Rnordman

Gunnar Garfors, the author of 198: How I Ran Out of Countries, has been to every country in the world. He knows a thing or two about international travel, and has a few tips to share in regards to keeping safe.

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Your partner drops the ball and forgets to pay rent on time. You’re hit with a late fee. The practical thing to do? Come up with a solution so it doesn’t happen again. But you’re angry, so instead, you criticize your partner, and a fight erupts. Criticizing is one of seven common habits that can destroy healthy communication.

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Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton pushed hard dozens of times for the Pacific Rim trade deal she now opposes as a presidential candidate.

But she also urged caution, reserved judgement and called for a “trade timeout” the last time she ran for president — and sought the support of critical labour groups who oppose free trade.

That was before President Barack Obama defeated her in that election and went on to name Clinton his secretary of state. As such, she toured the world on her boss’s behalf selling the Trans-Pacific Partnership he championed. From Japan to Australia and Washington, Clinton repeatedly praised the agreement as one that would set a “gold standard” for lawful, fair international trade accords.

Then she stepped from the White House and into 2016 presidential politics and struck a more reserved and slightly skeptical tone, withholding a clear opinion on the deal. In her memoir, “Hard Choices,” Clinton wrote that while it “won’t be perfect” any such pact “should benefit American businesses and workers.”

Clinton executed a full reversal Wednesday, her most significant break with Obama since launching her 2016 campaign.

“I think there are still a lot of unanswered questions,” she said of the big trade deal in an interview with PBS’ “Newshour.” ”As of today, I am not in favour of what I have learned about it.”

Here’s a selection of Clinton’s quotes over the years in support of the so-called TPP.

____

“I certainly believe the Trans-Pacific Partnership holds great benefits for Japan’s economy…. I think the Trans-Pacific Partnership is one way that could really enhance our relationship.”

—Newseum, Washington, D.C., Jan. 29, 2013.

___

“We also discussed the Trans-Pacific Partnership and we shared perspectives on Japan’s possible participation, because we think this holds out great economic opportunities to all participating nations.”

—On her meeting with Japanese Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida, Washington, D.C. , Jan. 18, 2013.

___

“So it’s fair to say that our economies are entwined, and we need to keep upping our game both bilaterally and with partners across the region through agreements like the Trans-Pacific Partnership or TPP. Australia is a critical partner. This TPP sets the gold standard in trade agreements to open free, transparent, fair trade, the kind of environment that has the rule of law and a level playing field. And when negotiated, this agreement will cover 40 per cent of the world’s total trade and build in strong protections for workers and the environment.

—Adelaide, South Australia, Nov. 15, 2012.

___

“There is new momentum in our trade agenda with the recent passage of the U.S.-Korea Free Trade Agreement and our ongoing work on a binding, high-quality Trans-Pacific Partnership, the so-called TPP. The TPP will bring together economies from across the Pacific, developed and developing alike, into a single 21st century trading community.”

—Honolulu, HI, Nov. 10, 2011.

___

“Economists expect that Vietnam would be among the countries under the Trans-Pacific Partnership to benefit the most. And we hope to finalize this agreement by the end of the year.”

—With Foreign Minister Pham Binh Minh, Hanoi, Vietnam, July 10, 2012.

___

“Now, we’ve seen how bilateral trade benefits both sides. Our challenge now is to broaden those benefits. That means we have to look for even more opportunities to increase trade and investment between us. And it means that we work harder to broaden the benefits of trade even beyond our two countries. Australia is an important partner in negotiating the ambitious new multilateral trade deal called the Trans Pacific Partnership. Over time, we hope to deliver a groundbreaking agreement that connects countries as diverse as Peru and Vietnam with America and Australia to create a new free trade zone that can galvanize commerce, competition, and growth across the entire Pacific region.

—Melbourne, Australia, Nov. 7, 2010.

The post Clinton spent years pushing for Pacific trade pact she now opposes as Dem presidential hopeful appeared first on Canadian Business - Your Source For Business News.

Russian President Vladimir Putin talks to officers as he attends Russia’s large-scale Center-2015 military exercises at Donguzsky Range September 19, 2015 in Orenburg, Russia. (Sasha Mordovets/Getty Images)

The civil war in Syria raged for more than four years and killed more than 250,000 people without an outside power dropping a bomb anywhere near soldiers loyal to dictator Bashar al-Assad, whose forces are responsible for the vast majority of civilian deaths in the conflict.

Then Russia joined the war. Its air strikes, which began last Wednesday, did not hit Assad’s forces, of course. The Russians, with their fighter jets and attack helicopters, are in Syria at Assad’s invitation, operating out of an air base in territory he controls. But they did target positions close to the front line between regime- and rebel-controlled areas.

The intended target, according to Russia, was the so-called Islamic State, a jihadist group also known as ISIS, which a U.S.-led coalition that includes Canada is also bombing—as well as “other terrorist groups.” In fact, most of Russia’s bombs have hit areas with little or no Islamic State presence. The victims include a variety of opposition groups, including, according to U.S. Sen. John McCain and others, American-backed groups that have been armed and trained by the CIA.

“Even though the Russians are framing it as a fight against ISIS, if you look at their targeting, it’s really a fight against rebels that directly threaten Assad and his coastal stronghold,” says William McCants, a fellow at the Brookings Institution and author of The ISIS Apocalypse: The History, Strategy, and Doomsday Vision of the Islamic State. “[Russian President Vladimir Putin] has adopted the Assad regime’s framework of terrorism, which is anyone who is attempting to overthrow the regime.”

The Russians, in other words, are not in Syria to fight terrorism—at least, not primarily—but to fight for Assad.

Related: There’s nothing hopeful about Russia’s military aid for Syria

Moscow has put its military might behind a dictator that U.S. President Barack Obama said four years ago must step down, whose opponents America arms and funds, and whom thousands of Syrians have died trying to overthrow. By so doing, Putin has taken advantage of years of relative American inaction in Syria. He has moved to protect Russian assets in Syria, including a naval base he would likely lose if Assad were to fall. And he’s shown Russia to be a reliable ally where America is not, thereby spreading and deepening Russia’s influence in the region at Washington’s expense.

It is—at least at first blush—something of a coup for Moscow. Fresh on the heels of Russia’s successful invasion, then annexation, of the Ukrainian region of Crimea, which was accomplished in the face of Western protest and sanctions, Russia has now undercut Western power and relevance in the Middle East.

What Russia has not done, despite its professed desire for peace in Syria, is improve the chances of a settlement to end the war that most Syrians will accept. Nor is Russia helping the cause that has ostensibly brought it to Syria in the first place: the fight against terrorism. Few Syrians other than those loyal to Assad will benefit from Russia’s military intervention. The jihadists of Islamic State just might.

Whatever faults he may have, Bashar al-Assad is not stupid. He is, in fact, a supremely crafty survivor. The Arab Spring revolutions of 2010 and 2011 swept from office his fellow strongmen in Tunisia, Egypt and Libya. Assad’s chances of survival then, as the uprising against him morphed into civil war, did not look good—which is probably why Obama said the time had come for him to step aside, without having a strategy to make that happen.

So Assad gambled on portraying his regime as the lesser evil among the warring parties in Syria. “Assad and his intelligence apparatus have consistently facilitated the rise of jihadists,” writes Charles Lister, a visiting fellow at the Brookings Institution’s Doha Center, in a recent essay. “By releasing dozens of al-Qaeda prisoners in mid-2011, Assad helped give birth to a thriving Islamist insurgency . . . By then adopting a deliberate policy of not targeting [Islamic State], Assad directly facilitated that group’s recovery and explosion into the transnational ‘caliphate’ movement it claims to be today.”

This manipulation of jihadism by Assad’s regime has been well-documented—including by authors Michael Weiss and Hassan Hassan in their recent biography of Islamic State, ISIS: Inside the Army of Terror. McCants calls Assad “both arsonist and fireman” in the Syrian conflict. He fuelled the rise of Islamic State and presents himself as the only force that can stop it.

Four years later, it appears Assad’s bald cynicism has worked. Washington still says Assad has to go, but it isn’t that fussy about when. Assad’s removal “doesn’t have to be on Day 1 or Month 1 or whatever,” Secretary of State John Kerry said last month. He might as well have sent the Russian air force an invitation.

A Syrian man carries his two girls as he walks across the rubble following a barrel bomb attack on the rebel-held neighbourhood of al-Kalasa in the northern Syrian city of Aleppo on September 17, 2015. Once Syria’s economic powerhouse, Aleppo has been ravaged by fighting since the rebels seized the east of the city in 2012, confining government forces to the west. (Karam Al-Masri/AFP/Getty Images)

Russia’s primary and immediate goal is the survival of the Assad regime. Assad’s forces have recently been losing ground to various rebel groups in northern and western Syria, far from Islamic State’s stronghold in the northeast. Reuters last week reported that Iran, a longtime Syrian ally, was sending hundreds of additional troops to Syria to aid fighters from the Lebanese Shia militia Hezbollah and Syrian government forces in a planned offensive, backed by Russia.

Inserting Russian planes into Syrian air space also limits some of the military options that outside opponents of Assad might have considered. Turkey, for example, has long called for no-fly zones and protected safe havens in Syria. “Russian presence on the ground is an immediate deterrent to that, which stiffens morale on the regime side, saying, ‘We’re not going to let these external powers escalate their intervention,’ ” says Yezid Sayigh, a senior associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace’s Middle East Center.

A second Russian goal is to assert Russia’s status as a force that must be reckoned with in the Middle East. Russia has made much of its recent intelligence-sharing deal with Syria, Iran and Iraq in the fight against Islamic State. In practice, because of its shortage of assets in the region, Russia doesn’t have that much intelligence on the group to share, but the symbolism—especially Russia’s partnership with Iraq, where America invested so much blood and treasure—is striking.

In Syria, Russia is working to ensure it will have a say in the country’s future. “They are signalling to the international community that nothing could be handled in Syria without them right now,” says Nikolay Kozhanov, a fellow in the Russia and Eurasia Program at Chatham House.

There may also be domestic political factors at play. Putin regularly appeals to Russians’ nationalism, which can be heightened when the country is at war. But the tactic involves risks.This is Russia’s first combat mission outside the former Soviet Union since the end of the Cold War. “The Russian people remember Afghanistan,” says Paul Stronski, a senior associate in the Russia and Eurasia Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. “They remember Chechnya. They remember previous forays into the Muslim world, and how deadly they were for Russian soldiers. So I don’t think there’s a whole lot of appetite inside Russia to get involved in another war in the Muslim world right now.”

Official Russian combat in Syria is limited to air strikes. But on Monday, a Kremlin official reportedly predicted that Russian military veterans may soon volunteer to fight in Syria—raising the possibility that Moscow may be considering waging a covert ground war in Syria similar to the one it conducted in Ukraine.

Syrians hold posters of Syrian President Bashar Assad, far left, and Russian President Vladimir Putin, second left, during a pro-Syrian goverment protest in front of the Russian Embassy in Damascus, Syria, in 2012. (AP Photo/Muzaffar Salman, File)

Finally, and perhaps most important, from Moscow’s perspective, Putin believes Russia is engaged in a larger geostrategic struggle against the United States and its allies. America has called for Assad’s departure. Its desultory attempts to make that happen haven’t worked. By going to war for Assad, and by calling for a new international coalition against Islamic State that includes the Syrian dictator, Putin is publicly rubbing Obama’s nose in his own failures, and is presenting Russia as an alternative guarantor of world order.

“What Putin is doing in Syria is he’s testing the West,” says Anna Borshchevskaya, a fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. “It’s a classic Kremlin approach. He did the same thing in Ukraine. He takes steps and he wants to see what’s the response.”

That response so far has been mild. Last Friday, after it became clear Russia was hitting rebel groups other than Islamic State, America, along with France, Britain, Germany, Turkey, Qatar and Saudi Arabia, issued a statement expressing “deep concern” and calling on Russia to bomb the jihadist group instead. Russian violation of Turkish air space last weekend also drew an official protest from NATO, of which Turkey is a member.

Friday’s statement from the U.S. and some of its allies predicted Russia’s intervention will fuel more radicalism and extremism. This is undoubtedly correct. “One of the major recruitment tools in that part of the world for Islamic State is the brutal way in which the Syrian government, the Assad regime, has treated its citizens,” says Angela Stent, director of the Center for Eurasian, Russian and East European Studies at Georgetown University. “Shoring Assad up, it’s very hard to see how that contributes toward stability in the Middle East.”

Any effort to confront Islamic State that includes Assad is similarly likely to be rejected by most Syrians. This is why Russia’s declared goal of working toward a political settlement that involves Syria’s “healthy opposition” is disingenuous. Even if Russia were able to construct an agreement on paper that leaves Assad in power for a “transition period,” many rebels groups will continue to fight.

Related: In the fight against ISIS, friends become each other’s enemies

A more robust response from the West to Russia’s air strikes might include more substantial military assistance to rebels opposing Assad. Even aid on a scale too modest to affect the overall course of the war could at least protect Syrians from some of Assad’s more egregious rampages, such as his air force’s habit of dropping crude “barrel bombs” on civilian neighbourhoods. “It’s pretty shameful that there have not been more active efforts to stop indiscriminate bombing of civilians,” says Sayigh.

He says training just two squads of rebels, and arming them with a limited number of anti-aircraft missiles would have had a sizable deterrent effect. “Shooting down a few aircraft conducting highly illegitimate bombing runs on civilian populations would have been a very legitimate thing to do,” he says. “There’s always the potential for escalation. But by withholding from any form of escalation for the last three years, all that’s happened is we end up now with Russian troops on the ground, because they’re correctly reading this reluctance as giving them an open field.”

More substantial actions are probably off the table. Marc Pierini, a former European Union ambassador to Syria and now a visiting scholar at Carnegie Europe, describes the establishment of protected safe zones as “a good idea of yesterday.” It would always have been difficult. Now, “the idea is dead.”

America, to some extent, tied its own hands when it failed to enforce its own “red line” and didn’t respond with force to a Syrian-government chemical-weapons attack that killed hundreds of civilians in 2013. If gassing children to death isn’t enough to trigger American military action against Assad, what would?

Related: Is there room in the skies for Canada’s air strikes?

The U.S. and its allies will likely instead continue to focus military efforts against Islamic State, while Assad batters much of the rest of Syria, now with Moscow’s assistance. “I think all of the options that were viable have disappeared,” says McCants, speaking of what Assad’s opponents outside Syria might have done to force his departure.

Assad’s exit now seems as far away as it has at any point since the uprising against him began. But those committed to his defeat inside Syria remain numerous; Assad is not on the cusp of victory, either.

One possible outcome, says McCants, is military stalemate, followed, eventually, by negotiations that lead to the federation of Syria or perhaps its breakup. The chances of Syria emerging from this war unified, at peace, and led by a more decent government than Assad’s, are slipping away.

“I see this as the final endgame in Syria,” says McCants. “It seems to me that we are seeing the final consequences of American inaction over the last few years.”

The post Vladimir Putin’s new world order in the Middle East appeared first on Macleans.ca.

“We need to make a profit.”

I’ve heard salespeople say these words countless times when negotiating or when dealing with a price objection. They believe that, somehow, their prospective client is worried about making sure that they are profitable. They think that the customer is seeking a win-win, which is true when dealing with mature clients and not so much when you aren’t.

But the statement, “We need to make a profit,” or one of it’s many variations, like “We aren’t a charity,” or “We aren’t a non-profit,” is self-oriented. It informs your prospective client that you are worried most of all about your profit.

Before we go any further, let me be clear that you do have to worry about your company’s profitability. No business is better than business that causes you to lose money. Losing money can cost you the whole game. But you do have to be skillful in how you have conversations about money—and specifically your pricing.

The right answer is, “I am afraid that reducing the price puts the outcomes you said you needed at risk. Can I explain why this is and how we need to make sure we don’t do anything that hurts your results?”

“We need to make a profit” isn’t “other-oriented” language. It is language that suggests that by reducing your price, you have less money to invest in helping your client achieve the improvements they need. And the best part of all this? It’s true.

When you allow your client to underinvest, you do have less money to invest in producing the results they need. Without being profitable, you can’t easily make the investments your client wants, needs, or expects you to make. Right now we face an epidemic of companies underinvesting and failing to generate the results they need.

If you want to protect the margins you need to deliver for your clients, you need to remind them of the risk they take by underinvesting with you—or with your competitors.

The post We Need to Make a Profit appeared first on The Sales Blog.

Growth and improvement is possible at any level in a sales organization. Whether you’re a Sales Development Rep, an Account Executive, or even a Director of Sales — it’s crucial to continue practicing new ways to improve your sales process. Watch the video below to learn how SalesLoft Director of Sales Anthony Zhang and Sales Development Rep Patrick Tracy improve their process every day.

Anthony’s tip around sales coaching is a powerful takeaway for any sales manager. When it comes to coaching your team, you need to be specific with your feedback. Don’t just offer blanket advice — really dive into the specifics of what was done well and what can be improved. By taking that coaching opportunity to a deeper level, both the rep and the manager will see growth and improvement around the entire process.

Next up, one of SalesLoft’s most successful SDRs shares how he’s gained traction with prospects through a more indepth research approach. Prospecting is not just about data (name, number, email) — it’s about human interaction. By proving to your prospect that you’ve done your research, you know what they do, and you hear what their pain points are — you’ll show that you’re here to help them with their process. We’re all here to sell, so why not come together on that common point?

Have any tips that have helped you dig deeper in your sales process? Whether you’re a sales manager or a frontline cold-caller, comment below and share how you’ve improved your daily sales process.

The post Dig A Little Deeper, A Sales Tips Video appeared first on SalesLoft.

Sales performance won’t change if you measure the wrong things. Superfluous measures can distract us from asking the more important question—“What should I measure to know the progress of the sales force on the road to winning?” Below are three measures you might find helpful for tracking your sales team’s progress.

1. What is the quality of the executive sponsor?

Executive sponsor is a term I use to define a person at the prospect company who can sign the contract, make things happen and convene a team of authority. Without an executive sponsor, your sales team cannot easily navigate the politics and process of organizations nor overcome the inertia of big companies faced with significant choices. An executive sponsor is not just a “favorable prospect.” An executive sponsor must have a problem your company can solve, the urgency and personal accountability to get the problem solved, and a willingness to make the following commitments:

• Provide access to other decision makers.
• Make the project a priority among decision makers.
• Stay in contact with sellers during the selling process.
• Provide clarity if communication is unclear or contradictory.
• Break logjams if there is a stopping point in the process.

2. What movements show progress?

In an articulated sales process that has behavioral measures at each stage, what is most important is not how much activity is occurring at each stage, but how many movements are occurring from one stage to another. Motion tells you about all of the sales activities that occur in getting people together, having conversations, and exchanging information within a given sales stage, but movement measures the completion of one stage of the sales cycle and progression to the next. The more movements, the more progress. The more activity…well, then you just have activity. To encourage movement over motion, consider giving a value of “one” to every movement from one stage to the next in the sales process. By giving each movement a value of one, you are better able to set expectations for your sales force and measure movements throughout the sales cycle.

3. What is the cycle time per process stage?

How long does it take to move from one stage to another? Not every stage takes the same amount of time to move through. However, by articulating the amount of time each stage is expected to take, you can set performance expectations for your sales team that you can then measure for accountability. The more you know about how long it takes prospects to move through each stage, the more sophisticated and accurate your measures of progress will be throughout the sales cycle.

So much of the literature on sales performance is about effort tracking, and in the world of solo selling, transactional tracking and volume of activity were the most valuable measures. However, as complexity increases in the world of sales and the length of sales cycles extends, new metrics need to be used for analyzing performance. So this begs the question, “What is your sales force measuring and what should it be measuring?”

Sixth-grader Iris Gupta wants to change how we treat one of our most annoying problems: allergies.

The 12-year-old Maryland native is one of the 10 Discovery Education 3M Young Scientist Challenge finalists for her work with nanoparticles and allergies.

The challenge is the "ultimate middle school science competition" for kids in Grades 5 to 8 across the US. This year's finalists worked on projects ranging from new ways to keep people from driving while intoxicated to devices that measure car temperatures.

Allergies are your immune system's response to a substance that's not harmful to other people. They're the sixth leading cause of chronic disease in the US.

How Gupta's project works

Typically, people treat the symptoms of allergies with antihistamines like Benadryl or Claritin. The medication inhibits histamines, the compounds our bodies release in response to an injury or allergen.

But Gupta wanted to figure out if there was a way to treat allergies before they ramp up.

She started looking into gold nanoparticles, which could block allergens from binding to the body's Immunoglobulin E antibodies, a part of the blood responsible for fighting off allergens.

The nanoparticles, relatively inexpensive, could be injected or inhaled at the beginning of allergy season, and could stave off the inflammation and discomfort we experience when our IgE response gets initiated. Scientists have looked into the idea of using nanoparticles to stop allergies before, but more work needs to be done before they're put into use.

Before she could really run with her idea, though, Gupta needed to figure out the right size of nanoparticle to use. She found that the best results came from those that were 20 nanometers in size.

The 20-nanometer nanoparticles matched up well with IgE, Gupta explains in her project video, preventing the IgE from acting up when an allergen entered the body.

Watch Gupta's presentation to learn more about her work:

RELATED: This 13-year-old came up with a way to stop people from driving drunk or high

UP NEXT: Here are the world's sharpest young minds on how to test for Ebola, treat cancer, and solve the food crisis

Join the conversation about this story »

Volkswagen's emissions scandal affects 11 million cars worldwide, with 500,000 of those in the US.

Now, the investigation into the cause of the scandal is centered around two high-level engineers, the Wall Street Journal's William Boston reported. 

Buts that's just the end of the story.

Buried in Boston's article about engineers Ulrich Hackenberg and Wolfgang Hatz are clues to the true source of VW's crisis. 

The scandal's roots go well beyond alleged malfeasance on the part of a pair of engineers. A series of personal and professional rivalries that go back to the early days of the VW's diesel strategy are largely to blame.

A decade ago, the VW brand was run by Wolfgang Bernhard, who was recently hired away from rival Daimler-Benz by then-Volkswagen Group CEO Bernd Pischetsrieder. 

According to Boston, Bernhard was seen as an outsider and faced stiff opposition from certain VW corporate insiders — such as Audi's then-CEO, Martin Winterkorn.

The two butted heads during the planning phase of VW now-infamous EA189 2.0 liter TDI engine, which is at the heart of the current crisis.

At the time, with more stringent diesel emissions standards looming, Bernhard licensed clean diesel technology called "BlueTec" for his former employers at Mercedes-Benz. Winterkorn and his team at Audi submitted plans for a new diesel engine developed in-house that would become the EA189. 

Sources within the company told Boston that many of VW engineers felt that the company's native technology was not good enough to return sufficiently low emissions. 

In December, 2006, VW Group chairman Ferdinand Piech ousted Pischetsrieder from his spot as CEO. With Pischetsrieder gone, Bernhard was soon shown the door, as well, even though his team already had a functioning prototype engine, Boston reported.

When the dust cleared, Winterkorn was installed as VW Group's CEO. He immediately appointed the duo of Hackenberg and Hatz in 2007 to oversee the development of the EA189 engine that entered production in 2008.

According to Boston, it is during this period that the cheat software was installed on the EA189 while Bernhard's rival engine, using the Mercedes-sourced technology, was scrapped.

Hackenberg — currently Audi's chief engineer — and Hatz , the developer of Porsche Le Mans racing engines, are two the most accomplished men in the automotive industry. Hackenberg is credited with playing a pivotal role in the development of VW Group's modular manufacturing program, while Hatz helped engineer Porsche's victorious return to the grueling 24 Hours of LeMans endurance sports car race. 

In the decade since the power struggle that put the emissions cheating engines into production, Volkswagen has grown to the become the biggest car company in the world. With Winterkorn at the helm, the EA189 became one of the company's mainstay engines, selling around the world in cars across VW's family of brands. 

Ironically, the man who made Winterkorn VW Group's CEO also tried to oust him earlier this year. Piech — a member of the Porsche family who controls major share in the company — attempted to engineer Winterkorn's departure from the company.  Winterkorn survived the coup, and Piech left the company's board of supervisors. 

Now, Winterkorn is out as well. And his innovative clean diesel engine has been proven to be a fraud. The VW Groups's supervisory board named Porsche CEO Matthias Müller as Winterkorn's successor. 

In the weeks since Volkswagen admitted to the EPA that he company cheated, the company have lost more than $30 billion in stock market value

According to Reuters, analysts predict the total cost in fines and lawsuits resulting from the scandal could reach $40 billion dollars. But the amount of damage done to the company's brand equity could amount to billions more in losses.

VW Group announced this week that a recall of the 11 million cars affected will commence in January and be completed by the end of 2016.

SEE ALSO: Here's why Volkswagen's scandal is so annoying

Join the conversation about this story »

NOW WATCH: The most expensive and extravagant vacations in the world

When a customer opens your email, they usually skim it for relevant information. Subscribers typically read the first line, check out the picture and glance at your call to action. That’s why creating a compelling call to action (CTA) is so important. It’s one of the few items within your email that can draw attention and encourage the reader to act.

What makes one call to action better than another? We’re glad you asked. To help distinguish between good and bad calls to action, we’ve created a list of CTAs that sell, and a list that repels. At the end of each list, we explain why they work, or don’t work.

50 calls to action that sell

We scoured inboxes and created a list of 50 CTAs that sell, and broke them up by category.

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Why these calls to action sell

• Descriptive and informative

All of the calls to action are descriptive and provide enough information for subscribers to act. You don’t even need to read the entire email to understand its purpose.

• Urgent language

Calls to action should encourage an instant reaction. All of the CTAs above use urgent language to do just that. Words like “now,” “today” and “limited time offer” show a need to act immediately.

• Creative

There are a few traditional calls to action like “shop now” and “read this post,” but the list also has quite a few original ideas too. For example, “Love to share? Please do” isn’t a call to action that you see every day. It’s okay to think out-of-the-box and be creative when you write a call to action.

10 calls to action that repel

Now for the not-so-great calls to action. Here’s a list of 10 CTAs that could repel your customers.

Click here
Shop
Review
Get our custom report
Next
Add your contact info
Continue
Get it later
Go
www.YourEntireWebsite.com 

Why these calls to action repel

• Lack of information

Most of the calls to action on this list don’t provide any real information. For example, what does the call to action “continue” mean? Is it encouraging a customer to continue to a website? Is a customer supposed to continue shopping? Or should a subscriber continue on to a brand’s Facebook page? There just isn’t enough information to inspire a customer to act.

• Not focusing on the customer

The call to action “Get our custom report” focuses on the business, not the customer. A call to action should focus on the customer. In this case, it’s better for the call to action to explain how the report helps a customer. For example, “Download now to increase your traffic” is a better call to action because it defines the value of the report to the customer.

• Bad practices

Some of the calls to action are just bad habits. You don’t need to tell customers to “click here” anymore; everyone understands the concept of clicking on a link.

You want customers to act quickly so why would you ever use a call to action that says “get it later?”

You don’t need to write out your entire website address. Instead, just create a call to action that says, “Learn more on our website.”

Conclusion:  Remember, a call to action is one of the most vital components of your email. Take some time to create one that’s descriptive, creative and encourages customers to act fast.

It’s probably the most commonly proposed response to price pressures and commoditisation: if we’re not prepared to cut our prices, we had better add more value for the customer. It’s a reasonable objective, but the sad truth is that most so-called “value-added” strategies simply add cost and complexity without making the offering any more desirable to the customer. In fact, they often have the opposite effect.

It might be a good idea to start by defining exactly what we mean by value. For many product-focused organisations, it’s seen primarily in terms of adding incremental functionality without adding much or anything to the price quoted to the customer. But that’s not how the customer typically views it...

In fact, any attempt to associate value with functionality is almost certainly doomed unless that value is expressed in terms that are meaningful to the customer. And that’s really the crux of the matter: no vendor (and no sales person) can credibly define what “value” means - it can only be recognised by the customer.

Value is only in the eyes of the customer

That's why my preferred definition of value has nothing to do with functionality. Very simply put, value is that which the customer is prepared to pay for with their time and/or (preferably) their money. Value is an exchange between two parties - it is never an intrinsic feature of a product or solution.

So the only way of truly adding value is to make our customer’s lives easier, more productive or more profitable. From this perspective, the greatest value often comes from simplifying rather than making things more complex. Simply loading or bundling unwanted features, services or capabilities into an offering reduces its true value, rather than increasing it.

It's all in the customer experience

It’s something that Apple understands almost uniquely well and it’s something they have mastered and refined over many years. When you compare the fine detail of product specs - let’s take the pixel rating of the camera as an example - Apple rarely comes out at the very top.

And when you compare features and functions generally, it’s not unusual for Apple’s competitors to boast a longer or apparently more impressive list. Where Apple distinguish themselves, time after time, is in the quality of the overall customer and user experience - and in how every element works together.

In the case of their irrelevant-feature-function-chasing competitors, the whole is (often far) less than the sum of the parts. But in organisations that truly understand customer value, the whole is (often far) larger than a simple addition of the sum of the parts might otherwise suggest.

Themes are far more powerful than lists

While competitors strive to have the longer or stronger list of raw features, Apple focuses instead on resonant, compelling and consistent themes that talk directly to the actual practical experience of using what you’ve purchased. And it’s not just about the user experience. I have never been let down - in terms of the buying or the delivery experience - when buying from Apple. I cannot think of another technology manufacturer or retailer I can say the same about.

So when organisations come under pressure from competitive pricing or the threat of commoditisation, the traditional knee-jerk reaction that they have got to "add value" by including more product functionality or bundling additional services is somewhat dysfunctional at best and (more typically) just a way of adding to their cost of goods or cost of sale without actually creating more customer value. In fact, in many cases, such strategies actually destroy customer value and prevent sales. This is as true for B2B sales as it is for B2C.

The buyer and user experience

So what's the answer? To better understand what your ideal customers truly value. To understand how you can make both the buying experience and the user experience more attractive. To ensure that the customer solves the problem they came to you with in the first place, and get the value they were looking for, and preferably exceed it. In other words to shorten and simplify the customer's time-to-true-value.

But please don’t react by adding meaningless “value” that only serves to make your customers lives more complicated, and forces them to buy things they don’t really need or will never use. Even if you con them into buying from you in the first place, they won’t thank you for it, they probably won’t buy again, and they certainly won’t recommend you to their colleagues and friends.

When it comes to creating true customer value, less is often more, and an effortless buyer and user experience something that is truly and deeply appreciated - in large part because of how rarely it happens.

Let’s face it. Your primary purpose in writing blog posts is not to capture Facebook “likes” or get ranked. You’re writing a blog for strategic business purposes. You want the content to achieve something. You want to increase your conversions – to put a direct value on the time invested in blogging.

Writing blog posts for conversions requires an approach subtly different than writing to provide fun or to educate. Consider the following path to boost your blog ROI:

Planning phase

Structuring your business blog posts for conversions begins before you put pen to paper (or, in this case, cursor to screen). Crafting content according to a plan ultimately yields better results than content created on a whim.

What elements should you plan for when conversion is your goal?

Your audience’s pain points

Planning blog content for conversions starts with the topics. Too many content creators select the subjects they find most interesting. Unfortunately, just because a topic interests the writer doesn’t mean it will engage readers. Ultimately, unengaged readers equal lackluster ROI.

The best way to find conversion-optimized topics is to consider your audience’s pain points:

• What problems are they facing?
• What do they want out of life that they haven’t achieved yet?
• What do they think is holding them back?

Learn how to know what topics to avoid and which ones to expand. Digital marketer Neil Patel explains how to do that in 13 Ways to Reduce Bounce Rate and Increase Your Conversions.

High bounce rates and low conversions reveal points where your audience is pained, frustrated, or unaffected by your content. Write about topics that relieve your audience’s pain points and bounce rates will be lower and conversions higher.

Your industry’s current coverage

As an alternative topic-generation strategy, try the skyscraper technique. Popularized by Brian Dean, this approach involves finding out what topics others in your industry have covered and publishing better content on those subjects.

Say a competitor publishes a thin content piece addressing one of your audience’s pain points. Why not release your own improved version? Brian’s use of the technique resulted in a doubling of his site’s organic search traffic in just 14 days – results that almost certainly improved the overall ROI of his business blog.

Your intended call to action

The last step in planning should be to identify the specific conversion for which you’re trying to optimize your post. Remember, conversions aren’t just sales. They can be any of these metrics:

• Lead-generation completed forms
• E-newsletter opt-ins
• File downloads
• Video views
• Social shares
• Blog comment engagement

Your business blog posts can play an important role in driving any of these types of conversions, though you’ll want to be careful not to overdo it. Stick to a single call to action for each post, and vary the level of audience commitment required.

If every blog post includes a hard sell for one of your products, readers will grow tired quickly of the high-pressure-sale atmosphere. Don’t be afraid to use sales-oriented CTAs when appropriate, but mix them up with less intense CTAs that request things like social shares or blog comments.

Construction phase

With your optimized topic and intended CTA, it’s time to start crafting your content.

For the most part, writing blog posts with the goal of maximizing conversions looks similar to the process of drafting articles for the purpose of fun or education. Here are a few specific considerations that you should keep in mind:

Article title

Ross Hudgens of Siege Media has seen an increase in article click-through rates of as much as 20% through the use of improved title tags. Aren’t sure yours are on par? Tools like KingSumo’s Headline Optimizer can help.

First few sentences

Author Stephen King spends “months and even years” writing opening sentences. Slate estimates that 38% of its visitors bounce (leave without engaging with the page) and of those who remain, less than half make it through the piece.

Your first few sentences have an impact on your ability to convert readers. Give those sentences the attention they deserve and make them as compelling as possible.

Format

Want to kill your conversion rates? Publish lengthy articles composed of nothing but block after block of text. This Onion article is satire, but its message should ring true for today’s webmasters:

Blog styling best practices are pretty universally accepted, but I’ll review a few:

• Keep paragraphs short. Although many of today’s top bloggers are experimenting with single-sentence (even single-word) paragraphs, two to five sentences per paragraph is a good upper limit.

• Break up text. Heading tags, bulleted lists, numbered lists, bolded text, and italicized text all make it easier for readers who naturally scan your words to stay focused.

• Include images and videos. To make your content even more digestible, break up paragraphs of text with images and video clips. These provide an important rest for eyes that can become strained by too much reading.

• Check your font. Smashing Magazine has a great guide to optimizing your font and font size for maximum readability. Keep your line length between 45 and 70 characters and make sure your font size is appropriate for all devices.

Conversion phase

Depending on your writing style, you may find it easier to construct a draft and refine it for conversion or you may prefer to incorporate the following elements as you write. Either way is fine, just be sure each of the steps is covered.

Location

You should not assume that the ideal location for your CTA is at the end of your article. Consider the following scenarios:

• If your CTA encourages readers to make a purchase, the CTA’s best location is wherever your readers are in the best frame of mind to buy. This could be after you’ve explained a particular product benefit, emphasized a pain point, or incorporated a scarcity tactic to increase urgency.

• If your CTA aims to increase social shares and you’re using a tool like Click-to-Tweet, the best place for your CTAs is wherever you’ve included a particularly quotable line.

• If the goal of your CTAs is to drive downloads of a white paper or case study, use a heat-mapping tool like CrazyEgg to determine which areas of your article get the most attention and place your CTA there.

• If your CTA strategy revolves around prompting readers to answer an engaging question, the best location is the end of the article, as you can capitalize on the time visitors take after reading something to process what they’ve learned.

Use the guidelines above as a starting point, but split-test locations to find the better positions for your prompt.

Style

The CTA’s style can play a major role in its performance. Consider these tips:

• Text versus image – Your CTA can make use of text, images, or both. Images even could be composed of stylized text, product images, or a combination of the two.

• Button size and color – If your CTA includes a clickable button, its size and color can impact its effectiveness. To find the best option, Unbounce recommends starting with a “squint test” – stand back a few feet from the computer and see if the button stands out. If it doesn’t, try something different. Incorporating color psychology principles also can help.

• CTA copy – Understandably, the words in your CTA play a major role in its success or failure. Take a look at the example below from HubSpot, demonstrating how one button text variation received nearly twice the clicks as another:

As with your CTA styling, don’t assume you know which text is the best. Test variations to find the best-performing alternative.

Effectiveness

Finally, if you’re going to go to all this trouble to craft your business blog posts for conversions, you need to track whether conversions are occurring.

If your CTA goals are simple – as in the case of video downloads or social shares – tracking the number of conversions that have occurred is relatively simple. Look to the program hosting your downloadable file or your social buttons, count the number, and determine if the conversions represent a good value for the time and resources put into the post. Even things like lead generations or email newsletter opt-ins can be easily tracked using Google Analytics Goals.

Where conversion tracking gets more complicated is in the case of product sales, especially big-ticket items. Even if somebody goes directly from one of your blog posts to your product page and completes an order, can you really say for certain that your post was 100% responsible for the sale? Probably not.

Instead, the conversion likely occurred after a series of other activities, such as reading reviews, checking out your competition, and looking around for product sales. Each of these actions deserves some of the credit for the ultimate conversion, along with your blog post.

If you intend to track sales, you’ve got two options:

• Use a single-touch attribution modeling system like Google Analytics that’ll give the original blog post full credit for the conversion and accept that your data is incomplete.

• Pay for a multi-touch attribution modeling program like Marketo or Convertro to get a fuller picture.

There’s no right or wrong option, but as I leave you to decide upon your own course, I’d like to make one final recommendation: Remember that your blog is a living thing. You aren’t done with a post when it’s published. If you’ve gone to all the trouble to optimize a post for conversions (and you don’t need to go this extreme with every article you write), you owe it to yourself to follow up in the future and look for ways to improve your conversion rate even further.

Apart from the CTA-styling split tests earlier, check things like bounce rate and time on page regularly. Use your heat-mapping tool to see how long readers are engaging with your content. Take the data you’ve gathered and use it to make changes to your posts.

Don’t accept your first conversion rate results as final. Pairing these recommendations with regular data analysis and revisions will help you ensure the highest possible return on your business blogging investment.

Are conversions a consideration for you as you create blog content? If so, share any other tips and tricks you’ve discovered by leaving a comment.

Learn more about businesses that found success when they first converted their audiences and then started selling products or services, and how you can follow their steps, in Joe Pulizzi’s new book, Content Inc.

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

Cover image by Joseph Kalinowski/Content Marketing Institute

The post How to Structure Your Business Blog Posts to Maximize Conversions appeared first on Content Marketing Institute.

When evaluating sales training, you need a process that doesn’t just evaluate. It must also add value and answer the question of how much did sales increase as a result of it. To do that, replace quantitative and abstract metrics with human-to-human communication about what works.

We all use our inboxes for easy information exchanges. But for salespeople, it quickly becomes a challenge to email prospects as a means to ask hard questions, dig deep into unique situations, and ultimately control the sale.

Typed words are deprived of the rich emotional context people naturally convey in conversation. And, let’s face it, rarely is any sale not influenced by some emotional reaction on the part of either the salesperson or the buyer. Without nonverbal messages adding nuance and triggering emotional cues, high-value sales interactions can quickly lose momentum.

Some of the key challenges caused by using email for sales include:

1) Unclear Tone

The tone of an email is misinterpreted over 50% of the time, so selling through email becomes more intellectual and less emotional. And that might not be a good thing -- while people may think purchasing decisions are based on logic, research shows that we're less rational than we perceive ourselves to be.

2) Lack of Control

With phone calls, you can control the cadence of conversations and lead prospects down specific paths. However, it’s much harder to course correct via email.

3) Unproductive Responses

In an email, the customer can not respond, not answer your question, give a half response, or answer the question but not allow you to ask the right follow-ups. When you need real answers to pressing issues, a call enables you to get to the bottom line.

4) Longer Sales Cycles

Business inboxes are often overflowing with chaotic stop and go messages. Pauses between emails add up, halting progress and dragging out the sales cycle. Often, a 15- to 30-minute conversation can save a week’s worth of back and forth emails.

5) Impersonal Messages

It’s a lot easier for a prospect to say “no” or act dismissive when they don’t feel that there’s a real human behind a message. Prospects are more likely to hear you out on the phone, giving you the flexibility to adjust questions and responses.

6) Less Dynamic Conversations

Promptly addressing a prospect’s unique needs and concerns is a crucial aspect of sales, but email interrupts a salesperson's ability to quickly adjust. 

So what's the solution to all these email problems? Pick up the phone.

“The top sales reps on our team consistently spend five to six hours a day on phone calls. In our sales training, we make it clear that email is for agenda setting, sending meeting notes with homework, and [asking] super quick, straightforward questions," said Switch Communications Chief Revenue Officer Jeanne DeWitt. "If you want to hit your number, you need to get on the phone."

Voice is the original social network, and the quickest way to convey your thoughts and ideas. It shapes the rich context from which meaningful conversations are derived. Nothing is more frustrating than being stuck in a tedious back and forth with a prospect when simply picking up the phone can cut straight through the noise. Hearing someone on the other end of the line opens up the space to collaborate, resolve issues, and connect in real time.

Phone calls sit at the very core of sales communications, syncing the subtleties of tone and cadence, and empowering reps to accelerate the timeline from initial contact to final sale.

Do you agree that email sucks for sales? Let your opinion be heard in the comments.

Imagine it's the end of a long, important sales process. Your buyer has given you the verbal 'yes' to buy, but he has to deliver a summary of the value proposition case—why he's made the decision to move forward with you—to his peers and the board of directors. And no, you can't attend the meeting and speak alongside him. He must make the argument himself, and it has to be good.

If you want buyers to be armed with the best material to make this case, first you must be able to make it to yourself.

The most successful sellers make the value case to themselves as powerfully as possible—before getting buyers to believe in it just as strongly. Making the value proposition case is straightforward if you ask the following questions.

Sales Stack is quickly approaching and now that Dreamforce and Q3 are out of the way, it’s on the top of everyone’s mind. Behind the scenes, we’re going above and beyond to make sure Sales Stack is not just another sales conference. After all, we don’t like doing things the traditional way.

Our goal is to move the industry forward by allowing sales teams with inefficiencies and problems in their sales processes access to sales software vendors with the highest quality solutions. These software solutions exist to make our lives easier, and have enhanced a lot of the tactics and strategies we leveraged in the past to allow us to sell more today.

Traditional conferences have made this hard to do. At Sales Stack, we figured we’d take a different approach.

First, tell me what you think about when you hear the word Expo?

The definition might as well be: noun, a clusterf*ck of booths that are not connected in any way, that really have no reasoning for their presence other than maybe getting badge scans or business cards from people who have no business buying, but want a free XL t-shirt that their six year old daughter might use as a nightgown.

Other conference expos are consistently all over the place and insanely hard to navigate. Just take a look at Moscone West during any conference there, and tell me there’s a rhyme or reason to their vendor placement. There’s no thought given to the purchasing environment.

So what can we do to change this? Well first, it’s about the buyer, also know as the attendee.

You Bring The Right Person to The Event.

For us, the right person is the decision maker, buyer, or implementer at a large enough company that would require outbound efforts. Eg. Director or VP of Sales Ops at 500 seat/license company.

We’ve built massive lists of the largest sales orgs by size, and are personally inviting the right people at those orgs—those in charge of buying sales software. Yes I know, at Sales Hacker, we eat our own dog food. We know our vendor’s Ideal Customer Profiles, we’ve built a list of over 68,000 of them, and we know the low hanging fruit from this list. We’ll be reaching out in a thoughtful way to encourage these people to be in attendance, and in a buying mood.

For our sponsors, it’s moneyball. Once we know which companies will be in attendance, we can do that math and calculate that there will be a certain number of seats/licenses up for grabs in the expo. Better make it count!

You Change The Mindset The Attendee Walks in With.

This is done in two ways:

1. The messaging around the event changes from “come and learn” or “come and connect with peers in the industry” to: “come and figure out how to make your sales teams more efficient and more effective through new sales technology.”
2. You start to form a mentality around a shopping experience, with emails that invoke thoughts of how they shop in other areas of their life. We’ll do this by having each sponsor provide a special offer before the event for the attendee, that will be redeemable only for attendees.

Then, it’s about the event. Here are a few things we’re doing that are rooted in retail psychology that should change the voice and help create the perfect buying environment.

The Expo is No Longer an Expo, But a Sales Stack Marketplace.

Like I said earlier, the word Expo just doesn’t do it justice. We choose Marketplace to resemble a shopping experience because…

Sponsors Booths Will be Broken Into Aisles by Product Category.

We’re bucketing all the sponsors into different areas of the sales process, and will be sorting them into Aisles so it’s easier for buyers to navigate filling out their sales stack. Imagine if you walked into Dreamforce and knew where all the Predictive Analytics companies were. It would be a lot easier to navigate, compare the products, and make a decision. That’s what it will be like at Sales Stack. Above each Aisle will be a hanging banner, such as “Aisle 1: Lead Gen, Aisle 2…”

We’re even offering a Sales Stack Info Desk so you can ask the experts at TOPO questions about how to buy software and what’s right for your stack.

Signage on the Walls and All Over the Event Will be Reminiscent of Being in a Buying Environment, like Target, Ikea, or Costco.

We’ll be using language like SALE, 50% off, Discounts, and we’ll even have a Checkout area (the bar), all in red — a color signifying urgency. Light blue coloring will welcome you at the entrance. Our “U” shaped booths instead of straight edges will draw people in.

Each attendee gets an Ikea-like checklist of software represented in the Marketplace, along with a map of the venue.

Like Ikea, but for software!

Special Meeting Area for VIPs and Sponsors

Like Dreamforce, if you need an area to meet with prospects and get down to business, there will be plenty space for it. If you’re a sponsor, you’ll have access to even more space, with a private VIP meeting area with a full bar and room to showcase your stuff.

Bars Will be Open at 3pm till After Happy Hour

Coffee’s for closers, but liquor is quicker. :-) There will be Irish Coffees and a full bar, I think 4 of them. We’ll also have Whiskey tastings hosted by the IDA. For context purposes, consider it like getting a glass of champagne when buying anything at Louis Vuitton. Maybe I just made that up, but the point is, loosen up and enjoy the environment while you shop!

Oh and Lastly, Fresh Baked Cookies When you Walk in the Door.

Like an open house. Need I say more?

Content will feature educational, actionable, and incredible insights from some of the best salespeople on the planet. Vendors are showcasing the highest quality solutions for sales teams of all sizes and industries. We’re expecting 1,000+ attendees — many of them being enterprise decision makers.  Do. Not. Miss. Out.

Want to Sponsor?

We’re also offering a few other perks, including a special lead gen program, but there’s only a limited few left, so inquire now with Jake@saleshacker.com.

Want to Attend?

Attendees, be sure to be there early for a surprise Sales Stack attendee gift. For a limited time only, get 20% off the conference and workshops when you click HERE!

We’re also always looking for volunteers, so email us at Marie@reinventingevents.com if interested.

See you there,

Max Altschuler
CEO, Sales Hacker, Inc.

The post Creating an Ideal Buying Environment: Why People Will Actually Buy Software at Sales Stack 2015 appeared first on Sales Hacker.

“Trusted advisor.” These two words are the key to modern selling. As buyers get savvier, sales reps can no longer get away with strongarming prospects into making purchases.

Of course, this is a good thing. But with a new era of sales comes a new set of rules.

Sales is no longer about rattling off a list of features and sitting on your hands until a prospect calls back and says, “I want to buy.” Instead, reps must practice consultative selling -- that is, working collaboratively with prospcts to determine a mutually beneficial solution.

So what does the playbook for consultative selling look like?

For one, salespeople need to know their products inside and out. A general sense that a product could maybe solve a problem that kind of looks like what your prospect is facing simply doesn’t cut it. You should be able to quckly and thoroughly assess a buyer’s situation and understand how your offering fits in, if at all.

In addition, today’s salespeople should never assume that because X and Y symptoms are the same as a problem they’ve encountered with another prospect in the past, fix Z will work just as well. Instead, take time to understand each prospect’s nuances to make sure you’re coming up with a customized -- and truly effective -- resolution.

Tom Abbott of The Sales Optimisation Company outlines these and six more golden rules of consultative selling in the SlideShare below. Underpinning these eight rules is the new buyer-seller relationship, which Abbott sums up in the following way: “Instead of viewing prospects as transactional customers you sell to once, view them as partners in a long-term selling relationship.”

Product developers are under tremendous pressure these days. Executives in product development are asked to bring new products to market faster while being smarter about choosing which projects to pursue. To top it off, their R&D budgets and the size of their product development staffs are decreasing.

With reduced resources, businesses are finding it harder to jump through all the hoops between a product idea and its market. Lack of resources and bureaucratic complexity can hold up a project for months, costing millions of dollars in lost sales revenue.

Pressures like these are not going away any time soon. We have been advising clients experiencing these pressures over the last twenty-five years, and we have witnessed their daily frustrations. Common themes we see across many companies include missed launch dates, missed sales goals, internal conflict, budget overruns, and the wrong products released to the marketplace. Often the most common stressor is a feeling of uncertainty: are we doing the right thing?

At first, to address those problems, we implemented phased-and-gated processes, the traditional best practice product development system. Companies saw improvements on many measures, but still we heard some common complaints. Our clients told us that when they followed the traditional phased-and-gated process, they experienced burdensome documentation, a slow pace, and creativity killing rigidity.

For us, the straw that broke the camel’s back came in the form of a very dissatisfied R&D director at a Fortune 500 company where we assisted in the design and implementation of a traditional phased-and-gated process. While the director accepted that the phased-and-gated approach would provide helpful structure, he was particularly resistant to its adoption, determining that it would be too slow and insufficiently adaptable to the ebbs and flows of his business. Additionally, he lacked sufficient resources to complete the comprehensive documentation that the process required. Even if the documentation requirements could be fulfilled, he personally could not allocate enough time to meet his gatekeeper obligation for review.

But if the industry standard best practice—the phased-and-gated approach—wasn’t the best methodology for his company, what was? At the time, there were no good alternatives. That’s when we went to work in earnest on the development of our new approach. We knew product development could be improved, and now we have the answer: Exploratory PD® (ExPD), a two-pronged approach to improving product development. Exploratory PD treats product development as a system with all elements fully integrated, and it offers a fundamental redesign of the development process based on reducing uncertainties and risk.

Prong 1: The Product Development System

Some academics and practitioners have tried to simplify product development into two neat, pithy phrases: “choosing the right project” and “doing the project right.” These statements oversimplify the goal and imply that the work, coordination, and decisions involved in choosing the right projects and doing the projects right are simple and straightforward. The truth is product development is much more than these two tasks, and to see that, we only need to look at who is involved in product development.

Virtually every department in an organization is touched by product development, meaning that multiple people, functions, processes, and infrastructures must be coordinated. As a result, product development is complex and needs to be managed as a system. In consulting with clients, we have always treated product development as a system, integrating these important elements: strategy, market understanding, process, teams and organization, portfolio management, and metrics.

In contrast, traditional best practice systems don’t treat product development as an integrated system. Managers, pressed for time and resources tend to limit their focus to just the product development process. And that causes many of the problems we see:

• Lack of a strategy to guide product development.
• Insufficient understanding of the market to identify important customer problems.
• Lack of a defined and strategically integrated portfolio management system which leads to the selection of the wrong projects.
• Inadequate infrastructure of tools and metrics to support product development.
• Lack of clear roles and responsibilities for both the project and executive team.
• Organization, team structure, and culture that are unaligned with the goals of product development.

When developing Exploratory PD, we sought to develop a comprehensive approach that addresses and integrates these important system elements.

Prong 2: The Product Development Process

Another way in which Exploratory PD’s two-pronged approach differs from the traditional processes is in its fundamental redesign of the development process in order to reduce uncertainties and risk. Traditional phased-and-gated processes address risk by spelling out every step of the process with prescribed activities: who is responsible, what deliverables should look like, and how decisions are made. The idea is to make sure nothing is missed; it’s a means of reducing the risk of failure and loss from poor project implementation and decision making. But this approach creates its own risks.

Being slow when the rest of the world is changing quickly from globalization, increased competition, and new technologies carries its own set of risks. You can lower profits if you miss opportunities or release outdated products. If you delay activities and decisions to specific points in the process, you run the risk of wasting resources on projects that should be killed. In sum, the typical focus on avoiding project risk misses a needed focus on myriad other risks. You need a new way of managing risk, all risk.

A short case study on the differences between the phased and gated process and Exploratory PD (Figure 1) is illustrated below.

When clients call your agency, chances are, they’re hurting:

• Maybe they’ve been running things themselves, but have realized that running marketing campaigns today, including the use of automated platforms and sophisticated multi-channel strategies, is just plain out of their league and they’ve turned to you for help
• Or maybe they lack the resources to implement and execute marketing automation
• Or maybe they have a strong marketing team, but the architecture, cadence, messaging strategies, and/or segmentation of contacts are new territory
• Or maybe they’re already clients, and your agency has helped them gain visibility in the digital space and viability in today’s high-tech, competitive marketplace – you’ve done right by them, and now they want more

Here’s what they all have in common – each could benefit from a gap analysis.

GAP ANALYSIS

Many organizations lack a comprehensive understanding of the gaps in their marketing performance. A gap analysis can help them diagnose and understand what’s working, what’s not working, and what it’ll take to get where they want to be.

By analyzing the right data effectively and acting on the findings, you can add real value and develop best-in-class marketing strategies and plans for each of your clients.

What It Is

By using analytics, benchmarking, and other measurements, you can uncover areas that aren’t being covered, or that aren’t performing as well as they could.

Why It Matters

When a client opts in for a gap analysis, the return on their investment will start to manifest itself pretty quickly. Once the major holes in their marketing plans become apparent, you’ll be able to remedy those and start attracting, capturing, and nurturing more leads, and passing along better-qualified leads to sales.

The gap analysis will help you cover all possible bases so you can use a full spectrum of techniques and tools to run a variety of well-balanced, robust, successful marketing campaigns that raise the bottom line. And, when your clients are happy with the results, they might just stick around for more – with customer retention being yet another benefit to you.

What Causes Gaps

Generally speaking, a gap can exist when there’s an emphasis on some portion of the traditional marketing mix (people, physical evidence, place, price, process, product, and promotion = the “7 Ps”) while other elements are being neglected. Additionally, gaps can be present when:

• Potential customers aren’t being targeted
• Competitors’ claims aren’t being addressed
• Multiple platforms aren’t being leveraged
• A whole host of other reasons

To sum it up simply: if something can and should be happening – and it isn’t – there’s a gap.

How to Perform a Gap Analysis

To close gaps, use a tactical approach. Start by talking to your clients, figure out where the gaps are and create specific tactics to tackle each issue.

Ask Questions and Take Lots of Notes

Your clients will tell you everything you need to know – it’s just a matter of steering the conversation and paying close attention to their answers (i.e. pain points) to learn what’s broken and what can be fixed.

The first questions to ask will concern their audience and the typical buy-cycles:

1. How many contacts do you have?
2. Out of those contacts, how many are current customers?
3. How often do your existing customers repeat purchase?

Find Out If They’re Content with Their Content

Once you’ve gained more information about their audience, move the topic to content – the one thing pretty much every customer needs:

1. How much content do you currently produce?
2. What kind of content is it?
3. How do you produce it?
4. Does the content appeal to your desired audience?

There are often huge gaps in people’s content marketing programs. Identifying what’s missing in terms of messaging for the right audience, at all stages, generating quality content, having strategies to communicate those messages and enabling full programs to drive new leads – as well as nurture for retention – are all part of filling those gaps.

Making the mistake of skipping content marketing altogether, or not having a content/messaging strategy in place before campaigns are launched, are often the cause of those gaps. Since content can be used to get results throughout the entire customer lifecycle, it’s an essential component in today’s marketing environment.

Wait, Tactics Should Be Guided by Strategies?

Take stock of the tactics the client is using now, then pull back and take a look at the overarching strategy behind those tactics. If there is no strategy, that may very well be a good place to start.

Analyze This!

Some of the ways you can use the analytics tools in your automated lead-to-revenue platform to identify the gaps in your sales include:

• Set up a comparative analysis of products/services your client is selling (and not selling).
• Perform a SWOT analysis to compare how your client’s company is performing against their competitors
• Research current and upcoming offerings of competitors to see how your clients can and will perform against them
• Discuss and examine whatever you or your clients want to measure, compare, or fix

Remember, your assessment of the current status versus the potential of your clients’ marketing performance can be both qualitative and quantitative.

Let the Numbers Do the Talking

At first, your clients may not understand or appreciate the value of the various tactics you’re recommending to close the gaps in their marketing, nor the importance of having a strategy and goals to drive every activity. No problem. Use business intelligence such as analytics, benchmarking and reports to show them what is and isn’t working, to help explain where they can improve, and how you can help in each area.

For example, by reviewing content from previous campaigns and those campaign results, you can build a better strategy around offers and messaging based on what you know has worked. A/B testing subject lines (or buttons, or calls to action, or …) is a small but mighty tool that can affect the outcome of your clients’ automated campaigns to a surprising degree.

Help Them Experience a “Lightbulb” Moment

That “aha!” moment… it’s priceless. It’s also a powerful and persuasive way to encourage your clients to realize for themselves that their departments can/should/must be performing better. Help them see the light by asking questions like those above. It’s a great way to nudge the sales process along by disrupting their contentment with the status quo.

 Are They Buyin’?

Now it’s time to get their buy-in that your agency is the solution they need to close the gaps. Once you’ve mutually agreed that there’s a gap between where they are and where they’d like to be, explain that performing a gap analysis will empower their team and yours with insight into:

• How things are running now,
• Where the holes are in their marketing strategies and programs (there can be gaps in each); and
• How you can fix things so they can achieve their goals

Caveats

No advice column would be complete without a few “Watch out for this!” tips:

• After performing the gap analysis, it’s time to take action, but your clients may not understand or appreciate the importance of having a strategy and goals to drive every activity to close the gaps. Educate them about how and why you want to take specific actions, and help them see the value of each tactic your agency will be employing on their behalf.
• There’s no point in setting anyone up for failure. Before creating and adopting plans to fill the gaps you’ve identified, make sure your clients have realistic, achievable goals.
• Manage expectations up front. Experienced marketers know that seeing ROI from campaigns takes some time. Implementing on one tactic, driven by a well-conceived strategy, will produce different results than launching multiple tactics simultaneously. Make sure they know that and discuss their options with them before diving in.

Now What?

You’ve analyzed the gaps, so now it’s time to grab your virtual shovel and repair the holes. To get the job done, you’ll primarily be modifying the 7 Ps of the marketing mix – implementing and experimenting with tactics to close the gaps.

For example, you might notice that sales of a particular product fall way below those for the rest. Creating a properly targeted promotional campaign through a variety of channels can quickly have a positive impact and increase sales. The solutions will vary depending on the nature of the business and the goals of the organization. (While this example is very simple, this approach can be quite extensive and complex, depending on how deep you want your analysis to go.)

Just like any strategic plan, once you’ve acted on a solution, you’ll want to measure the results to see how it’s working. Start by deciding how you’ll judge the gap over time – by sales, profit, engagement levels, retention, etc. Then measure and record the results so you can make adjustments and report your amazing accomplishments to your clients.

Close the Gap on Missed Opportunities

Today’s smart marketers are offering gap analysis to their clients to help them see missed opportunities and identify areas for potential growth. Closing the gaps – with both tactical and strategic components – can increase traffic and the number of qualified leads going to the sales department. Helping clients achieve a tighter alignment between marketing and sales is yet another bonus to help them boost their bottom line and fall even more in love with your agency.

Has your sales team resisted adopting analytics?

If so, you are not alone. Many sales reps hate inputting data into CRM, sales operations struggles to enable reps to effectively use data, and sales leaders resist making decisions guided by data.

Embracing analytics means the entire sales organization has to be on board and truly change how they do business. However, once you shift your sales team to a data-driven approach, you’ll see huge benefits and giant leaps in revenue growth.

But why take my word for it? We reached out to a number of sales leaders to find out how data analytics has helped their teams grow and thrive. Here are 5 companies that have seen massive returns since adopting and fully embracing analytics across the sales team.

1. Improving Data Quality for Wolf and Co.

One of the first challenges for sales teams is one of the toughest: data quality. Many sales leaders believe that adopting analytics is all but impossible if the data in the CRM is a mess. However, analytics are like the chicken and the egg: sales leaders can’t use analytics if the data is too dirty, but the data will remain a mess unless they adopt analytics.

Amanda Matczynski, Operations Specialist at Wolf and Co., said analytics actually enabled her to push her sales team to improve data quality.

“Analytics gave me a vehicle to show the sales team what needed to change, and forced them to finally see why it is so important to have clean data,” she explained. “With cleaner data, sales folks are able to concentrate on the opportunities that are real, as opposed to having to weed through the garbage.”

By showing reps how analytics would benefit them personally, Matczynski’s team jumped on board and started improving their CRM usage, quickly improving the company’s overall data quality.

2. Prioritizing Opportunities with EventMobi

Another huge challenge for sales teams is how reps manage their time engaging new sales opportunities. Sales reps often waste hours selling to prospects that aren’t going to buy, while ignoring prospects that are more promising leads.

Monika Covelli, Account Manager at EventMobi, explained that sales analytics show her which deals are on track to close, and which are at risk. By analyzing engagement levels, pipeline velocity, and deal size, she can better prioritize her time.

“I really like the open opportunity analytics, due to the fact that we manage multiple clients,” she said. “It’s great to pull those accounts and know who I need to focus on today.”

Sales analytics has helped her entire team stay on track to hit goals by managing activity levels, pipeline generated, and deals closed.

3. True Transparency for UDig

Analytics can also greatly improve communication and transparency at your organization. If you start running your sales team by the numbers, you should also share that data openly across your team. This way, everyone can see the same data and understand what’s happening — from the CEO down to individual sales reps.

Jennifer Poma, Sales and Marketing Analyst at UDig, said that since her team embraced analytics, the transparency has improved accountability and performance for sales.

“We are more aware of what everyone in our company is doing to achieve their goals,” Poma explained.

Because everyone sees the same data, sales and marketing alignment also improved, with marketing better understanding the sales results created by their activities. Rather than each sales rep wondering what other team members are doing, everyone at UDig understands what they’ve done and how they’ve contributed to the team.

4. Better Understanding DataCore’s Pipeline

Sales leaders are always struggling to gain insight into the current sales pipeline, to gauge tomorrow’s sales forecast. With analytics, there are fewer surprises, according to Ramon Del Salto, Sr. Manager of Business Intelligence at DataCore.

“Using sales analytics gives us fast insight into our sales pipeline,” he explained.

With more visibility into the pipeline, sales reps are less likely to sandbag deals, or push them to the next month. Sales managers and the VP are better in tune with what’s happening today on the sales team, and are therefore more prepared for what will happen tomorrow.

5. Revenue Growth for Conversocial

Obviously, the biggest question for sales leaders is whether adopting analytics helps your bottom line. If it doesn’t, none of the other business benefits are even worth talking about. Fortunately, for most sales teams, the answer is yes.

Mike Schneider, Director of Growth and Operations at Conversocial, explained that his sales team has seen seriously impressive results since adopting sales analytics.

“Our new business revenue has grown over 300% YOY in North America, with decreased sales cycles and rapidly rising average order values,” he said.

In fact, having consistent insights into the sales process has saved sales leaders time, as well as money — which is also incredibly valuable.

“A clear system for production, distribution and exhibition of data has replaced much of the time we’d spent grokking at spreadsheets with time spent leveraging the numbers to make decisions and drive value,” Schneider explained.

With such powerful benefits, it’s no wonder that today’s sales teams are rushing to adopt analytics and improve their business operations. Learn more about how your own sales team can start leveraging data in this exclusive eBook:

Sales enablement content is the new buzzword these days – and for good reason. Organizations have typically lived in silos, with marketing and sales operating independently of each other. With the switch to a buyer-focused marketing approach, we’ve all learned quickly that if we don’t educate sales on what marketing is doing and provide them their own tools to help buyers through the funnel, all of our work and investment is essentially wasted.

So that leads us to ask the question:

Should our sales teams be treated as a persona in our marketing initiatives?

I thought this was an interesting suggestion that Sirius Decisions raised in their recently published Content Strategy and Operations: Planning Assumptions 2016. In this brief, they discuss the five areas we all need to improve upon in order to move content marketing from early adopters to early majority.

The first area, which probably comes as no surprise to anyone, is aligning with sales to create quality, easily accessible sales enablement tools. Sirius goes on to say that the sales team needs to be its own persona with its own unique content strategy. And if a center of excellence or content team doesn’t yet exist within an organization, marketing should take the lead to help develop this strategy.

So should you treat sales like a persona? The short answer is yes. Treating sales as a separate persona doesn’t need to be complicated or take a year to implement. Work with sales to create a few core assets or repurpose a few existing assets. Share them from a central location that everyone can access easily. And, most important, include sales from the beginning. Start by educating the sales team on how a buyer-focused strategy will ultimately bring them more qualified leads – faster – which in turn leads to more sales.

We were debriefing a closing call. Bill’s solution had been selected. Bill had done a great job in competing and in justifying the value of his solution.

There was a strong business case demonstrating tremendous improvements in productivity. In this case, the customer was growing faster than their ability to bring people on board supporting the growth. Bill’s solution enabled the customer to support their anticipated growth with their current workforce. As a result the business case was stunning.

The customer could capture revenue they would otherwise forego, and they were doing it on a much lower cost basis than they had done traditionally–driving higher levels of profitability.

Bill walked into the meeting well prepared. They customer had signed off to the business case, he felt the implementation plan addressed and managed the risks, contracts/T&C’s had been reviewed and agreed upon. He expected to walk out with a signed agreement.

After pleasantries were exchanged, the customer said, “I just can’t justify your price to my management team. You need to hit this price target.”

Bill was stunned. He didn’t know how to respond and took a few breaths to figure it out.

He started asking some questions: Had the business case been reviewed with management? Did they buy into it? Were they concerned with any of the implantation risks? Were they considering other options? What would the impact be if they didn’t implement the solution—how would they be able to support the growth? What would those costs be? Would they be able to capture all the revenue?

The answers came back as Bill had hoped. The management team signed off on the business case, the implementation plan/risks. They understood all the issues and the results from implementing Bill’s solution was compelling.

Confused and frustrated, Bill asked the exec, “I’m not sure I understand, what do you want us to do?”

The exec responded, “We just can’t justify paying that much for the solution, we need you to price the solution in this range…..”

I was proud of Bill’s next steps in the call, showed he had been listening to me over the past few months.

He probed a little more, he asked, “Why do you feel the price needs to be at that level? What would you do if we couldn’t provide the pricing you want? Is it the pricing that you are concerned with or the ability to pay for it (Bill wanted to explore alternative financing.)?”

The customer clearly didn’t expect this, he expected that Bill would be so excited about getting the order, he would immediately match the pricing, or something in between.

Instead, Bill took him back through the business case, back through all the consequences of doing nothing, through the implementation plan, through alternative methods of financing the investment.

As you might expect, the customer backed and filled a lot in the discussion, he confirmed everything about the business case, risk, and so forth. Paying for the solution wasn’t a concern, they just believed the solution should be a lower price.

Bill explored the competition with the customer. Others could provide the price the customer wanted, but there were big downsides to each alternative. In one case, the business case wasn’t as compelling. That competitor couldn’t provide the levels of productivity improvement, the customer would not capture as much revenue as they would with Bill’s solution. The other competitor had higher implementation risks and a longer delivery timeframe.

Bill’s customer wanted the solution Bill had presented, they just wanted to pay a different price.

80% of sales people would not have survived this long in the discussion. They may not have done the business case as thoroughly as Bill. They may not have addressed the implementation issues or risks. Walking into a closing call with the anticipation of getting the order, they would have immediately matched the customer’s request or would have gotten as close to it as possible. They would have been afraid or losing the deal that was almost in their grasp.

Bill hung in on this very difficult conversation. He said, “I can meet your target pricing, but this would require me to modify the solution I’ve proposed.” He went on to discuss solution that would hit the customer price target. They would sacrifice some of the revenue/profitability gains in the business case. But most of the changes had to do with implementation. The customer would have to take much more of the implementation responsibility. This significantly impact the time to have the solution in place (and the lost revenue/profits), as well as increased the implementation risk.

Bill was concerned about these issues and the impact on the customer’s success, but said he would be willing to adjust the proposal and solution to meet the customer price targets.

The customer asked for some time to think about the alternatives and present them to his managers.

I suspect you know the outcome–Bill got the order at his original asking price.

Now many people reading this would say the customer was trying to take advantage of Bill and was not negotiating in good faith. Perhaps, some of that may be the case, but I think too often, we set up those behaviors in customers. From the very start of the buying process, too often we make the deal about price. Too often, we talk about discounting from the very start.

Even more often, we don’t do a great job of developing and getting customer buy in to the business case, risks, and implementation plans. We don’t develop it–or leave the business case to the customers. If we don’t have a business case they buy into, we have no basis for defending any pricing we present.

Finally, we do it to ourselves in the final negotiations, we want to win at all costs–so we win at a big cost to ourselves.

I don’t blame customers for this behavior. Yes, some are arbitrary and have unrealistic expectations. However, we’ve done a lot to condition them to doing this. We’ve conditioned them to knowing that at the last moment, they can ask for concessions and in our desperation for the order, we will probably give in.

Bill did the best job of selling and of solving his customer’s problem that I’ve seen in some time. Congratulations, Bill!

How do bad sales tactics spread? Typically, a bad habit starts when a fellow salesperson reports some success with an approach and then everyone else wants to try it. But although a new tactic may amount to short-term gains, it can cause harm long-term.

Your reputation is one of the most important assets you have in sales and you need to protect it by eliminating any habit that may compromise it. If you’re utilizing any of the following seven tactics, you need to stop ASAP.

1) The “Grab A Phone Book and Start Dialing” Tactic

Today more than ever, you must research prospects and personalize your communications. Salespeople can no longer get away with casting a gigantic net and hoping something (or anything) sticks. Prospects can tell the difference between an email that was blasted to a gazillion others and one that has been strategically tailored for them. Guess which one gets a response?

2) The “Never Accept ‘No’ For An Answer” Tactic

There’s a thin line and a big difference between being persistent and harassing someone. It’s important to recognize the difference between a traditional sales hurdle versus someone deliberately closing the drawbridge (and in the latter case, you could cause irreparable harm if you continue to persist). When given a repeated and firm “no,” it’s time to shift gears. At that point, it’s no longer the salesperson’s responsibility to force a relationship. It becomes the marketing team's responsibility to stay top of mind with the prospect.

A buyer is a lot more likely to circle back with you after doing more discovery on their own. Save them from getting to the point of refusing to do business with you out of bitterness for not respecting boundaries.

3) The “Say ‘Yes’ No Matter What” Tactic

Too many salespeople fall into the trap of thinking that their product absolutely has to meet all of their customers’ needs. This simply isn’t true and can set deals up to explode before they reach the finish line. Never make a promise in hopes a feature will get built in time or that the product can be “hacked” to indirectly solve a customer problem. Prospects are more likely to buy from a salesperson who is honest about their product’s shortcomings.

4) The “Repeat Names Constantly” Tactic

Friend, one of the more insincere tactics salespeople use is ironically one meant to make conversations feel more sincere. You see, friend, it’s true that remembering and using someone’s name is an impressive way to show you care. But, friend, if you go overboard by injecting it every chance you get, your prospect will get distracted by the awkwardness of the conversation instead of listening to what you’re saying about your product. I’m sure you can understand what I mean, friend.

5) The “I Just Want To Grab Coffee and Catch Up” Tactic

Don’t you love feeling like a sucker? Neither does anyone else. You may be able to land a few more meetings by concealing your true intentions, but you’ll close far fewer deals. So much of selling revolves around cultivating trust. There’s no faster way to build a trust-barrier than to jump into a sales presentation when your implied intentions suggested a different purpose. If you don’t “just” want to grab a bite or coffee, make that very clear up front so the prospect knows exactly what they are agreeing to.

6) The “Find Something Personal” Tactic

Few things are creepier than a stranger who pulls out obscure information during an initial conversation. You may do some thorough digging online in advance of a meeting to familiarize yourself with the person you’re going to speak with, but don’t let the fact that you know they recently took their three children on a cruise to Mexico slip out. You probably had to go through one-too-many Facebook clicks to uncover that. Remember you’re a salesperson, not a professional stalker (even if you feel like one sometimes).

7) The “Always Be Funny and Outgoing” Tactic

It’s true many funny and outgoing people end up with a career in sales. But those traits aren’t prerequisites to being an effective salesperson. Some of the best salespeople are introverts who thoroughly understand their market’s problems and add tremendous value to their customers. Be yourself. The insincerity of forcing a witty comment or being unnaturally boisterous can turn prospects off. Remember, they want to buy from people they like, and nobody likes a fake. Own your personality.

Don’t worry, we won’t make you raise your hand and confess which of these you're guilty of. Our job is to help salespeople become better and find a job they will thrive in. You can learn more at www.willreedjobs.com.

I try to read as much as I can, and every morning I put aside 30 minutes to check out the latest posts from my favorite blogs and writers.

In 30 minutes, you can only take in so much. Some posts I read thoroughly, others I open and close again within a matter of seconds. My favorite ones, I load into Buffer and share.

Often, my decision to read a post and then subsequently share it relies a lot on the formatting: Is it easy to read? Can I scan through?

In this post, I’m excited to share with you why formatting is so important and discuss some tips and tricks you can implement into your own content to increase its potential for sharing.

Why formatting is as important as the content itself

When it comes to creating highly shareable content online, there are few aspects more important than formatting.

Attention is a scarce resource — especially online. This is illustrated by a Microsoft study that found the average attention span of an internet user has dropped substantially from 12 seconds in 2000, to just eight seconds in 2015.

If your post doesn’t look instantly appealing, your readers will click away before ever seeing how great your content is.

To showcase the importance of formatting, let’s use one of the Buffer blog posts as an example. On the left below is a formatted version of the post (the one you see on the blog), compared to an unformatted version of the same post on the right.

Both of these images contain exactly the same content. And it seems the formatted version is far easier to read and instantly much more appealing to to the eye.

Thankfully, there are some formatting techniques, tips and tricks that we’ll cover today to make your content super-easy to read and highly shareable.

Let’s dig into it, starting with some quick wins you can implement in minutes.

Formatting Your Content: 3 Quick Wins

1. Use eye-catching subheadings

Subheadings are used to divide content into scannable blocks that both Google and your reader will find easy to digest.

When adding a blog post to your CMS (content management system, like WordPress) you’ve maybe come across tags like or

before. These Heading Tags are the way to format headings and subheadings in online content.

Heading Tags range from H1 down to H6 (though H5 and H6 are largely unused online today).

The H1 tag is typically used for your blog title, it’s best practice to only ever have one H1 tag on a page.

Google uses H1 tags to categorize the content of a page — if you have multiple H1 tags then it’s difficult for Google to figure out which keywords to associate with your content.

The H2 tag is often used for subheadings of an H1 and then H3 is for subheadings of an H2.

It’s best practice to keep the use of each tag consistent across your site to increase readability. For example, this is how we use tags to structure posts at Buffer:

At Buffer we also like to use a technique we’ve called the Heading Stack where we use an H2 followed directly below by an H3. You can see this technique being used on many posts.

2. Make it scannable

Most online readers scan through content. In fact, even if someone enjoys your work, they’re only going to read 20–28% of a post on average.

Your formatting ensures that the reader can get all of the important information out of your content without reading it word for word.

To make a post scannable, before publishing I read it through and highlight any important sections that I feel the reader needs to take in to get the most value from the post.

Then to bring these highlights to life I use bold, italics and bullet point lists in this way:

• Bold is used to highlight important sentences and capture the readers’ attention.
• Italics are mainly used to bring out conversational sentences.
• Lists (like this one) help us process information more easily than when it’s clustered in paragraphs.

3. Short paragraphs

Progress makes us feel good. No one likes to put effort into a task and feel like they’re going nowhere.

The same applies to reading. Short paragraphs make you feel like you’re progressing through content quicker and gives you a sense of advancement.

One way to do this is to structure your paragraphs using the inverted pyramid style. This means you start each paragraph with your conclusion first, then use the sentences that follow to support it.

This graphic from CoSchedule describes it well:

The inverted pyramid approach is so useful as it means readers can scan from point to point and if something grabs their attention then they can carry on reading to dig deeper.

Make your content easy to share

If you want people to share your content, you’ll want to make it as easy for them as possible.

During a recent experiment, Crew started testing share buttons at the top and bottom of each article on their blog and Jory MacKay, Crew’s editor, opened up about their findings in one of his writing dispatches.

One finding Crew picked up on early in their experiment is that readers are more likely to share using the buttons at the bottom of a post, compared to the ones at the top. MacKay believes there are a couple of reasons for this trend:

• The share buttons are more obvious and recognizable at the bottom.
• People are more likely to share a post that they’ve read through.

In his post, MacKay also refers to the importance of prototypical elements:

In the most basic terms, this just means we like what we know. When we expect to see something on a website in a specific place with a specific style (like sharing buttons at the top or down the lefthand side of a post) we feel good when they’re there and disconnected and unsure when they aren’t.

When it comes to share buttons there are four key aspects to keep in mind:

• Position: whenever you visit a blog, you expect to see share buttons in certain positions (left hand side, top or bottom of the post), by keeping to these expected standards, readers won’t have to go looking for ways to share your content.
• Color: color is hugely important in marketing. If you use the correct brand colors on share buttons readers will instantly associate each button with its respective platform (e.g. a Twitter blue button will mean share this post on Twitter.)
• Branding: logos are prototypical elements. When we see a little bird icon chirping at the bottom of a post, we know we can share to Twitter without needing to think about it. You don’t need to use both the logo and brand color, but should always have one or the other.
• Social validation: if we’re unsure about something, we unconsciously look to others to guide us. When we can see a post has been shared hundreds or thousands of times before, this social validation makes us more likely to share.

Tip: Don’t overlook mobile

Here at Buffer large chunks of our Social blog traffic come from iOS and Android devices.

When we discovered that share buttons weren’t appearing on mobile we added the SumoMe plugin and almost instantly saw an uplift in shares, as Kevan explained in a recent post:

Now we get 500 social shares per week and nearly 7,000 total since the change — all of which we would have never had were it not for the consideration of responsive design and mobile visitors.

Best share plugins for WordPress

• SumoMe
• Digg Digg
• Flare
• Monarch Social sharing

Get the images right

Our brains retain much more information when it’s delivered visually, in fact one study found that people retained only 10–20 percent of written or spoken information but almost 65 percent of visual information.

We also process visual information more efficiently than text. Just see it yourself with this great example from Uberflip:

Supporting text with visuals means that readers can can scan through and still pick out the most important and relevant takeaways.

Images are also highly shareable and posts with images on Twitter on average receive a 35% boost in Retweets.

What kind of images work best?

QuickSprout did some research into what types of images generate the most social shares for a blog post.

The data found that animated graphics were the best type of images to use in you blog posts if you want to generate more shares, as you can see in the below graphic from Socialfresh (created using data from Quicksprout’s study).

For a great example of how animated graphics can enhance your content, check out how product studio ustwo use them on their blog:

Second, just behind animated images, Quicksprout’s study found that hand-drawn images (like those on The Oatmeal) increase social shares.

Infographics came in third place. With graphs and charts in fourth. Furthermore, posts that included graphs and charts received 258% more trackbacks than blog posts with other types of images.

(P.S. If you’re looking for a GIF to include in your next social update or blog post check out our handy GIF moodboard.)

Use quotes

Quoting experts and thought leaders is a great way to give your content some added credibility and build trust amongst your audience.

One much-overlooked benefit of using quotes, however, is that they can increase the amount of shares your content receives.

A study by Twitter found that quotes get a 19% boost in Retweets. This study was also backed up by Dan Zarella who found that Tweets including quotation marks were 30% more likely to be Retweeted than those that did not.

How to use quotes in your content

There are various ways to include quotes in your content and you don’t have to use the same method in every post you write:

• At the start of the post: many books open each chapter with a quote, you can take the same approach by including an appropriate quote to kick-start your post.
• To support a point you’re making: quotes are a great way to support a point you’re making. Where possible I try to quote a well-known or experienced source to back up my points.
• To make a point standout: this is something Baremetrics do very well, they pick out a key point from the post include an easy-to-share graphic.

Formatting quotes correctly

If you’re using quotes in your post it’s a good idea to distinguish them from the rest of the content.

If you’re just quoting a couple of words, then it can be best to use quotation marks and italics. For example, “this is a short quote.”

If you’re using longer quotes, then you can format them using the

HTML tag.

Here’s how a blockquote looks on the Buffer Social blog:

The secret of leadership is simple: Do what you believe in. Paint a picture of the future. Go there. People will follow.

CoSchedule also have a brilliant WordPress plugin to make quotes easy-to-Tweet.

Reach out to everyone you quote

Getting in touch with the people you quote in your post is a great way to increase the amount of shares your content gets and help you to connect with new audiences.

A few top tips for emailing people you’ve quoted:

1. Keep it short: their inboxes are probably very busy, keep you message concise and to the point.
2. Don’t ask them to share: you shouldn’t explicitly ask them to share your post, this message is simply to let them know you mentioned them.
3. Include a link: you don’t want person you quote to have to go off in search of your post, include a link to it’s east for them to check out the post.

Here’s an example email Kevan sent after mentioning Twibble on the Buffer Social blog:

Quick fire: How to format your social shares

The way you format your posts on various social channels can give you a competitive advantage and help increase your shares.

Here are some quick fire tips to make your Twitter, Facebook, Linkedin, and Google+ posts more shareable.

Here we go!

Formatting a Tweet for maximum Retweets

Tweets, by their very nature, have a short life-span (research suggests around 18 minutes), that leaves you a very short window to grab the attention of your followers and gain some Retweets.

If you’re looking for Retweets the optimal length for a tweet is between 100 -115 characters.

Twitter shared some insight into what fuels a tweet’s engagement. Here are some highlights from their findings:

• Photos average a 35% boost in Retweets
• Videos get a 28% boost
• Quotes get a 19% boost in Retweets
• Including a number receives a 17% bump in Retweets
• Hashtags receive a 16% boost

It’s important to note that these results may vary by industry. If you want to increase your Retweets, you might want to test different types of tweets (some with images, some using hashtags, etc) to see what works best for you. You can use a tool like Buffer analytics to test and measure your results.

Standing out on Facebook

According to certain sources (Facebook itself even), the perfect Facebook post is a link post. The information shared by Facebook itself on this subject is pretty fascinating:

We’ve found that people often prefer to click on links that are displayed in the link format (which appears when you paste a link while drafting a post), rather than links that are buried in photo captions. The link format shows some additional information associated with the link, such as the beginning of the article, which makes it easier for someone to decide if they want to click through. This format also makes it easier for someone to click through on mobile devices, which have a smaller screen.

One of the brilliant things about links is that most fields are customizable, too. You can add your own status to accompany the link (you can also do this using Buffer), change the heading copy and summary text as well using Open Graph tags.

When you come around to adding the status, research shows it’s best to keep it short. BizLocal found that longer posts tend to perform poorly and the ideal length is between 100 to 119 characters. With questions tending to drive interaction up by 10 to 20 percent.

Breaking through on Linkedin

Like Facebook, Linkedin has posts are highly customizable. You can edit the link headline, description, thumbnail image (using Open Graph) and add your own status (using Buffer) to sit nicely alongside the link.

If you take a look at the most shared content on Linkedin in September 2014, you can see they have short, snappy titles — generally under 10 words.

If the headline of the post you’re sharing is longer than 10 words, shorten it up a little to increase your sharing potential.

Google+

Unlike other platforms, longer text is encouraged on Google+. Research by Quintly shows that the average Google+ post peaks at 156 characters, or 2–3 sentences.

With these longer posts in mind, Google+ allows you to format the text in your update using use bold, italics and strikethrough text, so that you can make it easier for readers to scan.

You can format text on Google+ using this guide from Social Media Examiner:

Over to you

I’d love to hear your thoughts on formatting content that gets shared.

Is there anything new you picked up in this post you’re going to try?

What’s worked for you in the past? Any formatting tips you’d like to share?

Let me know in the comments. I’m eager to hear your experiences and can’t wait to jump in and join the conversations.

Building a business around being the cheapest option on the market isn't the smartest strategy. All it takes is one competitor that can produce and sell your product for even a dollar less, and your advantage vanishes instantly. You're then locked in a dangerous "race to the bottom," where everything holding your company back from achieving that lower price must go. You can kiss good service and cutting-edge innovation goodbye.

This makes sense from a strategic standpoint. But what about the salespeople who have to compete with low-cost offerings? Everybody likes to get a deal, and small price tags appeal to buyers looking to save a buck. Reps who sell relatively expensive products often feel that they're fighting an uphill battle.

However, it's not a lost cause. Although buyers can easily become entranced with low prices, they won't purchase a product or service that doesn't fix their problem. Salespeople who run up against low-cost competitors again and again can win the business if they successfully tie value to price -- and prove their product is more valuable. 

To beat a low-cost provider at their own game, take the following seven steps.

1) Define what "cheap" and "expensive" mean to the buyer.

"Expensive" is a relative term. While $100 could be an exorbitant amount of money to one prospect, it could be pocket change to another.

With this in mind, try to get an understanding -- in hard dollars -- of what the prospect considers "expensive" and/or "cheap." It could be that your product is just a bit out of their price range, and a small discount could sway the buyer in your favor. On the other hand, if your product is priced drastically higher than the buyer's budget, it's probably not feasible (or wise) for them to buy from you. 

2) Ask if they have ever purchased a similar product before.

Think about the first time you bought a car. Maybe upon arriving at the lot, you walked up to the fire-red Ferrari that caught your eye right off the bat. You checked out the price tag: $250,000.

Hmmm, you thought. Is that high compared with other cars? Low? Is it a good price for the features you'd receive? Because this was your very first time purchasing a car, you had no frame of reference, and therefore, no handle on a "good" or "bad" price.

This scenario applies to all sales situations. Before delving into a price conversation, ask if the buyer has ever purchased a similar product or service before. If they haven't, they might not have a handle on how much low-quality vs. high-quality products in your category cost. Educate them on the typical price range to give them much-needed perspective and help them get the most bang for their buck.

3) Break up the cost and spell out the ROI.

Would you rather buy something that costs $7300 annually or $20 per day?

I'm willing to guess you went with $20/day. But I'll let you in on a little secret: $20 per day adds up to $7300 over the course of a year. Yup. The two figures represent the exact same price.

I use this example to illustrate the fact that massive price tags broken down into smaller chunks come off as less scary to prospects. If you're competing against a low-cost provider, consider calculating the cost of your product on a daily, weekly, monthly, or quarterly basis, and present this revised figure to your buyer.

It's also worth mentioning that the cheaper product might not bring the same ROI. Figure out the ROI of your offering in hard numbers and present your prospect with a time to payback analysis. If you're privy to your competitor's ROI, match it up with your own and create a comparison. 

4) Make the value-cost connection. 

Business leaders don't come up with prices willy-nilly. Products are priced based on the amount of value they deliver consumers. At a very basic level, the more features a product offers, and the more valuable those features are to customers, the higher the price.

In other words, price and value are inextricably linked, and salespeople who sell expensive offerings should make this fact crystal clear. Prospects who want the absolute best at the lowest price should be gently reminded that you get what you pay for. If you'd like to be a bit more aggressive, you can say "Okay -- in that case, which part don't you want?" when buyers balk at price. 

5) Discover and emphasize their buying criteria.

Odds are, your prospect began their search for a new product with a variety of buying criteria. Price may have been a consideration, but it probably wasn't the only consideration. Remember that prospects almost never purchase a product based on price alone, so if they're leaning towards a low-cost provider over your company, it's because they think they can get everything you're offering them for less.

Disabuse them of this notion by going through their buying criteria one by one, and explaining which tenets are satisfied by your competitor's product and which aren't. Then perform the same exercise with your product. If your offering satisfies all or more of their buying criteria, the choice will become clear and the price tag palatable.

If they don't respond to this tactic, you might ask the question "How often do you make decisions based on price alone?" This is bound to make them think, and likely reconsider their decision.  

In the unlikely circumstance that the buyer is basing their decision solely on price, abandon the deal. Your time is better spent on another opportunity with a higher likelihood of closing.

6) Present relevant case studies.

If the prospect is choosing between your offering and the low-cost provider in your space, dig up a case study that explains how another customer made their decision in the exact same situation. Why did they ultimately choose to go with your company, and not your competitor? If you don't have a case study available, try to arrange a customer reference call or email exchange. Customer referrals are often more powerful in swaying prospects than any argument a salesperson could present.

7) Stress the extras.

As mentioned above, a low price tag often comes at the expense of quality service. If you know that the low-cost vendor you're up against has poor customer service ratings or a bad post-sales experience, tell your prospect. In addition, talk up any extras you might offer that your competitor doesn't. However, don't sling mud -- stick to the facts and reveal shortcomings to ensure your prospect goes into their purchase with their eyes open, not with the intention of belittling others unduly.

The next time you're up against a low-cost provider, employ some or all of these tips to pull out a win. It can be frustrating to sell an expensive product, but "our offering costs too much" isn't a valid excuse to lose deals. A few might slip through the cracks, but you should be able to emerge victorious nine times out of 10.

And if you can't make the case for a higher price tag? You might be better off selling the competitor's product. Instead of revising your sales approach, do some job hunting instead,

LinkedIn is shoring up its capabilities to further enable sales professionals to better track how well they’re performing. The company today launched a new metric within its Sales Navigator offering that provides users with a quantifiable score to help them benchmark their social selling activities on LinkedIn.

Called the Social Selling Index, or SSI, it measures how effective you are based on how you’ve established your professional brand, who you’ve networked with and built relationships, and engagement with insights. When calculated, it will spit out a score between 1 and 100 that LinkedIn hopes can be used to motivate sales professionals to do better.

In 2014, LinkedIn’s Sales Navigator opened up to the public to help connect buyers with salespeople. According to a post by the company’s Head of Product for its Sales Solutions unit Jeff Birkeland, the team has spent the past year better understanding users’ needs and discovering that “if they’re able to measure their performance, then they are able to set clearer goals.”

Determining your score is free and after calculated, a complete breakdown is displayed showing you how you stack up against the four criteria LinkedIn measures. There’s also a graph that tracks your weekly progress and rankings to help assess how you measure up against people in your industry and also among your network.

In a way, you could view the SSI as being akin to your Klout score or an influencer metric equivalent. LinkedIn is probably thinking that by providing this measurement, it’ll help sales professionals better utilize the social network. After all, if you’re in sales, there’s a high likelihood that you’re going to want to target specific individuals and LinkedIn could help determine who’s a likely candidate.

Early trials of SSI appears to be showing promise among Sales Navigator users, according to LinkedIn. Customers like SAP, Microsoft, and the NBA have generated engagement results that are said to be “encouraging.”

Today’s update comes just weeks after LinkedIn acquired predictive sales and marketing firm Fliptop to help boost the Sales Solutions offering. At the time, LinkedIn’s Vice President of Product David Thacker said that Fliptop’s technology would go towards helping to make Sales Navigator “even more effective”, which could suggest that soon this tool will provide connection recommendations and new proactive sales tools for users in the future.

Social selling on LinkedIn is apparently a big thing too: in a study it conducted alongside C9 Inc, two years of sales performance and selling behavior data from more than 9,000 sales professionals were analyzed. Among its findings was that social selling “is positively associated with sales performance” and “Sales Navigator users achieve 7x more pipeline growth and 11x more revenue growth than if they used LinkedIn.com only.” Recognizing that its core website can’t benefit salespeople, LinkedIn is betting a lot on its Sales Solutions.

In other related news, LinkedIn also redesigned its Sales Navigator homepage. Users will find more filters that can be used to better control the stream of information, better contextual information on how you know someone, improvements to the workflow, and also the ability to share a post with your network without having to leave the site.

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Why are you analyzing your content?

Before diving deep into metrics, ask yourself: What do we want our content marketing to achieve?

Your answers likely will lead you to one (or more) of the eight metric categories that I’m sharing to help you improve your focus in your analytics and better define content marketing success. (In CMI’s recently released B2B Content Marketing 2016 study, 55% of B2B marketers say it is unclear what an effective or successful content marketing program looks like within their organization.)

Keep in mind that not all of these metrics apply to all types of content. It’s broken down by channel with specific examples of each metric.

1. Consumption metrics look at the number of readers who consume your content, the channels they use, and the frequency of their consumption. Those of you who are in the consumption or sharing phase are likely earlier in your sales funnel or top of funnel (TOFU).

• Website or blog: Look at page views, unique visitors, and average time on your site using a tool like Google Analytics.

• Assets like downloadable e-books or white papers: Check your download or form completions using Pardot, Marketo, Eloqua, Act-On, or another marketing automation platform. Keep in mind that if your asset is indexed by search engines, users may be able to download the asset and bypass the submission form.

• Social media: Tools like Bitly can help you measure click-through action.

• Email: MailChimp, Marketo, Eloqua, and Constant Contact measure areas such as open rates and clicks for your email campaigns.

• Feeds: Use FeedBurner or FeedBlitz to quantify your content’s clicks and views.

2. Retention metrics look at the effectiveness of holding your audience’s attention beyond the initial contact.

• Website or blog: Look at the percentage of returning visitors, the number of visits, the pages per visit, and the bounce rate using a tool like Google Analytics.

• Social media: Track your followers on Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn.

• Email: MailChimp, Marketo, and Eloqua can measure the number who unsubscribe or opt out from your email content.

• Feeds: Use FeedBurner or FeedBlitz to quantify your subscriber base over time.

3. Sharing metrics examine what content is being shared, by whom, and where or how they are sharing it. They are not really applicable to feeds.

• Website, blog, asset, and social media: SharedCount can help quantify retweets, “likes,” and social media shares of your content.

4. Engagement metrics are key to understanding whether your content resonates with readers. What kind of action (if any) are they taking after reading your content? Are they frequently or consistently taking action?

• Website or blog: Google Analytics can help measure a user’s session duration and page depth (how deep into your site they’ve clicked).

• Social media: Tools like Disqus can help you measure comments and social chatter around your content.

• Feeds: Use FeedBurner or FeedBlitz to quantify your subscriber base over time.

5. Lead metrics (marketing’s part of the sales pipeline): As customers advance through your sales funnel, some will reach the lead metrics phase (middle of funnel). Here’s where you’ll want to see new leads generated and existing leads touched through your content. Tools like Eloqua, Marketo, Pardot, Act-On, and similar marketing automation platforms can assist in this area.

6. Sales metrics apply to customers at the bottom of your sales funnel where you’ll want to look at the dollar amount and percent value of opportunities influenced or generated and those ultimately won. Use a CRM tool like Salesforce or Full Circle Insights for this.

7. Production metrics are an internal assessment of your content operations. How is your team (including members) performing against editorial calendar deadlines and goals? How long does it take your team to turn a content idea into a published piece of content? How many pieces of content do you regularly publish in a week or month? You’ll need to measure these areas on your own over time. I suggest using a simple Microsoft Excel spreadsheet to track this.

8. Cost metrics are among the most important since they help you calculate a return on investment or ROI for content marketing. What does it cost to produce and distribute each blog post, white paper, or email campaign? Remember to consider not only the cost in staff time or freelance budget, but also stock images, design fees, and any paid distribution channels.

Getting started with content marketing measurement

To begin measuring the efficacy of your content marketing, I would recommend the following:

• Start small. You don’t need to measure everything all at once. Rather than flying blind, start measuring something that’s easy for you and work from there.

• Focus on TOFU first. The top of the funnel is often the easiest place to get metrics. For example, sharing and consumption metrics don’t require marketing automation or a CRM tool.

• Go broad, then deep. It’s easier to get coverage over all your channels for a class of metrics such as retention or consumption, rather than going deep and trying to map a whole customer journey down to revenue.

• Count consistency. For your metrics to really pay off, much like your content production, it’s necessary to generate metrics for your content over a period of time, not just for a one-off of your newest content. By doing so, you can identify which older content is evergreen, and what may be underperforming and should be retired or reworked.

Measuring these areas will help you improve your content marketing and demonstrate its value to the rest of your organization. For more strategies to help you improve your ROI, download my extensive e-book on this topic, The Comprehensive Guide to Content Marketing Analytics & Metrics.

Want to expand your measurement knowledge? Register today to join the virtual, three-day Content Marketing Show, Oct. 12-14. Participants also have on-demand access for 90 days to the online-only event.

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

Note: The original version of this post appeared on this site Nov. 23, 2014.

Cover image by Joseph Kalinowski/Content Marketing Institute

The post Metrics Made Easy: 8 Easy-to-Use Categories and A Dozen Tools appeared first on Content Marketing Institute.

Why science and psychology point to powerful sales data visualization as the untapped x-factor for activating inside sales motivation.

An initial question: When your inside sales reps view their performance data, what’s being visualized?

Whatever the answer, it’s impacting their levels of sales motivation.

Motivate Inside Sales: A How-To Guide

The thesis behind this post is simple: Sales teams who don’t view their own performance frequently and in clear, compelling ways are missing out on scientifically-backed sales motivation.

There is a huge new opportunity to source internal sales motivation for each and every rep, using these numbers.

Here’s everything you need to know.

I. Make Sales Motivation Data-Driven

First, let’s look to the technology involved here. Major advancements in data analytics software are enabling sales leaders to organize and visualize performance data in much more sophisticated ways.

The technological leaps made in just the last 5 years alone have been staggering.

At an enterprise level, platforms such as Tableau, Mixpanel, and Hubspot have the horsepower to store, organize and present data with an incredible level of sophistication.

In turn, data visibility has become infinitely clearer, making the data itself that much more vivid and more compelling. And it’s only going to keep getting better.

As it applies in sales, data analytics software now affords sales teams the ability to view both historic and real-time performance data with bracing clarity.

At the same time, sales performance data is now easier to access than ever before.

For one, its dispersment is more egalitarian than ever, with platforms offering sales teams the option of total transparency. Once restricted to managers, rep performance data is now at their fingertips.

Secondly, complex data can now be accessed instantaneously. Exception reporting used to take hours upon hours of Sherlock Holmes-esque spreadsheet investigation.

Now, managers just fill out a few fields and hit “Generate.” Lag time: 0.9 seconds.

To that point, and perhaps most importantly, data visualizations are now more insightful than ever before. They incorporate advanced metrics, forecast future performance and can even congratulate you automatically for a new personal best.

II. Create Perpetual ‘Motivation Loops’ 

In Christopher Mims’ excellent Wall St. Journal piece on startup productivity, he outlines the serious threat that big data poses to middle management. In sales, however, the implications for managers are much rosier.

As I wrote in two pieces that extrapolate the Mims’ article into our industry, big data presents the potential for gigantic leaps in sales coaching and employee engagement.

In sales, we know that codified, clearly-communicated sales processes and performance benchmarks are both defining qualities of an elite inside sales team.

Hearkening back to an interview we did with Neurosurgeon Doug Taylor, M.D., it becomes clear as to why.

“The brain needs structure and goals, something to work towards. If you don’t have structure and goals, it is much, much easier to become apathetic.”

The overwhelming majority of sales teams (hopefully) give reps both structure (process) and goals (benchmarks/quota). Significantly less have a codified strategy that keeps both top of mind, as often as possible.

Which is where data visualization (and the science behind employee engagement) come into play.

Highlighting an excerpt from the Taylor interview, which breaks down the relationship brain chemistry has to stress and motivation:

“If you have a certain deadline or a certain goal you are trying to achieve, a higher level of norepinephrine and dopamine could possibly increase your mood and make you work harder to achieve that goal by inducing all your faculties and expending the right amount of energy for personal gain.”

As Dr. Taylor pointed out earlier in the conversation, the best way to heighten both norepinephrine (stress) and dopamine (enthusiasm) is via external stimuli.

Taken altogether, you have a scientifically proven case for giving reps their real-time performance data, complete with goals, progress and a rewards system, in clear, compelling visualizations.

III. Best Practices for Inside Sales Motivation

To optimize the impact of data visuals on sales motivation, here are a few key notes.

Inside Sales Motivation Tip #1. Use Real-Time Tracking

The ability to visualize sales performance in real-time actually goes to the concepts of human conditioning, rewards pathways and Pavlov’s Dog.

Real-time tracking grants you the ability to create a continuous feedback loop.

The more up-to-the-minute the data is, the better, as a rep who has just spent the entire morning cold calling will return to lunch much more invigorated if he/she can pull up a graph showing successful completion of his daily call benchmark.

If the manager and the rest of the team can also see it, it becomes that much more powerful.

Final note: Sales leaderboards are an interesting, double-edged sword here. They can have both positive and negative effects on motivation, which is why it’s ideal for sales gamification software to have additional features in place that enhance positive feedback loops.

Inside Sales Motivation Tip #2. Use Proper Metrics

This one’s simple.

If you’re going to track additional sales metrics besides revenue or deals won, ensure that they fit within your process and tailor to the different roles, offices and territories that comprise your Sales Force.

Inside Sales Motivation Tip #3. Set Reasonable Goals

Dr. Taylor also discusses the need for balance in how much stress you heap on your team.

“I think the ideal would be to find the perfect balance – of not having too stressful of an environment, but definitely a small quality of stress to make you work harder and smarter.”

Finding that sweet spot for your sales team calls for careful attention to goal feasibility. You need objectives that push each rep outside their comfort zone, but not too far.

Inside Sales Motivation Tip #4. Make Visuals Compelling

The key here is not only to make your sales data clear, insightful and easy to access. You must go a step further and ensure it is compelling.

To flesh that out, let’s take a quick example of what not to do.

Let’s say you give your sales development team daily goals for outbound calls (50), prospects contacted (100) and leads generated (3).

As they work towards their goals each day, three circles on their screen chart their progress by lighting up a certain color. Once the entire O is that color, they’ve hit their daily goal.

But you made one critical mistake. As it lights up, the circle starts to resemble this image.

As reward for their hard work, your reps are receiving two signals.

One is “Stop!” — as you’ve picked the universal color for stop signs. The other is, “Thanks for hitting your number. Here’s the red circle of death!”

The takeaway here: Be very aware of the conscious and subconscious signals you give your reps.

Inside Sales Motivation Tip #5. Find a Cultural Fit

Case in point: The sales industry’s rejection call center gamification platforms Bunchball and Badgeville.

Badges and cartoon avatars may work in call centers, but they’re ill fitted for money-driven sales professionals who spend their days calling upon high-level prospects, negotiations complex deals and using guile/hustle to succeed.

For an example of successful sales gamification visuals, on the other hand, here’s a good one from the Harvard Business Review.

Inside Sales Motivation Tip #6. Create a Fair and Compelling Rewards System

As a final point, the more you associate an effective rewards program (ex. bonuses, promotions, trips) with your data visualization, the more sales motivation you get from the visuals themselves.

The more prestigious, unique and compelling a prize, the greater the impact it has on the rewards pathways of its prospective recipients (and will have for the eventual winner).

VB WEBINAR:

Join us for this live webinar on Tuesday, October 27 at 10 a.m. Pacific, 1 p.m. Eastern. Register here for free.

Let’s face it: We all appreciate some special attention every now and then. Who doesn’t love being treated like a superstar? For marketers targeting a widespread audience, it seems nearly impossible to give everyone the one-on-one treatment. How do you make a customer feel like they’re being personally cared for without it coming off as generic?

Thankfully, the answer on how to specifically market to your audience isn’t as secretive as you would think. In fact, you’ve seen this practice in motion whenever you log on to Facebook, Netflix, or Amazon. It’s called machine learning and it’s responsible for figuring out the type of posts you want to see on your feed or what items to add to your wish list. By analyzing the trends associated with your users, you can figure out how to cater to your user base and attract new ones in the process — and predict how they will behave.

Need to bring in an audience that spends money like they breath in air? By identifying the buying patterns of consumers, you’ll be able to find out what draws in big spenders, thereby giving you the knowledge needed to persuade them to your side. Or, in regards to your current users, you can determine how to market products to them they didn’t even know they wanted to buy — as in the case of Target, who used machine learning to sell pregnant women on baby products before the day of birth.

As exciting as personalization aided by machine learning may be, there’s certainly a balancing act to it. When Target marketed baby products to a teen who hadn’t even told her pregnancy to her father, the company acknowledged it made consumers queasy on the entire practice. In addition to possibly coming off as a creep to your customer, the outright act of analyzing data to identify specific spending patterns can appear overwhelming to anyone unfamiliar with the concept.

It’s why this webinar featuring Martijn Scheijbeler, Bob Colner, Tom Davis, and Shannon Johlic is essential viewing for anyone interested in effectively using machine learning and predictive analytics to drive up sales. This webinar will review the ways marketers are using machine learning to grow their business, such as The Next Web company which continuously uses personalized engagements to reach success. It will also discuss the analytic tools available and how to put the results to good use — allowing you to treat your customers like royalty, while you reap the profits.

Don’t miss out!

Register here for free.

In this webinar, you will learn:

• How modern marketers have already started implementing the same powerful machine learning being used by Facebook and Amazon.
• How companies like The Next Web and Forbes Media have found success in repeatedly maximizing engagement through 1:1.
• What types of insights that machine learning will surface for you faster and with greater accuracy than previously available.

Featured speakers:

Martijn Scheijbeler, who Leads Growth, SEO & Analytics at The Next Web

Tom Davis, Chief Marketing Officer at Forbes Media

Bob Colner, Director of Analytics at Boomtrain

Shannon Johlic, Head of Marketing at Boomtrain

This webinar is sponsored by Boomtrain.

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