouth more often that you’d like.

What steps have you taken to ensure a consistent omni-channel experience for your customer? Share your experience in the comments section below!

 

Marketing has changed its forms from time to time, depending upon the market and its demands. Marketing in this 21^st century has to be easy, smart and trendy. Unlike past, marketers today have lots of tools, tricks and tips that empower them to get high leads. Additionally, to sustain in the long run, marketers have to be smart workers instead of mere hard workers. Job approach of the marketers also has got changed significantly. Today, the job of a marketer is to understand the pulse of customers first and then help them till the buying point. For today’s trendy marketers, following is a list of some excellent lead generation tools to be incorporated in a site.

MUST-HAVE Lead Generation Tools For Marketers:

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Keyword Research

Psychology behind keyword research:
1.Four metrics for a perfect keyword

A high-value keyword consists of four basic metrics, which are described in short below:

• Conversion value: A keyword ultimately has to achieve the goal – conversion. Conversion may be of various types like monetary, driving engagement, downloading a whitepaper, creating brand awareness or guiding users to the next level.
• Brand value: Keeping the brand message and brand voice on the same page.
• Target value: Guiding the users to the relevant piece of content. Content, that has the ability to directly communicate with the target audience, is more likely to get a positive response and target accomplishment.
• Traffic value: It varies depending upon the target of the keyword. A less-value, less competitive keyword often converts more while a high-value, more competitive keyword generally converts less.

2.What words are your customers targeting?

For keyword research, it’s important to understand the target words of yourpotential customers. It may be less-knowledgeable users or those who are using industry jargon or general industry terms – these are the things that need to be kept in mind while searching for the appropriate keywords.

3.Search query preference

Keyword research mainly depends upon human behavior. According to statistics, queries are made by users in this hierarchical order – How, why, where, which and finally, what.

Handpicked Compact Tool: SEMRush
Video tutorial:

Features:

• Dashboard screen
• Organic research: Contains – positions view, position changes section, competitors tab, positions top 200, URL tab, traffic buyers and potential ads.
• Keyword research: The Overview tab contains data available in other sections, apart from some minor statistics and a trend graph. Upon entering a keyword, the report shows – a trend graph, a phrase match report, a keyword phrase related to the original keyword search, a top 20 list of websites for the phrase along with specific URL, a list of websites that are emphasizing on that keyword phrase along with available ad history.
• Tools: Contains – position tracking, Domain vs. Domain, charts section.

Pricing: SEMRush comes with two plans, along with three pricing options as given below:

• Pro plan – $79.95 for 1 month and $69.95 for recurring billing
• Guru plan – $149/month and recurring billing

Quick review: SEMRush is much more than just “another keyword research tool”. It’s one of the best tools available for SEO agencies and individual bloggers.

Landing page optimization

Psychology behind landing page optimization:
1. Is the landing page inline?

Unique selling proposition or USP is one of the most important things to attract potential customers. It helps people to choose you over your competitors. You landing page should be in line with your target message.

2. Astonished heading

Following are some basic guidelines to be followed in a headline:

• Be specific
• Be concise
• Focus on a thing that is highly desirable by your prospects
• Quickly reflect the visitor’s expectations

3. Use perfect USPs and CTA

The “thank you” page should contain a CTA that’ll guide the users to the next course of action. The CTA may navigate users towards downloading a whitepaper that’ll allow them to learn more about your brand.

4. Follow the style of best landing pages

The landing page of “Unbounce” is a perfect example of a high-converting landing page. Two of the most attractive things about the page are:

1. The directional signal from the headline and the browser’s fold.
2. The absolutely detailed information beneath the form.

Handpicked Compact Tool: Unbounce
Video tutorial:

Features:

• Drag & Drop
• Advanced design features
• Mobile responsive
• Lead generation tools
• WordPress integration
• Dynamic text replacement
• Script manager
• Automatic SSL encryption
• A/B testing
• Real time stats
• Integrations
• Client & multi-user management
• Custom domains
• Lead notification email

Pricing: Unbounce is made available in three plans as given below:

• Pro 199 plan – $199/month, ideal for marketing teams and agencies
• Pro 99 plan – $99/month, ideal for small businesses and consultants
• Starter plan – $49/month, ideal for entrepreneurs and new businesses

Quick review: Unbounce is a marketer-friendly tool that has powerful features, along with scope of add-on features. Apart from being quite an easy builder, it also empowers you to create complex pages. It may seem expensive though, if you can’t have desired results.

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Content Strategy

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1.Identify the need of your persona

Today, we can easily point out what’s trendy and what’s not by the help of a number of tools. The word NEED can be used to define trend. True trend is the proper understanding of your persona. For example, in 2015, an article written about SEO future predictions 2016 talked about the need of users who have to decide their course of action for the next year and thus ended up becoming a trend. You too have to find that persona and blend it with your content strategy to attract the desired target clientele.

2.Use interactive content titles

In content titles, keywords should contain powerful and actionable words. Also, it’s important that the chosen keywords have a high query volume. A heading should echo an in-depth reflection of the topic. The content may be of valuable or interactive nature, but it’s the title that grabs the attention of the users at first. According to statistics, 864 thousand hours of video, 294 billion emails and 2 million blog posts along with 400 million tweets are generatedevery day. 80% of the readers only view the headline and only 20% read the rest. According to studies, headlines are responsible for a traffic variation of a whopping 500%.

3.Valuable context of content

B2B companies have to think of placing contextual content to attract traffic. Well-researched and validated human readable content has to be in the first place.

Handpicked Compact Tool: Buzzsumo

Video tutorial:

Features:

Content research

• Most shared
• Trending now
• Content analysis
• Domain comparison
• Top authors
• Facebook analyzer

Amplification

• Outreach lists (beta)
• Twitter influences
• Audience builder (beta)

Monitoring: It allows you to keep a track of your brand mentions, impact of content of your competitors, monitor your progress and who is linking to you.

Pricing: Buzzsumo comes in three plans as given below:

• Pro plan – $99/month, ideal for small teams and bloggers
• Agency plan – $299/month, ideal for agencies
• Enterprise plan – $999/month, ideal for publishers and brands

Quick review: Buzzsumo is a great tool that empowers search marketers to have a greater insight into the performance of their content. You’ll have lots of data to analyze and get a clear picture of how your content is faring online, at a low price.

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Opt-in Builder

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1.All optimized but less conversions

Your business should be the hub of generating leads that your sales team can close. However, traditional avenues are no longer giving business such leads. That’s why businesses should focus on online marketing and entice visitors to opt in. The conversion should be designed in such a way that drives hot leads down till the last point of sales. The Less is more technique will be the best fit here. Remember – a 10% lift in conversion means a whopping 800% jump in sales!

2.Know your user behavior

Every marketer should know the basics of human behavior and common browsing patterns. Following are 7 crucial techniques of eye-tracking technology that every marketer should try:

• An effective landing page should include the elements that “pop” instead of giving extra weight to the visuals that don’t compel customers to take any action.
• An embedded video helps you to stand out among your competitors, in search results.
• Though visuals hold a crucial part of the overall design of a site, visual signals guide visitors to the next place to look for.
• Users are likely to browse depending upon their reading habits. The left to right pattern or the “F” pattern browsing is highly favored.
• You may place important objects under the fold and conduct testing. It gives visitors time to read the copy before taking any action.
• Keep the newsletters clear and concise.
• Take help of “purposeless” prices like pre-sale prices that helps customers to assess the value of a purchase.

3.Use opt-in builder/email list builder

Now that you are aware of the behavior of users, it’s time to build your email list. Email list is the best asset any business can have, most preferred & effective communication method to engage with your prospect & customer base. Get new customers & built build strong relationship with you exiting customers.

According to statistics, only 10-30% visitors come back to a website and 67.89% of all shopping carts are finally left empty.

Handpicked Compact Tool: ConvertPlug

ConvertPlug is all-in-one conversion tool to build quality email list, using popups, slideups, notification bar, sidebar box, and inline forms. Best alternative to optinmonster & sumome, no more monthly recurring cost.

Video tutorial:

Features:

• Multiple display positions
• Inbuilt lead collector
• One click integration with all major email marketing providers.
• Ready-made templates & styles
• Real-time live editor
• Exit intent technology
• 2-step opt-in technology
• Capture & sync leads
• A/B test and analyze
• Mobile Responsive
• 100% Customizable Design

List of form types:

1. Pop-up Lightbox
2. Inline Forms
3. 2 step Opt-in Form
4. Slide-In
5. Opt-In Widget
6. Info bar

Here are different types of Triggers which you can update as per your visitors intentions:

• Time Delay Pop-up
• Exit Intent Pop-Up
• Scroll Pop-Up
• Click Based Pop-up
• ShortCode/CSS
• Embedded Pop-up

1. Top of the page
2. Start of the Post/Page
3. End of the Post/Page
4. Bottom of the Page

• Thank You Page Configuration
• Page Specific Triggers
• Non intrusive settings

Pricing: Price – $21 (onetime), 6 months support & lifetime update for free.

Quick review:

You can easily increase conversion with the help of ConvertPlug. This all-in-one plugin allows you to share updates, build email lists, promote videos, drive and redirect traffic, get social followers, offer coupons and many more.

Matthew Woodward ran many case studies and assured the following results. Here are a few examples:
1. Implementing Opt-in pop up for blogs increases the Subscription rate by 10X times.
2. Exit pop-up for any website drives 28% of visitors for subscribers.
3. Using light box pop up, we can increase the conversion list by 568%.

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Interactive Marketing Techniques

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The term interactive stands for two characteristics of communication: The ability to address a person and the ability to collect and recall the response of that person. Successful completion of these two features result in the third, which is the ability of taking into account the person’s unique response by addressing him or her once again. So, in marketing, interactivity can be used as a tool that transforms good marketing into good conversation. Putting a human face more on the marketplace is the basis of the interactive paradigm.

1. Email marketing for lead generation

A report, sponsored by BrightTalk, revealed that email marketing is the 4^th most useful and the 2^nd most commonly used lead-generation tool for B2B businesses. According to a study by Allegra Networks and Ascend2, email marketing is the number 1 most useful lead-generation tool for medium and small-sized businesses. According to the BrightTalk report, top 10 most useful email tactics are:

• Driving content for every stage of the purchasing process (56%)
• Offering downloadable content (49%)
• Segmentation of email depending upon behavior (45%)
• Trigger-based email sent automatically (33%)
• Dynamically personalize email content (32%)
• Segmentation email campaigns depending upon demographics (30%)
• Empowering subscribers to mention email preferences (19%)
• Including surveys, games or trivia (12%)
• Using video or animated images in design (11%)
• Using rewards/loyalty programs (10%)

The cost-effectiveness and ease of use of email marketing is ideal for smaller companies.

Handpicked Compact Tool: MailChimp
Video tutorial:

Features:

• Flexible design irrespective of brand size
• Powerful marketing automation for online sellers
• Advanced analytics to develop your business
• Comprehensive mobile options
• Integration with widely used apps and services
• Flexible, complex API documentation
• Useful data

Pricing:

Starting up plan: Free forever – limited up to 12,000 emails/month and 2,000 subscribers

Growing business plan: $20/month (1,001-1,500 subscribers, unlimited emails), $25/month (1,501-2,000 subscribers, unlimited emails), $30/month (2,001-2,500 subscribers, unlimited emails), $35/month (2,501-2,600 subscribers, unlimited emails)

Pro Marketer plan: $25/month + $199 Pro subscription

Quick review:

MailChimp is a brilliant email service provider with a vast user base. It has various designing options for emails and the facility of reporting once the emails have been sent out successfully. The free service and low price compared to other providers is a plus for MailChimp. Lack of support can be considered by some as a big disadvantage though.

2. Live chat for lead generation

Live chat is a great way for lead generation. If properly implemented, you can efficiently work with the analytics to target users, depending upon their behavior. It encourages prospective users, if merged with good messaging. Following are some useful techniques for lead generation utilizing proactive invites:

• Using related keywords with respect to your services/products
• Page behavior

Triggers are a brilliant way of pointing out high value customers, without chatting to everyone. Following are examples of some useful triggers:

• Automated greeting
• Engage customers when they’re making the decision
• Flag customers for whom you’ve paid for
• Pre-empt questions

Handpicked Compact Tool: Olark
Video tutorial:

Features:

• Chat ratings
• Targeted chat
• Olark live chat + a CRM
• Customizable design
• Easy setup
• Shortcuts
• Olark groups
• Olark cobrowsing
• Integration with Google Analytics
• Olark cartsaver
• Useful API

Pricing:

Ultimate plan: $219/month (15 operators + core features + groups)

Platinum plan: $116/month (8 operators + core features + groups)

Gold plan: $44/month (4 operators + core features)

Bronze plan: $15/month (1 operator + core features)

Quick review:

With the beautiful chat client, user interface and browser-based console, Olark looks promising and smart. Apart from being fairly priced, they’ve the best design among all live chat tools. Instead of commands that need to be keyed in, buttons for fast access to the main features should be implemented though, feel some marketing experts.

3. Survey for lead generation

Surveys are not only a useful way to collect information about the needs of present and potential customers, but are equally useful tools that help you to engage with consumers and collect customer data that can be used in the future. A checklist, that can be used to transform conversations into conversions, is given below:

• Set marketing and sales objectives
• Select a trade show subject
• Introduce your business prior to the show
• Survey your customers
• Follow up with the survey results

Handpicked Compact Tool: SurveyMonkey

Video tutorial :

Features:

• Survey creation
• Analyze data
• Survey a target market
• Enterprise
• Customer support
• Safe & secure

Pricing:

Basic plan: Free
Select plan: Rs. 699/month
Gold plan: Rs. 1,599/month
Platinum plan: Rs. 3,999/month/user

Quick review:SurveyMonkey is a familiar name in the field of survey software and deserves its extensive reputation, thanks to offering quality services for small-sized business owners and their customers. It’s a top performer and great choice in the domain of survey software.

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Social Media

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Incorporation of certain conversion strategies can make a huge difference in your social media posts. Following are such 5 ideas:

• Share your value
• Be clear
• Understand your market
• Speak the language of your audience
• Ask consistently

Handpicked Compact Tool: Twitter cards

Video Tutorial:

Addition of Twitter cards to the tweets makes them convenient for people to show interest in your business without leaving Twitter or filling out a form. Users can easily share their contact information with you, which would help you to follow these leads up and convert them into sales.

Quick review:

With Twitter cards, you can represent your content in tweets, to be displayed on mobile devices and across the web. They can help attract more traffic to the site and empower businesses to effectively market their services and site.

Handpicked Compact Tool:Buffer

Video Tutorial:

Features

• Share images on Twitter
• Share content multiple times
• Reframe content to suit the audience
• Buffer Native Retweets and Re-Buffer Posts
• Mention & Buffer
• Followerwonk

Pricing:

For individuals
Individual: Free
Awesome: $10/month
For agencies and teams
Small: $50/month
Medium: $100/month
Large: $250/month

Quick review:

You can keep your social media accounts up-to-date with the help of the skillfully organized service of Buffer. This tool automates the timing of the social media posts. Its free service is good for personal feed, and the Awesome level service adds features that a business requires.

Conclusion

If you aren’t using these tools, make sure to leverage them in 2016 to take your business to the next level.

Social media is an interesting tool for businesses. We want to be authentic and genuine and form a real connection with customers, but many companies don’t quite seem to get it. Executives often want their social media channels to be cool and hip, but still bring in sales and new leads.

In their attempts to try and blend in to the “cool kids”, companies can end up going too far and revealing just how out of touch they are to their target audience.

How companies think they look on social media (Image Source)

How they actually look (Image Source)

That’s the paradox of social media for businesses. Marketers are under a lot of pressure to show tangible return on investment from social media, so they want to push sales and products to their followers. Unfortunately, the more promotional content gets published, the less authentic the brand will become and people start getting turned off.

While some hardcore fans might love the deals that come up, the majority of them will get turned off. They don’t want to see a sale; they want to see authenticity.

The 80/20 rule has never been more applicable here. Only 20% of your tweets should be about your brand. The other 80% should be focused on providing content that actually interests your audience. This is a solid rule of thumb touted by marketing experts across the world, and is something you should definitely keep in mind.

What does this actually look like?

Image Source – Sonic Wikia

Sonic the Hedgehog, a once famous video game character by Sega, had fallen on hard times through terrible game after terrible game. However, the absolutely stellar performance of the Sonic social media team is singlehandedly improving the mascot’s brand image. Instead of keeping it professional, the Sonic twitter account isn’t afraid to talk like their fans, create content that their fans will enjoy, and be generally as un-corporate as possible.

Here’s a few examples of what they’ve done right…

Connecting (and sending gifts to) brand influencers and content creators.

Giving credit and recognition to fan artists.

Even when they promote their own sales, they do it in a way that resonates with their target audience.

Just being generally goofy.

The fans absolutely love it. Even if it seems childish compared to other companies, it’s a perfect fit with their target audience. The Sonic twitter account has become famous in video game circles as a corporate social media account that just gets it.

See more of Sonic’s tweets here.

One of the main objectives of running a successful lead generation campaign (and one of the most important) is to do just that, generate leads. The campaign process involves classifying prospective customers and qualifying their probability to buy in advance of making a sales call. The purpose of lead generation can vary from driving sales leads to something like increasing webinar registrations, but in the end they have the same goal and that is to get prospects to raise their hands. Before we go into how to build a successful lead generation campaign, we need to understand a few basic terms.

Basic Terms of a Lead Generation Campaign

• Lead: A prospect that has some level of potential in becoming a client. The individual usually shows interests and provides his/her information to your firm.
• Qualified Lead: A prospect that meets all of your firm’s qualifications and criteria necessary to be considered more likely to become a client.
• Lead Generation: The initiation of consumer interest or inquiry into products or services of a your firm.
• Lead Generation Campaign: The process of capturing and simulating interest in a service or product for the purpose of developing leads. This includes a strategy using a particular media source and an offer to create inbound leads.
• Nurturing: Some leads qualify early on, while others may take more time. Many of your leads will need some nurturing through frequent communication until they are ready to be contacted by someone from your business development team.
• Hard Offer: This is typically an offer for a service or product that usually requires the prospect to act immediately. Often times these offers are limited to a few people or may have an expiration date.
• Soft Offer: This type of offer usually doesn’t require an immediate response. An example of a soft offer is an email newsletter subscription.
• Lead Capture: The use of marketing automation systems, allowing marketers to gather contact information from web forms, landing pages and email campaigns.
• Landing Pages: A page that a visitor can land at or arrive on in response to clicking on a link or offer.

Building Your Lead Generation Campaign

Imagine this scenario for a moment; you are at home when suddenly you receive a phone call from a local moving company. Earlier that day you filled out a form on their website. You input your name, phone number, zip code, and services you are interested in. While on the website you also downloaded a guide on how to get ready for your move. In doing so, this local moving company generated a new lead, and that lead is you. With the information captured, they are now able to contact you with further value and information. That is how the lead generation process takes place.

The process begins with several main components. These components are necessary in order to maximize the number of qualified leads that you receive. Below are a few components to consider:

• A lead generating website: As the name implies, lead generating websites are meant to generate and nurture new business leads. There are variations on the types of leads a website might be looking for. For instance, one site may be focused on recruiting where another may be more interested in generating new business teaming partners.
• A Customer Relationship Management (CRM) System: CRM systems are intended to collect information on prospects. The information you can gather in a CRM on your contacts can include their website, email, phone number, mailing address, content downloads and open opportunities you may have with them. Your firm can customize your CRM based on the information your firm needs to qualify your leads.
• A Content Marketing Strategy: A strategic plan focused on generating and distributing educational content to your target audience on a consistent basis. An end goal of your strategy could be to drive your audience through the content funnel, gaining their trust, having them view you as the expert, and then contact you when they are ready to buy.
• A Content Calendar: A resource tool that marketing teams can use to plan all content marketing activity for both traditional and online marketing. The benefit of using a content calendar is being able to visualize and strategize how your content is distributed.

Generating Leads Through a Successful Plan

By understanding the basic terms and having all of the components that make up an online lead generation campaign, you can then start to develop your plan by going through these 5 steps. It’s important to know that your process will vary depending on your objective, target audience and use of media.

1. Set your campaign objective: Your objective can vary based on the outcome that you want to achieve. You may want to start off by defining your goal by either the number of leads expected or revenue per lead. These are just a few examples of what your campaign objective could possibly be. In order to better define your objective you may want to ask yourself the following questions:
   • Who is your target audience?
   • How will you reach them?
   • What do you want them to do?
   • What call to action do you want to offer them?
   • What are you going to offer them?
   • How will you follow-up?
   • When will you will follow-up?
   • Who will follow-up?
   • What will you do or what will you ask when you follow-up?
   • How will you record and report on the results of the lead?
   • Who will you report these results to?
   • When will you evaluate your lead generation efforts?
   • What will you consider a success?
2. Evaluate and select your campaign target: This may come from your current list of contacts that you have or you may want to focus on an entirely new target group for your lead generation campaign. Either way, make sure you have identified who those groups are and what their pain points and issues might be that your firm can answer with content.
3. Determine your media outlet: While there are may different media outlets ranging from email marketing to eBooks and guides, our research has shown that firms generating more than 60% of their leads online are 2x more profitable than their competitors. Therefore, choosing an email campaign or holding a webinar would be an example of a great strategy for generating more online leads.
   
4. Develop an offer: To reiterate, a lead is a prospective client who has peaked interested in your firm’s product or service. In order to identify these prospects in your list of contacts, you may want to send out an offer. This could be a free download to a guide, registration for a free webinar, etc. When the lead responds to your offer, their information is captured. They are then pulled into your lead generation campaign where you will continue to nurture your leads until they are ready to close a deal.There are several main mechanics to creating an offer. First you must create a landing page where a prospect lands for a distinct purpose. This is usually prompted by an offer and a call-to-action in which the prospect is prompted to fill out a form. Your hard or soft offer respondents become, as what we at Hinge like to call, a “new hot lead.” There are several different places you can promote these offers such as on a blog, on a webpage, on social media, in an email…these are just to name a few.
5. Create a communications strategy process: This includes what your follow-up process is going to look like. Strategizing how you will respond to your leads, what kinds of material will you share, who will contact them, and finally defining what your proposals will look like as well.

Looking at all the elements of a successful lead generation campaign can make your head spin a bit. So in conclusion, make sure your campaign includes a clear understanding of your target market, multiple media channels to capture and narrow down your leads, compelling offers, and a strong strategy that tracks performance. If you have all of these then you are good to go!