When you’re on a hyper-growth startup sales team, hiring happens fast.

As a sales leader, you have a headcount number to hit each quarter, and you’re often hiring faster than you can train new reps. Because of this, your team is mostly rookies, and you can end up with first-time managers managing first-time sellers.

This is a recipe for disaster. You need to be able to share the accumulated knowledge and experience of your top reps with every new rep that starts on the team. However, your top reps don’t have the time to meet with every single new sales rep you hire — they need to be on the phone selling.

Instead of wasting their time, every growing team must build a powerful sales playbook that includes the best talk tracks, sales processes, strategies, and much more. This document should be clear, concise, and enable success. With an in-depth playbook, your newest reps can absorb the wisdom of the top reps, and hit the ground running.

However, you can’t rely on a traditional printed sales playbook for a modern, high-growth sales team. You need to build an agile playbook that grows and pivots as your team does. Here’s how to build a living, breathing, constantly-changing sales playbook for your startup sales team.

Ditch The Paper Playbook

When you think of a sales playbook, you probably imagine a massive, dictionary-sized document that sits unused on a sales rep’s desk for years. They may reference it from time to time, but mainly, it’s a paperweight.

At InsightSquared, we’ve grown our sales team from 20 to 100 reps in two years, and also pivoted our sales strategy multiple times. As a part of this, we’ve built a sales playbook that has changed more times than our strategy. It’s been through multiple iterations, and is being revised even now. It includes new talk tracks for our newest product offerings, outlines of recently-implemented territories, and more. Because the playbook is digital and flexible, it’s easy to implement these changes. And because it’s never sat static for long, reps know it’s up-to-date and actually use it often

Curate The Best Of The Best

An agile, digital playbook is key, but you also need to include the right content. As a sales leader, you have to ensure that the playbook is an organized collection of the best of everything on your sales team right at this moment. Make sure to bring in a good writer who can clearly convey the ideas you want to share with the entire sales team, and allow them to spend the time and money it takes to do the project well.

You should also bring in sales people from across the organization to contribute their personal expertise. In addition to traditional talk tracks, also add in practical advice from real reps on your sales team. For example, find the AE who is the best at negotiation or the BDR that’s fantastic at list building and have them share their experiences and tactics with the team through the playbook. By curating a list of the best and most successful tactics, you’ll have a powerful document that everyone will want to read.

A Playbook As Fast As Your Sales Team

I’ve really only scratched the surface of the value of an agile sales playbook and how exactly you can build one. There’s still many questions that remain:

• Who should own the sales playbook?
• Who is responsible for updating it?
• What specific chapters should you include?
• What technology should you use to organize the playbook?

If you want to learn more about agile sales playbooks for high growth sales teams, register for the upcoming webinar with Datanyze, InsightSquared, and the Bridge Group:

[Webinar] Building An Agile Sales Playbook For 2016

Register Now.

Time is a precious commodity, especially when you're a small business owner and it feels like there are always a million things to do.

"Most small business owners don't build time into their workdays for things that are not just run, run, run for the business," Laura Vanderkam, time-management expert and author of "I Know How She Does It: How Successful Women Make the Most of Their Time," tells Business Insider.

While the core production of doing things for your business will obviously take up the majority of your day, Vanderkam says it's also vital to make time for other high-value items, like networking, building skills, interacting with employees, and leisure.

While this routine may not be right for everyone, Vanderkam's sample schedule is a good jumping-off point for fitting it all in when you own a small business:

SEE ALSO: 12 chores small-business owners should pay someone else to do

SEE ALSO: The 27 jobs that are most damaging to your health

Join the conversation about this story »

In my previous post, Confessions of an Old-school Sales Professional, I discussed several different selling styles — charismatic, technical, aggressor, and consultative — which may be known by a variety of names.

Many sales professionals find themselves stuck in a particular style of selling. I was one more at home with a charismatic approach and, sometimes, a technical approach. I had my share of successes, but I also saw a number of opportunities vanish just when I thought they should be closing. I began to see the limitations of my narrow go-to selling styles, and I wondered how much more growth I could experience by expanding the tools to my skills toolkit. Moving beyond my comfort zone took some doing, so I thought I would share some tips in this post.

The first step to shift your selling style is awareness. You need to become clear on where you tend to live in terms of approach by identifying your default style. Do you focus more on relationships? On technical knowledge? On pushing clients to consider new ideas? Assess where you are and how well your current approach works for you. Think about your successes, and why they have worked. Remember the deals that you couldn’t close, and be honest about the reasons of why they slipped away.

Then, do a gap analysis. What might you have done differently that could have changed the outcome of that opportunity? What different skills or approaches might you have employed? Identify the characteristics in different selling styles where you could be stronger.

If you’re a sales manager, ask your sales professionals to conduct their own self-analysis. Then, develop an ongoing dialogue in which you coach them and move them forward along an agreed-upon path. Don’t manage your people solely by numbers because numbers don’t tell the whole story. You will have a richer dialogue and greater impact on each person in your team if you look at individual selling styles and work on improving those skills needed to achieve better results.

My eyes were opened to the benefits of consultative selling after seeing how it draws on the best traits of several styles while minimizing risk. I can engage clients on a deeper level by combining my relationship skills, my technical knowledge, and offering insights. I’m less likely to be blindsided because I’ve done a thorough needs analysis and spent the time to understand my client, the selling situation, and the competitive environment.

Consultative selling is nothing new. It’s been around since the 1970s when it was considered revolutionary. It marked the transition to a more collaborative interaction where the client’s needs, not the product, became the focal point of the sale. This approach remains both valid and vital today, even with — or especially because of — digital and mobile technologies that continue to shift the selling environment.

With consultative selling, you have a much greater chance of adding value and being seen as a strategic advisor vs. someone who clings to a more narrow selling style. As a truly consultative partner, you can build mutually rewarding partnerships that stand the test of time.

Learn more about Richardson’s Consultative Selling Sales Training Solutions.

The post Tips on how to Shift Your Selling Style appeared first on Richardson Sales Enablement Blog.

Many of the most attractive housing markets in the world are vastly overpriced.

That's according to Mark Haefele, who overseas the investment policy and strategy for $2 trillion as UBS's global chief investment officer.

"Among the 15 international cities we analyzed, only Chicago appears undervalued," he wrote.

New York and Boston were considered fair-valued, leaving 12 of the 15 cities surveyed overvalued.

'Bubble risk'

London and Hong Kong are the two most extreme examples of overvalued housing markets, with Hong Kong's real-estate prices nearly 200% above 2003 levels despite stagnant rent and income. In London, home prices have risen 40% since 2013 — putting both cities at risk of a housing bubble.

"Real estate is not only illiquid but also offers poor value in many major global cities ... property markets look frothy in many cities of the world," Haefele wrote. "The results indicate an elevate risk of a significant correction in housing prices in London and Hong Kong to name just two examples."

The report added that house prices in Zurich, Vancouver, Hong Kong, Geneva, Singapore, Paris, London, and Sydney are vulnerable to "sharp corrections."

"We have recommended other destinations for money currently earning meager yields in government bonds, such as hedge funds," Haefele wrote. "An alternative we recommend to clients looking for longer-term investments is exposure to structural trends, such as cancer therapeutics, clean air, or emerging market healthcare."

Join the conversation about this story »

NOW WATCH: What you need to know before going into business with family

Entrepeneur and marketer extraordinaire, Seth Godin, says

“People do not buy goods and services. They buy relations, stories, and magic.” 

The dilemma for many is that goods and services are easily quanitified. But, how do you assess PR results? How do you quantify the success of building relations or how well your stories are received? How can you analyze “magic?”

And yet, you must analyze results, or else you won’t know what’s working and what’s not. Any PR firm worth its weight knows that you can’t approach PR with a lackadaisical attitude.

To that end, I thought it would be helpful to round up 13 expert measurement guides. I’ve rounded it out to include guides on measuring your content marketing, client relationships, and social media since we all know that these are critical to your PR success.

Top 13 Expert Guides to Measuring PR Results

These guides are in no particular order, since they’re all fantastic resources!

1. 6 Ways to Measure B2B Content Marketing Performance

Derek’s play-by-play on the nitty gritty of content marketing performance is in depth, but not overwhelming.

He addresses the common challenges we all face in content marketing and how to use common tools, such as Google Analytics to increase brand recognition, thought leadership, and engagement.

2. Diagnosing the Health of Your Client Relationships

Happy and loyal clients are the lifeblood of any firm.

In this guide, Hubspot outlines “tips and tricks for maintaining the health and happiness of your clients using both happiness and profitability metrics.”

3. PR Measurement: 8 Inspirational Quotes & Lessons

This SlideShare presentation underscores the reality of measuring your PR. It includes quotes from marketing legends, such as Arthur C. Nielson, and how to apply their concepts in practical ways.

4. Getting Your PR Measurement Program in Shape for 2106

Derek gives you a quick reminder of what you should already be doing, as well as some extra tips for boosting your PR in the coming year.

5. 3 Ways Press Release Measurement Can Inform Your Message Strategy

The press release is alive and well, yet many underestimate its efficacy in the PR world.

Shannon states that “press release reporting is an indispensable tool for demonstrating ROI and finding new opportunities to improve your message strategy.”

Her practical guide shows just how this is accomplished.

6. 5 Tactics to Maximize ROI of your B2B Public Relations

I would be remiss if I didn’t include my own guide to measuring PR. Here, I delve into how to use press releases, multimedia, and social channels to drive measurable results.

7. 5 Key Social Media Metrics and Priorities Your CEO Cares About (Podcast)

This podcast tackles the struggle marketers face in the corporate environment and how to overcome them by providing metrics that matter the most to those making your budget allowance.

8. Payback: The ROI of SM & PR Measurement

This SlideShare teaches you how to measure what matters, specific methodologies to measurement, and how to not go crazy with impulsive over measuring.

9. How Can PR Measurement Benefit Your Business?

“If we cannot prove the value of what we do, we will never command the fees that we should.” ~ David Gallagher

The concept of this thoughtful quote is the basis for this SlideShare that instructs you on how to write measurable goals, valid metrics, and how to be flexible in your expectations.

10. The PR Professional’s Defininitive Guide to Measurement

They’re not kidding about this being a definitive guide. From a 10-point checklist, to how to measure social media campaigns, this collaboration aims to “encourage more PR professionals, working in consultancy and in- house, to regard PR measurement as an everyday part of what they do.”

11. PR Measurement That Matters

This downloadable ebook is “a road map for PR measurement with a number of helpful guides along the way.”

It feature’s case studies from Adobe, McDonald’s USA, and Roche that show you how to practically apply expert advice from top PR pros.

12. New PR 2.0 Measurement – Part I and Part II

PR superwoman, Deirdre Breakenridge has been breathing life back into public relations by embracing socialized media. In her PR measurement guide, she identifies tools that every PR pro should be touting, as well as some new ones that you might not be using quite yet.

To be sure, the landscape of PR is evolving. Aren’t we grateful for industry leaders who’ve provided stellar guides to lead us to greener pastures?

In fact, I’d like to throw my hat in the ring and provide my own road map to PR, with my latest guide: The Bottom Line About PR. In just a few brief moments, this SlideShare will educate you on how to fuel your PR campaign, plus I’ll bust some myths about what PR is not. 

I hope you enjoy it, and I wish you the best success!

Most people in digital marketing know that content is omnipresent, which can put your brand at a natural disadvantage. Because there’s so much other content floating around the web, it’s difficult to get ahead of the pack. However, the concept of raising brand awareness becomes much simpler when you recognize that it rests in the hands of your customers.

There are a number of reasons why customers choose to ignore a brand rather than engage with it, ranging from visually unappealing content to unclear branding. However, the biggest factor that discourages customer engagement is failure to engage. When you begin interacting with your customers, word of mouth (WOM) marketing takes over.

Word of mouth marketing is by far the most lucrative method for spreading your brand, and it’s particularly helpful in the B2B community.

“In B2B you can increase WOM marketing between executives and entrepreneurs by providing outstanding customer support and customer success,” says Alex Chaidaroglou of Weekly Growth, a website dedicated to the growth and marketing of tech startups.

“Going above and beyond to make your customers succeed with your product or service can bring them this ‘Wow!’ moment, where they become true fans of your brand and share it whenever the opportunity comes up. It might not be seen on social media so much, but it will definitely be in their conversations with other professionals.”

If you’re looking to improve WOM marketing in your company to facilitate growth, here are a few suggestions.

1. Surveys

One of the first and most effective steps to take when promoting WOM marketing is learning who is most likely to share your brand with others. Chaidaroglou recommends asking your customers questions to promote brand sharing, and surveys are a great place to start.

The survey can be made using a survey generation company like SurveyMonkey or Qualtrics, or it can be generated and sent through email. Ask questions such as, “On a scale from 1 to 10, how likely are you to recommend our brand to others?” The information from this one question will be a gold mine for boosting and targeting your WOM marketing campaign.

2. Customer-Generated Content

A study performed by Search Engine Land in 2013 shows that 79 percent of consumers trust online reviews as much as a personal recommendation. It is hard to dispute that customer-generated reviews, posts, videos and other types of earned media can help to sell your brand far better than traditional advertisements.

3. Offer Exclusive Deals

Show your customers that you value them and their business by offering exclusive deals. The feeling of being part of something exclusive is appealing to any customer.

An example of a successful, exclusive deal might include providing a first-look at new content on your website. If it’s a topic they’ve shown great interest in before, this type of “private” interaction will make them feel valued and appreciated. This is a feeling they’ll be quick to share with friends and family.

4. Stay Relevant

It’s rare to see someone recommend a company that only posts outdated, non-applicable content. When you position your company as a leader in conversation over the news and growth of your industry, you become someone customers can trust.

In order to become relevant and stay that way, post breaking news as it happens, not a few days after. Be sure to recap popular posts and use social media to make your content known and discoverable. Making yourself an authority within your industry will help drive customers new and old alike to your website and motivate them to share with others what they find when they arrive.

Word of mouth marketing can be highly effective and relatively inexpensive if it’s part of a larger integrated content strategy. These four tactics are just a few ways to get started garnering word of mouth buzz, but it doesn’t have to stop there. Keep experimenting and, most of all, keep building strong one-to-one relationships with your customers; the buzz about your brand will naturally follow.

Any company with aggressive growth goals wants its sales reps to close more business, and to do it with higher margins. But companies are undermining these lofty ambitions by grooming their sales teams on outdated techniques and bad habits.

This Thanksgiving season, don’t let your reps look like turkeys after an important sales call. Here are three pieces of conventional wisdom that may be doing your reps more harm than good, and three counterintuitive, research-backed approaches to help them deliver great customer conversations.

Misguided Tip #1: Respond only to your customer’s identified needs.

If you’re only messaging to the challenges your prospects have told you about, you could be fueling the perception that you are a commodity – no different from other qualified vendors in your market. In all likelihood, you’ll be basing your message off the exact same feedback as your competitors. As a result, your prospects will become indecisive, see no compelling reason to change and end up sticking with the status quo.

What you need to do is alter your messaging approach to ensure you’re creating both the context and the urgency for change. You can do this by introducing prospects to their unconsidered needs – essentially, the challenges or missed opportunities in their current situation that they don’t know about. And, you can further separate yourself from the competition by linking the unconsidered needs you’ve identified to your solution’s unexpected strengths, showing how you’re uniquely suited to resolve their most important business challenges.

Misguided Tip #2: Focus solely on the features and benefits of your solution.

Don’t just assume the customer will infer why your solution is different and better and that it’s time to make a change. You need to make this abundantly clear. You can do that by creating contrast between the pain of a prospect’s current state and the value of a proposed future state. That will open prospects up to the value of doing something different, helping them see and feel the threat of their status quo situation.

Misguided Tip #3: Use PowerPoint to tell your story.

Presenting a list of bullet points and stock photography that go in one ear and out the other won’t make you remarkable or memorable after you leave the room. If anything, it demonstrates that you lack command of your story because you need a pre-packaged presentation as a crutch.

Instead, create a more remarkable, unforgettable impression by using a marker to create a visual story in real-time on flip charts or a whiteboard. This allows you to create a dynamic visual story that engages your audience, encourages participation and demands to be remembered.

We tested PowerPoint and whiteboard-style presentations across several key areas of engagement. Watch the results here.

Uh ... Um ... so as I was saying ...

Well, basically ...

You know?

At first glance, you might think I'm just a writer suffering from a nervous breakdown after one too many blog posts. But, really, these are called crutch words -- a collection of words we fall back on when we've lost our footing while speaking.

We all use crutch words. They help us fill the gap in a conversation or speech when we're unsure of how to proceed, or haven't quite thought out the best way to position something.

Crutch words weaken the point you're trying to make. When you pepper your argument with unnecessary words, it distracts from the purpose of the message and dilutes its strength.

Even something as simple as "It's nice out" sounds much more confident and appealing than "So, um, it's nice out." Whether you're making a presentation to prospects, pitching a new project to your boss, or speaking on a call, the last thing you want to do is come off as nervous, unsure, or confusing.

Each person has their own set of crutch words, but there are quite a few that are very common. To help you rock your next conversation or speech, I've put together a list of common crutch words to watch out for and suggestions for how to cut them out of your speech so you aren't relying on them as heavily.

Note: Remember, aside from the non-words, crutch words are still words. This means that there is a right way to use them. But more often than not, they're used incorrectly or unnecessarily, which is why they made this list.

The Extraneous Exclamation

Image source: via GIPHY

An exclamation is a sudden interjection, often expressing surprise, anger, or hesitation. Those first two are alright, but when you're speaking, you're most often inserting exclamations in that last category -- hesitation. This can make you come off as unsure, unprepared, or nervous.

But good news! This is an easy crutch to catch, as it isn't a part of your sentence and sticks out like a sore thumb (you didn't plan on using "um" when explaining something).

Um: In the middle of my speech, I, um, lost my train of thought.

Uh: Uh, this speech is about, uh, not using crutch words.

Ah: Ah, you know it's funny, I use crutch words all the time.

Er: Er, I think there's never a good time to use these exclamations during a presentation.

The False Start

Image source: GIPHY

Sometimes, you might start a sentence without fully thinking it through. Often, this results in starting with unnecessary words such as "and," "so," and starting, pausing, and re-starting sentences. Unless you mean to occasionally start with one of these words as a stylistic choice (maybe you're trying to be ultra-colloquial), you need to find the balance between using a word, and making it your crutch.

Here are some words to look out for:

And: Working in sales is fun. And ... did you know I'm working on a new presentation?

So: So, raise your hands if you've given a presentation lately.

Anyway: Anyway, it can be nervewracking.

And so: And so I usually take the afternoon to rehearse.

Okay: Okay I think I can handle speaking in front of 200 people.

Well: Well let's get right to the point.

Like I was saying: Like I was saying, though, trying to watch out for crutch words will help make the presentation more coherent.

If you notice these words creeping into your speech when you aren't sure what to say next, just pause for a moment to gather your bearings before continuing. Your audience won't even notice the little stop in the presentation.

The Awkward Ending

Image source: GIPHY

Have you ever started a sentence, forgotten exactly what you were trying to say, and just ... ended it very awkwardly?

The awkward ending can be an interrogative tacked to the end of a statement that turns it into a question that the audience doesn't actually need/want to answer. Another common awkward ending is when you don't end the sentence right away, and when you finally do, there's one heck of an awkward pause at the end.

Right?: You get that feeling, right?

You know?: It's that nervousness you feel when you're standing in at the front of the room, you know?

Okay: So you've practiced what you're going to say, okay. But what's next?

Know what I mean?: It's actually time to present, now, and it's different, know what I mean?

You get the idea: Sweaty palms, higher heart rate, you get the idea.

And so on and so forth: This is when it's important to take a moment to breathe, make a mental note to watch for crutch words, and so forth and so on.

I guess: At this point, you have to just trust that you can deliver, I guess.

So ... : You're up next, so ...

Well ... yeah: You'll do great. Just breathe, speak clearly, and well ... yeah.

... Ugh.

The Totally Mostly Useless Adverb

Image source: GIPHY

There is literally an epidemic of the incorrect and over-use of adverbs. Adverbs are great! They add flavor to your otherwise boring verb. However, you need to make the call between when it's adding value to your point and when it's just there as a filler.

I personally have only recently been able to get over the "literally" phase, but I catch myself overusing "basically" and "definitely" quite a lot. Crutch words are like whack-a-mole: You get some under control, and new ones pop up.

Just: It's just not necessary to always use adverbs.

Almost: You almost need to catch yourself before you use them.

Basically: It's basically just unnecessary, you know?

Actually: I guess there are times you can actually use them, though.

Definitely: There are definitely real uses of adverbs.

Literally: I use them literally all the time.

Really: Adverbs are really great for describing verbs.

Very: It's very enlightening to know when to use them.

Truly: I truly feel I have a grasp of the concept of adverbs.

Essentially: It's essentially just inserting in extra words to give my sentence more of that wow-factor.

Absolutely: It's absolutely necessary to use them.

Seriously: I seriously don't know if I'm using them correctly.

Totally: I'm totally failing at this right now, right?

Honestly: I honestly don't know how to make this better.

Obviously: We obviously need adverbs, just not all the time.

The Overcompensating Adjective

Image source: GIPHY

Like adverbs, adjectives have a place in your presentations. They help describe things in a way that helps your audience better visualize and connect to your point. You know you're using a crutch adjective, however, when you frequently use it to describe just about anything: "That's a fantastic idea." "This is a fantastic example of image resizing in emails." "We've got a fantastic agenda."

When you overuse adjectives, they lose their meaning. Is your example of resizing emails really fantastic, or is a 30% increase in ROI fantastic? If you use it multiple times in a speech to describe various levels of fantastic, it loses meaning entirely.

Great: Great, let's get started. I'm going to show you a great example of a crutch word.

Fantastic: This is a fantastic example of a crutch word.

Awesome: Instead of letting a noun stand on its own, I have this awesome habit of adding an extra adjective to it.

Excellent: This excellent case study explains why we should be mindful of crutch words.

Definite: There is a definite possibility of also sounding unsure.

The Diluting Preposition(al Phrase)

Image source: GIPHY

Prepositions are tricky. They're necessary ... except when they're not. Often the misuse is just a culprit of falling into colloquial speaking habits. An example of this is adding unnecessary prepositions: "off of" should really be "off"; "call up" can be left as "call".

Prepositional phrases can also be unnecessary if there are more concise ways to say the same thing. This can make you sound like you're rambling or stalling.

Here are some examples of prepositions that are common crutch words/phrases when used incorrectly in a sentence.

Like: Have you, like, used prepositions before?

Of: I personally am just going off of what I learned in grade school.

Up: It's common to trip up over your words when you're nervous, so take a breather before starting.

About: I'm about two seconds away from a nervous breakdown.

At the present time: At the present time, I'd like some cake.

In order that: In order that you and I remain friends, you will need to bring me some cake.

In the process of: In the process of bringing me cake, please consider not using needlessly long prepositional phrases.

Next Steps: Reducing Your Reliance on Crutch Words

Now that you're aware of common crutch words, you may be wondering, "what's next? How do I stop using these crutch words?"

Crutch words, like any bad habit, can take some time to get out of your system. Don't be disappointed if during your next presentation (or next 100), you still find yourself using them. Even the most professional speakers let them slip out sometimes! It's all about making little changes over time to strengthen your public speaking. Each time you don't use a crutch word when you usually would have, consider it a victory!

Here are some tips to get started on your path to overcoming your crutch words.

1. Identify Your Crutch Words

Remember, each person has their own crutch words -- the list above is simply a collection of the most widely-used ones. Use it as a starting point, then dive into your own speaking habits.

If you've recorded videos of your presentations, go through them and listen for any words you seem to be leaning on. Practice speaking in front of a mirror, or record yourself speaking and listen for patterns. Where do you pause? What do you say when you stumble over a sentence? What do you fall back on when you need to steer conversation back to your original point?

2. Monitor Your Presentations for Crutch Words

Not all presentations have dry runs -- but if you get a chance to practice beforehand, actively monitor yourself for your list of crutch words. Each time you catch yourself, start that part over. When you get up in front of your colleagues or that crowd, you'll have practiced without it and not using your crutch words will come more naturally.

Familiarize yourself with your crutch words. Write them down on a piece of paper and glance at it before you begin speaking. Just having a fresh reminder to not use them can mean the difference between a weak argument and a compelling one.

3. Practice Your Public Speaking

Practice makes perfect! There's a whole world of resources out there on public speaking, so take advantage. You can watch videos of TED Talk speakers such as Amy Cuddy, read guides on the topic, or even join public speaking clubs such as Toastmasters where you can practice in front of your peers who are all trying to improve, too.

Most importantly, keep speaking! Volunteer for speaking opportunities. Speak up in meetings. Practice your next business presentation. Actively giving yourself more chances to catch crutch words will help you stop using them over time. You'll sound more confident, persuasive, and come off as a more engaging speaker in no time.

What does your content marketing process look like? For many marketers, it goes “idea–>create–>publish–>promote.” While “promote” might be last on that list, it shouldn’t be last in your mind – it makes the rest of the journey worth your while.

What’s the use of spending your time and budget on developing amazing content without delivering a stellar follow-through? Make sure your content spreads like wildfire with a strong social media plan.

And the icing on the cake of your social media plan just might be interactive content. No matter how much planning you put into promotion, not everything you publish on Twitter will be a hit. Instead of sweating the social shares of every blog post, incorporate a little bit of interactive content to reach an audience looking for a quick, mobile experience.

The colorful, snappy examples below prove that interactive content and social are the best bonded pair in your marketer’s toolkit:

Alabama Outdoors

Alabama Outdoors built a digital community around their passion for adventure. With blog posts that feature the best parks and gear reviews, they carved out a niche in their state — and region — as the go-to authority for outdoor enthusiasts.

When they wanted to kick their reach up to the next level, Alabama Outdoors decided to go interactive. They told their happy social media followers on Twitter that they would give away 10 of their True Grit pullovers to lucky participants. Here’s the catch: to participate in this interactive contest, Alabama Outdoors needed their followers to share exactly where they would wear their new pullover. Alabama Outdoors used interactive content to build on an already solid conversation about outdoor adventure and apparel — but instead of just doling out advice, they asked for feedback from their community, too.

By crowdsourcing information about the preferences community members, they learned about the habits of their users — (mmhm, awesome data!). They also expanded the conversation to include how the visitor had heard about their brand as well as their preferences about the different kinds of pullovers available.

With information about the style, color, and pile their audience members prefer, Alabama Outdoors gave themselves the option to refine offerings and their content plan over time. Plus, the lead form at the end of their contest brought in a whole group of new consumers into their database. Where do I sign up?

Boston Content

The savvy marketers at Boston Content know their way around killer strategy and implementation. They know that contests have the highest conversion rate of any content type — and that’s exactly what you want when you’re prepping for a big event. Committee members timed voting for their first-ever “Boston Content Marketer to Watch” award with the lead-up to the Annual Bash. Through this contest, they increased engagement, heightened excitement and kept their social media promotion super personal.

Instead of just listing names, the marketers at Boston Content also included photos of nominees in their virtual voting booth. According to research cited by Buffer, faces are more memorable. KISSmetrics also recommends including faces in marketing campaigns to increase engagement — A/B testing found that when one website, Medalia Art, replaced images of paintings for sale with photos of the artists, they experienced a 95% increase in conversations.

No doubt, Boston Content’s super personal approach to event promotion contributed to their awesome numbers.

TrackMaven

TrackMaven empowers marketers by harnessing data to optimize their content. Their strategy allows marketers to quantify their most successful content — as well as their competitors’ top content — so their efforts hit the mark every time.

To interact with potential leads, TrackMaven shared a data-driven marketing quiz with their Twitter community. TrackMaven grounded their quiz with a smart icons that represent each of the four stages of marketing teams: data-aware, data-informed, gut-driven or data-driven. Pro tip: Always share an image on Twitter, as they can boost retweets by 35%.

TrackMaven’s user-friendly quiz garnered a 5% share rate and sourced valuable leads for their teed-up sales funnel. TrackMaven captured imaginations with their clever corgi icon, and gave prospects a sliding scale with a paw print instead of asking a simple multiple choice question. A little extra design effort made all the difference.

The quiz made a splash because it reflected the company’s visual branding, infused gamification into the mix, and offered immediate value — a short lead form at the end sealed the deal.

ServiceNow

ServiceNow captured the attention of their target audience with a simple but excruciating painpoint: password resets. IT employees spend one day a week helping customers to get new passwords. That’s a huge amount of time!

As a service management company, ServiceNow streamlines processes across a range of industries — and hopes to eradicate those kinds of inefficiencies. The title of their quiz “Password Resets: Have You Hit a Boiling Point?” mirrored the frustration of their audience in spending so much time on such a monotonous task.

By digging into a tangible, everyday challenge with empathy, ServiceNow stuck a chord with their audience. Seth Godin calls this approach “Selling the problem.” By revealing an issue that needs to be solved, marketers create common ground for a larger discussion about the solution.

ServiceNow’s content broke through the noise because it offered personal value — it took an emotional approach to the audience, which has a far greater impact. Seventy-one percent of B2B buyers who see personal value in a product will make an immediate purchase. By appealing to the target audience’s emotions with empathy, they struck gold with an 11% share rate on Twitter!

Target

Since new CEO Brian Cornell took the helm of our favorite red and white superstore, Target has revamped their approach to customer acquisition. Taking a big leap into all things digital, Target has harnessed personalization to revitalize their connections with their buyer personas. One of these ideal customers is your first-year college student — inevitably, these teenagers are looking for a stylish home away from home on a shoestring budget.

With their #MadeforU campaign, Target hit the bullseye. They created an interactive experience that gives college students the chance to create their ideal dorm room based on their personality.

This kind of knowledge is empowering for their audience — students are eager to embrace this new chapter and buy a lot of stuff, but may have no idea where to start in decorating a home. Target’s team allows participants to invite a roommate to find common ground between two styles, even making room for budding friendships.Target’s marketing team optimized the campaign to excel in social media channels. Their hashtag showed up in force on Instagram and Twitter — it was even a hit with vloggers on Youtube!

Conclusion

Now that you have reeled in new leads with interactive content on social media, how are you going to encourage them down the sales funnel? Interactive content doesn’t just hook in new leads — you can use digital forms to expedite and strengthen every aspect of the buying process.

Want to learn more about using interactive content in all your demand gen channels? Get our Demand Gen Marketer’s Guide!

 Times in the tiny Swiss watch ateliers are getting tough. While I originally assumed that Swiss watches would survive the onslaught of smartwatches, I was wrong. “To suggest that the iWatch will influence Swiss watch buyers is like saying the market for a fine Bordeaux is affected by the advent of a new flavor of Vitamin Water,” I wrote in September. Boy do I feel silly.… Read More

Most B2B SaaS companies use some form of tiered pricing model. Three-tiered models are most common, but there are many companies with four-tiered architectures and some companies have even more.

Why are these models so popular? And what do you need to think about as you design your own pricing architecture?

Let’s start with some examples. HubSpot is a great example of best practices.

There are three things to note about the Hubspot model.

1. The pricing metric (the number of contacts) maps closely to the value metric. HubSpot helps you form relationships with the opportunities in your funnel, so ‘contacts’ is a metric that resonates.
2. The tiers are well differentiated. They go up 4X Basic to Pro and then 3X from Pro to Enterprise. Enterprise plays a critical role in framing the value proposition and establishing a relatively high reference value.
3. The tiers are tied to buyer personas. Basic is ‘an entry tool for those new to online marketing. Pro is ‘an integrated solution for professional marketers.’ Enterprise is ‘an advanced platform for marketing teams.’

Let’s compare this to HubSpot’s competitor Marketo.

Here we have four tiers. At first glance the pricing architecture looks similar to HubSpot: Records instead of Contacts, and the figure of 10,000 crops up again. But looking closely we see that Marketo is capping the number of records at 10,000 for all three tiers and is fencing its pricing using functionality. Marketo does not provide a clear way to add records above 10,000. And Marketo directs large companies to custom quotes. The tier-to-tier price increase is much flatter: Spark to Standard is about a 50% increase; Standard to Select is a 78% step.

Salesforce also uses four tiers.

Here there really are four distinct tiers. The slope is steeper than Marketo (but not as steep as HubSpot): Starter to Professional is 1.6X; Professional to Enterprise is a smaller increase of 92%; and then Enterprise to Unlimited is a 2X increase. When you move up from Professional to Enterprise you are paying for the ability to customize the software and integrate it with other applications.

Docusign has even more tiers; four plus customized pricing for the enterprise.

Here the slope gets steeper the higher you climb: Individual to Professional is 2X; Professional to Business is 2.5X; Business to Business Premium is just over 4X!

What is going on here? How many tiers should you have and how should you set pricing at each tier?

One reason to have tiers is to capture more of the market while optimizing pricing. As you provide more functionality (and one hopes value) you can increase prices, but if you do so you lose the buyers who are price sensitive and do not need the full functionality. This suggests you should have lots of pricing tiers (in fact, HubSpot does charge you more for additional contacts once you go over the limit for each tier). But in this case a pricing calculator makes more sense than having tiers. So why tiers?

Each tier should play a specific role in your pricing strategy.

The top tier should be positioned to establish a reference value. It should be high. HubSpot and Docusign are doing the right thing here.

The middle tier is generally where you are going to get most of your revenue. Note that Salesforce and Marketo tell you which tier is the most popular. HubSpot is a bit more subtle. They make the middle tier more prominent.

The entry tier is the interesting one. What are you trying to do with this tier?

It may be that this tier’s job is to lure people in with minimum functionality so that they get frustrated and upgrade. This is what Salesforce is doing. Not many people are happy with the Starter offer, they either upgrade or move off to some less expensive alternative.

To execute on this strategy you have to test different price points and function bundles until you get the upsell you are looking for.

The entry tier could also be a way to capture the bottom part of your market while optimizing pricing for the middle tier. In this case you will test pricing and possibly functionality until you get the optimal distribution between the two tiers.

Of course it is not really that simple. Your pricing strategy also plays a big role.

If you are running a penetration strategy, setting the price low to get as many customers as possible, then you will design your pricing architecture to draw as many users as possible into the bottom tier. You do this when there is a land grab going on or there are real economics of scale (not often the case for B2B software). Here the revenue ratio between tiers will like range from 50:40:10 to as high as 80:15:5. You should have a dashboard showing the performance of each tier on a weekly basis.

If you are running a skimming strategy, and trying to optimize your operating profit, you will want a different distribution. If you have a low level of upsell from Tier 1 to Tier 2 the ratio you are looking for is probably about 20:70:10 or even 10:80:10. If you have a good level of upsell you can have more people coming into Tier 1. The actual targets depend on the upsell percentage, but a normal distribution would be 20:70:10 or 30:60:10, whatever optimizes operating profit.

If you are very good at upsell you might want to go as high as 50:40:10. This is the same as with a penetration strategy? But the logic is different as you are assuming that at least 30% of the Tier 1 users will convert to Tier 2.

Pricing optimization is not the only thing to think about while designing your tiers. You also want to map tiers to buyer persona. The name of the tier and the functionality called out in the bundle should map directly to a buyer persona. HubSpot is a good example of this.

A Simple Process for Designing Pricing Architectures

1. Connect your pricing metric to your value metric
2. Define the role of each tier (draw people in, optimize revenue or operating profit, set a high reference price)
3. Develop buyer persona’s for each tier
4. Build a model of (i) how much upsell you want across tiers and (ii) how much revenue or operating profit you want from each tier
5. Set prices and design bundles across tiers
6. Test and adjust until you are matching your optimization model

This will be a moving target. Your competitors will be tracking your pricing model and trying to disrupt it. But if your product provides real value to your target segments, and you have done a good job of matching buyer personas to pricing models, then you will be pleasantly surprised at just how robust B2B SaaS pricing can be.

The post The Art and Science of Tiered Pricing: Strategies to Optimize for Buyer Persona appeared first on OpenView Labs.

Only one-third of sales reps meet or exceed quota, and only 10 percent are consistently high-performers. What can a company do to increase performance and see bottom-line results? Well, a modern selling strategy requires modern sales tools that often mean the difference between a deal and a loss. If you can relate to one or more of the following, you may want to consider a sales enablement tool for your organization.

1) Your onboarding time for new reps is longer than average

Onboarding is intended to quickly get reps up to speed. Unfortunately, it takes about 7 months and almost $30,000 to recruit and onboard a new salesperson — and 87 percent of that training is forgotten within weeks.

The Sales Enablement Solution

With the right tools in place, an organization can decrease ramp-up time by at least 30-40 percent while increasing productivity and reducing mistakes. Sales enablement tools further empower your sales team with content and just-in-time sales guidance, enabling them to learn about complex products and services quickly, and with a level of knowledge deep enough to make the sale.

2) Your sales team suffers from lack of productivity

Sales productivity is the #1 challenge for almost 65 percent of B2B organizations, according to The Bridge Group. Sales team productivity has a direct and significant impact on revenue.

The Sales Enablement Solution

Less than one-third of a rep’s time goes to core selling. Time spent on unproductive, repetitive, or non-best practice tasks is time spent not selling. Any process you can automate saves time that reps can dedicate back to core selling activities. For example, a CRM can simplify sales processes and automate workflows, increasing productivity by 32 percent.

3) Your sales team uses a one-size-fits all approach to selling

Today’s B2B sales environment has diminished the effectiveness of simply pitching products. Instead buyers expect an individualized purchase process and solution that takes into consideration their unique challenges and priorities. It is important to understand your audience and how to tailor the sales process for relevance and value, a task that over 40 percent of sales reps are unable to do effectively.

The Sales Enablement Solution

Personalization has come to refer to a scientifically-driven approach that matches content, messaging, and sales strategy based on factors such as persona and stage in the purchase process. A sales enablement tool should use predictive analytics to proactively recommend next steps by sales situation, customizing the buyer experience and adding value to the sales conversation.

4) Your sales team doesn’t know how to effectively advance a sale

The longer a prospect is stuck at a particular stage in the pipeline, the less likely it is they will advance and eventually close. Sales reps must create a compelling case for change and highlight the impact of not taking action (i.e. the ‘cost-to-delay’).

The Sales Enablement Solution

Tools such as playbooks give reps direction about advancing prospects and using content effectively in their engagements. With just-in-time coaching, you can ensure reps have the guidance they need to further the deal. And collateral such as talk tracks, kill sheets, and persona-based selling tips can be instantly accessible to reps for any sales situation.

5) A high percent of deals end with “no decision”

Studies reveal 25-50 percent of forecasted deals end in no decision. The Sales Benchmark Index reports that 58 percent of these stalled deals are lost to the status quo, i.e. it’s easier to do nothing.

The Sales Enablement Solution

One of the best ways to overcome the status quo is to offer value. B2B buyers look for vendors who understand their business and pain points. Sales teams that challenge and engage prospects are twice as likely to hit quota. Sales enablement tools recommend how to build a business case, helping reps to engage prospects with relevant, value-add collateral to advance the deal.

6) Marketing content is not being utilized

An IDC survey found that 90 percent of marketing content and resources are never used, and 88 percent of missed opportunities were because sales couldn’t find internal resources. Further, sales reps spend up to 30 percent of their day looking for or creating content to share with prospects.

The Sales Enablement Solution

When 95 percent of B2B deals are influenced by content, reps must know what content to use and when. A sales enablement tool uses real-time data to determine what content is most effective at progressing deals and generating the highest ROI and then surfaces that recommended content. This allows sales reps to deliver the right message at the right time and keeps them focused on sales objectives.

7) You have limited insight into what works and what doesn’t

Studies from CIO Insights have found that making decisions without data undercuts sales, with 40 percent of survey respondents indicating that limited visibility into data hurts sales performance. A data-driven sales strategy is about decreasing costs, boosting productivity, optimizing effectiveness, and driving revenue.

The Sales Enablement Solution

Organizations that use sales analytics increase quota attainment four-times faster than non-users. Sales enablement technology uses predictive analytics to determine how to message and who to message to, and then helps to replicate those best practices across the organization. These insights enable the entire sales team to operate like your A-team by helping reps understand what factors impact their successes, how to deliver relevant content, and what changes will improve performance.

With relationship intelligence, your sales reps are more in tune with their prospects than ever. Download the free e-book to learn more about SalesforceIQ.

Sales forecasting is a dark art. It’s hard, and something all sales leaders struggle with. But I would argue that forecasting your business accurately is almost more important than hitting your goals.

Here’s the reality: If you’re at a venture-backed startup, chances are you’re aspiring to run your business in the public market. A business in the public market reports their forecasting on a quarterly basis to analysts. If you get your forecast wrong, your share price tanks and wealth goes away. For all of you looking to move into the public market, you absolutely have to get this right now. If you don’t, the perception is that your executive team doesn’t understand their business. No one wants to put money into something that’s unpredictable and volatile — it’s like throwing money on a craps table.

So what can sales leaders do to ensure a more accurate forecast for their growing business? They must adapt the mindset of a data scientist.

Data scientists don’t just solve challenges — they know how to pick the right problems that have the biggest impact on the organization, and then attack those head-on. They’re also inquisitive — always exploring, asking the right questions, doing “what if” analysis, and questioning existing assumptions. Sales professionals are quickly moving towards this mindset as a result of the technology and tools available, and your days in sales are limited if you remain stuck in the old ways.

Focus on Performance, Not Results

Before getting into the right questions to ask, it’s important to understand the relationship between performance and results. As sales leaders, we are obsessed with results. On a day-to-day basis, we need to know what’s coming in today, tomorrow, this week, and this month. We obsess over it to the point of it being paralyzing. That’s not productive.

Performance is doing the things you need to do to get the results you want. Results are simply a byproduct of performance. So, if we can force ourselves to have the mental discipline to obsess over performance measures, the results will take care of themselves.

Never Stop Questioning

Albert Einstein once said, “The important thing is to never stop questioning.” This is particularly true for those who are trying to build world class sales organizations at high-growth SaaS companies. Constantly increasing quotas and goals forces you to ask yourself: How can we get more? How can we do better?

Adapting the mindset of a data scientist starts with asking the right questions. Here are the questions you need to ask yourself and your team in order to make your business more predictable and efficient:

Is marketing performing against the lead goals that have been set?

In high-growth venture-backed companies, both top down and bottom down approaches are important when figuring out how you’re going to take your team from A to B. Part of this is knowing how many leads you can rely on marketing for in order to yield the results you need. Of course, the leads won’t mean anything unless there is strong sales and marketing alignment to go along with it.

Are BDRs hitting activity goals?

An important aspect of sales and marketing alignment is clearly defining the rules of engagement around the leads coming in. In order to uphold those standards, you must have a deep understanding of the activities your reps are completing and the results they are yielding.  How many calls did they make? What was their call to connect ratio? Connect to meeting ratio? Meeting schedule to opportunity ratio? Understanding these outputs will tell you if your goals are set correctly.

What is the quality versus quantity of leads in our pipeline?

On top of the quantity of leads, you need to ask yourself if they are the right quality. Doing the simple math of how many leads are coming in versus how many are going out will tell you if sales and marketing are in alignment on the amount and type of leads.

What are my conversion rates at each stage of the sales process?

This, in combination with the next data point, is crucial. It tells you both how much you need and how you are doing. If you know that out of the almost 1,200 opportunities that are generated, you’re going to close 260 of them, you know exactly how many leads you must source at the top of the funnel to reach your goal. This information is helpful from a macro level, all the way down to the rep level.

For example, if your funnel indicates that you are burning through pipeline and dropping opportunities in stage one or two, this tells you one of two things: either the quality of pipeline being accepted is questionable, or additional training on particular sales execution skills is necessary to help your reps tell a better story. This information gives you really good insight into what actions will help your team work faster and smarter.

What is my average sales cycle?

On top of conversion rates, average sales cycle is another key element in understanding if you’re going to hit your number. Based on your conversion rates through the stages, and the time it takes to move through each stage, you can determine if you’re in good shape to realize your goals.

This is also great information for individual coaching. With this knowledge, a rep is able to easily compare himself to his peers. If he can see that he is taking double the amount of time at one particular stage versus the rep who sits next to him, he can figure out what she’s doing that he’s not in order to move people through that stage faster.

Are we wasting time on time wasters?

Sales is an emotional job. We get told no a lot, so when we hear a yes, sometimes we hold onto it more tightly than we should. It’s crucial that we have data to inform which yes’s we should be saying no to.

Think about it — time is the most critical asset you have. A $1 million quota for the year is a $460 an hour cost for a sales rep. If you’re focusing on opportunities that you won’t win, it means you’re wasting $460 dollar an hour, and it will make it that much harder to hit your number. An understanding of how much time you are spending on deals you’ve won, lost, or are still open at each stage can help you hone in on where time and money is being lost.

What deals are at risk?

You need a way to bubble up the deals that are at risk of being lost. How can we know when we aren’t wasting time, and it’s actually worthwhile to throw the cavalry at a certain opportunity? Risk factors include opportunities that are bigger than your average deal size, stuck in a certain stage for longer than usual, or have too few or too insignificant activities logged against it. Once a deal is flagged as a risk, really dig in and understand if it’s a good fit. If not, throw it out. But if it’s a compelling enough opportunity, bring in the extra resources you need to get it done.

Why are we losing?

Win-loss analysis is one of the most important things to consider. We’re so results-obsessed that we often focus on the wins and ignore the losses. The losses can yield extremely rich information for you. If you can pinpoint why the people you thought would buy from you ultimately didn’t, you can take the actions necessary to fix the problem and help increase your conversation rates.

There’s no silver bullet to building and optimizing a sales team. It’s hard work, and every day brings on a new set of challenges. However, by adapting the mindset of a data scientist through focusing on performance measures and asking the right questions, you will have the information you need to grow your team faster and close more deals.

The post How to Run Your Sales Team Like a Data Scientist appeared first on Sales Hacker.

You’ve gotten the lowdown on Account-Based Sales Development (ABSD). And you’ve hopefully also read about the common myths busted by ABSD, and how it can boost your team’s morale.

By now, your team should be ready to take the plunge. But what about your lead data? That’s right — even if your mind is right, you need to get your data right before you go all-in with ABSD.

Lead Data = First name, last name, email address, company name, etc.

Account-Based Sales Development is all about quality over quantity. The first thing you need to do before kicking off your ABSD program, is to make sure that you have quality lead data. Better yet — the highest quality data possible. So how do you maximize the quality of your data?

To give you an idea, here’s a good place to start: take the Toyota Corporation and their invention of the Total Production System after World War II, for example.

Engineers from Toyota observed assembly lines at Ford and checkout lines at Piggly Wiggly, eventually coming up with the “5S” methodology of process improvement. 5S was designed to maximize quality, but it was also designed to foster a sense of employee ownership to said quality that really isn’t that complicated — it’s just five simple steps: sort, straighten, shine, standardize and sustain.

Leading each rep through a 5S exercise with their data is an effective way to set them up for success. Here’s how you can apply 5S to get your lead data right:

1. Sort

You know those 2-year-old, stale leads that stink worse than the sandwich that’s been in the office fridge for weeks? Get rid of them. They’re not buying, and they’re not in your target accounts. This step is just as much about preventing future messes as it is sorting. Make sure you keep the bad leads out.

2. Straighten

Make it easy for you to work: straighten out your lead data by putting it the right place in your process, and you have all the right tools to manage your leads. SalesLoft CRM integration can help you with this — big time.

3. Shine

Clean it up! Make sure that the leads you have leftover (after sorting and straightening) are quality leads. Do they have valid phone numbers and updated titles? Do they match validated data sources (like Data.com) and updated info on social media (like LinkedIn and Twitter)? This may be the most time-consuming step, but it will help you from reaching “Milton in the office basement” when you get into your cadence.

4. Standardize

What makes a lead worthy of being in your database? You obviously need more than a first name, an email address and a prayer. Create standards for any lead that enters your database. If it doesn’t meet the new standards you create, don’t let it get into your cadence.

5. Sustain

Go through the steps above on a regular basis to keep your data clean, and keep your process in working order. A regular audit of your lead data is a must.

—

Get your data right with these 5 steps — Check out our new eBook on how to supercharge your cold calling and start putting that data to work.

 

The post 5 Steps to Get Your Lead Data Ready for Account-Based Sales Development appeared first on SalesLoft.

You may think you know who your prospects are. But do you truly understand how to connect with them and close the deal? If not, your sales prospect persona profiles can help.

Now, don’t get confused – these are not the same as traditional buyer personas. The key difference is in how they are created. Specifically, buyer personas are based on demographic and firmographic information, such as job titles, job functions, management levels, industries, and company sizes, plus challenges and pain points. As part of the process, people also speak with their marketing, sales, finance, and client services teams. Then, they analyze their existing data to validate. The end result is a clear picture of who your best buyers are and how to speak with them.

In contrast, sales prospect persona profiles are based on the similarities you notice after countless conversations.

Here are a few common scenarios to consider:

• You’re hearing, “Ask me again in six months”
• You’re coordinating with 5 or more people
• You’re trying to answer tough questions

We’d be surprised if you haven’t encountered at least one of these issues. And given the time of year, it’s especially important to address them. After all, the end of the month is almost here, and Thanksgiving cuts significantly into your phone time. It’s difficult to close deals in December, as well, since so many people take off for the holidays.

With this in mind, the experts at ZoomInfo put together an infographic, which outlines 5 common types of sales prospect personas and how to sell to them.

Learn more about how sales prospect persona profiles can help your efforts in the infographic below:

 

View the original infographic on the ZoomInfo blog.

Would you add any additional sales prospect persona profiles to this list? Let us know in the comments below!

What if there was a simple trick to getting every new sales relationship off on the right foot? You could close a lot more deals.

Trouble is, people oftentimes don’t want to talk, or they’re too busy, or a million other factors sour your relationship before it even gets started. And despite the factors working against them, sales reps must try to get prospects to first talk to them; second, like them; and third, buy a product or service from them.

Wow. Tough one.

Or … maybe not. After diving into the research, it turns out that reps might not be that far away from making an instantly positive relationship a reality. It comes down to just one simple phrase, containing two small words:

“Thank you.”

How often do you say “thank you” to a customer before they decide to make a purchase? Not very often? This might just be the reason you’re not blowing your quota out of the water.

Saying thank you is the easiest way to show gratitude. It’s one of the first phrases we learn as a kid, and it plays a critical role in the sales process. Here’s why.

Saying “thank you” makes you more likable.

In recent years, sales has become relationship-oriented. As much as the buyer has to like the product or service they are purchasing, they have to like the person selling it to them, too.

Nowadays, the relationship goes far beyond the sale, and ideally continues for as long as the person is a customer. This means buyers and sellers work together for quite a while -- so they’d better get along.

This study from Ellen Rogin and Lisa Kueng points out that grateful people are actually more likable than their less-grateful counterparts. In sales, this is critical as you look to keep your customers on board for the long haul.

The takeaway? Simply stating "thank you" here and there and expressing gratitude for customers’ support can help keep relationships strong.

Saying “thank you” improves self-esteem.

But it isn’t just you who benefits from demonstrating gratitude -- the person you’re speaking with also receives a boost. A 2014 study found that expressions of gratitude improved athletes’ self-esteem, resulting in better performance.

In sales, showing gratitude helps a prospect get through the sometimes difficult buying process. Occasionally, prospects can get overwhelmed, and a good self-esteem bump might make all the difference.

Thank your prospects for taking the time to speak with you, for putting forth effort during the research phrase, or for simply responding to an email quickly. All of these are easy ways to express gratitude and give a quick jolt of self-esteem to your customer.

Saying “thank you” can change mindsets.

According to Melinda Beck, kids who express gratitude “get better grades, set higher goals, and feel more satisfied with their friends, families, and schools than those who don't.” In other words, being grateful can help you shoot higher and aim to get more done.

So what does this mean if you’re in sales? Saying “thank you” might actually be the key to achieving more every day. Expressing gratitude, and getting gratitude from customers and friends in return will help keep you motivated and working hard. Several studies have linked being thankful to being more optimistic, which in turns leads to greater productivity.

And don’t forget to pass the gratitude along to your customer. If your gratitude can help them aim higher and achieve more, it’ll only improve your relationship and their business.

Saying “thank you” helps you grow.

For those on a holistic self-improvement journey, it turns out that saying thank you can help here, too. Studies have shown that being grateful can make you more empathetic, boost your attitude, and improve your general happiness -- all of which are crucial to self-growth.

And personal growth is critical as reps move through their careers. Whether you’re a BDR looking to move up, or a sales rep hoping to become a manager one day, setting off the “thank you” chain reaction of gratitude can add up to significant positive character changes over time, which can set you up for a promotion.

Sales is about starting and developing relationships. And while it might be difficult for some reps to hit the ground running with their relationships, using a simple phrase like "thank you" can go a long way.

Thank you for reading this!

At Shopify, we've increased our sales by 10x in three years: 

We succeed in sales by breaking traditional rules for recruiting and hiring, prospecting, sales process, onboarding, and account management. We don’t want to use someone else’s playbook -- we want to write a new book about what amazing looks like.

There are a ton of directions you can be pulled in managing a sales organization, especially a high-growth, publicly-traded one such as Shopify. Here are the things we are doing that are helping power our rocket ship.

1) Stop selling, start helping. 

The way customers buy, in both B2B and B2C markets, has changed in the last five years.

Today, when a customer wants information on your products, a customer reference, or your pricing, they can find it all on the web, all by themselves. For sales teams to be effective, they need to stop selling ... and start helping.

They need to help their customers find answers to their problems and help them make the right decisions on what solutions to choose. Research shows that companies that help and educate their customers (not pitch them) make 47% larger purchases.

Helping a customer make the right decision is better for the sales rep, better for the buyer, and better for everyone.

2) Build a smart technological foundation.

Our reps spend 95% of their day taking one of three actions: 

1. Making phone calls
2. Writing and answering emails 
3. Logging data into the CRM 

All three of these things need to be optimized to ensure no time is wasted, because time is money. It’s critical we leverage technology which helps our team's sales productivity, not hurt it.

The biggest change I made to our sales technology when I came to Shopify was to switch from the CRM solution we were using to the free HubSpot CRM. The impact has been dramatic. The HubSpot CRM helps our reps:

• Stop manually logging phone calls and emails into the CRM. This alone has probably saved each rep five hours a week. At 26 reps total, that's 130 hours per week. At a $30/hour wage (far less than we pay our reps), that's a savings of $3,900! 
• Receive notifications when prospects open their emails. The CRM comes with Sidekick, an amazing Chrome extension that allows reps to see when prospects open their emails, click links, and view their sales attachments (such as decks, PDFs, etc).
• Obtain prospecting information at the click of a button. With the prospecting tool, reps can get mutual connections at that company, potential email addresses, estimated revenue, etc. ... all with one click. Traditionally, our sales reps would have to hunt for that material, but now it's instantly available. 

Here's a quick video of myself (do I really look like that?) explaining further: 

3) Sales is a science, not an art.

When I first started my career, sales felt like magic. I'd go out there and sales "just happened." So I chalked it up to being an artist with a talent which could not be understood.

I couldn't have been more wrong.

Sales is less about magic and more about science. With the advent of new technology and the availability of data, you can now track and understand what is happening in your sales process. As a result, we can now explain success in sales using cold hard facts, not stories and opinions.

Instead of hoping or guessing about what your quarter or year will look like, you could plug the numbers into sales equations and boom -- near predictable revenue. No more crap forecasting meetings. No more shocks to the company system when numbers were missed. Just simple, cold math.

Sales metrics can be broken down like a pro athlete breaks down their game. For the athlete, it's a series of tiny steps (hand position, angles of impact, individual muscle strength, etc.) to understand the impact of each variable at a detailed level. This allows the athlete to spot weaknesses and fix specific areas, thus improving the overall result. 

The science of sales, which I write about on my personal blog, is identical. You can break down smaller subcomponents that feed into a larger outcome: revenue.

4) Stop chasing the mythical sales superstar. 

Hiring great salespeople is by far the topic people ask me about the most. And here is what I tell them: You don’t hire great salespeople; you hire great people and build them into great salespeople.

The myth of the sales superstar is just that -- a myth. People are not born endowed with the skills to be amazing at sales. They learn them. In my life I have met three “Michael Jordan” level salespeople whose skills defied logic (I am not one of them) and even they are continually learning and working their butts off to stay on top of their game.

I believe there are six key personality traits of a successful salesperson.  

1. Intelligence: Not necessarily book smarts (although those are good too), but general intelligence. 
2. Work ethic: Sales is a 24x7x365 career. If candidates are not ready to roll up their sleeves and do whatever it takes, whenever it needs to be done, then I pass.
3. History of success: For this one, I don't particularly look for sales success, rather success at any level. For example, varsity or pro athlete, concert pianist, professional artist ... you get the picture.
4. Creative: I need people who can help invent novel solutions for complex problems. 
5. Entrepreneurial: Sales is like running your own company.
6. Competitive: Sales is a competition. With yourself, your teammates, and the industry as a whole. I look for people who hate to lose and won't stop until they win. 

Just as Mark Roberge, HubSpot's Chief Revenue Officer, grew their sales team from $0 to $100 million by focusing on hiring ... I believe the same principles. 

Just like the sales process in general, sales hiring is a science ... not an art. 

5) Get the prospect to say NO, not yes.

In most sales companies there is way too much emphasis on convincing a customer to say "yes" or trying to “close” the deal. As a result these companies actually put their salespeople at a disadvantage ... and have made their lives more difficult.

So much time and effort is wasted trying to get to yes because the salesperson failed to properly qualify the prospect in the first place. So instead of walking away from a deal which will never happen, they burn time trying to fit a square peg into a round hole.

Simply put, the reason some prospects are so hard to “close” (or never close for that matter) is that they should have never been opened in the first place.

Reps would have an easier life if we just taught them to ask tougher questions at the start of the sales process. This would eliminate unqualified prospects, instead of struggling at the end to convince them to sign.

6) Create a  big  meaningful sales pipeline.

I'd rather have 100 extremely qualified prospects in our pipeline than 10,000 unqualified ones. Don't create a big sales pipeline; create a meaningful one. 

When I do consulting gigs the first thing I do is take the sales team through a pipeline exercise where we examine their deals under the microscope, evaluated by the criteria in the above "Action Step" blue box.

Before this happens, everyone swears they have strong deals and a strong pipeline. You know what happens? In one pipeline review meeting I remove 87% of the companies' pipelines by simply asking harder questions about why they think they have a deal. 

Don't worry, on average those same companies go on to sell 52% more the same year I do that.

You don’t necessarily want a big pipeline if it’s full of crap. What you want is a real one full of diamonds. If you have a well qualified pipeline but it’s not big enough to hit your goals, then one or maybe all of the following is true:

1. Your goals are misaligned with reality. 
2. Your people and/or process needs work. 
3. You need to make more calls.

Don’t accept crap deals just because you need your pipeline to look bigger. Stay focused on a quality pipeline, quality process, and quality qualification and you will always be better off. 

7) There is no silver bullet. 

Finally, there is no magical silver bullet for sales success. I am going to say that again ... THERE IS NO SILVER BULLET! Trust me, since the start of my career I have been looking for it. People ask me about it. Sales rep yearn for it.

When I say "silver bullet," I mean that thing which makes sales easy. The perfect lead list, elevator pitch, answer to any customer question, email template, or any number of things which will turn an action into a sale.

Reality: silver bullets simply don’t exist in sales. There is no magic thing which makes everything easier. To scale a sales organization you have to create great processes and then work your a** off.

The bottom line is simple: Sales is a grand experiment. You have to work hard, try things, fail, and try other things. It's about the optimization (and experimentation) of people and processes, not about quota or revenue. Revenue is simply the final output of an optimized process.

If you know the math, watch and tweak your processes, and look at sales as a science ... you can start getting very close to being able to predict revenue. And that has been the secret to our success at Shopify.

You're sitting at your desk writing a follow-up email for the sales call you just finished, when an email tracking notification catches your eye: Paul Allen is viewing your Product Page.

You freeze.

Paul Allen is the decision maker at the white-whale account you've been chasing since you started on the team months ago, but to no avail.

Now, you're faced with a dilemma common to a tech-savvy sales rep: do you call him right now? If you don't follow up right away, you might miss a fleeting window of opportunity to speak with a very busy man.

But if Paul figures out you've tracked his activity and reacts negatively, that effectively closes the same window of opportunity forever.

What should you do?

Many sales teams are using technology to gain a deeper understanding of the buyers viewing their websites and emails -- often unbeknownst to the prospect. While this information helps salespeople understand buyer behavior and tailor their outreach accordingly, it also raises a number of questions about how it's best utilized.

Sales professionals know expediency can make or break a sales opportunity. Research from James Oldroyd of Northwestern University showed that reps are 100 times more likely to connect with a lead if they call in the first five minutes (as opposed to calling in the first 30 minutes), but this seems in conflict with what we'd expect human beings to be receptive to.

The reps I speak with every day voice valid concerns about appearing creepy in this situation. Almost all have had at least one negative experience where following this best practice has resulted in a pissed-off prospect who felt intruded upon. But I've used the four strategies below to avoid unpleasant interactions while still maximizing that fleeting moment of buyer interest.

4 Non-Creepy Strategies to Follow Up with Inbound Leads

1) Tailor Your Approach

The best way to follow up with an inbound lead depends on context.

If the decision maker just requested a trial through your website, calling them back and asking if they'd like a demonstration of your product would be an appropriate response. But the same approach would be pushy if you were reaching out to someone in an entry-level role who just downloaded an ebook.

In the latter example, it would probably be best to approach that person more like a “reserved customer service representative" than an “overly friendly salesperson," asking if there's anything you can do to help with what they're looking for. The focus on helping will quickly disarm the situation. Ask if they have any questions about the topic they signaled interest in based on your tracking, or need help finding anything on the website. If they're unaware they were being tracked, proceed normally and pretend it was serendipity!

2) Add Value Before Asking For It

The key to this approach is tailoring your comunication to your lead's place in the buyer's journey and centering your outreach around their needs, not your sales goals.

Sometimes reps tell me they struggle with this strategy, and the reason is almost always the same: the sales team is not knowledgeable about the buyer’s pain points and the nuances of the solutions available to them to truly add value to their experience.

In turn, the root of the issue is often in the initial training, hiring, and onboarding of the team.   At HubSpot, we have our sales team complete a website project -- designed to help them understand the day-to-day of a marketer -- before they are even allowed to pick up the phone.

"By the first time new hires made their first prospecting calls, they could genuinely understand these markerters," Mark Roberge, HubSpot chief revenue officer and Harvard Business School professor, explains in The Sales Acceleration Formula. "They could genuinely advise them. They could genuinely help them."

Being able to add this sort of value makes it easy for reps to act as trusted advisors, not as intrusive salespeople. 

3) Don't Make Assumptions

Sure, your marketing and sales intelligence might be so good that you know exactly what site pages a prospect is viewing, or what links they clicked in an email. But as a sales rep you have to be careful not to jump to conclusions.

Jason Richman, a HubSpot sales manager, tells his team to "never make assumptions based on what [prospects] are viewing."

Instead, he advises his reps to "start broad with an area of interest prospects may have, rather than assuming you know exactly what they need help with."

This is helpful for two reasons. First, the interaction comes across as a lot less "creepy" if prospects don't feel like you're watching their every step. Second, it ensures you don't lead the prospect to give you the answer you want to hear, which may not be a true reflection of their motivations.

4) Admit You're Tracking Them

Do you admit you're tracking the prospect? It depends largely on whether or not they broach the subject themselves.

If your prospects don't bring it up, I wouldn't either. They either know and don't care, or they don't know, in which case you may as well just proceed with your conversation.

In the case they do ask, it's best to come clean. Frame tracking as activity conducted with the buyer's best interest in mind. In many ways this works like Amazon's "related" product suggestions. Have you ever felt violated by Amazon recommending a highly rated oven mitt that compliments the baking tray you just bought? Probably not. We know Amazon is tracking us as buyers, but we don't mind because they use that information to improve our customer experience.

If confronted, explain that the purpose of tracking is to understand your audience better and identify when help from an expert -- as opposed to a static website -- is relevant.

Interestingly enough, people tend to not mind being tracked. I asked a number of people on our sales team how often their prospects negatively react to being tracked, and everyone I asked said it was maybe once or twice over the course of a year, tops.  

That being said, there will always be those who are against tracking on principle. In those cases apologize, flag them in your CRM so others don't make the same mistake, and move on.

Act Quickly, But Be Helpful

There's far too much money on the table to drag your feet when following up with inbound leads based on their activity. That being said, you make or break yourself in the way you approach them. Arm yourself with the knowledge necessary to add value to your prospects' decision making process based on their position in the buyer's journey, and you'll never feel like a stalker again.

As digital marketers, we all know that the right tools can make a big difference. They can increase our efficiency, help us collaborate, and organize everything that’s going on. With the help of these tools, we can do our jobs better.

That’s why we’ve curated 100 awesome marketing tools you should know. These tools can help you manage projects, collaborate with your team, amp up your content efforts, increase your social media savvy, and so much more.

Project management

These tools will help you organize and manage projects.

1. Asana – Asana’s mission is to help teams to work together effortlessly, and they’ve created software that can bring your team together on countless projects.
2. Trello – Trello is organized into boards and cards, and is an excellent tool for organizing projects with those in and outside of your organization.
3. Basecamp – Often used by agencies to manage client work, Basecamp is a project management tool that’s simple and easy to use.
4. Evernote – Need to keep track of a project? Use Evernote, an advanced note-taking app, to write everything down.
5. Harvest – Harvest is a time tracking tool that allows you to spend less time managing your schedule, and more time doing.
6. Todoist – To-do lists may seem old-school, but they work! Todoist is a task manager and to-do list app that can help you get everything done.

Team communication

These tools will help you communicate and collaborate with those in and outside of the office.

7. Slack – Slack is a modern chat tool that brings all your team communication together. Send your coworkers GIFs and memes as you collaborate your way to success.
8. HipChat – HipChat is a team chat tool that includes group and private chats, file sharing, and other integrations.
9. Join.me – Need the perfect solution for virtual meetings? Join.me provides video, audio, and everything else you need to host successful virtual meetings.
10. Google+ Hangouts – Because anyone with a Google account can use Google+ Hangouts for text, video, and audio chat, this is an easy tool to use to connect with those in and outside of your organization.

Calendars and appointments

These tools will help you seamlessly create calendars, appointments, and meetings.

11. Calendly– Scheduling meetings over email can result in a lot of back and forth. Calendly, which syncs with your existing calendars, allows you to schedule meetings and phone calls with whoever makes a request.
12. Doodle – Doodle makes scheduling simple and easy, especially when you’re trying to schedule a meeting with many people.
13. CoSchedule – CoSchedule is an editorial calendar built for content marketers that can help you manage in-house writers as well as freelancers. You can also post your content to WordPress and social sites from CoSchedule.
14. WordPress Editorial Calendar Plugin – This plugin syncs with your existing WordPress site to help you manage your calendar and schedule your content publishing.
15. Gather Content – Gather Content provides seamless content planning, production, and workflow for agencies and in-house teams.

Search engine optimization (SEO)

These tools will help you with SEO audits, keyword research, and SEO-driven content marketing.

16. Moz’s Open Site Explorer – Open Site Explorer allows you to identify link building opportunities through information on backlinks, top ranking pages, and social media activity.
17. Screaming Frog – Screaming Frog is a web crawler, or spider, that crawls sites for helpful and relevant SEO information, allowing you to quickly audit and analyze a site’s SEO.
18. SEMRush – SEMRush is a competitive analysis tool that allows you to see the highest volume keywords as well as how your site ranks compared to competitors.
19. Yoast – When publishing on WordPress, you want to make sure your tags are taken care of, and Yoast can help any content creator do that.
20. Google Keyword Planner – Google’s free keyword planner will help you determine search volume around keywords so you can determine your plan of attack.
21. WordStream’s Keyword Tool – WordStream’s keyword tool is similar to Google’s in that it can help you assess which keywords are competitive and viable.
22. UberSuggest – UberSuggest provides lists of relevant search terms, pulled straight from Google, to help you do effect keyword research and find new search opportunities.

Content marketing

These tools will help you with content ideation, content planning, and general content marketing efforts.

23. BuzzSumo – BuzzSumo allows you to find the most shared content for certain topics, which can help you find out what types of content and from which sources have performed well in the past.
24. Feedly – Feedly is a simple, intuitive, and well-organized RSS feed aggregator that allows you to read your favorite blogs in one place.
25. Inbound.org – Inbound.org is a thriving community for inbound marketers for sharing relevant insights, articles, job postings, and more.
26. Reddit – Reddit is an online forum that allows for upvoting and downvoting from members. It’s a great place to ask questions and find new ideas for content.
27. UberFlip – UberFlip allows you to easily create a branded content resource center that brings together your videos, photos, social media channels, and eBooks.
28. Quora – Quora is a question-asking platform that can help you research ideas for new posts, as well as get expert answers to your most pressing questions.
29. Kapost – Kapost is a content marketing software solution that allows for easy scheduling, as well as team collaboration.

Writing & content creation

These tools will help you improve your writing and content creation abilities.

30. Grammarly – Grammarly is an app that checks your grammar– in your browser or directly in Microsoft Office — for misconstrued sentences, punctuation mistakes, misspellings, and other grammatical woes.
31. Hemingway App – In Hemingway App’s free web dashboard, you can copy and paste a piece of content, and the app will score it on readability.
32. Google Docs – Google Docs is the perfect cloud-based word processor. Its advanced commenting and revision features make it perfect for content teams.
33. WordPress – A favorite content management system and often considered an industry standard, WordPress allows you and your team to format and publish blog posts.
34. Portent Idea Generator for Writer’s Block – This idea generator, created by Portent, is a fun content ideation tool for when you have writer’s block and are out of ideas.
35. Emotional Marketing Value Headline Analyzer – This fun analyzer will show you which emotions are invoked when readers see your headlines.

Social media

These tools will help you share relevant content on social media sites.

36. Buffer – Buffer is a social sharing and scheduling tool that syncs with all major social media sites. Buffer is perfect for individuals, social media teams, agencies, and others.
37. Sprout Social – Sprout Social is a social media management tool that helps teams share content on social sites and analyze results.
38. Discover.ly – Discover.ly is a browser extension for Chrome that allows you to see what’s being shared on social media sites as you browse the web.
39. Nuzzel – Nuzzel collects the articles and links your Facebook and Twitter connects are sharing, then ranks them by the amount of shares they have.
40. Studio for Instagram – Studio allows you to seamlessly edit Instagram posts before sharing with your network.
41. IFTTT – IFTTT, which stands for “If this, then that,” lets you set up recipes to automate tasks. For example, you can set up a recipe that shares a blog post on Twitter each time a new one is published.
42. Moz’s FollowerWonk – FollowerWonk helps you explore your social media presence by helping you dig deep into Twitter analytics to understand more about your followers.
43. Topsy – Topsy provides advanced social media analytics to help you determine real-time sentiment around various topics.
44. SocialBro – SocialBro gives you audience sentiment, analytics, and other tools to help you come up with a comprehensive and effective Twitter strategy.

Stock photos

These tools will help you find better than average stock photos to use for blog posts, social media, and other marketing assets.

45. Death to Stock Photos – Sign up for Death to Stock Photos, and get free photos emailed to you each month. Go premium for full access to a library of great photos.
46. MorgueFile – MorgueFile is a free photo archive that provides high-resolution stock photos for your illustration, design, or marketing needs. Simply search through the database for photos that work for you.
47. Unsplash – Unsplash publishes a new, high-quality stock photo each day, and has a search field for finding past photos that fit your needs.
48. Twenty20 – Twenty20 is a library of free stock photos taken by a community of photographers. The photos are of real life, not staged.
49. Stocksy – Stocksy has a large selection of beautiful stock photos of real life moments at an inexpensive price.

Image creation

These tools will help you create compelling custom images and graphics for blog posts, social media sites, emails, and other online marketing efforts.

50. Canva – Canva is an easy-to-use image creation tool that can help you quickly create fun and engaging images for various online marketing campaigns.
51. PicMonkey – PicMonkey is a photo editing tool that allows you to edit, design, and touch up photos for use in your marketing.
52. Meme Generator – Need to create a funny meme for a blog post or marketing campaign? You can easily create what you need using Meme Generator.
53. Pablo by Buffer – Pablo allows you to create beautiful images for all social media sites in as little as 30 seconds.
54. BeFunky – BeFunky is a photo editing and graphic design tool that’s easy to use for marketers, creatives, and non-designers.
55. Tableau – Tableau can help you create data visualizations for your audience and clients, or for in-house presentations.

Email marketing & automation

These tools will help you send beautiful, helpful, and timely emails, as well as measure them for success.

56. Campaign Monitor – Campaign Monitor provides elegantly simple email marketing software that makes it easy to create, send, and measure the impact of your email marketing campaigns.
57. Email Monks – Email Monks provides email template design and newsletter and HTML coding services.
58. Salesforce – Salesforce is a widely used, sales-oriented customer relationship management (CRM) solution that syncs with Campaign Monitor and other marketing tools.
59. Litmus – Litmus syncs with Campaign Monitor and helps you test email marketing campaigns to find out what’s working, and what needs improvement.
60. Campaign Monitor Dashboard for WordPress – Keep an eye on your subscriber list statistics within WordPress using this dedicated and well-documented dashboard widget.
61. Boomerang for Gmail – Boomerang for Gmail lets you take control of when you send and receive email messages.

Web analytics

These tools will help you analyze your web visits– what visitors do when they come to your site, how long they stay, and where they come from.

62. Google Analytics – Google Analytics gives you insight into how many viewers come to your site, how long they stay, what pages they visit, and where they come from.
63. Dasheroo – Dasheroo is a free business dashboard solution that gives you and your team instant visibility into your KPIs.
64. KISSmetrics – KISSmetrics is a person-based analytics solution that can help you better understand the exact makeup of your website visitors.
65. Localytics – With Localytics, you can assess mobile engagement across a user’s lifecycle.
66. Clicky – Clicky provides real-time web analytics to help you monitor, analyze, and react to web traffic in a timely manner.
67. Raven – Raven, a particularly valuable option for agencies, helps you create engaging, thorough, and easy to understand marketing reports.

Customer engagement & success

These tools will help you communicate with your customers so that you can get feedback and improve the overall customer experience.

68. Help Scout – Help Scout is a simple customer service software that syncs with email to make it easy to communicate with customers.
69. Groove HQ – Groove HQ is a simple help desk software that helps you delight your online customers with awesome, personal support.
70. Wootric – Wootric is a Net Promoter Score (NPS) tool that helps you analyze customer sentiment at important stages of the customer lifecycle.
71. GetFeedback – GetFeedback provides easy-to-create, mobile-ready online surveys to help you learn what your customers are really thinking.
72. Intercom – Intercom provides software that can help your team communicate with your customers wherever they are– whether that’s in a mobile app, on your website, or elsewhere.

Live chat

These tools will help you communicate with customers using live chat on your website.

73. LiveChat – LiveChat is an easily installable and fully customizable live chat software that can help your customer support team.
74. Userlike – Userlike provides intuitively designed live chat software for website support.
75. Olark – Olark gives you insight into what your customers are doing on your site, such as what’s in their online shopping cart, and provides live chat capabilities as well.
76. SnapEngage – SnapEngage provides fully customizable live chat software that integrates with Basecamp, Salesforce, SAP, and a host of other tools.

Conversion optimization

These tools will help you optimize your website for conversions.

77. UserTesting – Wondering how people really use your website? UserTesting records a user going through your site to give you further insights on how your UX comes across.
78. Unbounce – Unbounce allows you to build gorgeous SEO and PPC landing pages and easily A/B test them to see what works.
79. LeadPages – LeadPages is an easy-to-use landing page generator with a variety of templates. The solution can help you create conversion-oriented pages.
80. Optimizely – Optimizely is an A/B testing tool that allows you to test different iterations of pages on your site to see which is most successful.
81. Crazy Egg – CrazyEgg is a heat map software that gives you insight into where users drop off on your site.

Webinars

These tools allow you to broadcast and share webinars and online fireside chats.

82. GoToWebinar – GoToWebinar is a comprehensive webinar tool that includes registration, analytics, and survey tools.
83. Blab – Blab allows you to broadcast live chats and conversations, making it easy to host an informal fireside chat or webinar.
84. WebinarJam – WebinarJam is a powerful, inexpensive webinar software that uses Google+ Hangouts to record and share webinars.
85. ReadyTalk – ReadyTalk offers audio conferencing, web conferencing and webinar technology to help you share insights with customers, clients, and colleagues.
86. Google+ Hangouts – Google+ Hangouts live on air and recording features make it easy to use the platform to host a webinar or online chat.

Public relations and promotion

These tools will help you promote your business, marketing campaigns, and other initiatives.

87. Help a Reporter Out (HARO) – HARO connects you with journalists who are writing about various topics and are looking for sources.
88. LittleBird – Little Bird provides tools to help you discover influencers that can help promote your brand.
89. Google Alerts – Google Alerts can send you an email or notification when your brand gets mentioned in newly published content around the web.
90. Cision – Cision is a popular PR software solution that includes media list building, media monitoring, analyses, and more.
91. BuzzStream – BuzzStream’s CRM-like software solution helps you organize your contacts and streamline media outreach.
92. Rapportive – Rapportive is a Chrome extension that delivers comprehensive information about whoever sends you emails.

Advertising

93. Twitter Ads – Twitter ads are a great way to get in front of a targeted audience on Twitter.
94. Facebook Ads – Facebook Ads offer extremely impressive targeting capabilities that can help you get your brand– and your content– in front of a relevant audience.
95. LinkedIn Ads – LinkedIn Ads are a great option for B2B companies looking to spread brand awareness, build name recognition, and generate new leads.
96. Google AdWords – Google AdWords are a must for any marketer looking to attract those searching for answers on the web.
97. Bing Ads – Though Bing is not as ubiquitous as Google, Bing Ads can provide a lot of value to your business for a lower price point.

Freelancers & consultants

98. Clarity – Clarity connects you with industry experts, entrepreneurs, consultants, and freelancers who are available to chat via phone on a pay per minute basis.
99. HourlyNerd – HourlyNerd connects small businesses and startups with seasoned MBAs who can offer advice and insights at an hourly rate.
100. LinkedIn – LinkedIn is the ultimate destination for finding professionals across a wide array of industries that can help with your unique marketing needs.

Wrap up

It’s easy to be efficient and productive if you have the right tools to back you up. If you give them a try, these tools can help you take your marketing to the next level.

By checking out the 100 marketing tools in this post, you’ll be ready to take on new marketing projects today, tomorrow, and beyond.

Social media for B2B has changed its landscape more times than most of us can count. We all continue to participate in the evolution of an ever-growing share of platforms that started with basics like Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter. Not to mention that there are many of you who have quickly learned how to source Pinterest and Instagram for mobile marketing outreach.

The fact is, social media for B2B companies is constantly morphing and thus the need to follow social media trends in 2016 continues.

The aim is always the same – to connect with people, build brand recognition, and ultimately create high conversion rates.

So what’s new in 2016? I’d like to take a moment to give some props to the newly-renovated SlideShare. If you’re not already using SlideShare, let’s take a moment to make a proper introduction.

B2B Companies… Meet SlideShare, Your New Best Friend

SlideShare was founded in October 2006 and acquired by LinkedIn in May 2012. It’s aim? To share knowledge online. In the fourth quarter of 2013 SlideShare averaged 60 million unique visitors per month and is currently one of the top 120 websites in  the world.

So, yeah… you’ve probably heard about SlideShare. In case you’re still not sure if you’ve seen a SlideShare, here’s a good example of the content you can create with it:

Your Cheat Seat To Success in the New B2B Public Relations from Marx Communications

As you can see, Slideshare presents an opportunity to stimulate your audience with visual appeal, while still providing valuable information. What is more, Slideshares are super easy (and fun) to create!

If you’ve been on the fence about incorporating SlideShares into your B2B marketing strategy, 2016 might be the year that tips your decision.

“One thing I specifically foresee is visuals playing a very vital role in all forms of content creation. It works really well, the users don’t get bored from reading too long content, and it also helps in reducing the bounce rate of any landing page.” ~ Pratik Dholakiya, co-founder of Moveoapps

The New and Improved SlideShare

Content creation is the bane of existence for many marketers. What to create, what to write, when to launch it – all of it can seem like one long Monday morning. Therefore, tools like SlideShare that make content creation easy should be at the top of your list of things to try this year.

At the risk of sounding too sales-pitchy… SlideShare has really vamped things up in recent months (It’s now a floor cleaner and a dessert topping!). Here is a look at some of its features and how you can them:

It’s All Free, Baby!

In the past, SlideShare offered free accounts and pro accounts. The pro accounts had “advanced functionality,” but at a price of $19-$49 per month. Happily, this is now no longer the case. All features of SlideShare are currently unlocked to all users.

It’s Like YouTube for Business

SlideShare has announced that video capabilities will be available for everyone. This means even those YouTube videos you’ve created can convert into SlideShares. Why is this relevant? Better SEO, of course! Plus, they’re shareable, and geared towards your specific audience.

Here’s a cool little video piece (albeit with cheesy music) on why color matters in marketing that demonstrates good use of video SlideShare:

Why Colors Matter For Presentations and Marketing from Ethos3 | Presentation Design and Training

Way more interesting than just reading about colors, right?

SlideShare Offers B2B Lead Generation

Back in July of 2015, SlideShare announced its new lead generation tool. Check out how it works:

Lead Generation on SlideShare: A How-to Guide from LinkedIn SlideShare

It’s Integrated with Haiku Deck

A while back, I did a post on how to use Haiku Deck (the hipster grandson of Powerpoint). If you want to see how to be a hip marketer with Haiku Deck, you can check out our presentation here.

Now, you can integrate your deck with SlideShare, increasing views, B2B lead generation, and shares.

Announcing Haiku Deck For SlideShare from Haiku Deck

It Looks Great On Mobile

SlideShare’s app has over million downloads. Since most of us use our mobile device as often as, or more often than, our desktops or laptops, it makes sense to get on board with SlideShare’s mobile-friendly way of presenting info.

You Can Turn SlideShares Into GIFs

If you want to send out a newsletter featuring your SlideShare, or even a Tweet, Jai Pandya has got you covered. In just one weekend, he developed GifDeck. With his automated tool you can create GIFs of your presentations, even controlling the speed and which slides are featured.

Here is our Haiku Deck presentation, turned SlideShare, turned GIF:

SlideShare Now Offers Analytics – FREE!

I recently shared with all of you how important it is to use analytics in your content marketing strategy. Happily, SlideShare sees the advantages of offering free analytic tools to its users. And what an advantage this is for B2B marketers!

You can now:

• see which presentations are working and which are not
• gain understanding into where your audience is located geographically
• find out how your viewers are discovering and sharing your content
• gain insight into the best times of month and day to post 

Truly their analytics page is user-friendly and doesn’t require a doctorate to understand. So go forth and analyze!

SlideShare isn’t going anywhere. It’s going to be around for a while, shaping and molding the landscape of social media and content marketing  – I believe for the better.

4 Ways You Can Make the Most of This Post Now

1. Download the Handy Toolkit for Launching a Meaasurable and Remarkabale Campaign. Content marketing begins with the right tools!

2. Share this article by utilizing the share buttons above and below this post. Sharing quality content builds relationships with your audience, creates conversations, and drives leads!

3. Leave a comment below. Have you had success with SlideShare or another presentation or markteting tool? Let’s talk about it!

4. Check out the video below for how to get started on creating more awesome content!

The relationships between marketing teams and sales teams run the full gamut from fully integrated, closed-loop “smarketing” teams to less cordial collaboration that persists much to everyone’s chagrin. Whether you’re buddies with your sales reps or not, as a marketer, you still play a critical role in their ability to obtain leads, build relationships, and close deals. But does your sales team see things this way?

A common frustration among content marketers is seeing their well-crafted, thoroughly-researched, and beautifully designed content sit unused, languishing in content limbo while sales reps ignore it. The estimates for how much content goes unused by sales vary—depending on who you ask—from 60% (Corporate Visions), to 80% (International Data Corporation), to 90% (SiriusDecisions). So how do you get sales to get on board with content and leverage the content you’re producing?

1. Give them a heads up

Your sales team is focused on making calls, sending emails, and trying to close business. They are probably not aware of your editorial calendar and what content is brewing. They can’t use content they’re not aware of, so make sure you inform them in advance of webinars, when you’re about to launch a new white paper, or when a new blog is published.

2. Make it easy to find

How you share content with your audience and customers might not work for sharing it with your sales team. You also wouldn’t want your reps going to your website and filling out a form every time they need to grab your most recent ebook. Provide an easily accessible content repository for assets, and make sure they have links to places you publish online as well as follow you on all social networks. You can probably even store some of your content in your CRM or marketing automation, or on a shared drive on the company network.

3. Tell them who it’s for

Marketers think increasingly in terms of customer personas when planning content and strategy. Your sales reps should understand these personas and how to communicate with them, but will also offer their insights into which contact in one opportunity is the primary champion versus the influencer likely to raise objections. If they understand who the target audience is for a piece of content, they’ll be able to follow their instincts on when to introduce it into the conversation to empower their buyer.

4. Tell them when they should use it

The buying process might not be as linear as it once seemed, but the conversations you have early in the process are still dramatically different from the ones that happen at the end. When creating content for various buying stages, ensure your sales reps know which stage each piece is most appropriate for so they can treat it like an ace up their sleeves at the right time.

5. Make sharing seamless

Your sales team can boost your signal by sharing content on social media and pass it along to interested buyers at just the right stage in the process. The easier it is to take these actions, the more likely your team will take them. Compose sample tweets or LinkedIn post your sales team can use verbatim or adapt when promoting content. Give them suggestions on how to introduce a piece of content to a prospect in a way that highlights its value.

6. Give content context

In a perfect world, the 65-page ebook you spent two months on will get read cover to digital cover by everyone on your sales team. In reality, your reps need to get the gist of it to use it effectively, even if they don’t have the time to read and absorb all the content. Provide them with an overview and some highlights they can pass along to prospects to whom they will send the content. They will be better prepared to hold a conversation with an engaged prospect and understand what is resonating with your audience.

7. Make it trackable

Seeing your efforts pay off is very satisfying. If your sales reps want to feel like the content they’re sharing isn’t disappearing into the ether, enable them to track interactions when you use a content distribution tool like uberflip or ClearSlide, or use a content marketing system that tracks content interactions and how they lead to business outcomes—information that sales will find meaningful.

8. Send them forget-me-nots

Just as content marketers process and produce a lot of information in their daily work, sales reps make dozens of dials and send scores of emails, trying to make lots of connections that will lead to opportunities. It’s perfectly understandable that they might not be on top of all your new content, or remember everything you’ve sent them. Periodic reminders of what’s available and reviews of how it should be used will help keep your content on your sales team’s radar.

B2B marketing and sales teams are more effective when working in concert. By making a few small process adjustments, content marketers can improve their sales enablement function, and increase content reach and impact at every stage of the buying process.

Modern Marketers know it’s important to score leads, and lead scoring is a well-known best practice. However, not all lead scoring programs will do the job and in fact, some can actually harm your demand generation efforts if not developed correctly. Many scoring programs have set scores for each type of content with little variation. Often times marketers score certain types of content (white papers and case studies) with higher value than other types (eBooks or product sheets). But should they be? Scoring certain pieces of content with a higher value than others simply because you think they are more valuable can be a big mistake.

All content isn’t the same and they shouldn’t be scored as such. White papers aren’t more valuable than eBooks or infographics because of their format…it depends on where the content is consumed in the buyer’s journey that makes the difference. It depends on data too. When developing a lead scoring program, look at your data first. Evaluate conversion data, look at the the path your last 10 – 20 customers took that resulted in a sale. Is there a pattern? Did everyone who converted/ purchase attend a certain webinar in the Nurture stage of their journey? Did they visit the about us section or leadership area of your site and then fill out a contact us form? Your data will guide you in how to build lead scoring. You just can’t go by your gut when making lead scoring rules and you also can’t build the program and then move on to the next item. Lead scoring is never finished, and it is an iterative process, for better or worse.

According to the 2015 ANNUITAS B2B Enterprise Study, 52% of marketers score leads based on behavioral activity and 48% score on call to action. There so many ways to score leads (demographics, account-based activity or engagement channel) that some (22%) don’t even score their leads at all and that won’t help even the best organizations drive revenue.

As we head into 2016, think about how you could revise your lead scoring model or if you just launched yours, when do you plan to evaluate effectiveness? Not sure your program is doing what it should be? For a quick check, evaluate your lead flow and then talk to sales. Are there too many poor quality leads being passed to sales (indication that lead scoring threshold is too low) or perhaps the lead flow has virtually stopped (possibly lead scoring is too stringent).

The good news is that a scoring model can always be revised. Plan on making adjustments and know that there isn’t only one right answer for developing the right lead scoring model for your organization. Look for our upcoming series on Lead Scoring Best Practices to help get you started and then refine your programs. If you don’t get lead scoring right, it is not something that will just go away. However, your buyers might, so focus on lead scoring.

What’s the sales team’s biggest complaint when it comes to their relationship with Marketing?

Too few or low-quality leads.

When the quality and frequency of leads is improved…

• A stronger partnership between the marketing and sales teams arises. Marketing should be supporting Sales with high-quality leads. But often lead generation is a point of contention between the two teams. Out of all the functional strategies, sales and marketing are tied the most closely together. Improving this relationship is good for the whole company.
• The company experiences better sales results and more sales revenue. With higher quality leads, Sales has a head start. They can approach each lead with confidence and more efficiently increase win rates. It makes them more productive when it comes to closing sales. This in turn enables them to help Marketing when they’re behind on a goal.

There are three key ways the marketing team can generate better leads for Sales.

Too few marketers truly use a data-driven content marketing strategy. Setting clear goals and using data as your guide ensures that you are developing the right type of content, getting it in front of the right audiences, and understanding its impact in a way that lets you continually optimize your strategy. I refer to this three-step framework as the three Cs: context, connections, and clarity – all of which are grounded in data.

Context

At the crux of data-informed design is a solid understanding of your target customers. The more you know about your audience, the better you will be able to develop relevant content that reaches and resonates with them at the moments that matter.

This means gathering as much information as possible – including your customers’ online and offline behaviors – to determine their interests and how they act upon those interests. While it may not be feasible to develop true one-to-one content at scale, you can use this data to pinpoint common characteristics and habits of individual audience segments, and prioritize your content development accordingly.

One of the most intriguing aspects of digital marketing is the data trail customers leave behind during their online journeys. Marketers are able to piece together this information in hopes of understanding the true context and intent of people’s interactions. These puzzle pieces come in many different shapes and sizes, including your customers’ search queries, social media conversations, digital media interactions, and more.

Don’t undervalue the competitive intelligence at your fingertips. Invest time to understand what type of content your competitors are developing, and across what media. What areas are already saturated within the market? Are there certain keywords or topics that will give you top billing in search engine results? This will give you insight into whether you want to compete in those areas, or whether you can find some more open space to creatively stand out and win the heart of your customers.

These are just a few ideas to get you thinking about creative ways to collect information, all with the goal of understanding the context of your target audience. As you continue to gather data, consider how your brand will use it to add value to the equation. An informed approach will allow you to create more relevant, timely, and differentiated content that will delight your customers. Your data is telling you an important story; make sure you’re listening.

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Connections

Through your data gathering, you should have a pretty solid understanding of what your target audience wants, when they want it, how they want it, and where they want it. Once you’ve developed content based on that understanding, the next phase is to distribute it in the most high-impact and efficient way possible. Just pushing the post button on your corporate blog isn’t going to cut it. No matter how relevant a piece of content is to your audience and how well you’ve matched it to their interests and needs, if they never see it you’re wasting your efforts.

Now is the time to think through creative distribution methods outside of your owned channels. This may include leveraging advocates both inside and outside of your organization, or partnering with influencers whom your consumers trust. You can also use paid social or display ads to target the right kinds of customers based on the same contextual information you used to develop your content. Additionally, simple remarketing techniques can guide customers to relevant content at the time when they are most receptive.

Clarity

This final, data-driven step is an important one. Evaluating the success of your content’s performance not only informs the first two phases of your strategy, it also lets you prove the value of your investment.

Study how to map your content to various stages in the customer journey. Traffic and shares are great places to start, but dig deeper. How are customers interacting with your information and how is it being used to advance or accelerate their next decisions? Through this analysis, you’ll identify key insights, such as whether your content is driving a shorter purchasing path or more frequent purchases. Consider setting benchmarks against certain segments and audience areas.

For some brands, it can be difficult to assign ROI figures to content, in which case you might consider using proxy metrics to illustrate impact. I’ve seen marketers use different scoring systems to assign value to various areas of engagement and test pieces of content against each other. For example, a click on your brand’s content may be worth one point while further engagement with your site is two points, content sharing is three points, and a content download (such as a recipe or guide) is four. Then, assess the buying propensity of different score levels. This can be adjusted based on your goals and the types of content you are creating, but, ultimately, you are looking to show correlation between the scores and sales.

The most successful content marketing campaigns don’t just happen by chance. Marketers have a wealth of data at their disposal. Knowing how to harness and leverage this information appropriately can be the difference between developing content that simply looks nice, and implementing a content marketing strategy that leads to engagement and conversions.

Content marketing has been said to be difficult, costly, and hard to measure. But do it right and there is an opportunity for outstanding payoff.

Tools to help

Some of the basic free tools to guide your content marketing strategy include:

• Google Trends helps you identify trending topics and see the popularity of various search queries over time.

• Google AdWords Keyword Planner gives you insight into the searches your customers are performing, including linguistic opportunities you may not have otherwise uncovered.

• BuzzSumo enables you to research specific topics and see what articles about those topics have performed particularly well, giving you purview into how various pieces of your future content may perform.

• Pew Research Center and other data-rich research sites provide access to demographics, media analysis, statistics, and more.

• Your own first-party data, such as web analytics, can give you a wealth of insight into your audience and content performance.

Please note: All tools included in our blog posts are suggested by authors, not the CMI editorial team. No one post can provide all relevant tools in the space. Feel free to include additional tools in the comments (from your company or ones that you have used).

This article originally appeared in the October issue of Chief Content Officer. Sign up to receive your free subscription to CMI’s bimonthly, print magazine.

Cover image by Joseph Kalinowski/Content Marketing Institute

The post Data: The Missing Piece in Your Content Marketing Strategy appeared first on Content Marketing Institute.

Here Zoe Sands, Principal Consultant of Zoe Sands and Co Ltd and Olivier Choron, CEO and Founder of purechannelapps have been interviewed to contribute their honest opinion on the topic, social selling. Forget the fluff, here is the truth.

1. What does social selling mean to you?

[ZS] Social selling for me is about connecting all those involved in the selling process – whether they are quota carriers or not – into a sales enablement programme, whereby the team works through the buying funnel together. Basically teamwork starting online.

[OC] For me social selling goes beyond the ‘selling’. It’s about making sure the organisation is completely engaged in social media, at all levels. I am not talking about using social media just for marketing or customer service or HR/ recruitment. I am talking about all people being involved in social media. All your employees have a social media cloud… whether they are in sales, marketing or technical roles…whether they are in junior, mid-level or senior management positions. Only once they all have embraced social media and participated in your company’s social media efforts, will you be able, as an organisation, to enjoy the benefits of ‘social’. And remember that, according to LinkedIn, 75% of buyers use social media to be more informed about vendors.

2.Why is it important?

[ZS] Social selling is important because buyers are much more informed than they have ever been. Research has shown that buyers do not tend to engage with vendor sales until further along the buying decision process. This creates issues because often the sales touch point with the buyer is too late as short lists may have already been created and the buyer is probably close to making a buying decision. SiriusDecisions says two thirds of the buying process has already been completed online without even contacting the vendors. This is a missed opportunity for sales to influence the buying process.

Sales employees need to develop and optimise their social channels to hunt out suspects, identify prospects and build a trusted advisor status with the aim to create trusted online relationships before moving these into sales relationships. Times have changed and rather than waiting for opportunities to be created by marketing, successful sales people are creating these opportunities themselves through social selling.

[OC] Being able to influence buyers wherever they are in the buying cycle is key. Social selling, if done well and across the whole organisation, will enable this. It allows interactions to occur when they are needed and are relevant. It guarantees success. According to SiriusDecisions, successful organisations have seen a 5% increase in sales through social selling. The company, A Sales Guy Consulting, also indicated in their Social Media and Sales Quota Survey that 72.6% of sales people who use social outperform their peers.

3.How much effort should be put into social selling versus other aspects of selling?

[ZS] The effort required depends entirely on the level of trust that has already been established online. If you have a low personal brand exposure and value, then a higher level of effort is required, over someone who has already established his/her personal brand and credibility. I generally say to people I train to set aside between 30 to 60 minutes a day to work on your social selling presence.

4.What content is important?

[ZS] Content is the key driving factor for social selling. Without this it is difficult to start to build your trusted advisor status. The important types of content will vary from industry to industry, but visual content such as images and videos often generate lots of interest, as do customer references, blogs and case studies. People want easily digestible content that can help them with their current issue. Think about what types of content you engage with when you’re buying, these will probably be the same for your buyer.

[OC] All content is important. Different people consume different content, based on their expertise, interests, and knowledge. So, don’t assume technical documents are now irrelevant just because we are in the days of videos and infographics. There is a place for everything. Datasheets will resonate with more IT-aware users; whitepapers with others; business benefits-related infographics with yet another audience. Finding the right mix of content is the trick. That said, we have found that ‘industry’ content gets 80% of the clicks/engagement compared to ‘product’ content!

5.Is localised and translated content important?

[ZS] I’m a big fan of localising content, but understand that businesses don’t have an unlimited budget to translate each piece of collateral. Ideally anyone involved in social selling would be taking the sales and marketing content and giving it a local feel. This may just be providing a short 100 word localised summary to the piece of content being shared. I know that’s not full localisation, but a way of making the content distribution a little more personable and localised. My advice would be try to localise if you can.

[OC] Being French I have to say ‘yes’, ‘yes’ and ‘yes’… Not localising and assuming all English content would work globally is a BIG mistake. That said there is a significant cost in creating and localising content, but I see this as part of doing business globally.

6.When implementing social selling should organisations focus on all or just a few social networks?

[ZS] I think before jumping into deciding which social networks to target, you need to first look at where your customers frequent online. You may find they are on a particular community, but you won’t know this unless you do your research. There is a high likelihood they will be on LinkedIn with over 400 million members, but a little due diligence before kicking off a programme does no harm. Generally most organisations that are running social selling programmes are enabling their sales teams with LinkedIn and Twitter.

[OC] The question is correct – it’s a matter of ‘focus’ rather than ‘presence’. You will need to have presence on all social networks – again they work for different audiences. But, you will need to ‘focus’ your efforts on the social networks that work for you, your industry and your audience. In B2B, LinkedIn seems to have the edge, but who knows what the future will bring.

7.Is it worth paying for the use of LinkedIn to support social selling?

[ZS] It is not absolutely necessary to have paid support and tools from LinkedIn, but in my opinion investing in sales navigator licences and aligning your LinkedIn advertising spend certainly helps with expediting awareness, engagement and converting opportunities.

[OC] There are some clear benefits in paying for the extra services and this could help drive engagement, but it’s all about budget and where you spend it the most effectively, to help you get the right results for you, your industry and your audience

8.Which people in an organisation should be involved in social selling?

[ZS] The teams that should be involved in a social selling are sales, sales operations, marketing, marketing operations in terms of running the programme. All those involved in the sales process whether quota carrying or not should play a part in social selling.

[OC] See my answer to Question 1!

9.How does a brand really quantify the value of social selling?

[ZS] You quantify social selling through revenue. You need to decide on what you’re measuring and get an agreement on this. Ultimately you are measuring revenue achieved, but you may have softer metrics such as contact acquisition.

[OC] Engagement and revenue. In most B2B environments, the sales cycle is very long and decisions are made by many different individuals, all needing to be influenced and ‘brought on board’ by your employees. Attributing the success at any individual level is very difficult; measuring at a campaign or company level is the way to go. BUT, driving engagement at a person-to-person level can be measured and quantified (and rewarded upon).

10.When is social selling not beneficial?

[ZS] Hmm, that’s a difficult question. I would say social selling can benefit any B2B organisation as long as you have developed a robust social selling programme. However, I do know of social selling programmes being mis-sold to client-side. What they really have in place are comment marketing and social prospecting rather than a social selling programme, which leads to revenue for a business. If you’re unsure of what you’ve been sold get in touch with me for a quick chat.

[OC] If not done well or across the whole organisation. That said, one sale is all it takes to make social selling ‘beneficial’ (if you haven’t spent hours or tons of budget to achieve this one sale)!

11.How do I start when I don’t have time?

[ZS] If you want to be successful in your sales career you’re going to have to make the time to invest in social selling. It is like anything really, what you put in is what you get out. Those that fail to capitalise on this social selling trend will be playing catch up to their peers and competitors. They will find it increasingly difficult to meet sales targets. So what are you waiting for, start your social selling journey today.

[OC] Speak to Zoe and remember that 90% of decision makers don’t answer the phone, according to the LinkedIn global survey of 1500 B2B Decision Makers, May 2014.

Want to hear more from Olivier and Zoe? Register here for their upcoming webinar where they will be discussing the ROI of Social selling. This is taking place on the 1st December at 4pm GMT. Click here to find out more information.