Salespeople face the harsh reality today that many prospects and customers treat and view them as nothing more than mere vendors. In many cases, it’s not the salesperson’s fault. The prospect’s system, buying process, or procurement department are all set up to diminish the seller’s opportunity to create value and differentiate him/herself. It’s the reality we face as companies and buyers seek to commoditize their purchases (and take most of the fun, creativity, and margin out of our deals).

However, there is another side to this coin! From personal observation I can confidently declare there are also a whole lot of things salespeople do that cause the buyer/prospect/customer to see them as nothing more than a vendor or commodity seller instead of the value-creator/professional/consultant/trusted advisor that they so badly want to be perceived as.

This is a critical topic that is having such a negative effect on sales performance that I am going to address it twice, publicly, in the next month. I want to point out the very attitudes, approaches and behaviors that cause salespeople to be viewed and treated as nothing more than low-level vendors, pitchmen and commodity sellers. And I will offer several powerful and practical alternatives to help salespeople dramatically alter the way buyers perceive (and receive) them.

Opportunity #1: Tomorrow, October 21 at 1:00 Eastern: Free Live Webinar with five of my favorite sales guru buddies (Jeb Blount, Miles Austin, John Spence, Mark Hunter & Anthony Iannarino) and me. We’re bringing you a new format to foster a spirited interactive discussion covering “The Real Secrets to Closing Deals Faster.”  I will share my secrets to speeding up deals by upgrading how buyers see you. Don’t miss this! A big thank you to The TAS Group for sponsoring this event and bringing it to you live, free of charge. Register here to join us tomorrow. Sign up even if you can’t make it live so you can access the video recording in the future.

Opportunity #2: Full-Day Live Event, November 13th, Washington, DC/McLean, VA – Customer Acquisition Symposium featuring my same sales thought leader friends and me. If you’re anywhere near DC or can get there on Nov 13th, this is a can’t miss day. Six keynotes and six breakout sessions all with one focus: helping you acquire more new customers. My keynote is focused specifically on helping salespeople upgrade from vendor to value-creator. Thanks to Fred Diamond and the Institute for Excellence in Sales for organizing this huge event. Click here for FAQ, event details and to register. For just a few hundred dollars, spend a day with all six of us and leave with incredibly powerful and practical ideas you can put into practice right away. Here’s a brief video explaining more about why I’m so excited for November 13th:

Take advantage of this unique opportunity to hear from six top sales influencers and authors all in one place. What Anthony Iannarino shared in his recent newsletter  is true for me as well: This is the one time I’m speaking publicly this year. Every other speaking engagement was for client’s private sales meeting and not open to the public. Join my five friends and me near DC on November 13; I look forward to seeing you in person there!

Justin Trudeau giving his victory address after leading the Liberal Party of Canada to a majority government on October 19, 2015. (Nicholas Kamm/AFP/Getty)

The Canadian dollar wobbled after Justin Trudeau was declared prime minister. Traders soon got over it.

International investors in Asia were given the first opportunity to pass judgement on the man and the party that more than 6.9 million Canadians chose to lead them. The loonie fell initially against the U.S. dollar, a knee-jerk response to Trudeau’s pledge to run small deficits in order to spend extra on infrastructure. Those doubters only created a buying opportunity for anyone with a less jaundiced view of government’s role in the economy. By the start of the trading day in Toronto, the Canadian currency had rallied. The Liberal Party’s platform included some of the best contemporary thinking on how best to confront an era of economic stagnation. The majority Trudeau won on Oct. 19 will ensure those ideas become policy without delay.

The real problem isn’t a “technical recession.” It’s economic stagnation

Polls made the campaign look closer than it was. Prime Minister Stephen Harper continually insulted the intelligence of the men and women he needed to elect him. He rushed the sale of the federal government’s shares in General Motors just so he could record a budget surplus ahead of the campaign. He made a virtue of balanced budgets, ignoring the fact that Canada’s economy had slowed to its weakest pace of growth outside a recession since 1992. He promised incentives for more spending on homes and renovations, even though record household debt is one of the biggest threats to the economy. Harper’s opponents made too much of the small contraction of gross domestic product in the first half of 2015, insisting the Conservative government was to blame for a second “recession.” But the prime minister failed to see that the public deserved a better response to the danger of economic stagnation than policies suited for times of plenty.

Trudeau, in his acceptance speech, called the surge in Liberal support a “movement.” That attempt to create an echo of Barack Obama’s victory in 2008 might be a stretch. As the Liberals took a lead in the polls, they became a magnet for an anti-Harper vote that rivaled Americans’ contempt for George W. Bush at the end of his presidency. An increasingly desperate Conservative campaign gave up trying to expand its vote. Instead, it attempted to buy suburban votes (a renovation tax credit) and preyed on the fears of its most likely supporters (a niqab ban at citizenship ceremonies). For years, the Conservatives have been the best-funded of Canada’s political parties and in possession of the most data. They knew where their voters lived and the messages to which they would respond. Their strategy failed to account for the possibility of inspiring non-Conservatives to rise up against the government. More than 68% of eligible voters cast a ballot, the highest turnout since 1993, according to Elections Canada. The average of Harper’s three victories was 61.5%. There was a movement afoot on Oct. 19, but it was at least as much about deposing Harper as it was an embrace of the Liberals and their untested leader.

Still, Trudeau deserves credit for winning the anti-Harper vote. Tom Mulcair, the New Democratic Party leader, appeared overly worried about deflecting Conservative attack ads. His vigorous defense of balanced budgets and a promise to cut the taxes of small businesses left the NDP looking like Harper-lite, at least on the economy, the issue that all leaders agreed was the most important of the campaign. Trudeau, too, needed time to get over the Canadian political class’s obsession with balanced budgets. He waited until the campaign was well underway before announcing he would run small deficits to help fund a $60-billion infrastructure program. The announcement was the turning point of the campaign, helping the Liberals vault from third place in the polls to first.

Why the federal government shouldn’t balance the budget

There is little reason to worry about Trudeau’s pledge. The federal government’s ratio of debt to GDP is low by international standards, meaning the country can afford to increase its borrowing without fear that investors will demand higher yields. Economists estimate the Liberal program could increase economic growth next year by half a percentage point, taking the pressure off the Bank of Canada to lower interest rates. The combination of stronger economic growth and stable monetary policy should more than offset any worries in financial markets over deficits. If they persist, Trudeau could underline his promise to return to fiscal surpluses by rewriting Harper’s balanced-budget law to match the Liberal government’s intentions. His only other option is to scrap it, which only would give the new Official Opposition a target for early attacks.

Some will attack the efficacy of Trudeau’s spending plan. They will dismiss the ability of fiscal policy to boost economic growth in the short term, and they will point out that infrastructure projects invariably take a long time to ready. Such critiques will miss the point. There is a qualitative difference between Trudeau’s program and the fiscal stimulus Harper implemented during the financial crisis. In 2009, the global economy was in a deep recession. Governments around the world spent heavily and hastily to arrest the decline. They succeeded.

Things are different now. Canada’s economy is growing, but much too slowly. Any spending must aim to bring about “structural change” by making the economy more productive, and thereby increasing its potential to grow faster in the future. That means more public transit and fewer hockey rinks. Project selection will take time and payoff will come years after. But the reason to do it now is that interest rates may never be lower. It is sound economics. If Canada’s new prime minister implements it successfully, then in a few years we may witness real Trudeaumania.

MORE ABOUT ECONOMICS & FEDERAL ELECTION 2015:

• Why the federal government shouldn’t balance the budget
• Now is the right time for the federal government to run a deficit
• The party leaders need some real talk about deficit spending
• Don’t scrap the Balanced Budget Act—make it better

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(Steve Russell/Toronto Star/Getty)

In April 2014, a picture appeared of Liberal leader Justin Trudeau and then-city councillor Adam Vaughan on the front page of the Toronto Star. Taken by the political party’s official photographer, it showed the two men deep in conversation at downtown Toronto bistro. The accompanying story reported the Liberals had wooed Vaughan to run as a candidate in an upcoming by-election (He won, then trounced NDP candidate Olivia Chow in yesterday’s vote). “I talked to Justin and he listened and I listened to him and I want to help make him prime minister,” said Vaughan in the story. The scenario was familiar—after all, how many bosses have buttered up a potential employee by taking them out for a nice lunch? But publicizing the moment sent a message: At a time when Prime Minister Stephen Harper increasingly looked like a one-man-band, Trudeau was building a team.

Let us set aside for a moment whether the policies of the prime minister-designate will be good or bad for business. There’s a clear and simple management strategy lesson in the Liberals’ move from third party to majority government: The team matters. Vaughan, a well-known if occasionally pugnacious former TV reporter, was only one of several high-profile, credible candidates recruited by Trudeau over the past two years. There was former Toronto police chief Bill Blair, aboriginal leader Jody Wilson-Raybould, noted author and journalist Chrystia Freeland and Andrew Leslie, a former Canadian Forces lieutenant-general. He also gave newfound prominence to existing MPs like former astronaut Marc Garneau. One imagines Trudeau and his advisors criss-crossing the country like the Blues Brothers, making the same pitch: “We’re putting the party back together.”

In business and politics, leadership doesn’t look like it used to

Surrounding himself with highly qualified individuals was a smart way for Trudeau to combat the notion that he was unqualified to lead the country. But recruiting this strong team isn’t a counterbalance to a weak figurehead. It’s actually proof of Trudeau’s strength as a leader. In contrast to Harper’s command-and-control style of management, Trudeau has promised to listen to his colleagues. As he told Chatelaine during the election campaign:

“It’s the style of leadership I learned from my father: My father gathered the most brilliant people he could find and challenged them to find real solutions. He watched them debate and disagree while they engaged in a serious pursuit of the best possible answer regardless of ideology. Some people have come to admire Stephen Harper’s style because he’s standing at the top of the pyramid —that’s not leadership to me. Leadership is inspiring extraordinary people to step up and serve their country.”

Indeed, the stereotype of a strong leader—be it Stephen Harper or Steve Jobs—is an authority figure with little patience for the opinions of others. But that’s a misguided notion. Great leaders don’t need all the answers. They just need to have a team that can offer them.

MORE ABOUT LEADERSHIP & MANAGEMENT:

• In business and politics, leadership doesn’t look like it used to
• Larry Ellison: Why it pays to be a jerk
• Great employee engagement starts as soon as the hire is made
• How companies can stop making their best employees miserable
• Keep your star employees by doing regular “stay interviews”

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Amazon is notorious for its intense data-driven decision-making culture.

In fact, data crunching is so prevalent across the whole company, it's not hard to find signs that show almost religious obsession over data analysis, according to a former employee.

"Managers had signs outside their offices that said, 'In God we trust. The rest, bring me data,'" Guru Hariharan, a former Amazon engineer who's now running his own e-commerce software startup called Boomerang Commerce, told us.

"It was common to have heated debates around data," he said. "It was like, 'I don't trust your subjective opinion. Bring me data-driven opinion."

Amazon's obsessive culture over data analysis is a by-product of its founder and CEO Jeff Bezos. According to the New York Times' August report on Amazon's corporate culture, Bezos once tried to convince his grandmother to quit smoking by providing data that proved she was losing a few minutes of her life for every puff she inhaled.

Naturally, Bezos' data-obsession has seeped in to the whole company's business culture. One former Amazon employee was also quoted in that NY Times story as saying, "Amazon is driven by data...It will only change if the data says it must — when the entire way of hiring and working and firing stops making economic sense.”

That kind of work culture could make Amazon a difficult place to work for, Hariharan agreed. "It’s definitely a tough environment. There’s some very direct questioning that’s happening on conference calls and metric meetings and so on," he said. "It’s very data-driven, cut-throat...It’s not for the faint-hearted. "

But Hariharan said his experience at Amazon was what built the groundwork for his current startup, which provides optimized pricing and inventory data for retailers. "I enjoyed my time there. It was a great training ground for me, and it ended up defining my DNA from a workplace standpoint," he said.

SEE ALSO: Latest data shows where Amazon might be headed next — and it should terrify UPS and FedEx

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Chris Wattie/Reuters

In the waning days of a long campaign, Stephen Harper said only he could “protect” Canada’s vulnerable economy, supposedly the most important question on the ballot. But Canadians instead handed over the keys to a fresh-faced Justin Trudeau, who must now deliver on a difficult promise to get a $2-trillion economy back on track at a time when the world is conspiring against him.

Trudeau’s majority government will take shape at a time when Canada’s growth has been hammered by a global rout in oil and other commodity prices. Exports are crumbling as China economies slows and U.S. companies are being hurt by the high U.S. dollar. At the same time, there are mounting concerns about the growing indebtedness of Canadian households and soaring real estate prices. “I think the global economy is worse than we were discussing a few months ago,” says Mike Moffatt, an assistant professor at Western University’s Ivey Business School, who acted as one of Trudeau’s economic advisers. “And that means the Canadian economy is worse, too.”

The centrepiece of Trudeau’s plan to dig Canada out of the mire consists of three consecutive years of deficit spending totalling up to $10 billion per year. If he follows through on his promises, some of that borrowed money will help pay for a doubling in federal spending on infrastructure projects to $125 billion over the next decade—everything from public transit to “social infrastructure” like affordable housing for seniors. The idea, supported by former Bank of Canada governor David Dodge, is to take advantage of record-low interest rates and a manageable federal debt-to-GDP ratio to borrow and invest in projects that promise to boost Canada’s long-term growth potential, while, hopefully, also creating a near-term economic tailwind. Douglas Porter, the chief economist at BMO Capital Markets, says the Liberals’ plan would amount to a not-insignificant half a percentage point boost in GDP. However he cautioned it won’t have an impact on headline growth for over a year.

Equally important is what a few years of budgetary spending would do for the Bank of Canada, which has been using monetary stimulus to promote growth even as Harper’s austerity measures created a drag. Economists say a more stimulative fiscal policy will take pressure off the Bank. “It could have an implication for the bank’s policy by further reducing the chance of cutting rates again,” Porter says. “It could even increase the chance they raise rates a bit earlier.”

Moffatt sees another distinct advantage to the Trudeau deficit plan, particularly now that he’s been elected: breathing room. “If they find out the economy is a lot worse than they thought, they can spend more because they never said they’re going to balance the budget,” he says, adding that voters are unlikely to put up much of a fuss if the government spends $12 billion per year instead of a promised $10 billion.

Aside from budgetary decisions, the other pressing economic file facing Trudeau is the Trans-Pacific Partnership. The Harper government negotiated the final stages of the 12-nation trade pact behind closed doors during the election campaign. If ratified, it promises to give Canadian businesses increased access to markets in Asia, particularly Japan, while opening the doors to more tariff-free imports in Canada that could result in cheaper prices for consumers. During the campaign, Trudeau steered clear of criticizing the pact but made it clear he would need to see the full text of the deal before passing final judgment. In reality, he’s likely to wait to see whether the U.S. ratifies the agreement, which has already drawn the opposition of Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton. “If it does get approved in the U.S., I think it will be very difficult for Canada to turn it aside,” says Porter.

Less clear, but potentially more far-reaching, is what Trudeau’s government will do on the climate change file and the energy sector. He’s promised to meet with provincial premiers within 90 days of the UN Climate Change Conference, to be held in Paris at the end of November, “to develop a carbon pricing policy” that would set national emissions targets. But he’s also promised to allow provinces to design their own emissions reductions policies, noting that some, like B.C., have already introduced a carbon tax. While some have criticized Trudeau for failing to play more of a leadership role on the issue, Werner Antweiler, an associate professor at the University of British Columbia’s Sauder School of Business, says the Liberal party’s vagueness was a deliberate political calculation. “He knew he would get clobbered if he proposed another carbon tax like [former Liberal leader] Stéphane Dion did,”Antweiler says. “That said, I think he’s left a door open to revise his position.”

Yet, for all the coming changes in Ottawa after a decade of Conservative rule, Canadians shouldn’t expect a sudden improvement in the country’s fortunes. As Moffatt notes, Trudeau will find himself facing a bleaker global outlook than Harper did when the election was called back in August—a period that itself could hardly be described as euphoric. At the time, voters were already grappling with the possibility the Canadian economy, battered by the rout in oil prices, had fallen into a recession for the second time in six years. The dollar, meanwhile, had plummeted to US75 cents, its lowest level in more than a decade, while China’s stock market had just endured an epic crash that wiped out more than US$3.3 trillion, raising concerns about the health of the world’s second-biggest economy.

There were glimmers of improvement—in June and July the economy eked out modest gains that Harper gripped like a life preserver. But then, with little warning, the storm clouds over the global economy worsened again. Beginning in late August, investors abruptly lost faith in Beijing’s ability to manage its stock market crisis, sending global markets into tailspin. On Sept. 17, the U.S. Fed delayed its planned interest rate hike because of ongoing market concerns about China and the pressure falling commodity prices placed on the economies of resource-producing countries, including Canada’s. “Overall, I think the sense is the [Canadian] economy returned to some growth after a tough first half,” says BMO’s Porter. “But interestingly, it’s been a very different story globally. We’ve had equity markets go through a full-blown correction, and there are mounting concerns about how emerging markets are doing. That even seems to have taken a bit of steam out of the U.S. economy, which looked to be the best game in town.”

Looking ahead, the economic challenges facing Canada’s next government remain daunting. While China appears to have sidestepped an uncontrolled crash—third-quarter GDP growth came in at 6.9 per cent, just below Beijing’s target—the continued slowdown will have ramifications for Canada in the form of further weakness in oil and commodity prices for years to come. That’s a problem given that oil is now trading around US$45 a barrel, well below the roughly US$80 a barrel “break-even” cost for most oil sands projects. Already the sector has yanked about $60 billion worth of planned investments and cut tens of thousands of jobs, sending Alberta spiralling into a recession.

At the same time, there are concerns exporters in other parts of the country—namely Ontario and Quebec—won’t be able to pick up the slack despite a cheap loonie that makes their products more competitive when sold overseas. David Watt, the chief economist for HSBC Bank Canada, said in a recent note that Canada’s export sector is structurally weak, and that Canada has lost market share south of the border, making it harder to benefit from a pick-up in U.S. growth. “Until Canada overcomes its productivity and competitiveness hurdles, it will continue to feature cyclical behaviours”—meaning boom and bust— “similar to those of emerging market economies,” Watt wrote. “The oil downturn has revealed Canada’s broader growth challenges, which include rising debt-to-GDP levels, borrowing-fuelled consumption, lacklustre productivity performance, and a poor record in R&D.” Add it all up and it’s easy to see why the IMF predicts economic growth in Canada of just one per cent this year and 1.7 per cent in 2015.

If Trudeau is successful at implementing his promised deficit spending, he may be able to boost next year’s GDP growth closer to two per cent. Beyond that, he will likely find himself thwarted by the same forces that his predecessor faced: a sluggish global economy that stubbornly refuses to co-operate.

The post Trudeau’s economic fix: Easy to promise, hard to deliver appeared first on Macleans.ca.

Guest author Scott Gerber is the founder of the Young Entrepreneur Council.

When you're a young entrepreneur, you might be excited to start something with your peers. However, you likely also recognize that more experienced talent would help you out. If you don't have years of industry experience, you're probably making more than a few rookie mistakes. The right talent, especially on your senior leadership team, can help you make better decisions as you grow.

So how do you convince more experienced folks to join your team, especially when your startup is relatively unproven? Twelve young entrepreneurs from YEC share the tactics they used to convince industry rock stars to sign on.

Let Them Make A Difference

In my experience, the best more-experienced hires tend to be the executives with big-company experience who appreciate the difference they can make in a smaller environment with much faster decision-making. Someone who led a sales or product development team can make more independent decisions and have a much bigger impact in a startup environment. In a meritocracy, the standout performers will be recognized and acknowledged, creating a very positive feedback loop. —Elliot Bohm, CardCash

Focus On Vision And Challenges To Solve

In the current market environment, talented senior people have a huge number of opportunities. As a startup, you will not be able to compete on compensation, and if you do attract someone because you're the highest bidder, be ready to lose them when someone else inevitably has more money. Focus your recruiting on what problems you're trying to solve and what your bigger vision is. We recently brought on a technical lead who'd spent the previous four years at a high-growth startup. He was passionate about our vision, but also loved the culture of our company. Make someone happy with their team and fulfilled in their projects, and you'll have a great long-term partner. —Aaron Schwartz, Modify Watches

Make It Exciting

Many people love the idea of a startup, but personal situations do not always allow them to start something from scratch on their own. If they can plug themselves into a startup that is a bit more established and use their expertise and skill to make it better, that can be an exciting change for their career. They are no longer just a cog in a machine, and can truly make a difference. Letting them participate in the financial upside when the company is a success also makes it more compelling, and makes them feel like they are part of something. —Jay Johnson, Small Lot Wine

Always Be Improving

We were told by a veteran in the industry that one of the most exciting parts of our organization is the sense that we are "tinkering"—innovating by looking under the hood of the model and striving for creative ways to make it better. For more experienced folks, the lure of being able to "tinker," to try new things and break out of more firmly rooted ways of thinking, can be appealing. —Lindsay Tanne, LogicPrep

Have Them Talk To Founders And Early Employees

The proof is in the pudding for more experienced professionals. Have them connect with your cofounders and early employees, and hear directly from them why they left their previous jobs to work with you. The people on your team can tell the story of why it's worth it to work at your startup from a different perspective, one that's not as invested in the outcome of recruiting as yours. Potential new hires with more experience will also appreciate this as a sign of confidence that the people already on your team are happy with their work and enjoy themselves at your startup. Make sure to connect these potential experienced new hires with people within your company who have a similar background and history to their own, so it'll be easier for them to relate to each other. —Dave Nevogt, Hubstaff

Match Their Purpose

We recently hired a VP with more than 20 years of experience who had an offer from us (a fast-growing but midsize PR firm) and an offer from a publicly traded powerhouse company. There's no way we could have competed on stock options, perks, 401K, salary, and so forth. What it came down to for her was that we had a need that perfectly aligned with the purpose she was pursing in her career. In her former position, she was hired for one roll, but the company truly needed her to do something else (which she did). Now she's with us, doing exactly what we said we needed, which is what she wanted all along, and she's flourishing. —Beck Bamberger, BAM Communications

Bring Them On As A Cofounder

I met my current cofounder when he reached out to me via LinkedIn. We're both from the same city and when we met to discuss further, I was very impressed by his honesty and willingness to build something together. We needed to figure out if we were a good fit, and also how much of our own money we were willing to put up for bootstrapping our company. Because he met me with a spirit of collaboration and sharing, I was much more willing to be open about my own finances. We settled on an equal contribution of startup capital that was feasible for us both, committed to sharing equity 50-50 and haven't looked back since. I was an experienced entrepreneur and software development consultant at that point, but I was willing to come on board because I was treated fairly, as an equal. —Jared Brown, Hubstaff

Show Them Your Plan For Success

Do not just convince, but show the individual where you are going and how you are going to get there. Allow them to believe they are an integral piece of the plan. A potential employee will want to join something they feel like they are a part of, and also something that is headed in the right direction. —Jayna Cooke, Eventup

Let Your Product Speak For Itself

My company, Uassist.me, has some really amazing partnerships right now. You really don’t have to do a lot of convincing if your service or product speaks for itself. For us, it’s been a matter of having a person sign up to work with one of our virtual assistants, and after working with us for a while, coming to realize they want to be part of our team and what we’re building. —Alfredo Atanacio, Uassist.me

Make It Easy To Say Yes

Everyone has different motivations and desires. Try to determine why each candidate is interested in your company, and then focus on the important items. This could be responsibility, prestige, money or a hundred different things. If you can identify their true desires then you can make your best effort to give them an offer they can't refuse. When we made a key C-level hire we faced this exact problem. As a small company we did not have the bank balance to compete on straight salary, but the individual placed huge value on flexibility, responsibility and a feeling of ownership. These were things we could easily accommodate while other, more cash-rich companies could not. The result has been fantastic, and we got to add some much needed "grey hair." —Douglas Hutchings, Picasolar

Develop Experienced Executives As Advisors

One approach to getting the best people in the world excited about your business is to develop them as advocates, and to be less concerned initially about the specific role they could potentially play. A lower commitment advisory role is a great way for someone to get to know you and the business, see the trajectory of your business first hand and get excited about what you’re doing. —Katrina Lake, Stitch Fix

Showcase Your Own Background

"Startup" can be a dirty word to some people in sectors like real estate and finance, so it's important to build a strong bridge between expertise and opportunity. Let potential senior hires know how your own background and experiences shaped your outlook and led you to your current venture. —Heather Schwarz-Lopes, EarlyShares

Photo by Jonathan Kos-Read

Sales leaders, meet digital asset management.

The brainchild of Michael Moon’s work with Apple Computer in 1996, digital asset management is the “management, organization and distribution of digital assets from a central repository.” What we call content could also be labeled “digital assets” – in both cases we’re talking about design files, videos, images, documents, presentation files, and the like. DAM systems help you categorize types of content so they’re fast and easy to find and deploy – that’s why version control, taxonomies and naming conventions are vital to success.

While sales teams have specific needs when it comes to their content, there is plenty that can be carried over from the world of DAM. Now that you’ve been formally introduced, let us give you a bit more information on digital asset management and what you can take from it to make your sales content processes better.

1. Hire for the position. There is a science to DAM – but that doesn’t mean that it can be managed or fully automated with a technology solution. Just as the human element is important in crafting engaging sales content, if you want to make sure the right digital media assets are being created and then distributed at the right time to the right people, you’ll need someone to oversee the process. A quick Google search of recent job postings will show you that there’s overlap in the qualities valued in DAM professionals and those important in a good content curator; both should be detail-oriented (“OCD behavior” welcomed!), process-driven, innovative, have a love of efficiency and an understanding for optimizing workflows.
2. Start with a strategy. Implementing a system for organizing your digital assets, like implementing any new company or department-wide initiative, comes with risk. What’s at stake? Not just the people and technology investment but your company’s digital property, customer satisfaction, and reputation in the marketplace. An asset library, like a sales performance support system, is not something you can or should build overnight. Instead they require careful review and analysis of existing systems and content – a content audit is a good place to begin. From there you’ll want to consider what workflows make sense for your organization, what technology you will use to manage your database or content library, and how you will achieve 100% adoption of your new program.
3. Don’t underestimate the importance of metadata. In our Search is Dead infographic, we illustrate how the explosion of content is making it more difficult than ever to find the information we need. In fact, more than 30% of workers spend upwards of 5 minutes looking for any single document or file. Imagine the time wasted on search in one business over the course of a year! Metadata is the key to making your content searchable and accessible. Having a plan for how you tag each piece of content is the only way to ensure your reps can find the information they want or need, and only the content they want and need, when they want or need it – whether they are using a phone, tablet, or laptop. Michael Moon calls this idea Content Eureka!.
4. Governance can make or break you. Here at The Value Shift we haven’t been shy in proclaiming a strictly anti “random acts of sales content” message. So it makes sense that we would be pro content governance. Experts agree that having a set of rules and policies surrounding your digital assets and how and when they’re used will reduce content misuse and user confusion, improving the overall efficiency of your organization.
5. When it comes to creating the best possible workflow, know your user. Digital asset management systems are built on workflows – and when the workflow is, well, working, it’s invisible. Everything should be “humming along nicely, nobody actually noticing,” as DAM Learning Center blogger Jim Kidwell put it. What’s the best way to achieve that seamlessness? By building the workflow into your user’s existing routine. With sales content, there are multiple user streams you want to consider – the sales rep is one (how is your team finding and accessing documents and videos vital to the sales process?) and the prospect is another (how is content being delivered to prospects and in what format?). Make sure you’re considering each set of users’ needs and goals before developing your content workflows.
6. Do your research before throwing your money at technology. At this point there is plenty of  management software out there – take the time to find the right fit for your company. When it comes to any kind of CMS, you should consider general ease of use, compatibility with existing systems, mobile-readiness, and the quality of content analytics and reporting the technology offers.

The goal of digital asset management is simple: streamline business process to save time and money. Using these practices in conjunction with an overall sales content strategy is the best way to eliminate sales rep inefficiency and boost your team’s performance.

Only 58% of sales reps made quota last year.

Sales people only spend 37% of their time actually selling.

Sales reps spend 35% of their time searching for or creating sales content.

70% of the reps say they don’t have the knowledge and tools to add value to their sales conversations

Sales managers only spend 20.8% of their time coaching.

These facts come from the 2015 CSO Insights Sales Management Optimization study and from SiriusDecisions.

Houston, we have a sales productivity problem! 

The frustrating part of this problem is that it’s NOT “new news” to anyone involved with B2B sales.

If you’re a sales manager, one way that the sales productivity problem manifests itself is in “the tale of two presentations”.

In an all too familiar situation, you’re in a sales meeting where your sale rep presents inappropriate or outdated slides, or worse, slides meant for a completely different audience. You either sit there and take it, or jump in and try to correct the course of the conversation. You’re feeling terrible.

Or, you experience the opposite situation where the presentation is flawless. The sales rep presents the latest slides with the current sales messages and up-to-date statistics. The sales rep is organized and confident, probably because he/she properly prepared for the meeting in advance. You’re feeling great!

You’d think it would be simple to repeat the second experience every time, but it’s not. We’d like to believe that all reps follow the same process to get prepared for a meeting. We’d like to think they ask the prospect all the right questions and research all the right things to present in their meetings. Here are just a few of the variables that influence the outcome of a presentation:

• Did the sales rep review the presentation materials with the sales manager before the call? If yes, the manager might have corrected the problem in advance. That’s assuming the manger had the right content to share.

• Did the sales rep ask the customer “who” specifically would be attending the presentation? If yes, that would allow the rep to select and prepare the right content for the specific audience.

• Was the sales rep aware that industry- or persona-specific content was available to them for their presentation? If yes, that would go a long way in ensuring the right content was presented.

• Did the sales rep ask another sales rep in the office for suggestions on presentation materials?  If they asked the “right rep” perhaps they received the “right content”, or if they asked the “wrong rep”, they got the “wrong content”.

Sales coaching is one of the most valued skills for any individual manager or company to develop. There are many aspects to proper sales coaching, but one important aspect is coaching a sales rep on their content delivery and sales presentation skills. It’s critical to ensure that valuable insights and messages are being shared and that the value of your solution is differentiating your offering from that of your competitor’s. But, sales managers have so little time for effective content coaching.

OK, Houston, we’ve isolated one part of the problem….now give me a solution.

Simple. Given that sales managers only have 20.8% of their time available for coaching and that time needs to be spread across many aspects of coaching (account strategies, pipeline management, contract negotiations, etc.), let’s just eliminate any coaching that’s related to content. Let’s automate that process. Surprisingly, this is NOT “new news” either….it’s called a sales enablement system. A system that allow the sales reps to get the right content, to the right person, at the right time, in the right form.

Delivering the right sales content has two parts. First you need the right content to deliver to the sales reps. Second, they’ll need content to share with their customers. Sales reps will need content to:

•          Get trained
•          Prospect
•          Prepare for sales conversations
•          Engage with the prospects
•          Share with prospects

No shortcuts! 

Don’t try to redistribute the “marketing content” as a solution to the sales productivity problem. Remember, per the American Marketing Association, 90% of marketing content is not used by sales reps. There’s a reason for that, marketing content and sales content are different, they serve different audiences with different requirements. To really solve the problem, you’ll need a sales content strategy.

Once you have the content, make it easy to find. Even better, have relevant content featured at the “point of work”, in context with the opportunity that the rep is working on. As a sales manager, your content coaching is done for you and the “tale of the two presentations” can become a thing of the past.

In a nutshell

Sales reps are spending way too much time searching for or creating the right content. Sales managers are challenged with finding enough time to coach the reps on preparing and delivering the right content. Automating the process of managing, delivering and tracking content will dramatically increase sales productivity and allow sales to sell more and sales managers to spend more time coaching.

Show me the money! That’s what many small business owners say to me.

Where can we find the funds we need to grow our business? The answer today is much better than it was a decade ago because innovative new financing options for small businesses are popping up almost every day. However, they all come with limitations.

Here is a super quick rundown of some:

• Banks: Hesitant to loan money to unknown founders.
• Crowdfunding: With some the money you raise will be taxed as income, with others you have to give away a piece of your company.
• Credit card processors: PayPal, Square, and others will lend to businesses, but the business must have an established cash flow.
• Venture capital: VCs will take an ownership share.

Despite all of these options, running up one or more personal credit cards remains one of the most common ways people finance small business start-ups or expansion. Of course, whenever credit card balances get maxed out, there can be severe consequences.

Yet sometimes it works out quite well — Google founders used all of their credit cards to get going. But let me tell you a story about another start-up that very wisely used credit cards to get established.

When Max Shevyakov and Mark Gurevich founded Borrowlenses.com the main roadblock to growth was a lack of lenses. Camera lenses are, as you probably know, quite expensive. They were getting started at a time when credit card offers were arriving in the mail just about as fast as drug store sale flyers.

They started buying lenses with as many credit cards as they could get their hands on. They rolled over balances into new “zero-interest-for-a-year” credit cards when a card would get maxed out — or the zero-interest grace period was about to end.

Was this credit card lens buying spree sheer madness? No, for a couple of very good reasons.

Two important principles

The first, and most important reason this was a sound business idea is because even though their cards were maxed out, they controlled significant value with the lenses. If their business failed, they knew that the lenses could be sold, raising a fair amount of the money required to pay down the credit cards.

Secondly, after having operated the business for a while, they knew exactly how much revenue they could get out of a lens over a given period of time. They were working hard to keep up with demand. Lens rentals turned over in a very predictable way. They could easily calculate their ability to make their credit card payments.

The lesson here is that if you buy a tangible asset that holds its value fairly well, you can significantly limit your risk. Further, if you understand your business — which you should — you can judge your ability to meet your monthly obligations. When these conditions are met, consider credit card debt, albeit carefully. By the way, Google founders ran up their credit cards to buy hard drives — another tangible asset.

However, if you are taking cash out of your credit cards to pay for overhead, operating expenses or salaries, it’s a different story. Employee Joe Doe isn’t going to give you any of his salary back when you have trouble making a credit card payment. Your landlord isn’t going to rebate your rent when things get tight. You can’t take back electricity you consumed last month.

Borrow too much on your credit cards under those conditions and it could quickly be “lights out.”

Guest author Daniel Daoura is CEO and cofounder of Pebblebee, and a former Boeing engineer with experience running several successful crowdfunding campaigns.

Historically, independent engineers and developers have two options when looking to start a company: bootstrapping with their own funds or approaching angel investors or venture capitalists. Now for the past 6 years, platforms like KickStarter, IndieGoGo, Kiva, Peerbackers, and Fundable have been offering a less risky way for startups and independent developers to break into the market.

Many startups have tapped into the power of the public to fuel their launch or growth. Crowdfunding can be very rewarding, but also fraught with challenges—not just in product development, but also for the personal development of the engineers and other staffers. It’s a natural part of the process. 

See also: 9 Unexpected Pitfalls of Raising Capital (And How to Avoid Them) 

I’ve run three very successful campaigns and gathered several insights into the journey. Here are a few that crowdfunding hopefuls should be aware of and prepared for.

Guidance Into The Unknown

No one at our company had marketing experience when we started our first crowdfunding campaign. By the end of it, we had all cut our teeth in a wide variety of marketing techniques and learned a great deal on the entire product release cycle.

The reason we approached crowdfunding, aside from generating investment, was to test the market, learn who would be interested in our product, and how much demand there would be. It also gave us more efficient product development. Instead of releasing something we could only hope that consumers would like, we gathered feedback from potential users along the way and created new iterations until we met their expectations.

We also learned how crowdfunding platforms like IndieGoGo operate. Crowdfunding sites are similar to a pre-order shopping cart that takes a fee for helping to generate traffic. To maximize their earnings, crowdfunding sites take the campaigns that they see are generating rapid momentum and push them to the front of the website in hopes that they gain more.

We took into account the “momentum” metric to increase our odds of success, carefully preparing email lists to drive a high volume of initial contributions quickly. The site noticed and gave it a high profile by putting our project on the front page. That valuable real estate allows campaigns to really take off. In our latest campaign, we aimed to raise $30,000 to help pay for tooling and the first round of manufacturing for our new product. We ended up raising $91,000—300% of our goal—from about 1,700 contributors.

Getting Social Validation

Social validation means confirming demand for the product. According to a survey of startup founders by Fortune, the biggest reason that startups fail is due to a lack of real need for the product on the market. Pitching your concept to the general public is a low-risk, but very helpful way of ensuring that you’re building a product that meets a market need.

A successful campaign gives you credibility that is backed up by real numbers. With our latest, we were able to show that 17,000 people with $90,000 believed in our product. This validation has put us on a much better foot in investor negotiations with venture capitalists.

VCs invested a record-breaking $17.5 billion in 1,189 deals in the second quarter of 2015, according to the MoneyTree Report, which sounds promising. But, with 543,000 new businesses opening in the U.S. alone each month, there is plenty of competition out there.

In other words, if you want to stand out, then crowdfund.

Expanding Your Team

By the time you launch your campaign, you’ve probably already put in hours developing your product, perhaps alone in a darkened room straight out of Frankenstein. But with crowdfunding, you don’t have to go it alone anymore. You can easily expand your team by the thousands.

We received loads of feedback about all aspects of the product, particularly for design and functionality. Your crowdfunding team can collect thousands of opinions for free, allowing a drastic reduction in the time spent on research and product design, since you can avoid building out features that won’t get used.

If you're strategic, you can even enlist your backers to help in other ways—like spreading the word and providing support. (One way to turn big fans into promoters is with a referral system, in which they get some sort of benefit for backers or customers your way.) Generate enough support, and the “team” may even act like a free customer service department, helping each other by answering questions on the forum. These suggestions and answers can have even more value coming from another backer, rather than you.

So without hiring anyone or paying a dime, you have at least grown your marketing, research and design, and customer service departments. That frees you to run the business and offers a good example to emulate, once your project is finished.

The Overall Experience

There a lot of benefits to crowdfunding, but there are also pitfalls. Working within this bubble, you're allowed to project your unfinished business plan and even make some mistakes. But those aren’t the real standards if you were, for instance, approaching a VC for investment.

Things still aren’t perfect, even in the best-case scenario of meeting or blasting through your campaign goal. A Kickstarter or IndieGoGo hit doesn't guarantee long-term success. Many companies slide away into obscurity afterward due to lack of visibility, ineffective PR management or other reasons.

However, in my experience, the potential benefits of crowdfunding massively outweigh the negative. Here are some of the top takeaways from our campaigns:

• Preparing a reliable email list is critical. When launching a new product specifically in crowdfunding an extensive, strong email list is critical because the first 24-48 hours are crucial to gaining at least 30% of your overall goal and getting pushed to the crowdfunding site’s front page. For example, if your goal is to raise $30,000, you need to raise $10,000 in 24-48 hours. That means you need to have 8,000 emails with .5 conversion rate (which is on the high end) that give a $25 contribution each on average.

• Press is paramount. Crowdfunding sites are attractive because they generate lots of traffic to your campaign organically, however, they aren’t enough to reach the numbers you need to start a business from the ground up. If you are doing things right you have media attention.

• A successful crowdfunding campaign is only 1% of the battle. Maybe you’ve spent months prepping for the 45 actual days of fundraising. But the next step could take up to the rest of your life, if you’re committed to growing a company.

Whether you meet your financial goals or not, you will never finish a crowdfunding campaign with less than with what you started with. Because the true value of crowdfunding is not just the money raised; it’s the process. 

Photo by glasgowbury

In last weeks 5 minute marketing tip I showed you how to use value-added follow-up to strengthen relationships with potential clients instead of nagging or chasing.

In this week’s video we’re going to go a little further and look at how you can differentiate yourself and stand out from your competitors through the type of follow-up you do.

Watch this week’s video to find out how…

For my comprehensive guide to follow-up, click here:

>> The (Almost) Ultimate Guide To Follow-Up

Find this video helpful? Subscribe to the More Clients TV channel on youtube to get more of them:

Video Transcript

Hi, it’s Ian here. Welcome to another five minute marketing tip. On last week’s tip we talked about how to use value added follow-up to build relationships with clients and potential clients. Today we’re going to look at how to differentiate yourself through your follow-up, how to really stand out through that follow-up approach. I’ll see you after the break.

Hi, welcome back. How do you stand out or differentiate yourselves through your follow-up? The first thing to bear in mind is that doing any follow-up at all will differentiate you from the vast majority of people who don’t follow up or they follow up by nagging and chasing rather than adding value. That’s the first thing to bear in mind.

There are three real ways you can differentiate yourselves through your follow-up. The first of those you can sometimes achieve, and it’s the goal to aim for, and it’s the quality of the content that you share when you follow up is so brilliant that it makes you stand out. If you’ve written the world’s best article on a particular topic, then obviously if you send that to someone, they’re going to be so impressed by it it’s going to make you stand out. Obviously that’s the goal to aim for but we can’t really hope to write the world’s best article on every topic that we follow up with or some of the follow-up isn’t articles, obviously, it’s introductions, or saying thank you, or saying it was nice to meet them, so you need something else there.

One method you can use to differentiate yourself through those sort of follow-ups is to change the media, change the format of the follow-up. Most people don’t follow up at all, the vast majority of people who do follow up just do it by email. You can differentiate by using a different approach. If you’re good on the phone, you can phone people up, you can have a quick call, say it was nice to meet them or to thank them for doing something for you. That’s great if you’re good on the phone. If you’re anything like me and you’re pretty rubbish on the phone and you feel uncomfortable all the time when you phone people up, then you might want to use something else.

I prefer to use good old fashioned post because very few people post things these days. Using the post can range from sending an article through the post, so if you’ve got a decent article, rather than emailing a link to it, actually print it off, get a nice good quality print out, put a cover note on it, say “I thought you might find this useful, Ian”, put it through the post and they’ll get it and it’ll make you stand out. Firstly because it’s coming through the post as opposed to the hundreds of things they get in their email, secondly, it’s also easier to read when things come through the post because it means they can put it in their briefcase, read it on the train, read it over breakfast or whatever it might be, or in a coffee shop, without having to open up their computer. It’s more convenient for them as well. It’s more likely to get read.

Another approach for using the post is to use cards. You can either use a thank you card like this, if you’re thanking someone for something, or you can create a nice to meet you, nice to have met you card. This card itself I got custom printed by moo.com here in the UK. It has a little caricature of me on the back and a little blurb there, so that people know it’s come from me and it feels like I’ve made an effort rather than just picked something off the shelf, and I would hand write out the contents of the card and send it to them in a hand written envelope. I know some people use online services, like SendOutCards. That’s great, and it’s quite convenient, but I prefer to use stuff where it’s obvious I have hand written it and I’ve thought about them because I think it’s the visible effort that counts a lot of the time, rather than it looking like you’ve typed something in and got someone else to send it off.

You too can get your own custom cards printed off for a variety of purposes; thank you, congratulations, nice to meet you, all that kind of stuff, very cheap, well worth doing. You might be thinking, “Oh, it’s a bit cheesy to send someone a card,” but it doesn’t feel like that when you receive it. If you get an email from someone, you think, “Oh that’s nice,” move on the hundreds of other emails you get. If you get something through the post, especially a hand written note or a letter, you go, “Oh I wonder what this is.” You open it up, “Thank you, oh right. Oh that’s nice of them.” That’s what people think. They don’t think, “Oh that’s cheesy.” They think, “Oh that’s nice of them.” Make use of the post.

The final thing you can do is to really go overboard and tailor whatever you’re doing for people. Great example of this, a lot of people if they’re saying thank you for someone doing something nice for them, might send a bottle of wine through the post, for example. You can go much further than this. This bottle of wine I got from my good friend Mike Seddon a couple of years ago, obviously it means quite a lot now given that Mike has unfortunately passed on, but Mike didn’t just send me a bottle of wine. I’d given him a little bit of help with his membership site, a couple of days later Mike sent me this. As I say, it wasn’t just a bottle of wine. It says on it, “Ian Brodie, the James Bond of marketing, and a closet coder extraordinaire.”

Mike had taken the time to tailor this gift. He put my name on it, he’d used an in-joke, there’s an in-joke amongst us and our American friends that many of them seem to think that my voice sounds a little bit like James Bond, Obviously if you’re from the UK you probably realise my voice doesn’t sound anything like James Bond, it sounds more like Ant and Dec, but it’s a nice little joke, made me laugh when I got it, and it obviously showed that Mike cared. He’d taken the time and put some thought into it.

I’m assuming Mike had already pre-set-up a relationship with a provider of this sort of thing that you can type in the tailoring and get it sent. He didn’t have to invent it from scratch every time. He’s probably done a few of those, and that’s exactly what you can do. Put the time and the effort up front into some provider of gifts that allows you to tailor them, so then when you do want to say thank you to someone or you do want to do something special, you can call them or go online to their service, tailor the gift, get it sent off pretty quickly, and it makes a really big impact. It honestly does, when you get something tailored, it makes you feel as if someone really cares, because they’ve taken the effort and put the thought into tailoring it for you.

Those are my tips for really standing out with your follow-up. I’d use a different format, either the phone or use the post, and make sure you tailor it and personalise it. Make it really zing, make it something they wouldn’t expect. People expect bottles of wine, people don’t expect their own tailored bottle of wine. I’ve still got this two years later. I’m not likely to throw it away. It sits on my shelf. I actually noticed it when I was recording last week’s video and that’s the kind of thing you want. You want the people you’re sending these things to to notice them on a regular basis and go, “Oh yeah, I remember that.” Do do that, make the effort, and personalise things.

See you next week.

The post How To Stand Out With Your Follow-Up appeared first on How To Get Clients: Proven Strategies to Win More Clients.

It’s time for Step 2 of our Sample Marketing Plan!

As a reminder, we’ve introduced you to our fictional client, Safety Inc. and their maintenance safety products. Then we got to know their target customer through extensive research, to really put ourselves in the mind of the consumer and better understand who we’re speaking to.

And now that we’ve gathered that information, it’s time to actually speak to them…

Step 2: Create content that answers customers’ questions.

Now that we have our buyer personas, and understand who this person is, we need to start compiling the questions they are asking in their lives. We usually start with questions they’re asking themselves about a given problem, a product, the category the product fits into, the industry, etc.

We focus on the challenges they’re encountering, and not how the product is solving them.

This isn’t about how we talk about Safety Inc. This is about how we talk to our buyer persona—let’s call him Fred the Facility Manager. We want to know what Fred is thinking throughout the day, what questions is he asking himself. The questions then dictate the content we’ll be creating, which is rather obvious–we need to be solving his problems and answering his questions through that content. So to do that, we get to know what he’s asking. As we start to think about what’s going on in Fred the Facility Manager’s head, we start to get a feel for how we can help, and what kind of content we can create for him.

So Step 2 is all about creating content, and having our strategy be influenced and directed by getting to know Fred and knowing what questions he’s asking himself, or the questions his bosses are asking him.

Consumer behavior is changing. Whether you’re in the B2B or B2C space, Google has trained us to go online to ask our questions. So the power of understanding what Fred is asking is that it allows us to create content that answers his questions directly. What better title for a piece of content than using the exact phrase of the question that Fred is asking himself. He’s wondering what his facility maintenance budget should be for 2016? We’ll write a blog post entitled: How to build your facility maintenance budget in 2016, and catch him directly in his thought process.

When creating content, we like to play around with format. Long or short blog posts, ebooks, checklists, podcasts, videos, 1 page PDF downloads—there are endless formats to experiment with. Part of which format we choose is informed by the buyer persona. Can Fred watch videos at work? Does Fred have a commute to reach his facility located out of town, and thus listening to audio is the best format for him?

We’ll try a few formats to figure out what’s best, just as long as the content continues to address the relevant questions the persona is asking.

Creating content should be thought of as building up a library of resources. We’re building up Safety Inc.’s website until it’s not just a site that talks about Safety Inc., what Safety Inc. sells, and how you can buy these products, but rather a place where Fred can come to educate himself, to find answers to his questions, and where he can spend time in a way that will ultimately reflect well on his job. Our goal is to create an evergreen resource that will live on for Fred and all the hundreds of thousands of prospects out there like him.

That goal of building up a library of content further emphasizes the importance of thinking outside the box of just your specific product. You need to expand your stock to include the circle of influence around the topic matter of your product.

For example, let’s say that Safety Inc.’s best-selling item is a high-quality pair of safety gloves, made from a patented material that is incredibly durable, and resistant to the elements. If we just write articles about the importance of having the right pair of safety gloves, we’re going to run out of content ideas pretty quickly, and the content we do produce is only going to convey a sense of self-promotion, not value for the customer.

Instead, we can write an article about the effect that the elements can have on work clothes and accessories. Or maybe a post entitled “10 Tools That Every Facility Maintenance Worker Needs,” in which work gloves is one of the 10, but Safety Inc is not mentioned outright in the post.

And we can go broader than that even–we’ll explore any of the dozens, likely hundreds, of safety issues that facility managers and maintenance workers face on the job. Then maybe we veer away from safety, and start discussing the costs of certain facility maintenance issues. And so on and so forth, as we build up Safety Inc.’s thought leadership on facility maintenance and management, and demonstrate to our audience that we are on top of any and all of the issues they face on a daily basis.

After all, many people might not know that such high-quality work gloves exist! Or facility managers might think that they’re covered in the work gloves department, and thus don’t feel the need to search for it because they don’t know that something out there is better. So why would we write content just for that, and run the risk of losing prospects that might be interested in the space, and just not know that that we live in it?

When we create content around the larger topic, the larger space in which Safety Inc.’s product lives, we are creating the moment of discovery for a stranger to encounter something that they didn’t know they were looking for.

Further, by demonstrating Safety Inc.’s expertise in the facility maintenance and management space, we are promoting their level of authority and trustworthiness in the field, which will ultimately encourage prospects to pay attention to the site and what they have to say.

The importance of creating dynamic content that answers all questions your prospects might have about the space you live in cannot be overstated. The library you build through your content development will serve your customers for a long time to come, and the authority you will build in content creation will raise your profile to the right people.

The content library you build will attract visitors to your site, which puts into motion Step 3…

Why Agile Is Simple And Complex At The Same Time

Who wouldn’t agree that the four core principles of the Agile Manifesto –

1. Individuals and interactions over processes and tools
2. Working software over comprehensive documentation
3. Customer collaboration over contract negotiation
4. Responding to change over following a plan

– aren’t derived from applying common sense to a serious problem?

That the application of those principles might be suited to fix numerous organizational dysfunctions and reduce an error-prone and complex social setting to maybe just a complicated one?

There are various good reasons to adopt Agile, for example:

• Low productivity,
• Low morale,
• Problems hiring senior people in an increasing competitive war for talent,
• Budget constrains (no more funds to waste on waterfall projects), or
• The competition drives innovation at a high pace and the traditional methodology cannot keep up with them.

But fact is also, that the scope of an Agile organizational transformation is often completely underestimated. That Agile is not the quick fix for everything that’s going wrong. Each organization has it own set of dysfunctions and hence solutions dealing with them need to be tailored specifically to that organization.

Agile Failure Patterns

Analyzing my past projects, I identified the following cross-organizational patterns that are making Agile transitions to much more harder, less effective and significantly more expensive:

Agile Failure At Organizational Level:

• Not having a (product) vision in the first place: If you don’t know, where you are going, any road will take you there.
• The fallacy of “We know what we need to build”. There is no need for product discovery or hypotheses testing, the senior management can define what is relevant for the product backlog.
• A perceived loss of control at management level leads to micro-management.
• The organization is not transparent with regard to vision and strategy hence the teams are hindered to become self-organizing.
• There is no culture of failure: Teams therefore do not move out of their comfort zones, but instead play safe.
• The organization is not optimized for a rapid build-test-learn culture and thus departments are moving at different speed levels. The resulting friction caused is likely to equalize previous Agile gains.
• Senior management is not participating in Agile processes, e.g. sprint demos, despite being a role model. But they do expect a different form of (push) reporting.
• Not making organizational flaws visible: The good thing about Agile is that it will identify all organizational problems sooner or later. „When you put problem in a computer, box hide answer. Problem must be visible!“ Hideshi Yokoi, former President of the Toyota Production System Support Center in Erlanger, Kentucky, USA
• Product management is not perceived as the “problem solver and domain expert” within the organization, but as the guys who turn requirements into deliverables, aka “Jira monkeys”.
• Other departments fail to involve product management from the start. A typical behavior in larger organizations is a kind of silo thinking, featured by local optimization efforts without regard to the overall company strategy, often driven by individual incentives, e.g. bonuses. (Personal agendas are not always aligned with the company strategy.)
• Core responsibilities of product management are covered by other departments, e.g. tracking, thus leaving product dependent on others for data-driven decisions.
• Product managers w/o a dedicated team can be problem, if the product management team is oversized by comparison to the size of the engineering team.

Agile Failure At Team Level:

• There are too many junior engineers on an engineering team. They tend to appreciate micro-management as part of their training. Usually, they have no or little experience with Agile methodologies, hence they hardly can live up to processes, particularly they fail to say “No”.
• Engineers with an open source coding mentality: Tasks are discussed on pull requests once they’re finished, but not in advance during grooming or sprint planning sessions. (They tend to operate in distributed team mentality.)
• Teams are too small and hence not cross-functional. Example: A team is only working on frontend issues and lacks backend competence. That team will always rely on an other team delivering functionality to build upon.
• Teams are not adequately staffed, e.g. Scrum Master positions are not filled and product owners have to serve two roles at the same time.
• Team members reject Agile methodologies openly, as they do not want to be pushed out of their comfort zones.
• Teams are not self-organizing. That would require to accept responsibility for the team’s performance and a sense of urgency for delivery and value creation.
• Even worse, team members abandon Agile quietly, believing it is a management fad that will go away sooner or later.
• Faux Agile: Teams follow the “Agile rules” mechanically without understanding why those are defined in the first place. This level of adoption often results often in a phenomenon called “Peak Scrum”: There is no improvement over the previous process, despite all Agile rules are being followed to the letter. Or even worse: morale and productivity go down, as the enthusiasm after the initial agile trainings wears off quickly in the trenches.
• Moving people among teams upon short notice. Even if required for technical reasons, this has a negative impact on a team’s performance & morale.

Share your own experience w/ the poll: What Is the Most Important Agile Challenge You Are Facing At the Moment?

Agile Failure At Process Level:

• Agile processes are either bent or ignored whenever it seems appropriate. There is a lack of process discipline.
• Agile processes are tempered with, e.g. the Scrum Product Owner role is reduced to a project manager role. Often this is done so by assigning the task of backlog ownership to a different entity at management level. (“Scrum” without a Product Owner actually makes a great Waterfall 2.0 process.)
• Stakeholders are bypassing product management to get things done and get away with it in the eyes of the senior management, as they would show initiative.
• The organization is not spending enough time on team communication and workshops to create a shared understanding on what is to be built.

Agile Failure At Facility Level:

• The work environment is lacking spots for formal and – more important – informal communication: cafeterias, tea kitchens, sofas etc.
• The work environment is lacking whiteboards. Actually, the absence of whiteboards on each and every available wall within the office should be questionable, not having them.
• Agile requires suitable offices to further collaboration: spacy, with plenty of air and light. But they should not be a mere open space, which tends to get too noisy, particularly when several Scrum team are having stand-ups at the same time.

What Is Your Take?

What failure patterns of agile methodologies have you observed during your work? Please share with me, so that I can expand the pattern list.

How Can a Common Vocabulary Create Shorter Sales Cycles?

At Richardson, we place great stock in creating a common language and a customized sales process for consistency across a client organization. The reason is simple: results. We continually see benefits in terms of creating sales success and shorter sales cycles.

Why does language — vocabulary — matter so much? What is the big deal if one person talks about pursuing a lead, while another talks about prospects, and a third an opportunity. They all mean the same thing, don’t they?

Similarly, some sales teams talk about a close, others about gaining agreement or signing contracts. Again, are they the same thing? Maybe or maybe not.

Whenever members of the same team use different words to describe what may be similar activities, they can confuse clients and coworkers, particularly those who work in global organizations.

Consider the case of a large US company that has grown by acquisition, with local offices in Europe and Asia. Say the company then contracts with a global supplier that also has a US headquarters and branches around the world. The expectation at the headquarters level is for consistency across all locations in terms of service, the relationship, and the overall value provided. But, if the local offices in Japan or India hear different vocabulary than what was used in the US, it can make the supplier look unorganized and create confusion with the client. This could lead the parent company to think that the global supplier really isn’t as global as it presents itself; instead, it’s a patchwork of independent offices rather than a unified whole.

Without a common vocabulary, clients can get confused. So can branch locations within the same company. Any misinterpretation or misperception can delay the sales cycle, making clients less confident of the global supplier.

Language is also important for companies that operate nationally or regionally. That’s because their employees can come from a variety of backgrounds: some may be new to the workforce, and others may have worked for competitors or in other industries. Unless the salesforce is made up entirely of new hires who never worked for anyone else, they will use different vocabulary to describe the steps that they’re going through in the sales process. And, if they’ve been trained by different companies, they will describe the sales process differently.

Some sales organizations talk about the discussion with customers in terms of finding pain points, or conducting a needs dialogue, or getting to the root of business problems, or uncovering opportunities or challenges. All these terms can have slightly different meanings to clients and change the nature of the conversation entirely. Taking the guesswork out of the equation helps sales professionals be more successful because they don’t have to figure things out as they go along.

Another benefit of having a common vocabulary is that it helps sales leaders in managing their sales professionals. When the manager and sales professional are communicating about the progress of a particular opportunity, they need to be speaking the same language. If the sales professional says, “This is really going well,” the sales manager can ask for specific details. “How do you know? Can you explain what has happened since our last conversation? What outcomes in the sales process have you achieved?” And the sales professional can respond, “I have gone through these steps in the sales process. I have talked to these stakeholders. The customer tells me that he believes that I understand the organization’s needs. And, he says that he understands how our products can help solve those needs.” Now, the sales manager has feedback that confirms leading indicators of success based on outcomes from the sales process.

What the sales language does is allow the manager and sales professional to be specific and consistent in how they gauge progress. They don’t have to rely on gut feelings or vague generalities; they can articulate the exact milestones being sought and achieved.

So, yes, vocabulary does matter. It provides a common language to be used globally with clients for consistency. It energizes employees by taking the guesswork out of what is expected. And it gives sales managers a way to manage sales professionals effectively.

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

The post Why Sales Teams with a Common Vocabulary Have Shorter Sales Cycles appeared first on Richardson Sales Enablement Blog.

LinkedIn is a great option for salespeople looking to diversify their outreach channels. Instead of just using the classic phone-email-phone-email touchpoint sequence, add a LinkedIn message to increase your chances of getting a reply from an unresponsive prospect.

But there's a caveat here -- not all LinkedIn messages are created equal. Before you hit the "send" button, you might want to watch the following video from Melonie Dodaro covering the seven types of messages no one (and I mean no one) wants to receive. Far from providing your prospects with value, these messages serve to annoy and little else. 

What's the worst type of LinkedIn message in your opinion? What messages do you salespeople wish would stop sending? Share your thoughts in the comments.

A constant: I get introduced to a lot of people each day, usually via email.

A corollary: The majority of those introductions are completely useless and nothing ever gets done from them.

Email has made it so easy to introduce people, but has caused us to forget how to do it.

While I'm super-appreciative that people think me worthy of making an introduction, the majority of the introductions I receive, sadly, go something like this:

“Peter, meet Todd. You’re both doing amazing things. You two should connect.”

Then I sit there all like, "um..."

Seriously, do you realize how frustrating it is to receive an email like that? I mean, how do you even respond?

“Hi, Todd. And thanks for the intro, Michelle. So, Todd… Um… What exactly are you doing?”

i get that you’re trying to be helpful, and hey, I’m the king of believing that smart, quality people should always meet other smart, quality people. But there’s got to be a better way. How about this:

“Peter, meet Todd. I thought the two of you would benefit from knowing each other - Todd has a small customer experience company that’s growing rapidly, and he works with big-name clients trying to improve the experience they give to their customers. Todd, Peter is a best-selling author on the topic of customer service, and gives corporate keynotes around the globe on the same topic. I think they two of you might be able to partner and do some great things for both your businesses. Additionally, you're both cyclists who tend to bike in Central Park in ridiculously early hours of the morning."

Do you see the difference? That’s massive! I’d reply immediately to an email like that. Who wouldn’t? There’s intrinsic value in that email. Introductions that have intrinsic value are the most valuable introductions there are. Here are a few ways to make those kind of introductions:

Don’t just do it for the nice. When you’re introducing two people, you’re taking valuable time out of each of their days, hopefully for some greater good. So before you make the intro, ask if there’s true value for each participant in the introduction. If there is, then make it.

The intro has to include more than “This is John, this is Mike.” If you don’t tell me something of interest about the person to whom you’re introducing me, a reply is super-awkward, and becomes more of a pitch, less of an intro. “I’m really cool, even though you know nothing about me. Please talk to me?” I get that you think there’s something worth doing in this intro - But no one has the time to guess what that is. Why not help us out and take the guesswork out of the introduction?

Just because two people have something in common doesn’t mean there’s value in an intro. I remember back in 2008, my assistant was single and looking to date. I was at a corporate event with her, and was talking to a nice guy who mentioned he was also single. I said, “Oh, Meagan, meet Mike. You’d love him, you’re both single.” The look she gave me could have cut glass. I'll never forget that look. It shook me to my soul.

Make sure there’s a true benefit to the introduction, not just “Hey, you’re both mammals that breathe air.”

Introductions can be tremendously valuable when done for a quality reason and the right way. Before you hit send the next time on two people “who simply must know each other,” make sure there’s a true reason why they should, and explain it to them. In the end, you'll be doing them a massive favor, and if they wind up hitting it off, either personally or professionally, they'll have you to thank for it!

It might seem like one of the more established forms of digital marketing communications, but email marketing is strikingly dynamic. It has seen amazing progress from the spray-and-pray, email-blast practice of five years back to our advanced, highly targeted marketing-automation campaigns. With this rate of progress, it can be hard for marketers to stay updated with all the patterns and, more essentially, to separate mere transitory trends from continuing, hard-won wisdom.

Email marketing has been a part of content or digital marketing from the start. So, it is not surprising that such a large number of common email marketing myths exist. What is surprising is how many people really believe them. While some of them are really clear to the majority of small business owners, some of them are much more obscure.

COMMON EMAIL MARKETING MYTHS

Myth #1: Shorter Subject Lines Get Better Results:

Recent studies have shown that the length of the subject line has a very minor effect on open rates. In some cases, a short, crispy subject line works, while in others, a great title takes more words. The key is making the most of each word and clearly distinguishing to the recipient the “What’s In It For Me” (WIIFM). Clarity and relevance trump character counts. As a standard, I push for shorter titles with the purpose of making the most of each word. But short does not always equal success. We’ve previously explained 10 tested ways to improve your email marketing subject lines. You may refer to that for in-depth information on the subject.

Myth #2: Email Everyone at the Same Frequency:

Your email marketing frequency relies on your clients. If you find that some of your existing or prospective customers interact with your email frequently, you must connect with them often. Being dependent upon your email marketing technique, this could be as frequently as once every week, or as little as once per month. In any case, we suggest that you don’t email your whole list that frequently. If you find that your readers are not paying any attention to your emails, decrease the frequency to once every 3-6 months.

Myth #3: The Higher the Frequency, the Higher the Unsubscribes:

One more important point of discussion in email marketing is whether we should be careful that we don’t send TOO many emails, risking unsubscribes from the mailing list or spam complaints. This usually prompts marketers having a general rule of restricting email frequency to once or twice a month. Unsubscribes will probably rise if you’re sending emails that don’t give value to the audience. If each touch point is giving value, then frequency is not a matter of concern.

Myth #4: Loyal Customers are The Best:

We needed to end our list of regular email marketing myths by including one that is actually true! Remember, your loyal customers are the best asset you have for your brand so don’t overlook them in your email marketing. Rather, treat your loyal customers as companions instead of numbers on your balance sheet. Send them customized messages based on their preferences and think about applying a loyalty or rewards program.

Myth #5: Using SPAM Words:

Spam filters are much more complex than they were only a couple of years back. In the past, there were particular words that triggered spam channels. Today, filters work largely on deciphering word patterns in the content, but the biggest spam-filter factor is reputation. The more spam complaints a sender or email generates, the more likely it is to trigger a spam filter. If you’re a trusted source with a decent reputation, just 1 in 2000 customers is going to mark your email as spam.

Wall Street banks will eventually accept the technology behind bitcoin, even if it takes five or 10 years.

That is according to Blythe Master, the chief executive of Digital Asset Holdings, and one of the biggest names in the business.

Bitcoin is a digital currency, the value of which fluctuates wildly. It is the technology behind it - the so-called blockchain - which gets finance executives really excited.

“The motivation for firms to open their eyes… is a combination of fear and greed,” she said Tuesday October 20 at The Economist’s Buttonwood conference in midtown Manhattan.

Masters was one of a group of JPMorgan executives who helped create the market for credit default swaps in the 1990s, and later went to head its global commodities division.

 She said that banks are in “a difficult revenue environment" and are trying to cut jobs to reduce costs. 

“That’s not a sustainable situation,” she told the audience.

Blockchain technology has the potential to simultaneously reduce costs and risks. It could help automate complex back-office tasks currently carried out by humans, and help cut the risk of errors.  

Big banks are alive to the potential of the technology. There are now 22 banks involved in an alliance to draw up industry standards and protocols for using the blockchain in banking.

Join the conversation about this story »

NOW WATCH: 5 uber-wealthy Middle Eastern countries won't take any refugees from their war-torn neighbors

Despite reports of a turbulent global economy, the World Bank delivered some great news recently. For the first time in history, extreme poverty (people living on less than $1.90 each day) worldwide is set to fall to below 10%. Considering that this rate has declined from 37.1% in 1990 to 9.6% in 2015, it is hopeful that one-third of the global population will participate the middle class by 2030.

For all industries, this growth will bring new challenges and pressures when meeting unprecedented demand in an environment of dwindling – if not already scarce – resources. First of all, gold, silver, indium, iridium, tungsten, and many other vital resources could be depleted in as little as five years. And because current manufacturing methods create massive waste, about 80% of $3.2 trillion material value is lost irrecoverably each year in the consumer products industry alone.

This new reality is forcing companies to rethink our current, linear “take-make-dispose” approach to designing, producing, delivering, and selling products and services. According to Dan Wellers, Digital Futures lead for SAP, “If the economy is not sustainable, we are in trouble. And in the case of the linear economy, it is not sustainable because it inherently wastes resources that are becoming scarce. Right now, most serious businesspeople think sustainability is in conflict with earning a profit and becoming wealthy. True sustainability, economic sustainability, is exactly the opposite. With this mindset, it becomes strategic to support practices that support a circular economy in the long run.”

The circular economy: Good for business, good for the environment

What if your business practices and operation can help save our planet? Would you do it? Now, what if I said that this one business approach could put $4.5 trillion up for grabs?

By taking a more restorative and regenerative approach, every company can redesign the future of the environment, the economy, and their overall business. “Made possible by the digital economy, forward-thinking businesses are choosing to embrace this value to intentionally reimagine the economy around how we use resources,” observed Wellers. “By slowing down the depletion of resources and possibly even rejuvenating them, early adopters of circular practices have created business models that are profitable, and therefore sustainable. And they are starting to scale.”

In addition to making good financial sense, there’s another reason the circular economy is a sound business practice: Your customers. In his blog 99 Mind-Blowing Ways the Digital Economy Is Changing the Future of Business, Vivek Bapat revealed that 68% of consumers are interested in companies that bring social and environmental change. More important, 84% of global consumers actively seek out socially and environmentally responsible brands and are willing to switch brands associated with those causes.

Five ways your business can take advantage of the circular economy

As the circular economy proves, business and economic growth does not need to happen at the cost of the environment and public health and safety. As everyone searches for an answer to job creation, economic development, and environmental safety, we are in an economic era primed for change.

Wellers states, “Thanks to the exponential growth and power of digital technology, circular business models are becoming profitable. As a result, businesses are scaling their wealth by investing in new economic growth strategies.”

What are these strategies? Here are five business models that can enable companies to unlock the economic benefits of the circular economy, as stated in Accenture’s report Circular Advantage: Innovative Business Models and Technologies that Create Value:

1. Circular supplies: Deliver fully renewable, recyclable, and biodegradable resource inputs that underpin circular production and consumption systems.
2. Recovery of resources: Eliminate material leakage and maximize the economic value of product return flows.
3. Extension of product life: Extend the life cycle of products and assets. Regain the value of your resources by maintaining and improving them by repairing, upgrading, remanufacturing, or remarketing products.
4. Sharing platforms: Promote a platform for collaboration among product users as individuals or organizations.
5. Product as a service: Provide an alternative to the traditional model of “buy and own.” Allow products to be shared by many customers through a lease or pay-for-use arrangement.

To learn more about the circular economy, check out Dan Wellers’ blog “4 Ways The Digital Economy Is Circular.”

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As marketers in the non-gaming mobile ecosystem try to quickly catch up to their gaming counterparts, “Mobile Heroes” brings you a weekly series of articles offering insights and education for marketers of non-gaming apps.Read the whole series here. Brought to you by Liftoff. Meet the heroes here.

Uncertainty is the only certainty in the marketing world, and there is no foolproof universal template for mobile user acquisition (mobile UA). Driving conversions is not only about targeting the right segments and sourcing the right media channels, it’s also about developing compelling creative that conveys your message and captures your target audience.

And an essential component of determining the ROI potential of any mobile UA campaign is rigorous testing and optimization of ad creative. It can light up your sales funnel with the best performing ads and run your campaign more efficiently.

Talk to Chris Nguyen, marketing manager of Zoosk, a popular mobile dating app, and he holds nothing back. “Test as much as possible: creatives, landing pages, everything,” he says. “Test everything in your funnel and see what works. You’ll never know what works until you test it out.”

Zoosk is a global online dating platform with 35 million profiles in over 80 countries and translated into 25 languages. And much like the subjective novelty of pick-up lines, the possibilities in the world of creative testing are endless with multiple variables such as colors, images, calls-to-action, and formats.

In his early days, Nguyen was pretty surprised when he first began testing creative and seeing the significant impact small changes had. “I thought that changing something like a CTA wouldn’t really affect anything. I thought, ‘Who really reads this stuff?’ But I found that changing a CTA could make a huge difference. That’s when I started taking creative testing much more seriously.”

Now, mobile UA creative testing has become a time-tested science for him for which tiny incremental changes are measured and optimized against the entire funnel — from click-thru, to profile creation, to subscription, and all the steps in between.

Defining your metrics for campaign success

“My top priority is to identify and target pockets of users that are efficient to acquire, while delivering a very high ROI,” says Nguyen. Certainly, before embarking on any creative testing, you need to have your campaign objectives mapped out and KPIs identified. Testing without setting your campaign priorities straight is akin to going out on a date without fixing a time or place to meet up.

For Zoosk, an important metric is profile completions – or cost per user profile. It’s free to install the Zoosk app and register, but once you’ve validated your email, the next step is to upload a photo and fill out the fields that communicate important details about yourself to the Zoosk users you’re hoping to attract. And since users who take these steps are more engaged with the product and more likely to have higher LTV (lifetime value), Nguyen has identified this as an important performance metric against which to measure ROI.

“A lot of people use a creative test to measure click-through rates, but we want to see further down the funnel,” says Nguyen. “For us, we want to know, does the creative change we’re making actually encourage users to complete their profile?”

Nguyen goes on to explain that a good day for him is when his cost-per-profile hits his KPI. While, understandably, he doesn’t want to reveal specific numbers, using an imaginary figure, he explains, “Let’s just say we have a CPA of $20, and if all the campaigns I’m managing fall under $20 and, on top of that, the ROI looks pretty good, I can say ‘Ok, what performed well, what didn’t perform well. How can I expand on this? Or how can I cut what’s not performing well?’” 

Designing and optimizing your mobile ad creative

If there’s one word that can sum up creative testing, it’s this: Details. As Nguyen learned early on, the smallest changes can bring surprisingly big results. Now, using an A/B approach to testing, he constantly changes one variable in campaign creative in order to optimize results. It might mean changing the image, the color of the CTA, or the copy on a landing page.

He gives one example in working with Zoosk’s ad network partner, Liftoff, which is heavily involved in the creative testing for Zoosk’s acquisition campaigns. “I’m totally focused on performance with Liftoff and always open to new tests,” Nguyen says. “During one campaign, Liftoff came back and told me that a wireframe CTA is giving a 50 percent performance increase over a filled-out CTA on the creative. With small changes like that bringing huge rewards, of course, I say go ahead and do it.”

It’s also important to understand targeting and user segments in designing tests — and that means having true insight into your users. For Nguyen, that meant learning that single users, who may be using Zoosk to ultimately find the partner of their dreams, really don’t want to see images of happy, shiny couples while they’re still experiencing the world as a single person.

“We’re an online dating app, so the actual user photos we use make a huge difference,” says Nguyen. “We assumed people want to see couples or success stories, but we had to learn that doesn’t translate well to getting profiles. A nice attractive young lady is a lot more appealing.”

According to Nguyen, many marketers get stuck with a “set it and forget it” mindset that can derail their campaign optimization efforts severely.

What’s needed, instead, is an unstoppable commitment among mobile marketers to continually test, optimize, and test again — all in the name of the science of mobile UA. Something Nguyen is wrestling with each and every day.

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Top performing sales reps are like natural athletes. They instinctively know what step to take next to advance towards their goal. They’re adept at continuously targeting the sales conversation to gain trust and respect from buyers. Imagine the boost in sales productivity if more of your “B” reps produced like your “A” reps!

Some “B” reps eventually become “A” reps, given the right combination of natural abilities, good coaching and, most critically, experience. To improve overall sales performance, you can hope and wait for the rest of the reps to gain skills and experience (which may take years) or you can accelerate learning and replicate some of what “A” reps do naturally, by providing better sales training and content.

Here’s how:

1.        Provide sales content that helps reps target their conversations

Salespeople must be prepared to communicate and discuss their offerings’ unique value in a way that’s relevant to the specific buyer. In addition to traditional marketing content, designed for demand generation, reps need up-to-date content that helps them prepare for targeted, valuable conversations – industry insights, value statements, objection handling messages and more, for each offering and each buyer persona.

2.        Deliver sales training at the point of work

Traditionally we fire-hose our sales teams with training during onboarding or annual sales kickoffs. Reps are asked to learn all the value statements for every offering and then for each industry’s buyer personas (an overwhelming number of statements to learn and remember). Adults simply don’t learn in that way, and that’s why traditional sales training fails. Instead, offer training material and modules in the context of the sales rep’s tasks. For example, a best practices video on how to sell to the banking industry should be offered as content within the opportunity record of a prospect in that industry. Since the rep is viewing the record to prepare to sell to that industry, that sales training content is much more relevant and will be easier to learn and remember.

To be most effective, make sure that your sales training is engaging and memorable. It must also be available via mobile devices so that reps can view it at home or on the road, whenever they have a few minutes of down time, or to refresh their knowledge just before they head in to a sales meeting.

3.        Give access to subject matter experts and their content

Great reps have figured out who to go to within their company to get information and content that will help them advance opportunities. To help the rest of your reps, start a program to capture more expertise and content from subject matter experts. For example, record short videos of SMEs explaining new challenges faced by an industry and buyer persona.

Make sure that reps know who to contact for questions or help on important topics. This can be done in many ways – as simple as providing a list of subject matter experts, or via a CRM, using tags and bio information in employee profiles so SMEs can be easily identified. Some sales enablement platforms offer the ability to make rep-to-SME connections fast and effective.

4.        Eliminate tasks to give them more time to sell

According to SiriusDecisions, 65% of companies believe their reps are spending too much time on non-selling activities. To make your team more productive, offer sales tools and complementary content, such as email templates and social media copy to use for each new piece of marketing content and campaign. Also, to cut down on time spent on looking for content, make it fast and easy to find, providing it in the context of each opportunity as discussed earlier.

5.        Track what sales content “A” reps are using

Find out what content they’re sharing with which personas and at what stage in the buying cycle. Then have the rest of your reps replicate this behavior. Track how they share their content as well and see if they’ve changed their behavior and if results improve.

To put these tips into action and make them part of a continuous process, you need a sales content strategy. Read our ebook to learn about the 5 steps to making this happen.

by Evan Shuster

Segmentation has been a staple of business marketing and sales for several decades. The concept of breaking down a potential market or industry into smaller target segments is a standard technique taught in business schools and used by many organizations. Beginning in the 1980’s and 1990’s, we began to see a shift to individualism. The understanding of not only the segments and organizations that buys but also the individual that buys.

We saw the influence of the Meyers-Briggs Testing philosophy extended into the business world. Whereby sales organizations, in particular, went through training on how to adapt to the personalities of individuals in the buying process. Coinciding with this period was the introduction of strategic selling to the individuals within a team of buyers. Miller Heiman introduced the concept in the mid- 1980’s. It is where we first saw the distinctions given to the economic buyer, the technical buyer, and the user buyer.

These combined perspective resulted in an emphasis on profiling the individual buyer. Predominantly, the majority of these efforts to understand the individual buyer were taking place to improve sales effectiveness. With an emphasis on strategic selling and understanding the key strategic initiatives, risks factors, buying teams, buying processes, and buying criteria involved in selling. (Many may remember profiling performed with Miller Heiman blue sheets.)

At the same time, we also saw the prominence of product management and product marketing rise in 1980’s and 1990’s. The jobs of product marketers were to market to customers the product lines of the organization. Along with sales, they began to cut and dice segmentation efforts and perform profiling of buyers.

Then the Internet came along and changed everything. Or, did it?

The Internet Propels Buying Behavior Shifts

When the Internet came along, we began to see a seismic shift in how buyers gathered information and made decisions. As time progressed in the early decade of 2000 to 2010, reliance on the sales representative for product and solutions information began to diminish. And, began the era of marketing fulfilling the role of going beyond just brand advertising, but also building awareness and enabling buyers to research solutions.

Marketing now had a responsibility to know more about buyers and customers in a way that was beyond just advertising. Marketing since has turned to buyer profiling to do so. The irony is marketing has, in effect, been repeating the same cycle as sales did in the 1990’s. That is, profiling buyers, particularly B2B buyers, in much likeness to when strategic selling burst onto the business scene. Attempting to categorize every profiling data field possible related to the individual buyer or buyers. Including many of the same attributes or factors sales was categorizing in the 1990’s related to buying criteria and “targeting” buyers.

What is empowering profiling is the growing presence of data, automation, and analytics. However, there is the inherent danger of automating the bad and putting profiling on steroids.

Buyer Profiling Is Limited In Ability To Support Personalization

The advent of big data and analytics is driven by the need to gain insights into buyers and to drive the concept of personalization. Personalization is an extension of database marketing, whereby attempts are made to differentiate through personalized marketing. While this movement is propelled by automation and analytics, it is severely compromised by the limitations of buyer profiling.

The numbers bear this out as seen by several surveys showing content marketing effectiveness declining. For example, the latest CMI/MarketingProfs Survey indicates effectiveness is a consistent struggle for marketers. With effectiveness dropping from 38% to 30% from previous CMI/MarketingProfs surveys!

What this points to is marketing’s use of facts-based (even out-dated) buyer profiling is limiting its ability to meet the merits of personalization. Some buyer profiling in marketing, based on reviews I have conducted, are more elementary than pre-Internet. In essence, struggling to evolve much beyond the buyer profiling advances originating in the 1980’s and 1990’s.

Masking this lack of evolution is the mistaken notion of new advances in data analytics and automation means a quantum leap. Multiple surveys, such as mentioned above, indicate this has not been the case.

An important factor to mention is the concept of personalization has its own limitations. For it implies targeting to a large segment and drilling down to specific groups and audiences. This top-down approach is unable to breach the layers past groups or audiences to be truly “personalized” with buyers on an individual level.

From Buyer Profiling to Buyer Personification

The sterile nature of buyer profiling being performed by marketing today is based on identifying many facts-based or logic-based attributes and characteristics. For example, targeting groups of buyers within segments and characteristics related to, in B2B, company size, roles, job responsibilities, titles, strategic initiatives, pain points, buying criteria, and etc. Not a far cry from the profiling introduced by the likes of Miller Heiman in the 19980’s and 1990’s.

Rather than being limited in thinking to profiling and personalization, marketers today need to grasp the true concept of personification. Personification is a focus on human-centered attributes and characteristics. When Alan Cooper originated the concept of (goal-directed) personas for user-centered design in the 1990’s, it coincided with the publishing of The Digital Economy by Don Tapscott. Which foretold of the evolving digital economy we are experiencing today. User-centered design is based on the personification of interactions with digital products and software. In other words, the intent is on humanizing digital interaction design.

Buyer personas are an extension of this concept regarding how to understand buyers in this humanizing context. When I first created the process, as well as, use of buyer personas in 2001-2002 after my stint with Cooper, I saw a potential far beyond buyer profiling. As a previous VP in both sales and marketing, I was well schooled in the use of profiling and database marketing and knew of its limitations. What I saw was a potential for buyer personification as a concept important to the rapidly advancing digital economy.

Unfortunately, we have seen the term buyer persona co-opted as a means for describing buyer profiling as well. The glut of content on buyer personas are attempts to profiteer on the term and this has caused more harm than good. A disturbing trend is to see buyer profiles, mislabeled as buyer personas, run amok with expanding data sets of unusable facts. Repurposing buyer profiling data and characteristics into a format to include a picture is not buyer personification. Here is an important point to consider:

Buyer personas are not a tool for the profiling of buyers, but rather, they are part of a holistic process for the personification of buyers.

This holistic approach to buyer personification involves understanding the humanistic goals of buyers and their very human goal-directed behaviors. Making use of processes and methods such as qualitative buyer insights research, buyer personas, goal-directed behavior analysis, mental modeling, and scenario analysis. And, built on the foundation of understanding proven goal-directed behavioral theories on human goals and how they affect choices. The understanding needed in order to truly be relevant to buyers in the evolving digital economy and centered on helping buyers to achieve their goals.

It is time for businesses to move beyond buyer profiling. Instead, to attain the prominent place of an organization with a brand known for helping buyers to achieve their goals, they must embrace the concept of buyer personification.

(What follows is a chart to help provide a distinction between buyer profiling and buyer personification. You will note the emphasis in buyer personification is on understanding the goals of buyers and then aligning with buyers to help them achieve their goals.)

You have released product and are selling it. You want to scale the sales team to really start taking off. How do you make sure all the new guys know how to sell your product. The answer is a sales playbook. A cookie-cutter approach to selling that will work every time. 

If you ask heads of sales what they desire most in their job, the answer will likely be a repeatable, predictable sales process. The more one deal can look like another, the better a sales manager, director, or vice president can predict the likelihood of a win, and the better his or her forecasting will be.

This objective is difficult to achieve when different salespeople are selling in different ways. Though every customer situation is unique and every sales rep has a distinctive personality and style, more often than not there are common points in a sale as well as common mistakes or pitfalls to be avoided. Making your sales team aware of the critical points in a sale and how to avoid common mistakes will smooth out the process and improve sales efficiency.

This is where sales playbooks come in. A sales playbook is a collection of one or more sales plays—a series of steps to move an opportunity to a closed deal. The concept is analogous to a football team’s playbook that contains a number of plays for different situations (In contrast to a football playbook, however, sales playbooks should be simple and contain only a limited number of plays.) Whether a company should employ multiple plays depends on the number of products they sell and the range of buyers they sell to.[1]

All playbooks should include three critical pieces. The first is the description of the play. This is essentially a quick overview of the play and how it works, including the market, the buyer profile, and key trends. The second piece is comprised of step-by-step play activities. This information typically is presented as a workflow diagram that displays all of the stages involved in the play as well as the activities associated with each step. The final piece describes the tools and assets by step. This is essentially a list of sales tools and customer assets, mapped to a particular step in the sales play, with guidance on how to use them.

A play starts at the point a sales qualified lead has been handed off to sales, or when a salesperson has created a sales generated lead. The steps of a sales play should be aligned with the sales stages that sales management uses to track progress within their pipeline. These stages are not the general stages of awareness, research, consideration, and purchase that are part of the customer journey. Rather, these are specific stages that sales management has defined for a specific organization, its products, and its customers.

Many of the steps in a sales play are sales fundamentals that focus on qualifying opportunities, discovering specific customer problems, obtaining agreement or quid pro quo from prospects, and preparing to close the deal, also known as “the close.” Each step should be completed in sequence and include a corresponding set of tools that will aid a sales rep in getting to the next step.

Figure 1 shows a play that was employed very effectively by a team I worked with while at Symantec, generating over $500 million in software sales (I genericized the play to mask some of the team’s secrets). Without giving too much away, the play worked because sales had gathered specific information to qualify the customer, reps obtained certain quid pro quos from the customer in advance, and the security risks discovered by the product were presented back to customers in a compelling format. Sales leaders swore by the play, and they would lower the likelihood of closing a deal if they discovered a rep had skipped a stage.

Sales plays and playbooks are a great tool to align sales and marketing. After each play is defined and agreed to by sales and marketing management, a set of key assets needed to accomplish the sale will emerge. This will quickly net out the needed customer assets and internal sales tools. The assets listed in the sales play stages may be a little different from those included in the awareness and research stages of the customer journey. For example, a sales play would include internal assets, such as checklists for salespeople and pat answers to customer objections, that would never be used as part of a demand generation program. In figure 1, note how the sales tools used in each stage are listed across the bottom.

A caveat on sales plays and playbooks: Without support from sales management, playbooks can involve a lot of work for very little gain. The best sales teams enforce the process, just as a coach would insist on running a play the way it was drawn up on the board. A well-designed sales play will have milestones that, once achieved, increase the probability of a sale and help sales management improve their forecasts.

[1] A caution on the use of the term “playbook” with international sales teams. American football, despite the NFL’s aspirations, is not yet an international sport. Not all sports have playbooks, so the term may not translate. Be sensitive to this, and use another term if need be. And whatever you do, don’t use the gridiron’s iconic “Xs and Os” play illustration as a graphic on the cover of the “playbook.”

Being regarded as a strategic business partner requires fully understanding the challenges of your potential customer. The bottom line is that you don’t know everything there is to know about your prospect, regardless of the research you’ve done before the sales call. Discovering their specific pain points will allow you to better craft your solution, and letting them do most of the talking will give the meeting a more consultative feel.

Find the answers you need in order to offer the right solution by asking these three types of open-ended sales questions.

1) Needs-Based Questions

You should be well-educated on your prospect before your initial sales call, but you still have a lot to learn. Focus on asking questions that pinpoint the dominant buying motivations, which include needs but also have to do with desires, feelings, tastes, etc.

Determine what needs your product fills for your buyer in order to create a list of needs-based questions before the sales call. Once you have listed these needs, work backwards, and figure out what you would have to ask your prospect to find out if this particular issue matters to them. As you ask each question, let them do the talking and really listen to their replies (rather than thinking about what you’ll ask next).

2) Benefit-Driven Questions

Before you start rattling off all the features that your product or solution offers you need to be sure that your buyer’s unique situation calls for the features that drive the benefits. When you are able to focus on selling benefits rather than features, you spotlight your customer and his or her unique needs.

Pose your questions around the challenges that your prospect is facing and which benefits would effectively provide a solution. You can develop a good set of benefit-driven questions before the call by listing every feature of your product, and then noting the corresponding benefit next to it. To determine benefits, just ask yourself, “What does feature X do for my customer?”

3) Objection-Based Questions

No sales call is going to feel consultative if you respond to objections with a rehearsed set of responses. Your goal is not to outmaneuver your prospect, but to learn how to ask questions that relate to the most common objections you’ll get.

Across every industry there are a few common objections that salespeople will hear:

• “I want to think about it.”
• “Your price is too high.”
• “I need to talk to my boss.”

To counter these familiar hesitations, ask questions that relate to these objections, such as:

• “What type of processes do you use for purchases like this?”
• “What type of budget do you have in mind for a project like this?”

Getting to the root of these common objections off the bat will help you better execute your sales strategy, and avoid the more difficult roadblocks farther down the path.

Asking the right questions is necessary in order to provide your prospect with the solution they really want and need, but it’s not just the questions that are important. The way in which you listen and respond to your customer’s answers will determine whether they view you as a valuable business partner, or just another salesperson trying to hit their number. 

At their core, all technology firms want the same things: to attract more buyers and convert more leads to sales. Unfortunately, though common, neither of those two goals are as simple as they sound.

In order to better connect with their buyers, technology firms need to first know how those buyers want to be approached. Yet, when Hinge conducted research on the behaviors of both buyers and sellers of technology services firms, we found a significant disconnect between the seller’s perception and the buyer’s reality.

When asked what was the best way to market to them, buyers of technology services responses were split evenly between two approaches:

1. Develop a personal relationship
2. Discuss our issues and offer solutions

Yet, for either strategy to succeed, sellers must already be highlighting what buyers are looking for—otherwise there will be no opportunity to develop the relationship or demonstrate further knowledge of the issues at hand. Without knowing what buyers find most important, firms can’t deliver the right messages to bring them in.

To better understand how buyers are selecting technology firms, we divided buyer tendencies into three categories and used our research to compare seller expectations with reality.

First, some quick background on the research methodology: we interviewed a total of 274 buyers and sellers of technology services, with a breakdown of 59 percent sellers and 41 percent buyers. This sample was part of a larger study (822 buyers and 533 sellers) that looked at professional services buyers and sellers as a whole and covered four other industry groups.

So, how are technology buyers selecting technology firms?

3 Key Insights into How Buyers Choose a Technology Services Firm

The Selection Criteria

As previously mentioned, we found a significant disconnect between what sellers perceive and what is actually true when it comes to buyer behavior. This was abundantly clear in the case of selection criteria.

Both buyers and sellers were asked to rank their top 10 selection criteria and the results showed that firms are grossly overestimating the importance of cost as a primary selection criterion. While only eight percent of buyers listed cost in their top 10, 54 percent of sellers believed it to be a key factor.

Instead, buyers are looking first at skills and level of expertise (47 percent) and reputation (33 percent). Sellers also put a high premium on reputation—it was the top response at 60 percent—but still perceived it to be significantly more important than it was to buyers.

What Buyers Are Trying to Avoid

To turn the question around, we also asked buyers what they were trying to avoid and asked sellers what they thought their buyers were trying to avoid. Again, sellers put the biggest emphasis on cost, ranking “overpaying” as their top response. Buyers, however, were more concerned with a poor quality of work, though cost overruns were a close second.

What Tips the Scale

For buyers, the deciding factor in the ultimate selection of a technology services firm is the presence of an existing relationship, with 30 percent of respondents indicating that it makes a difference. Sellers believed that having better expertise or a specialization was more likely to tip the scale in their favor—and only nine percent of respondents selected an existing relationship as the final determinant.

All of this research adds up to a few important conclusions. First and foremost, buyers want to be understood. If sellers can’t message to buyers in a way that resonates with their interests, concerns, and issues, then sellers are far more likely to lose out on a potential client. This suggests that even though sellers have key messages they want to get across, they can’t forget the importance of forming relationships with buyers based on their concerns.

Here’s the bottom line: if your technology services firms wants to attract more clients, it’s time to start thinking about what buyers really want.

To learn more about how buyers buy technology services, download our free guide here. 

One of the first sales calls I’ve ever received went something like this:

Sales pro: Hey, I’m just following up on a webinar that you’ve attended. Do you have any questions about our product’s integration with Company X?

Me: Well the integration sounds interesting, and I definitely see the value. But the webinar lacked details. How does it actually work? What are the steps so I can enable this feature in your product? And how much is it?

Sales pro: I hear ya. This is a new integration, that’s why we didn’t provide specific details during the webinar.

Me: Oh, in that case, can you send me some info via email so I can check it out in your product?

Sales: Sure, I’ll send that your way after this call.

After the call, however, I never got that said info. It’s been a few months since that call, and I still haven’t received anything.

In sales, many people like to talk about breaking the ice—about beginning the conversation with buyers. But while getting your foot in the door is definitely important, it’s just as crucial to take it home—to follow up and move the conversation along.

Of course, this sounds obvious. But from what I’ve seen, it’s something that many sales people haven’t quite mastered. And that’s sad because opening a conversation with a lead takes a lot of time and effort.

So how do you make sure you don’t fall off the radar? Here are a few ideas.

1. Follow up fast.

Recently I talked to a salesperson from an event management software. The conversation went ok, but I was very surprised that it took him a few weeks to contact me again. By the time he got in touch with me, I’ve already forgotten that we’ve spoken before.

The lesson here: Follow up before the prospect forgets you. Sales is a busy profession, but your buyers are busy as well. If they don’t hear from you soon, they’ll move on. There’s no excuse for not sending a short follow up email or quickly calling the buyer.

1. Send relevant info.

After you’ve had a great conversation with a buyer, don’t assume that they will contact you if they need more info. Be proactive and send them info sheets, case studies and other relevant content. Don’t forget to check data—including webpage and PDF engagement analytics—to see whether your content is resonating with your leads and prospects.

1. Pick up the phone again.

I admit it: I’m terrible about keeping up with my emails. If it’s not urgent, I may take days to respond to an email…if I respond at all. Thankfully, there’s this thing called the phone. Pick it up and call.

1. Leverage content.

The content that your marketing team produces is an excellent excuse to continue the conversation with the buyer. Send blog posts, reports and infographics related to the buyer’s industry, business and profession. The key is to be not annoying; rather, you want to be informative and position yourself as a trustworthy expert.

Sales pros: How do you make sure your relationship with buyers doesn’t fizzle out?

Most marketers no longer need convincing that content marketing is a key strategy to engage customers – but too many organizations try to juice returns by generating more content through more channels at faster speeds. Such an approach has no strategic basis whatsoever and is doomed to fail.

Why do marketers do it? In part, it’s a tech problem. The options for funneling more content through a greater number of touchpoints increase daily. Cloud-based platforms, dynamic web pages, a wealth of social media channels, and countless other innovations aim to help marketers automate processes and scale their efforts. Just push another button, and better and better tools will make marketing magic happen.

But the key question from a content marketing perspective is not how fast, how easily, or how much marketers are able to disseminate; instead, you must ask what kind of content will best connect your brand with your buyers and customers.

Content marketing’s fundamental goal isn’t to convey brand information to the organization’s main audiences; it’s to drive specific business outcomes. Any effort to accelerate content that fails to also achieve positive – and measurable – outcomes in sales, revenues, and profits is no strategy at all. More often than not, this crucial nuance is overlooked and so organizations don’t get the full value of their investment in content.

Accelerate demand, not noise

According to the 2014 ANNUITAS survey, a mere 2.8% of B2B marketers with enterprise-wide responsibilities are satisfied with the effectiveness of their demand-generation programs.

From a content marketer’s perspective, this is a devastating statistic. Demand generation is fueled by content, and since marketing’s ultimate goal is to increase demand for an organization’s products or services, such a high rate of dissatisfaction implies considerable waste in content marketing’s potential value. In fact, Sirius Decisions says 70 to 80% of all marketing content is never used.

Understanding how to create content specific to demand generation is the key to augmenting successful content marketing results. It all begins with a documented content marketing strategy.

Define key elements of a customer-centric strategy

An effective content marketing strategy is built on three core components: buyer insights, content consumption patterns, and content architecture. Failing to integrate any of these three elements into the content marketing strategy will ultimately cause a demand-generation program to fail, and augmenting the wrong tactics will make it fail even faster.

What motivates buying behavior?

Buyer profiling is certainly not new, but understanding behaviors that make a real difference in results is surprisingly lacking. Demographic information and other routine data points are not enough to understand how to be heard above the noise.

The real challenge is to develop a deeper understanding of how buyers think, what they need, and what we need to say to get them to choose us. Who are they? What roles do they play in the buying process? What is important to them individually and collectively as a buying committee? What are their pain points, challenges, and buying triggers?

Understanding what truly motivates the buyer is by far the most important component in creating a content marketing strategy.

How do your buyers get information?

Next, you must understand the buyers’ content-consumption patterns. What kind of content do buyers prefer? Where do they consume it and what channels do they use? Only after establishing the buyers’ specific preferences will you be able to amplify the content to generate reliable and predictable results.

Building a content architecture

Understanding the buyers’ purchase path is the final cornerstone in building a strategic blueprint. Aligning content consumption patterns with insights into the buyers’ pain and trigger points provides the framework needed to develop a predictable purchase path. With a clear road map, it’s then possible to create a content architecture to engage, nurture, or convert buyers according to where they are in their own particular buying journeys.

Only after a written content marketing strategy aligns buyer behavior with key stages in the buying process should any content development begin. Amplifying content that doesn’t resonate with buyers in meaningful ways is far more likely to increase marketing costs than it is to generate pipeline and revenue.

Accelerate demand

Strategic content acceleration doesn’t happen in isolation. Integrating content effectively into a demand process requires more than simply aligning content to the buyer. It also requires a strategic alignment with people, process, and technology to ensure the organization as a whole derives greater value from the augmentation initiative. Only then will content marketers be able to validate the program’s ability to increase the number of qualified leads and achieve the company’s broader marketing objectives.

LENOX: Demand-driven strategy drives qualified leads

In early 2014, the LENOX marketing team began a strategic effort to launch a buyer-centric content marketing strategy. As one of the world’s largest providers of industrial saw blades, LENOX was well-known and entrenched in its markets, and the company’s leadership knew well that its target base was changing the way it consumed relevant content.

The change process began with in-depth customer and industry research to identify the personas, pain points, and triggers needed to understand the buyers’ consumption patterns and purchase path. Research showed a serious gap in content designed to nurture potential buyers who weren’t yet ready to convert into qualified leads, and as a result, too many marketing messages were falling on deaf ears.

To reach buyers regardless of where they were in the buying process, LENOX created the Industrial Metal Cutting Resource Center. Each section within the center focuses on a stage of the buying process – engagement, nurture, or conversion. Depending on what kind of content the prospects access, LENOX can identify where they are in their buying journey.

An ongoing flow of blogs, SEO, PPC, email communications, white papers, and other forms of content generate leads that are given a weighted score. The feedback gives the marketing team what it needs to continue to optimize content. Tactics that lead to better results are augmented; those with lesser impact are minimized or eliminated altogether.

Within months, the program began to deliver measurable results. By the end of 2014, LENOX marketing had increased its contribution to the sales pipeline significantly, and by early 2015 the program was consistently converting 11% of engaged leads into qualified leads – up from single digits in pre-program results. At LENOX, the strategy is to accelerate results, not content.

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

Cover image by Joseph Kalinowski/Content Marketing Institute

The post How to Develop a Buyer-Centric Content Marketing Strategy appeared first on Content Marketing Institute.

If you're in sales, and this is your first year on the job, you should make it a priority to read the following 17 books. That's a book or two a month -- meaning you'll be fully ramped and selling like a pro by your one-year anniversary.

1. The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People

Stephen Covey

Stephen Covey's life-changing book is a great place to start. To be fair, I'm a little biased here -- this is one of my favorites. Inside this 384-page book, Covey reveals the secrets to developing the habits we need to be successful. Although it was published more than 20 years ago, the book's productivity tips and techniques are still highly relevant. As a salesperson, you'll appreciate the different approaches Covey suggests for mastering your day.

2. The 25 Sales Habits of Highly Successful Salespeople

Stephen Schiffman

Keeping with the theme of habits, this book by Stephen Schiffman helps salespeople amp up their motivation -- and ultimately, their success.

Readers will learn how to convert leads into customers, dominate presentations, stay motivated, and inspire those around them, while remembering to have fun and enjoy the journey. Schiffman has written more than 50 books and worked with IBM, AT&T, and Motorola, among others. His knowledge of the field is excellent.

3. Little Red Book Of Selling

Jeffrey Gitomer

Jeffrey Gitomer wrote The Little Red Book of Selling back in 2004, diving into what he believes are the 12.5 principles of sales greatness. Throughout the book, Gitomer reveals the reasoning behind why people buy. He teaches readers how to pick up on the small details to infer what prospects are thinking. More than half a million copies sold, lending credence to his ideas and principles. You'll appreciate Gitomer's straightforward, no-B.S. style.

4. The Sales Acceleration Formula

Mark Roberge

Mark Roberge joined HubSpot as employee number four and helped take the company from $0 to $100 million in revenue. Inside his debut book, Roberge tells readers how to use data, technology, and inbound selling to grow revenue at an unbelievable rate. This book is particularly valuable for entrepreneurial sales reps who'd like to understand the hiring, scaling, and analytical aspects of a sales organization. Although you might not put the knowledge to use right away, these strategies will come in handy as you progress in your sales career.

5. Secrets of Closing the Sale

Zig Ziglar

Look up "Sales quotes" in Google, and it's almost guaranteed you'll find some Zig Ziglar gems. Ziglar's advice for building strong relationships with prospects still hold true today. The book focuses on the principle that has become more prevalent than any other in sales: Build a strong relationship with the prospect. Inside this book, first-time reps will discover how to enthusiastically approach a client while projecting warmth and overcome the reasons people don't want to buy. Ziglar also shares 700-plus sales questions applicable to every part of the sales process.

6. Presentation Zen

Garr Reynolds

Effective communication continues to be one of the most important parts of selling. After all, if you can't clearly and concisely share your thoughts and paint a compelling vision for your prospects, they'll have little reason to buy your product.

In Garr Reynolds' Presentation Zen, readers learn how to present to any audience and make a lasting impact on potential buyers.

7. The Best Damn Sales Book Ever: 16 Rock-Solid Rules for Achieving Sales Success!

Warren Greshes

Does the title give away what this book is all about? For more than 25 years, Warren Greshes has been teaching salespeople how to find inspiration, stay focused, and become goal-oriented. Greshes gives us the keys to maintaining motivation, developing a positive self-image, and performing thorough preparation.

8. The Psychology of Selling: Increase Your Sales Faster and Easier Than You Ever Thought Possible

Brian Tracy

Brian Tracy clues us in to the role our subconscious plays in every purchasing decision we make, and reveals how to influence a customer's decision to buy. Over the course of 240 pages, Tracy gives his readers the ins and outs of the sales process and teaches them how to use psychological tricks to truly connect with and influence their prospect. This is a great primer before your first day on the job.

9. Sales Blazers: 8 Goal-Shattering Strategies from the World's Top Sales Leaders

Mark Cook

Mark Cook spent a significant amount of time and effort working with sales forces at Fortune 500 companies. During his research, he compiled eight different strategies used by the top salespeople at each company. These are the tactics behind dramatic growth -- and the best part is they can be learned and iterated by individual salespeople.

10. The Sales Bible: The Ultimate Sales Resource

Jeffrey Gitomer

Gitomer published the original Sales Bible in 1994 and came out with a revised edition in 2003. This easy-to-read book provides reps with the techniques to start conversations, maintain relationships, and eventually turn each prospect into a customer. In addition, Gitomer teaches readers the basics of the sales process by providing glimpses from his own experiences. Clear, concise, and full of great suggestions, this book is a fantastic primer for first-time reps.

11. The Challenger Sale

Matthew Dixon and Brent Adams

Traditional relationship-building strategies are no longer enough to win deals. These days, you can't just make friends with your prospect -- you have to challenge them. In their best-selling book The Challenger Sale, Matthew Dixon and Brent Adams lead you through the step-by-step process of crafting compelling insights and shaking up the buyer's worldview. This book is a crucial part of learning how to sell; in fact, your sales manager will probably recommend it during your first few months on the job. You'll be ahead of the game if you've already picked it up.

12. The Sales Survival Handbook

Ken Kupchik

Need a break from the more traditional sales advice? This funny book is perfect. Written by Ken Kupchik, who manages the hilarious and insanely popular Sales Humor Facebook and Instagram accounts.

You'll laugh, you'll cry, you'll wonder just what you've gotten yourself into ... and then you'll start the next chapter, and the cycle will repeat itself.

13. More Sales, Less Time: Surprisingly Simple Strategies for Today's Crazy-Busy Sellers

Jill Konrath

Most sellers are overwhelmed -- especially if they're new. In the digital age, buyers expect quick answers and results, and sales veteran Jill Konrath has the cutting-edge research and battle-tested strategies you need to meet that demand.

From reclaiming an hour of every day to optimizing your sales process and focusing on high-impact activities, you'll find this book a helpful guide to speeding up and gaining control.

14. Emotional Intelligence for Sales Success: Connect with Customers and Get Results

Colleen Stanley

Ever find yourself getting a little defensive in a demo or caving too quickly on a prospect's pricing demands? Colleen Stanley's book is exactly what you need.

Hone your emotional intelligence -- which studies find has a strong correlation to success -- and maximize your results. You'll learn how to increase impulse control for better questioning, develop empathy to close bigger sales, and even how to improve your prospecting efforts.

15. The Sales Development Playbook: Build Repeatable Pipeline and Accelerate Growth with Inside Sales

Trish Bertuzzi

Trish Bertuzzi is a sales legend and this book encapsulates her three decades of experience into six elements for building a strong pipeline and turbo-charging revenue growth.

Strategy, specialization, recruiting, retention, execution, and leadership are the areas you'll work on -- and a lucrative sales career is what you'll get in return. 

16. Car Sharks and Closers: A Master Closer's Secrets for Closing Car Deals

Gary Swanson

Author Gary Swanson knows what he's talking about, having closed more than 18,000 car sales deals over the course of his career. After working in everything position in the industry, from a car sales rep on a lot to become the owner of a dealership, Swanson shares his learnings that are helpful for anyone starting out in the car sales industry.

17. The Evolving Sales Engineer

Edward S. Levine

Sales engineers have a hard job -- they're expected to be both technical experts and effective salespeople. What's more, the sales engineering field is relatively new, so there isn't as much sales engineering-specific career advice out there. This book provides a clear roadmap for sales engineers that includes tips, training, and advice for every level of advancement in the field. It even includes a section for sales engineering management, for those who are managing sales engineers while working alongside sales reps.

If you're just entering the sales world, and aren't exactly sure how the venture is going to pan out, check out these books. Learning the strategies used by some of the world's most successful salespeople is sure to have a positive impact on the way you begin your sales career.

Want more? Read our list of top books for aspiring entrepreneurs.

“Why,” I was asked, “must you manage sales leads in order to manage sales? Sales lead management is a marketing function, isn’t it?”

It was with a slight hesitation that the sales manager added the second sentence about sales lead management being a marketing function. Of course it is, but only partially. With marketing automation it is a growing part of the job. Lead nurturing and initial qualification calls to prospects may lie with marketing automation or inside sales qualification specialists (unless it is outsourced). But the actual, final management of the prospect is square in the lap of the individual salesperson. The responsibility for addressing prospects’ needs remains a major part of the sales job.

Once this question of “why it is a sales function” is answered and agreed on, and once the sales manager realizes that the percentage of sales lead follow-up is a competitive advantage, then he or she can finally begin to understand that to control sales, he or she must manage sales leads.

It isn’t a secret that 45-55% of all sales leads turn into a sale for someone within a typical 12-month period. The question is whether the sales manager and his or her salespeople know it.

If the follow-up is only 10% (an often repeated percentage) the salesperson on average will only speak to 5% of the buyers. If the salesperson follows up with 25% of the inquirers, he or she will only speak with 11-12% of the buyers. So it makes sense that to speak to 100% of the buyers, the rep will have to call them all. In every 100 inquiries, he or she must talk to 55 non-buyers in order to reach the 45 who will buy.

Lack of sales lead follow-up is the single greatest drain on revenue in a corporation. It wastes 75-90% of the marketing budget, contributes to sales territory turnover, and makes pipeline management an oxymoron.

If the rep doesn’t call all of the prospects, there is no control over the outcome because those not spoken to will buy from salespeople who do contact. I wish it were more complicated, but it isn’t. Sales reps sort inquiries into those with buying potential and those without potential; this is often done without talking to the prospect.

“How do they know which inquirers
are buyers before making contact? They don’t.”

The rep’s decision to call or not call a prospect lies somewhere between gut instinct and laziness. Of course, sales reps will say they don’t have the time to contact everyone, but as the Yiddish proverb says, “When you don’t want to do something, one excuse is as good as another.” Sales reps’ excuses for not following up include:

1. They inquired before and didn’t buy.
2. They didn’t leave a phone number.
3. It isn’t an inquiry on a product I have a quota for.
4. They are too far out of my territory.
5. I don’t think they are big enough.
6. This is a home address and phone number.
7. I couldn’t find time to follow up, and it’s been four weeks so I think they have already bought.

Marketing Automation and Lead Management

One of the reasons marketing automation programs have been so successful is that these programs contact 100% of the inquirers. I didn’t say the program talks to them, but it does communicate. Some people make the case that artificial intelligence/ machine learning programs, such as Conversica, ActiveConversion, dbSignals, etc., are the answer. These software programs “talk” to the prospect without human intervention because of the program’s ability to make decisions and deliver answers based on the questions, the person, the institution, previous inquiries, internet activity, etc. These programs also provide intelligence based on millions of sales leads and billions of sales interactions to help the sales rep know early on if the person is a likely buyer.

Growing Popularity of Outsourcing

The growing popularity of outsourcing sales lead follow-up shifts the responsibility to an outside service person who must perform the follow-up, and in many cases, present a sales-ready lead to salespeople. Someone can say that follow-up is the salesperson’s job and they should do it. It appears, however, that follow-up is thought of as an optional sales chore by 75-90% of salespeople. They have many things to do, they say, while the outsourced service has essentially one thing to do: contact the prospect, judge qualification, and eventually present a sales-ready lead to salespeople who should have done it in the first place.

The end solution to growing any company that wants a predictable and repeatable sales process is to ensure that 100% of all sales leads are managed and followed up. Once you control sales lead management you will control revenue growth and pipeline reporting.

You walk into the sales room. The lack of excitement is written all over the reps’ faces as they make calls and answer emails. The energy in the room is stale, the reps speak formulaic phrases in a mechanical tone and as a result, the prospects aren’t engaged in meaningful conversations.

In short, you have an energy crisis on your hands.

Motivation is the fuel your startup runs on and your team needs a refuel. If they don’t feel emotionally invested in their work, how will they consistently deliver peak performance?

As the person leading such a team, you might ask yourself: “Did I hire the wrong people? Is my commission structure not incentivizing them properly? Do they need Bulletproof coffee?”

A better question to ask yourself is:

What steps can I take to motivate my sales team in the long run?

You don’t need to go all Tony Robbins and jump around on stage – but you do need to know the ins and outs of motivation, beginning with the myth of self-motivation and ending with how to create a motivated sales team.

The myth of self-motivation

In the startup community, we’re obsessed with the idea of the self-motivated individual. We think that if we hire people who are intrinsically motivated and determined, we won’t have to manage and motivate them – they’ll magically smash all the targets.

This is a myth. Everyone occasionally needs outside motivation.

Yet, we look down our noses at motivational techniques, quotes, and inspiring books, thinking that our teams don’t need any help.

However, faulty thinking leads to faulty actions. If you believe everyone is supposed to be bursting with motivation at all times, but notice that your team is flagging, you’ll become frustrated and overly critical of both yourself and your team. Your initial concern will turn into hostility and this will have the counter-productive outcome of reducing team engagement and motivation.

When you look at the role of sales teams, particularly SDR’s, they have a tough job: it’s repetitive (no matter how creative you get) and filled with more “no’s” than “yes’s”. That’s a difficult burden for any individual, so it’s essential that you create an energizing environment for your team rather than leave it open to chance.

The first step? Figuring out what motivates your team.

Wu-Tang Clan was wrong: Cash doesn’t rule everything around me

If compensation were a sufficient motivator, your team would already be delivering peak performance.

While compensation is important, salespeople are not coin-operated machines: inserting “x” amount of coins will not guarantee “y” results.

In a study on what motivates the salespeople at some of the best companies, the top three motivators – after money – were internal recognition, competition, and learning new skills.

These results align with another study on over 200,000 employees worldwide who, when asked “What motivates you to excel and go the extra mile at our organization?” responded that “camaraderie, peer motivation”, “intrinsic desire to give a good job”, and “feeling encouraged and recognized” were their top motivators. Money and benefits ranked seventh.

What gives?

While salespeople might initially rank money as a higher priority, they are not immune to the appeal of other motivators.

In psychology, intrinsic motivation reflects the desire to do something because it is innately enjoyable or satisfying. In comparison, extrinsic motivation reflects the desire to do something because of external rewards or punishments.

In Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us, Daniel Pink argues against the old models of motivation dominated by extrinsic factors such as money. Instead, he argues that human motivation is largely intrinsic, and that the aspects of this motivation can be divided into:

• Autonomy: the desire to be self-directed and direct our own lives.
• Mastery: the urge to improve our skills.
• Purpose: the need to contribute to a cause greater and more enduring than ourselves.

While intrinsic motivation is more powerful in the long run, the study on salespeople demonstrates that extrinsic motivation can be useful, too.

Extrinsic motivation is best for tedious tasks, such as completing paperwork, that provide little internal satisfaction. Moreover, the right extrinsic motivators can lead to internal satisfaction. For instance, a more flexible schedule could allow a sales rep to spend more time with their family.

The key is to understand when and how to apply each type of motivation. Therefore, your job is to continually learn and experiment to find out what motivates your team. For some members, it could be a simple pat on the back; for others, it could be more money. Everyone is different, but there are a few techniques you can use to improve motivation on your team, as a whole.

7 steps to help your team get excited, stay motivated, and kick ass at sales

1. Make Motivation a Part of Company Culture

Before you read any further, you must commit to making motivation an innate part of your culture. While there are certain techniques you can employ, they should not be viewed in isolation of one another. Instead, they should be glued together by the fundamental desire to create positive, long-lasting solutions.

Furthermore, creating a motivated workforce is not a solo decision. If you want to motivate your team, you need their input as well. Instead of treating the decision-making process as a one-man operation, involve sales people in the process early on. Listen to, and act on, what they have to say. You hired them because they provide value – treat their opinions the same way.

2. Set Small Goals as Well as Big Ones

I’m sure you have a grand vision for what you and your sales team can achieve. But the truth is, ambitious goals can be as intimidating and demoralizing as they can be inspiring and motivating.

By creating a series of realistic micro-goals along the way, your team can feel a constant and sense of achievement, spurring them on to work even harder.

To get started, work backwards from your end goal. For example, if your goal is to drive $1 million in sales over the next 12 months, break it down into $80,000 per month (or $20,000 per week) to give your sales teams smaller targets to aim for.

Each time you identify a smaller goal, break it down into more micro-goals. So, if you’re aiming for $20,000 in sales per week, how many prospects will your sales team need to reach out to?

Think of it as climbing a mountain. If you were standing at the bottom of Mount Everest, watching the highest peaks disappear into the clouds, it’d feel impossible to climb all the way up. But, if you focused on the first base camp, 200 feet up, then your goal would feel much more achievable and motivating.

Setting goals that incentivize the right behaviors

There’s a caveat: goal settings comes with it’s own risks. Max Bazerman of Harvard Business School pointed out that excessively demanding goals can lead to poor objective-setting. In his 2009 study “Goals Gone Wild”, he showed that employees will often neglect important matters that aren’t included among the goals and engage in more unethical or risky behavior.

In the 1990s, Sears management gave car-repair workers an hourly revenue goal. The result? Systematic overcharging for unnecessary work.

An even more disastrous example occurred when Ford set a fixed deadline for the launch of the Ford Pinto. In order to hit the deadline, Ford employees rushed through, or completely skipped, safety checks that might’ve revealed engineering flaws responsible for dangerous explosions. As a result, an estimated 27 to 180 people died due to rear-impact-related fuel tank fires in the Pinto.

While sales provides few opportunities for matters of life or death, there’s still ample space for sales reps to close bad deals or use deceptive methods to hit the numbers, which will ultimately harm your business in the long run.

A strong company culture and challenging, but attainable, goals are the best way to tap into the motivational power of goals without incentivizing negative behaviors.

3. Foster Healthy Competition in Your Team

People in sales are naturally competitive, so being able to see where they stand in relation to everyone else and how added effort can help them climb the ladder is good for both your team and your company.

As a result, some sales teams use small prizes, competitions and leaderboards to keep reps motivated. You could have a leaderboard up on a whiteboard in the corner of the office or even use an app to create an online leaderboard to show who’s crushing it on your team.

You could also create smaller, fun competitions for your sales team. For example, whoever can write the best performing email subject line could receive a small prize.

With these competitions, the prize isn’t the main priority. It’s more about nurturing the competitive energy amongst the team and making work more fun. All of this will contribute to motivating your team and to managing the ups and downs of closing deals and handling rejection on a daily basis.

Gamification

Y Combinator startup Ambition has developed a sales productivity platform that taps into the power of gamification to tickle the competitive streaks of sales people – while also uniting them as a team. Gamification is a buzzword that’s been thrown around a lot, often failing to have a substantial effect within sales organizations.

However, when done right, gamification can lead to sustainable productivity improvements. Clayton Homes (a Berkshire Hathaway company that builds homes in the US) saw a 200% increase in visits to retail stores tracked back to referrals by their inside sales team after implementing Ambition’s platform.

Every sales reps’ most formidable competitor?

Most importantly: sales people shouldn’t just compete against each other but, first and foremost, against their own past performance. If you can get your reps to consistently beat their own top-scores, you’ll eventually end up with a team of top performers.

As such, your sales reps could have a dashboard that shows them their own top scores, as well as their past performance over a rolling date range.

If not managed properly, competition could become a double-edged sword – make sure that the sense of competition fostered is constructive, not destructive.

4. Recognize and Praise Success

One of the easiest, and most overlooked, ways to keep a sales team motivated is by recognizing success and praising progress. Public recognition for success on a sales team can be spontaneous, but it is also possible to build a system for regularly recognizing reps who meet or exceed certain goals.

Sincere, personal praise from a manager or authority figure can be an incredibly motivator for sales reps. While praise is powerful, other low-cost rewards could include selecting certain sales rep to share their lessons with the entire sales team, thus acknowledging their expertise before their co-workers.

>However, praise shouldn’t be reserved solely for the big goals – even the smallest achievements are worth being celebrated. Did you hit your target one day? Find a new email subject line that’s killing it on open rates? Well, it’s time to celebrate.

The road to success consists of thousands of small steps. The most successful teams understand this. At Foursquare, for instance, the inside sales team plays the favorite songs of reps who reached certain milestones or achieved top scores. Celebrating and recognizing achievements doesn’t have to be expensive, but it can pay great dividends.

5. Prioritize the Personal Growth of Your Team

Truly great people have an interest in continuously improving and becoming the best. Help your salespeople become great by consistently giving them detailed, constructive feedback and access to high-quality coaching.

Each team member will have strengths and weaknesses that can be identified and developed for higher levels of success. Share new insights and hold team talks around new topics that can help them grow both personally and professionally.

By investing in your people, you’re investing in the success of your business.

6. Let Your Team Define Their Role

If you want someone to feel valued and give them a sense of belonging within your team, allowing them to define their role is a great way to go.

Rather than simply giving each team member a list of tasks and responsibilities, give them ownership and influence over their role on the team. This will make a huge difference to their motivation, how they perform, and how much fun they have working for you.

Have regular meetings with each of your team members. Look at their roles and think about how you can improve this position together. Maybe they feel the need for a bit more responsibility or they could be more successful if you made a couple of adjustments.

However, letting your team have more involvement in defining their role isn’t a magic button which will instantly boost team morale and motivation. You’ll have to do some heavy lifting and be on hand to provide coaching and advice to your team as they navigate this new-found approach.

7. Adjust Comp Plans According to Talent

Throwing more money at reps won’t help – but adjusting howyou compensate your sales team can have a great impact.

A growing body of research suggests that stars, laggards, and core performers are motivated by different facets of comp plans. Stars seem to knock down any target that stands in their way – but may stop working if a ceiling is imposed.

Laggards need more guidance and prodding to make their numbers. Core performers fall somewhere in the middle; they get the least attention, even though they’re the group most likely to move the needle – if they’re given the proper incentives.

This Harvard Business Review article goes into much greater detail but here’s how to motivate different performers.

• Core performers: Provide multi-tier targets; offer gifts (not cash) for the lower-level prizes that can be seen as equal, or even superior, to the top-level prizes; and, for core performers near the bottom of their cadre, offer incentives designed to improve the performance of laggards.
• Laggards: Provide pace-setting goals such as quarterly bonuses and use a combination of natural and carefully designed, program-induced social pressure.
• Stars: Remove ceilings on commissions, create overachievement commissions, and create contests with multiple winners.

Don’t take on too many changes at once. Instead, focus on a single idea at a time and observe what works for your team.

Your Sales Team Members are Elite Athletes

Motivation isn’t only for salespeople.

If you look at the world of professional sports, they don’t solely focus on their craft – they also focus on keeping each other motivated in order to go out and do their best on a daily basis.

You should think of your startup sales team as an elite sports team and look at how coaches sustain and boost their team’s motivation through long, often grueling, seasons.

For example, ahead of the 2009 Champions League final, coach Pep Guardiola created a seven-minute film and played it in the Barcelona dressing room prior to kick-off.

The film showed all of the squad members, even those who weren’t going to start in the final, performing at their best and ended with a moving quote:

“We are the centre of the pitch, we are precise, we are our effort, we are attackers who defend, we are defenders who attack, we are respected by our rivals, we are recognized by our rivals, we are every goal that we score, we are those who always look for our opponent’s goal, WE ARE ONE.”

>As the film finished, several players were reportedly in tears. Guardiola’s job was done. He didn’t need to say another word to his team before the match started.

Barcelona beat Manchester United 2 – 0, earning the team an historic treble of La Liga, the Copa del Rey and the Champions League, a feat never before achieved by a Spanish club.

A seven-minute film of your sales team probably isn’t going to work for you.

However, if you want your sales team to create extraordinary results, you have to make sure they feel extraordinary! If you want to get the best from your people, you have to make them feel like the best and inspire them to great performance every day.

Bonus: Daily Motivation in Your Inbox

Want some added motivation? Join our exclusive group and every day you’ll get a new 60 second sales motivation video, an inspiring quote, and a quick action item to crush your day. Stop missing out and sign up now at salesmotivation.close.io

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