Rnordman

OK, so maybe you think you already know everything there is to know about the 4 P’s — that hallmark that for many people is synonymous with marketing.

But, like many things in business, the 4 P’s evolve over time and it makes sense to rethink this staple concept in a new era.

The 4 p’s of marketing

Copyright: stuartphoto / 123RF Stock Photo

Also called the marketing mix, the 4 P’s represent the controllable elements or internal environment of a firm:

• Product
• Place
• Price
• Promotion

Unfortunately, for most folks, marketing is only promotion — advertising and sales.

So, let’s take a good look at the rest of marketing — then we’ll throw in some aspects of promotion.

Product

Product is not a “Field of Dreams” a “build it and they will come”.

People buy solutions — not products.

 

Any product that doesn’t solve a real problem or solve it better than existing products won’t survive. Probably the biggest value of social media to businesses is the access it provides into the lives and values of consumers. Used properly, these insights provide a wealth of product ideas by uncovering unmet needs.

Don’t expect consumers to do your work for you — they’re not going to post something on their wall or tweet that they need X. But, they’ll talk about problems they encounter every day.

For instance, consumers never asked for the mini van. It was born of observations of consumers struggling to park big vans yet needing the extra space. And, no one asked for a tablet, Apple just noticed a gap between laptops and phones. Of course, with larger screens the distinction between some phones and tablets is disappearing.

Consumers have needs. Meet those needs and much of the marketing task is done for you. Fail to provide solutions to unmet needs and no amount of marketing will make you successful.

Thus, marketing not only promotes existing products, but is involved in innovation. Marketing is intimately tied with not only understanding unmet needs, but representing the customer throughout the development process so the products designed not only meet consumer needs, but are intuitive and fit within existing products used by consumers.

Understanding consumers is one part of the product process. Understanding competition is the other part of the product process.

So often when I attend product pitches, I’m hearing about new products developed by eager entrepreneurs to take on the big boys — GrubHub, Uber, etc. Recognize, it’s VERY hard to overcome the brand equity earned by these major players over years of advertising and positive customer experiences. Even companies with some mixed customer responses are hard to battle simply because of their brand recognition.

Adding a little feature just won’t cut it with these guys. I have limited space on my phone for apps and, just because your app allows the split between friends, I’ll just use Grubhub and calculate the split in my head.

Price

Instead of price, think value.

Just as consumers buy products that solve problems, they buy products that offer value. They don’t care how much something costs (and they certainly don’t care how much it cost you to make the product), they only care about value.

Value = Benefit ÷ Cost

Image courtesy of Simply Psychology

Adding more bells and whistles doesn’t create value — solving more problems or solving them more elegantly creates value. Value isn’t in direct proportion to the type of problem solved.

To the right, we have Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs. In some cases, we pay a great price for higher level needs, compared to lower level needs. But, it you’ve ever been at a football game on a hot day, you know how much a bottle of water is worth — a lot.

We call this the diamond-water paradox or the value paradox. It has to do with the relative abundance of each product, rather than its importance in sustaining life.

Obviously, value is subjective and different people assign different value to an object, so knowing your target audience is critical for successful pricing.

Place

Well, really distribution.

In the early days of the internet, we talked about “disintermediation” meaning the place variable would disappear as companies sold their products directly to consumers via online stores.

Of course, that isn’t what happened.

Instead, online retailers found it difficult to attract and manage traffic to a number of pure play sites and began merging into online retailers like Amazon and eBay. And, brick and mortar retailers became savvy with online sites of their own.

Big companies found channel conflict with retailers forced them to abandon dreams of selling online to end consumers or lose profitable relationships with brick and mortar retailers.

Our distribution systems, or lack of distributions systems, added immensely to the cost of buying online through high shipping costs and long delivery times. Even etailers offering free shipping simply pass on shipping costs through higher product pricing.

The reverse logistics necessary for product returns and product support represent nightmares for etailers and customers alike.

Etailers with brick and mortar stores can offer options to buy online and pick up in store (or return through physical stores), but not every etailer has this option. Even etailers with physical stores find such options challenge inventory and accounting systems.

Thus, distribution takes on an even BIGGER role post internet than it did when only physical stores made up your distribution options.

Drones are one solution and Europe recently saw the first drones delivering consumer products. In the US, a drone delivered medicine to rural Virginians in the first FAA-approved use of drone delivery in that country.

The future of place remains unclear.

Promotion

Promotion is what most folks think about when they think marketing — sales and advertising. Our previous discussion has dispelled this delusion for you, I hope.

Promotion comes into play only after all the other pieces of the marketing puzzle are in place. If you’ve done a good job with the other aspects of marketing, promotion should be effective. Without the other pieces, marketing won’t succeed, even with a huge promotional budget.

Are the 4 P’s all there is to marketing?

Of course not. The 4 P’s aren’t even the only way of looking at internal marketing, let alone all there is to internal marketing.

Image courtesy of Professional Academy

E. Jerome McCarthy published the 7 P’s alternative to the 4 P’s in his 1960 textbook to represent a shift in marketing to include services, in addition to goods in the product category.

McCarthy added people, processes, and physical evidence (physical environment) to the original list of the 4 P’s of the marketing mix.

People are integral for marketing in a service environment because the customer is interacting with your employees — we often call these front-line employees for that reason. A waiter in a restaurant, a clerk in a store, and a dentist all encounter their customers and they have a huge impact on customer satisfaction with the business. In this way, marketing interacts with management, especially HR (Human Resources) in terms of hiring, motivating, and rewarding front-line employees and their managers.

Process represents a serious factor on customer satisfaction. Waiting for service or inept processes (like awkward return policies or slow redress for problems) create a negative impression that damages customer satisfaction and potentially increases costs.

Physical  evidence reflects the fact that even services have physical elements. The atmosphere of the restaurant or other retailer, the plushness of the towels in a hotel, the crowding in a theater all represent elements of physical evidence that effect customer satisfaction.

 

We know a lot of work goes into a sales presentation. For many salespeople, the deck drives the conversation and is the one tool you may leave behind for your prospects to socialize internally. For all those hours spent belaboring the deck, here’s one critical question to ask yourself that will drive success in your next sales conversation.

Is this deck focused on the customer needs?

Think about your last sales presentation.

Did it contain the slide that talked all about your company? When your company began how many employees you have, the number of customers, your locations all over the globe…

Your company may be long-established and have a great history of pleasing customers, but those slides don’t drive an effective sales conversation. Potential customers really don’t care about your financial stability or company culture when they’re trying to solve a problem. They want to know how your solutions can help them achieve their business objectives. Use your sales conversations to highlight how your solutions can help alleviate the specific challenges faced by the customer.

Don’t focus them on your company story, no matter how good it is.

What if a prospect asks about your company?

We aren’t saying avoid the topic at all costs, but it’s important you use that valuable time with a prospect to focus on how you can solve their problems. Our Delivery Partner Brian Walsh coaches our salespeople, in Command of the Message® training, to frame the question in a way that provides value for the prospect.

Instead of answering the question directly, say something like this, “I would love to tell you about our company. However, I want to make sure I do that in a way that provides value for you. Do you mind if I ask you a couple of questions first?”

This technique allows you to do the discovery necessary to have a value-based sales conversation. There’s a time and a place to talk about your company history and other organizations you’ve worked with. (Read more about these holistic differentiators here). However, you should save them for the right time in the buying process.

If you find yourself discussing your company’s financial stability or its leading position in the industry, instead of engaging your customer in a discussion of their needs and requirements; it’s time to retool your approach.

Logos make for nice and colorful PowerPoint slides. Mapping solutions to problems make for signed deals.

Last week I wrote a post about ways to increase your organic reach on Facebook. As Facebook moves to monetize more and more of its platform, social media managers are faced with the grim choice of either paying up, or losing 1.2 billion potential customers (or at least that’s how Facebook frames it). Since we at Crowdbabble recently decided to increase our Facebook ads budget, I thought I would discuss why I think Facebook ads are one of the best investments you can make – as a business of any size. All screenshots and data come from Crowdbabble’s Facebook Insights.

1. Unprecedented Control Of Viewers

Let’s say I’m starting a traditional marketing campaign. I segment my customers to social media managers between the ages of 25 and 34. Now I want to make a TV ad, so I have to decide who what shows social media managers of that age bracket watch. A good marketer will have a strong, data backed estimate of the best shows, but you can never be sure that you are hitting your target market exactly, and you’re likely paying for viewers that have no use for your product. Now let’s consider a Facebook ads campaign: I complete my segmentation, and then tell Facebook to only show the ad to social media managers between 25 and 34. This removes that second step, that estimation, that loss of control. You have full control over who sees your ad, and you only pay for useful impressions.

2. Ability To Track Goals

Let’s go back to that traditional marketing scenario. For fun, let’s assume the ad was during the SuperBowl. So, you just reached 167,000,000 people – seems fantastic! But how do you know that any of those 167,000,000 people became a customer? It is possible (unlikely, but possible) that none of them ever bought your product, your ROI is 0%, and you have no idea. With Facebook ads, you can set up conversion tracking, so that you know exactly how many users signed up, clicked through, or became customers. You can immediately evaluate the return from your campaigns, and shuffle money around to the most profitable ones. Pair this with your Google Analytics and you’ll understand every step of your funnel.

3. They’re Cheap

I’m sorry if you just ran an ad in the SuperBowl (feel free to debate me in the comments) but I’m going to take the example a step further. A 30 second spot costs about $4,500,000. With 167,000,000 viewers we’re looking at about $0.03/impression – seems like decent value right? Wrong. On Facebook we pay $5 to boost our post reach to 1000 people, or $0.005 per person. And since a boosted post stays on the news feed for a prolonged period of time, people see it more than once. We actually pay $0.001 per impression. This is the difference between reach and impressions (i.e. impressions count people seeing the post more than once). If you want people to see your SuperBowl Ad again you’d better have an extra $4,500,000.

4. They Work

Apart from the ability to focus down to your exact target market, Facebook also offers powerful tools like re-targeted ads. These allow you to run ads for people who have visited your site, but haven’t signed up. Our Facebook retargeted campaign has a 0.1% click through rate (CTC), significantly higher than the benchmark CTC of 0.06%. At the end of the day our Facebook ads acquisition cost per user is paid back within a week – that sounds like a pretty sound investment to me.

I recently had the pleasure of discussing digital communities, marketing missteps and social creativity with Ashley Jones, Visual Branding Manager and Commercial Sales Coordinator for the Australia-based retailer Koskela. When asked to describe the brand’s social strategy, she offered the following in return: inspiring, community, joyful.

Koskela joined Instagram during the summer of 2012 to communicate these ideals in a visual manner. The decision was driven by change, and the result has been nothing short of impressive. “The business had just relocated into a large warehouse showroom that had so much natural light, room for large displays and great textures,” Ashley explains. “Think sandblasted brick, sawtooth roof, exposed red pipes and lots of old textures and details on the concrete from when it was a canning factory.”

Aesthetically, Koskela’s new space provided the perfect backdrop through which to highlight the brand’s bold products and bright designs. “Instagram content was everywhere for the taking – and posting,” Ashley adds. And that’s exactly what she and her team have done.

Koskela’s visual strategy spans well beyond the walls of their warehouse too, including photos of the brand’s workshop, gallery and team. “With so much to get across to our followers,” she says, “images keep it interesting and make it really clear to understand who we are as a brand. We have a big audience to communicate these values to.”

In the following Q&A, Ashley describes Koskela’s approach to Instagram—what’s worked, what hasn’t—and describes how you can get more out of your social strategy, too.

What’s the inspiration behind your content strategy?

Find inspiration everywhere

We find inspiration from the natural beauty of our giant space; from our suppliers’ own Instagram feeds (who knows how to shoot their product better than them?); from our merchandising displays; from Pinterest; from paying attention to what our customers are taking photos of organically; and from the themes that are trending on Instagram.

Focus on Core business objectives

While we want our images to look and feel inspired and “in the moment,” a large part of our content is carefully chosen to support our revenue goals. To achieve this, we use Instagram to reiterate our core business values, to encourage participation and to target areas of our retail business that may be in need of some extra love.

Identify Buzz-worthy themes

We also use Instagram to identify which items or topics are super hot – as well as those that are dragging behind. For instance, we might leverage organic buzz around a product or event, or try to create new (or renewed) excitement around a product or collection. By coupling fresh imagery with new merchandise, we can ultimately optimize the impact of Instagram.

What’s the key to growing your Instagram community?

Here are some lessons I’ve learned having managed our account from Day 1:

Don’t make up a zillion hashtags for your brand

Stick to the ones people are already using, and don’t overdo it. (Curalate recently conducted a study to determine the optimal number of hashtags for brands on Instagram. The sweet spot? Two.)

Don’t post too often

We typically post once a day. We want people to like our content and look forward to it without getting tired of seeing our images in their feed. It’s a balancing act.

You don’t want to lose the followers you gain by overwhelming them with content.

Don’t be too professional

Your posts should have personality. Develop a language and persona for your brand, and stick to it. Share details and stories that feel real. For example, we recently posted an image of a lawn game that we sell and mentioned (via the caption) that our own staff keeps a set on hand too – perfect for summer in the park. We sold seven sets that afternoon! People love that kind of insider info.

Don’t overshare. But do be personal!

Don’t share information that’s so personal it leaves people feeling left out. Imagine your posts as real scenarios. There’s value in acknowledging that there’s a real person managing your account, but keep the content focused on the product.

Do be social

Try to comment back on every post that has something to do with your brand. Curalate makes this easy! Even a “Great snap!” or a “Thanks for visiting” can be a nice gesture. Of course, the more you treat people like friends, the more positive their responses will be in return.

I also like to “use the language of our community” when crafting copy for our posts. One of Koskela’s core values is, “Be a relationship builder.” On Instagram, I put this into practice. Rather than preaching about our business, we make it about our customers. You can, too.

How often do you share content with your Instagram community?

We stick to a once-a-day standard, increasing around busier seasons like Christmas. We don’t want to badger our followers. We also want to keep our content really potent. By keeping a “light” schedule (by some standards), this eliminates content that doesn’t contribute to our larger goals.

What are the top lessons you’ve learned since joining Instagram?

Work ahead

Don’t wander around looking for a photo to share 10 minutes before you want your post to go live. Our retail team looks up to four weeks for deliveries of new stock. We use this timeframe to plan a display – and then our Instagram shot. This also gives us time to look for users who may have already posted great content.

If we decide to photograph it ourselves though, we take the time to shoot on a nice camera, to edit in Photoshop and to write a thoughtful caption.

Don’t overcomplicate campaigns

It’s a waste of energy. It has to be dead simple, and the prize has to be desirable. For ideas, look for other brands that are running competitions and ask yourself whether you would enter. Take notes!

Be consistent and attentive

Instagram was invented to be an “instant” platform, so make an effort to participate in real time. We like to leave comments that have personality.

If you had to give one piece of advice to a brand that’s looking to maximize their social impact, what would it be?

Get other people in your company to help you keep a finger on the pulse of social. Social media is rife with consumers and content, and it can be hard—especially in the beginning—to make sure you’re catching all the good stuff and following the best people. By having others help you keep a lookout for influencers, competitors, engaged users, etc., as well as any other users who post content that’s relevant to your brand, you can identify the right conversations.

Social media is a lot like dating. The more you pursue it, the more you get back.

So, go forth and engage. Talk to your fans! People love when brands leave comments. In response, they’ll be more likely to check out your page, follow your brand, and if you’re strategic enough, convert.

Germany's finance minister, Wolfgang Schauble, has drawn opprobrium and praise in equal measure for his suggestion that Greece takes a "time-out" from the eurozone.

In proposing that Greece could be better off outside the euro, the irascible 72-year-old crossed a political rubicon: he confirmed that the single currency was "reversible" after all.

But having broken the euro's biggest taboo, commentators have now suggested that it should be Mr Schaeuble's Germany, rather than Greece, that should now take the plunge and ditch the euro.

To stay close, Europe's nations may need to loosen the ties that bind them so tightly Ashoka Mody, former IMF bail-out chief

Figures as esteemed as the former Federal Reserve chief Ben Bernanke used last week's decision to press ahead with a new, punishing bail-out for Greece as an opportunity to remind Germany of its responsibilities to the continent.

Mr Bernanke took to his blog to highlight that Berlin's excessively tight fiscal policy has helped scupper the euro's dreams of prosperity and "ever-closer" integration between 18 disparate economies.

In its latest assessment of Germany's economic strength, even the IMF (seen in many German circles as chief disciplinarian against the errant Greeks) urged Berlin to carry out "more ambitious action... and contribute to global rebalancing, particularly in the euro area".

A botched rebalancing

Germany's record trade surplus is held up as the main symptom of its dangerously preponderant position in the eurozone.

A measure of the economy's position in relation to the rest of the world, Germany's current account hit a euro-area record of 7.9pc or €215bn in 2014. It is now expected to hit more than 8pc of GDP this year, according to the IMF.

The persistently high surplus in part reflects the strength of Germany's much-vaunted export industries. But other contributing factors are reasons for concern. The IMF has said such chronic imbalance also reflects a "reluctance by the corporate sector to invest more in Germany".

Persistent imbalances are unhealthy, reducing demand and growth in trading partners Ben Bernanke

As Mr Bernanke also notes, the surplus puts "all the burden of adjustment on countries with trade deficits, who must undergo painful deflation of wages and other costs to become more competitive."

Southern economies such as Greece are chief victims of the cost of this adjustment. But as the chart below shows, with Germany in the bloc, the eurozone's rebalancing act is going nowhere.

The initial adjustment between debtor and creditor nations, which started in 2008, "has halted since 2012, and seems to be on the verge of reversing", find Standard & Poor's.

The Black Zero

The other problematic area of Germany's economy policy is the government's obsession over the "schwarze Null" or "black zero" policy to reach a balanced budget.

Berlin managed to hit this magic target earlier this year. The "schwarze null" is held up as the cornerstone of German financial strength and stability in a perilous global environment, but has drawn criticism as yet another symptom of the eurozone's dysfunction.

Economist Paul De Grauwe has dubbed it a quasi-religious "balanced-budget fundamentalism”.

The fiscal rectitude has also fallen foul of the IMF's prescriptions for the German economy. The Fund recommends Berlin pump at least 2pc of GDP into investment projects over the next four years, a target which the government is consistently falling short of.

Why a German exit would help

Princeton economist and former IMF bail-out chief Ashoka Mody is among the most recent proponents of a German exit from the euro.

Mr Mody notes that a return to the deutsche mark would provide a two-fold boost to the rest of the beleaguered eurozone: it would immediately cause the euro to plummet in value, stimulating exports in the southern periphery, and also cause far less disruption to the rest of the bloc than a potential Grexit.

"A deutsche mark would buy more goods and services in Europe (and in the rest of the world) than does a euro today, the Germans would become richer in one stroke", writes Mr Mody.

"Germany's assets abroad would be worth less in terms of the pricier deutsche marks, but German debts would be easier to repay."

Outside the single currency, German industry would be forced to return to a pre-euro world, and continually adjust to the costs of an appreciating currency. But Mr Mody posits that this transition, although a big initial shock, would hardly be new for German businesses.

A less competitive currency could also provide a much needed incentive for German industry to produce higher-quality products and improve sluggish productivity in the service sector, he adds.

A design to shackle German strength

Germany's economic prowess under the euro should not be over-estimated.

One of the drivers behind its "fiscal fetishism" is a deep insecurity about the country's longer term economic prospects. Germany is one of the fastest ageing economies in the world, in need of mass immigration, more women in the labour force and a substantial boost to its birth-rate.

And for all its relative economic strength, the euro was always at its heart a political construct designed to neuter a reunified Germany 25 years ago.

Paradoxically, Mr Mody now says that a release from the shackles of the single currency could finally pave the way for Germany to act as the "benevolent hegemon" a functioning fixed-exhange rate system has always needed.

"To stay close, Europe's nations may need to loosen the ties that bind them so tightly," he writes.

Public appetite for a German euro exit is almost non-existent however. But having let the Grexit cat out of the bag, Mr Schaeuble and co. will have to suffer the fall-out from the assertion that the monetary union is no longer sacred.

 

Join the conversation about this story »

NOW WATCH: 6 mind-blowing facts about Greece's economy

One of the most valuable traits a sales manager can possess is the ability to step out of their role and understand the bigger picture. In most cases, that bigger picture is a set of goals or KPIs that the department or entire company is expected to fulfill.

Any manager can relay expectations to their team, but truly effective sales managers will recognize how each component of their team and process contributes to the fulfillment of those expectations. Great managers will identify what areas need to be improved, develop methods of improvement, and then implement those methods to achieve the desired results.

So how exactly should a manager seeking improvement begin? By asking themselves these six simple questions.

1) Am I creating a culture of accountability?

Managers understand that they need to monitor their team regardless of where they are located, but many find it difficult to walk the fine line between micromanagement and being too "hands-off." Micromanaging a field sales team can create a perception among employees that management doesn’t trust them to do their jobs effectively, which in turn causes disengagement. Conversely, a completely passive approach can leave employees unsure of what is expected of them, and wondering whether or not they are doing their jobs effectively.

The perfect balance of these two extremes results in the creation of an accountability culture -- a culture in which employees understand what is expected of them, and hold themselves accountable for reaching those goals.

As Joseph Grenny puts it in his HBR article "The Best Teams Hold Themselves Accountable," there are three tiers of accountability for teams -- weak, mediocre, and great -- and the difference between these three tiers is the source from which accountability is provided.

According to Grenny, weak teams are not accountable in any respect, meaning the manager doesn’t hold his team to any set of standards, and the team doesn’t hold themselves to any standards. Mediocre teams are held accountable by their managers, but never take an active role in the betterment of their own work. Finally, in great teams, coworkers hold each other accountable. These truly accountable teams handle performance-based issues among themselves, without management interference, and maintain an effective and open system of communication.

By creating a great culture of accountability within their organization, sales managers can stop worrying about reps getting the job done, and start working to make their team more efficient.

2) Am I providing coaching moments for reps who need them?

Sometimes reps fall behind not due to lack of effort, but because they need to refine some aspect of their job. Effectively managing a team means being able to recognize struggling employees, and giving them feedback at the moments they need it.

Many managers and team leaders will attempt to give this feedback by going on ride-alongs with employees, or observing them. Nevertheless, bad habits are quick to develop and it is impossible for managers to physically be with every employee who needs help at any given moment. Managers need to be viewing their employees' work in real-time, and giving feedback wherever they can.

For example, if your field team is responsible for merchandising, and one of your reps has difficulty setting up displays, you may consider having the rep send you a photo of their display shortly after they create it, so that you can offer feedback. If a rep has been inaccurate when restocking products, provide them with the tools they need to document and review inventory levels at each location they visit.

Constructive feedback, when put into action, gives employees direction and confidence. Empowering underperformers who are putting in effort is just as important (if not more important) than monitoring moderate-performance employees who are not putting in the effort asked of them. Barrett Riddleberger, CEO of XPotential Selling, says it well: “Everyone deserves the chance to perform better than they did last week, last month, or last year.”

3) Are operations running as efficiently as they could be?

When things are going well, there’s a tendency to not rock the boat. But improving upon what already is considered a success is one of the hallmarks of a great business and of great management.

In most cases, improvement comes in one of two forms -- the acquisition of additional resources, or the redistribution of existing resources in a more efficient manner. While the first method is nearly always effective, the opportunity is not always available. Especially for smaller businesses, it is up to managers to make the most of what they have available to them.

Two vital areas of distribution that sales managers should focus on for field teams are territory distribution and client distribution. Territory distribution is an often overlooked topic. Studies show that a territory management system implemented correctly will raise sales and customer coverage, and reduce costs. If as a manager you review your team members’ territories and notice there is overlap, consider redistributing clients among the reps, or redrawing territories.

The other primary method of resource distribution, client distribution, is a bit trickier. Handing off a high-profile customer to your highest-performing representative is not always the best solution. Customers may build a better rapport with certain personalities, or they might find value in an established business relationship. The best way to approach the issue of client distribution is to take the time to get to know each of the reps on your team, and give them the tools they need to relay customer personalities and tendencies back to you.

Efficiently distributing an organization’s two most important resources -- customers and employees -- can raise both individual and overall performance.

4) How is your product or service represented?

Whether your organization offers a product or service, establishing and maintaining a positive brand image is one of the most important jobs of a sales manager. This goes beyond standard promotions and PR, however. Making sure there are little to no out-of-stock instances at retail locations will not only ensure your potential customer doesn’t move on to a competitor, but also builds a reputation of reliability for your product. If consumers buy your product on multiple occasions and can always find what they’re looking for, they will feel confident that your brand is there for them if they need it.

However, what if your product is in stock but displayed in a manner that is not aesthetically pleasing? A survey conducted by Retail Info Systems shows that somewhere between $40 million and $140 million dollars in sales are lost every year due to poor merchandising. Perform merchandising audits at your retail locations or client sites, and take photos of displays to point out and correct errors as they arise.

5) What are your competitors doing?

This can be more difficult for service-based organizations, but keeping track of what the competition is doing is crucial to the success of any business. When reps make visits to retail locations where your product is carried, they should be conducting competitive audits on top of their other duties. Encourage them to take picture of competitor product location and pricing, and make note of any running promotions.

Arthur Weiss, managing director of Aware, says that as a result of monitoring competitors, “you can then plan your own strategies so that you keep your customers and win (not steal) customers away from competitors.” Be aware of what products are featured near yours on the shelf, and have reps speak with store managers and retail employees to figure out what exactly you need to do to be the first choice for customers.

6) Are you collecting data on your process?

Though all of the considerations above are incredibly important, if your reps are not collecting detailed sales and product data it will be incredibly difficult to make educated improvements. Track hard data such as sell-through percentage and product buyback, and measure your numbers against the KPIs your organization uses. At the same time, managers should not ignore observational, or anecdotal data, such as demographics present in each retail store, retailer interest in buying more product, and any customer interaction with the product that is observed during a team member’s visit. Bear in mind that sales reps in the field have the capability to collect all of this valuable information, but unless managers provide them with the correct tools to do so, the process will be arduous and inconsistent.

An effective combination of hard and soft data, collected using intuitive tools that your reps will enjoy using, provides organizations with a solid foundation for making evidence-based changes going forward. Being an effective sales manager means understanding each variable involved in an organization's unique big picture and using the most efficient means of reaching that goal. Fostering a culture of accountability, helping your team when they need it, and allocating your resources where they are most effective are the staples of great team management.

However, these efforts alone are not enough. When coupled with thorough data collection and product management, field team managers can ensure that their employees, product, and organization as a whole are successful.

The Greek financial crisis has eased — for now. But many skeptics share the worry of German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schäuble that the bailout plan may not work, and that the only way to restore competitiveness and growth is a Greek exit from the euro.

Schäuble was blasted as a heartless German for insisting, even after the rescue package was agreed to on July 13, that "the better solution for Greece" could be a "Grexit," as it's known.

He had earlier proposed a five-year "timeout" for Greece from the common currency. For these heretical views, he was portrayed by a cartoonist as a black-clad terrorist with a knife at Greece's throat.

But maybe Schäuble has a point: What's the greater cruelty? Prolonging Greece's agony with a plan that maintains its euro zone membership but cripples it with unpayable debts and perpetual insolvency? Or taking the painful but relatively quick cure of restoring the drachma and letting it fall to a level where Greece can again be competitive and prosperous?

The bailout plan calls for reform measures that would be difficult, even if the government and public genuinely supported them. But, in fact, Greece's government and its people abhor the imposed terms of the bailout. That became clear in the July 5 referendum when 61 percent voted "no" on terms that were easier.

The bailout plan may rescue Europe — by restoring German-French amity and signaling that the currency union is intact. But it won't rescue Greece. It will leave its uncompetitive economy in the financial version of an intensive care unit, surviving on the life support of new loans and fiscal transfusions.

The kinder approach might be to let Greece leave the euro zone, in what might be called an assisted transition. A devaluation of the drachma to, say, 50 percent of the euro's value would make Greece instantly competitive and a magnet for investment. But the devaluation shouldn't go too far. The European Central Bank could pledge to intervene in currency markets to support the drachma and prevent it from falling by, say, 70 percent or more.

A gentle Grexit would also include the kind of "haircut" — in debt forgiveness and rescheduling — that's almost impossible if Greece retains the euro. This was Schäuble's point on July 16, when he told German radio: "No one knows at the moment how this is supposed to work without a debt haircut, and everyone knows that a debt haircut is incompatible with membership in the monetary union." This honest and probably accurate statement brought new calls for Schäuble's resignation.

Generations of experience have taught economists that currency devaluation, though a severe shock to the system, usually produces beneficial results — and often fairly quickly. Exports become much more competitive (in the case of Greece, tourism becomes a bargain).

A virtuous cycle should ensue: Revenues grow, confidence rises and, eventually, domestic demand returns. The country and some of its businesses might default on their debts, but most creditors would have no choice but to renegotiate terms if they want any repayment. It's no panacea: Inflation often follows a devaluation; and as prices rise and the currency falls, savings can be wiped out.

But the process usually restores growth. Perhaps the best example is Argentina. Like Greece, Argentina thought in the 1990s that it could boost its weak economy by having an inflexible currency. For Argentina, it was a one-to-one peg with the dollar. Things went well until corruption and mismanagement made the peg unsustainable.

Crunch time came in 2001, when Argentina defaulted on its debts and floated its currency. Its peso fell roughly 75 percent. But recovery began in 2003, and Argentina's real gross domestic product per capita has now roughly doubled from the crisis years. A debt haircut was part of Argentina's rebound. It was a nasty negotiating process, but bondholders eventually accepted deals that repaid only about 30 percent of the paper value.

If Greece returned to the drachma, a similar process might occur. The country's euro-denominated debts would roughly double, measured against the drachma. This burden would be insupportable. So creditors would have to do what the bailout so far has shielded them from — renegotiate the debt to a manageable level and put a newly competitive Greece on the path to recovery, at last.

Reforms might be easier, too, in a new Greece that had decided to set its own course. But as Schäuble discovered, Euro-correctness seems to prevent serious discussion of this option.

SEE ALSO: It's time for Germany to leave the eurozone

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NOW WATCH: 6 mind-blowing facts about Greece's economy

It’s summer time.

Time for vacations.

Time for the inevitable Out of Office message.

Who still uses Out of Office messages?

It should come as not surprise, even to millennials, that there are still a lot of people that use email. Yes, there is a trend towards text messaging, instagram and snapchat. While I don’t discount the idea that these are viable options for communications there is still a need to use email in almost every business endeavor these days.

This is not a post to argue the validity and need for email. While you may abhor email … the fact is that most of the people you work with – customers, partners and co-workers still use it. Help them with a well crafted Out of Office message.

So, what can you do to make it better?

Recently I have been noticing a few incredibly bad out of office messages. My simple thinking is…if you are going to bother setting this up why not do it right.

There are at least a few points to cover on a well crafted Out of Office message should include:

1. Inform
2. Re-Direct
3. Educate
4. Entertain (optional)

What is the value of an Out of Office Message?

The most simple OOO messages help people know WHERE you will be, WHEN you can be reached (in case of an emergency) and WHO you have delegated tasks in your absence. I recommend having a little fun when possible.

You might hear some people say OOF which is old skool for Out of Facility.

Instead of sending the standard “Thank you for your email” message use your OOO message to share more salient information to the recipient of your note.

Pro Tip: Thanking someone for their email is not a best practice.

Try just stating the facts and letting people know what they can do in your absence.

Example OOO Message:

I’m away from the office from July 18th to July 23rd. If you need help with marketing support contact Joe Smith (email / tel), if you have a question about sales please contact Jane Doe (email / tel) and if you have something that I need to address please expect a delay in my response.

I will be attending the Widget Trade Show. If you will be there please look me up or visit our booth.

Vacation Options – As a point of comparison I wrote a post for Yahoo that the Personal Branding Blog helped get published. The post was about Planning the Perfect Working Vacation and has a few additional points about being out of the office.

Why Bother?

As I mentioned in the Yahoo article everyone can carry their office in their pocket and ALWAYS be on. While this is often possible there are benefits that a OOO message can help you in a few ways you may want to consider.

• Sales Engagement – Let people know what they can do with you and your business.
• Self Service – Share links and options for people to seek their own answers.
• Connecting in the Wild – If you are attending or speaking at a trade show…let people know.

Note: You may have the option to set an internal audience OOO message and an external audience message. Use this option wisely. Internal people to your organization may need a different message and will be able to have access to internal links and resources. They will also understand your company acronyms.

Good Use Cases for OOO Messages

If you are still doubting the value of OOO messages consider these points:

• What about if you are on an extended travel day?
• What if you are at a trade show?
• What if you are actually on vacation?

At these times you may not be able to connect or you may be focused on the task at hand. These are great times to use an OOO message to help your colleagues, your customers and your partners know where you are, when you are available and/or who they can contact in your absence.

I can tell you from personal experience that I like it when people use OOO messages. I, like everyone else, like to have that instantaneous gratification of getting a response to a question. People that do this stand out to me as caring about my time and that my need for a response is not necessarily tied to their access to email.

These are just a few reasons to consider using an Out of Office message. If you have other use case examples please share in the comments. I’d also like to see your WORST examples of bad OOO messages. Some of them are downright sad and ineffectual. I’d also like to see your best examples.

OOO messages will not be here forever, but while they are…please consider using them wisely. See you on the road and enjoy your summer vacations. While you are away please take a few minutes to insure that you are putting your out of office message to work.

Slowing Chinese economic growth coupled with confidence-sapping tumult on the stock market have set alarm bells ringing at companies about their future growth prospects in China. But they should not simply sit back and wait to see what happens next. Consumer-facing businesses have an important role to play as the Chinese government nudges its economy from an investment-led to a consumption-led model. China has many eager, experienced consumers – but companies need to remember that there are many more cautious ones waiting in the wings who will need to be coaxed into joining the consumer economy.

Government policy will, of course, be an important factor in releasing this latent demand. But while the power to initiate a transition to a consumption-led economy lies in government hands, what the government unleashes, companies can nurture.

Our research on China’s prospects, in comparison to the development trends of 167 countries over 60 years, highlights the magnitude of the opportunity. Economic growth of just under 5% a year would see consumer spending rise by 60% over the course of the next decade, even if consumption’s share of GDP doesn’t budge. But with the right mix of government policy and business action, consumer spending could rise by as much as 126%, the equivalent of an additional $15 trillion.

So what exactly can companies do to help push toward the higher number? There are four things.

First, as consumerism becomes more deeply entrenched, companies will need to segment more and more precisely, acting on the different needs and tastes of different income, regional, and age groups. Take transport. Audi has focused on the luxury car market, offering an extended-wheelbase version of its sedans to allow room for a chauffeur and back passenger, as many rich Chinese prefer to be driven rather than drive. Audi now sells more luxury cars than any other manufacturer in China. Meanwhile, agile Chinese manufacturers such as Geoby have taken the market for cheap transport by storm. A decade ago, there was no market at all for low-cost electric bikes. Today, an estimated 200 million Chinese people use them and the number is rising – and Geoby is heading to other markets with its products.

Second, they will need to extend modern trade channels and distribution networks to make sure it is not only consumers in today’s biggest cities that get access to new products, but those in more rural locations as well. E-commerce is helping to overcome this barrier. But China presents a unique set of challenges. How, for example, do you reach the millions of workers who, under China’s Hukou system, are still registered as living in villages but who have migrated to live and work in cities and so have no registered address there? In Brazil, Microsoft and Google helped overcome a similar problem in city slums, home to some 11 million people, many of whom own smart phones. With no official addresses, delivery of online purchases or local retail distribution near these people was almost impossible until the two companies entered into partnerships with local community groups to map these areas. This opened up the potential for delivery. The companies took the initiative to help find this solution.

Third, companies will need to communicate the benefits of unfamiliar products to Chinese consumers in order to build demand and loyalty. Property insurance is a good example. Despite growing personal wealth and a taste among the rich for expensive cars, jewelery and art, the penetration of property insurance in China remains very low. Between 2004 and 2011, only 1.4% of property losses due to natural catastrophe were insured, according to Lloyds. People are either unfamiliar with property insurance, or not convinced of its value.

Finally, companies will need to develop the financial services and products that typically underpin increases in consumer spending, and which remain relatively scarce in China. Innovative business models may be required. Take consumer credit.  The absence of credit histories in a newly-consuming society stifles borrowing  – a barrier that Sesame Credit Management Group, started by Alibaba founder Jack Ma, is overcoming by examining consumers’ online purchasing activity, including their record of paying utility and cell phone bills, in order to assess their creditworthiness.

All four actions, pursued energetically, will help determine the size of the Chinese consumer market in 2025. Company CEOs should take note that an economy, like nature, abhors a vacuum. Somebody will step in to fill the need. Those consumer-facing businesses that move quickly, but wisely, will enjoy an outsize share of what continues to be one of the greatest consumer spending expansions in history.

Attention sales pros over 40: If your first CRM was a metal box with cardboard date/alphabet dividers like mine was, or if you remember using the Yellow Pages for finding phone numbers, then this post is for you.

In today’s 21st century sales landscape, you are now competing with, or managing, cross-trained, data driven, technology enabled, social-media-is-second-nature, Millennial revenue-producing machines. If you were weaned on blue and white D&B cards, and you are not focused, disciplined and determined to stay current with the latest sales techniques, best practices and technology, you are going to be left behind.

You will become irrelevant at best, or more likely, extinct like the Dodo bird.

Don’t despair.

This post is meant to be both instructive and cautionary. Many people don’t realize when the cheese has moved. Do these things 20 days in a row so they become a habit. Repetition is the mother of learning.

Get hip to the jive

Language and culture are inextricably intertwined. If you want to fit in, you have to talk the talk. In a millisecond,someone in the know will recognize that you are out of touch if you fumble the lingo. No, a sales hack is not something you kick, and it is not illegal either. Speaking of sales hacks, an easy way to get hip is to join the Sales Hacker Community. Spend twenty minutes/week reading the discussions. Attend a Sales Hacker event or the Sirius Summit. Do anything Max Alschuler is doing; he’s the future of sales thought leadership. Whatever you do, don’t ever actually say “Hip to the jive” out loud. I did, in front of my 15-year-old daughter, Lily. Once.

Learn a new trick

If you still have a job in sales, you’ve probably managed to learn Salesforce. If not, run don’t walk to Salesforce’s YouTube channel. As you’ve probably heard more than you care to, if it is not in Salesforce, it didn’t happen. You know who knows all the new tricks? Your SDR/BDR team, the folks responsible for sales development. Ask a BDR what the new new thing is. Try it out. One of my favorite new things is Charlieapp. All you really need to do is subscribe and grant Charlie access to your calendar. It will help you say, sincerely and genuinely, with minimal effort and maximum impact to the new people you meet, “You’re an interesting person.” possibly the most powerful thing you can say to someone to make the right first impression. Rapportive is a must. So is a scheduling app like ScheduleOnce or Calendly. Lastly, no 21st Century salesperson can work effectively on the modern day sales landscape without a data utility like Capture.

Be fit, live long, and look your best

Four years ago, my partner and childhood best friend looked at me and with the kindest of intentions said some very unkind things to me about my appearance. In addition to wanting to live and the path I was on was not leading toward longevity, and I knew he was right. I changed my diet and now do a high-rep low weight workout and 30 minutes on the elliptical three times a week. If you are within ten years of my age (49) I can do more chin-ups than you. Gents, trim your eyebrows, pluck those hairs out of your ears. Stand up straight. If you are losing your hair, get on with it and get out, at most, the #2 clippers. Carry gum. Ladies, you are beautiful no matter what. Fair or not, appearance matters. Get a new LinkedIn photo taken by a pro. Your head should take up 80% of the photo. Your profile will mostly be viewed on a mobile device, so frame it right.

Don’t be an enigma or a stranger

A buyer is much more likely to to buy from a salesperson who is also a thought leader. Buyers will certainly check you out on LinkedIn. It is up to you what they find. Join LinkedIn Groups that interest you, and comment sincerely, avoid self promotion, which is hard, that’s not the why of social media. If you want social media lessons, follow Jill Rowley everywhere. Spend as much time a week investing in your online persona as you do watching Game of Thrones and what happened to Mance Rayder won’t happen to you. Write a blog post for your company’s site. Write a blog post for a vendor or customer. Blogging will burnish your personal brand. Tweet a few times a week. Learn how to retweet. Share (only) content that interests you and your connections. Whatever you sell, there is a community. Be part of it.

Remember what you thought in 1993 the first time you heard this line from Alec Baldwin in Glengarry Glenross, “A bunch of losers, sitting around in a bar, [saying] ‘Oh yeah, I used to be a salesman, it’s a tough racket.'” He probably meant something like, “I know some poor schlemiels like that…”

Here’s a sobering thought, that was almost a quarter century ago. If you don’t follow this plan, that schlemiel could be you. You can avoid extinction.

The metal box worked just fine by the way. I had a process and followed it. It worked.

Learn more sales tips with this free ebook.

No wonder we hate to pick up the phone these days. It’s always a sales call. Seriously. I love technology, marketing automation, CRMs — I couldn’t do my job without them. However, sales teams, please use them wisely or their power will backfire on you.

Yesterday I received a call from a California extension two minutes after I downloaded a piece of content from a California-based organization. I almost didn’t answer the phone because I thought it may be a sales call, but I was also expecting a call today from a 415 number, so I answered it. Big mistake. I didn’t think it was going to be a sales call from the company I just downloaded an eBook from. My reaction to the quickness of the call wasn’t awe – it was awful. The call wasn’t welcome and I wasn’t interested in speaking with someone. I wanted to read the eBook on a subject that I was interested in and nothing more. I was annoyed and resented the interruption.

Why do sales reps think we want to talk to them when we haven’t indicated we are ready? Aren’t they using the technology they have to learn about the buyer before they call? I may have seemed like a potential customer due to my explicit score ( title, role in decision making, company and industry) from my form I was forced to fill out, but I didn’t show any real Engagement behavior (Engage- Nurture-Convert) other than one download. Does that warrant a call? According to a 2015 blog post by Forrester analyst, Lori Wizdo, B2B Buyer Journey Mapping Basics, 74% of buyers report conducting half of their research online before buying offline. And the numbers can be even higher with a large enterprise purchase involving buying committees. Not every download indicates buying behavior!

When to make that first sales call? Only if the buyer does these:

• Indicates they want a call via self-selection (filled out contact me form or sent an email to please call me).
• Exhibits Engaged behavior (pattern of downloads over time throughout various stages of journey or binge-downloads of multiple assets).
• Buyer is one of several from the organization seeking information/active on your site (a buying committee is actively seeking information).
• Indicated interest via social media (question via LinkedIn group, Facebook, Twitter, etc.)

According to a 2015 McKinsey post, Do You Really Understand How Your Business Customers Buy, on average B2B buyers use at least six channels to obtain information prior to purchase and 65% report frustration due to inconsistent experiences. It’s tough being a buyer today because there is too much noise and too little satisfaction.

Buyers know what they want, they are looking to organizations to help them answer their questions and solve their challenges. However, when sales or marketing tries to make contact before buyers are ready, a true disconnect happens and a buyer will disengage, instead of Engage with the organization. Pay attention to true buying signals and indicators of buyer intent before you call your next (potential) customer. Buyers aren’t shy about letting you know when to connect with them – know your buyers before you call or they might not buy from you at all.

To have “control over their patient base.”

For PE firms, the fracking boom was nirvana. An eternal-growth industry. A big part of the money they poured into the scrappy oil & gas companies is now going up in smoke. Other industries are mired in a no-growth or shrinking environment. Chaos keeps breaking out in the international markets, most recently over Greece and China.

So, healthcare, which accounts for nearly one-fifth of US GDP, “is really the growth opportunity,” Tom Banning, CEO of the Texas Academy of Family Physicians, told The Texas Tribune:

“The forces are aligned to force consolidation, and frankly, how those independent doctors are able to compete against well-heeled, deep-pocketed systems or networks is going to be a problem,” Banning said. “To me the question becomes, if a for-profit, publicly traded or privately held venture-capital fund owns these doctors, what’s their fiduciary duty to the patients?”

Think of the possibilities! The Texas Tribune: “Sensing a new vein of potential profits to be mined in the multibillion-dollar health care industry, a small but growing number of private equity firms is seeking to buy into primary care practices, interviews with doctors and financial analysts suggest.”

Mergers and acquisitions are at an all-time record in the US. In the second quarter alone, US targeted deals reached $635 billion, the highest quarterly total ever. These deals are driven by corporate buyers. Armed with cheap debt and their overpriced shares, they’re out-bidding PE firms and pushing them aside [read… “Everyone Is Wondering When the Volcano Will Erupt”].

Consolidation in the healthcare sector is running rampant, from the M&A activity among the largest health insurers, such as Aetna’s acquisition of Humana, to hospital systems buying physician practices.

“They’re finding that they have to be bigger, stronger, integrated organizations in order to be viable in the marketplace,” Texas state Rep. John Zerwas explained. Backed by PR firm Welsh, Carson, Anderson and Stowe, his Greater Houston Anesthesiology practice merged in 2012 with Anesthesia Partners. The group now employs over 1,000 anesthesia providers. Big is good.

A report by Bain and Company found that last year, healthcare buyouts by PE firms – not corporate M&A – in North America soared nearly 60% year-over-year, to a new record of $15.6 billion, across 80 mostly smaller deals, with only two deals above $1 billion.

The new thing is that PE firms are targeting primary care groups.

“It’s a land-grab right now,” Todd Spaanstra, a partner at Crowe Horwath, an accounting and consulting firm, told Modern Healthcare in April. Part of the reason why they’re chasing after primary care practices is because specialty practices have become targets of publicly traded corporate entities that have been driving up prices beyond what PE firms are willing to pay.

Hospital systems too are buying primary care groups to get ready for the next big thing, which is a shift in Medicare and other public programs.

Medicare is transitioning from a fee-for-service payment system, which pays doctors for services they provide, to a value-based model that pays doctors for providing cost-effective treatments. The idea is to keep their enrolled populations healthy rather than just treat them for specific illnesses. The White House hopes that by 2018, half of the payments Medicare makes will be for value-based care. Primary care is going to play an essential role in this, and PE firms hear the siren call of government money.

But this buyout binge of primary care doctors leaves some people scratching their heads. Michael Gorback, M.D., in Houston, Texas (and a WOLF STREET contributor) explained it to me this way:

Other than pediatrics and perhaps psychiatry, I can’t think of a specialty with lower profit margins.

There was a wave of this in the 90s. Big economies of scale, increased efficiency, blah, blah, blah. Almost every one of these fell flat on its face.

I remember being jealous because my colleagues were getting incredible offers for their practices and I wasn’t. It turned out that the purchases were paid in restricted stock and by the time the doctors could sell, the shares were worthless.

This time, it’s different. Though not everyone believes it.

The Texas Tribune cites Doug Curran’s family medical practice in the small town of Athens, Texas, whose 14 doctors “pride themselves on an intimate knowledge of their community.” He got a call earlier this year from Florida-based United MSO of America:

The would-be investors said they could help the family medicine group save money by trying “new models of care” to pocket greater payments from insurers, said Curran, who declined to specify the dollar amounts discussed.

But they were “big numbers,” he said. “Our feeling was the only way you could get those numbers back out of our practice would be to do some things with our patients and to our patients that would not be appropriate.”

He wasn’t the only one. The Texas Tribune:

Representatives for several independent practices in Texas, who asked not to be identified for reasons of financial privacy, said investors have approached them aggressively, in some cases as often as twice per month.

Doctors like Curran worry that selling the family practice would cost them independence and could mean less personalized care or higher costs for their patients.

But is there more to it? Derron DeRouin, COO at United MSO of America, put it this way:

“There’s been this enormous uptick in hedge funds and even bond funds as well as private equities not interested in acquiring physicians’ practices but having control over their patient base.”

“It’s kind of an ideal model because it allows physicians to maintain their autonomy – keep their practice, essentially – but to be capitalized and grouped together to leverage these numbers and leverage these patients to the independent provider’s advantage.”

Get control over their patient base and leverage these patients?!? You get the drift.

So will primary care be nirvana for PE firms? Or just another fracking boom? Dr. Gorback, who doesn’t have a crystal ball either but knows a thing or two about doctors, mused:

Managing doctors is like herding cats. These deals almost always lead to a culture clash between the spreadsheet people and the doctors, resulting in disillusionment on both sides and parting of ways, usually with a lot of bitterness.

The PE strategy of slash and burn is particularly unsuitable for this type of arrangement. I can see the PE guys acquiring practices with magic beans, loading up the company with debt, taking it to IPO, and burning whoever touches it.

That’s what happened to the intrepid souls who bought the PE firms’ prior hot product, the energy IPOs in 2013 and 2014.

Millennium Health – biggest drug-testing lab in the US and biggest recipient of Medicare drug-testing payments – is Exhibit A of how a credit bubble allows companies and banks to put yield-desperate investors, blinded by a zero-interest-rate policy, through the wringer. JP Morgan did this one. Read… “Leveraged Loan” Time Bomb Goes Off

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When’s the last time you watched just one episode of House of Cards in a sitting? As marketers, we’ve entered a new era of content engagement—one in which interested buyers consume content much in the same way they “binge-watch” their favorite shows on Netflix.

We’ve put together a new infographic to help you understand, at a glance, what the Netflix era means for marketers and why leading brands are shifting from scheduled to always-on marketing. Here’s a quick summary of the key takeaways.

It’s Always Primetime

You can’t always tell when or where your buyer will want to engage, so you need to be ready. Traditional “one-and-done” marketing programs, such as lead nurture campaigns, impose a slow, episodic “primetime” cadence on a busy and impatient audience that craves content and doesn’t want to wait.

Attention Comes In Bursts, Not Drips

When you’re researching a topic of interest or a new purchase, do you read just one article and then wait a week to read or watch the next piece of content? To self-educate, your audience wants to “binge” on your content in much the same way they binge-watch on Netflix, so let them. If you don’t, instead of accelerating engaged prospects on their path to purchase, you’re leaving them behind.

Your Audience Is In Control

Your audience has a strong desire to control their own time. Empower buyers to engage with your content on their timeline, not yours. Scheduled “one-and-done” marketing serves marketers, not their busy prospects.

Your Audience Craves Content

Engaged buyers consume a lot of content in a short period of time. How you package your content and when you deliver it is as important as what you say in it. To keep buyers tuned in, think in terms of delivering content journeys, not one-off content events.

Personalization Is Powerful

Are you delivering the right content to the right people, at the right time? Think about what personalization really means. For Netflix, it’s about building “a different channel for everyone.”

Better Content Experiences Start With Better Data

Netflix knows every nuance of their members’ viewing behavior and they use this data to guide what content they produce, recommend, and serve up next. Marketers need to stop relying on proxies for engagement (clickthroughs, form completes, social shares) that are weak signals of buyer intent, and start using real engagement metrics that track what people are actually reading and watching and for how long. Actionable content engagement data provides much stronger signals of a buyer’s interest and the seriousness of their intent to purchase.

Respect Your Audience And They’ll Stick With You

Respecting your audience means getting to know them: who they are, what they like, and what they don’t, so they’ll trust you and your recommendations for what they should read or watch next. It’s about treating individual buyers as people, not as “conversions” or “lead scores.” Smart marketers know that the buyer’s journey doesn’t end with the sale, and that engagement is tied to customer loyalty, retention, and advocacy.

For a deeper dive into the research, check out our eBook Engagement Marketing in the Netflix Era: 7 Things You Need to Know.

You’ve probably heard of buyer personas or reader personas, and know that they’re an important marketing tool for building a blog or business.

But what exactly are personas? What do they look like, and how do you use them?

Personas are a powerful marketing tool, and a key to higher user engagement and loyalty. By helping you understand your target audience, personas can make every step of your marketing strategy faster, easier, and more effective.

This post will walk you through exactly what personas are, why they’re such a powerful tool, and how you can use them to grow your business or blog.

What Are Buyer Personas?

In a nutshell, a buyer persona (also called a “reader persona” or “reader profile” for bloggers) is a fictional but data-based description of a person who represents your ideal or target audience. A persona can be any length from a short biography of a few sentences to pages of description and detail.

According to buyer persona development expert Tony Zambito,

“Buyer personas are research-based archetypal (modeled) representations of who buyers are, what they are trying to accomplish, what goals drive their behavior, how they think, how they buy, and why they make buying decisions.”

Why Are Personas Important?

A persona is a crucial tool for defining, understanding, and reaching your target audience.

Imagine you’re trying to come up with blog post ideas for your new startup.

You know that the more you narrow down your audience, the easier your brainstorming will be. If your target audience is “everyone,” you’ll have to come up with topics that appeal to everyone. Impossible, right?

Say your startup is a subscription-based suite of marketing tools specifically designed for ecommerce. You know your target audience is ecommerce businesses, so you can now come up with a list of blog post ideas that ecommerce businesses might be interested in.

But that’s still quite a broad target.

Are you targeting the owner of a small ecommerce business, or a marketing manager of a larger company? Their specific needs and challenges will be very different. A blog post that’s helpful to a small business owner might be too generic or simplistic for a marketing manager.

That’s one reason why buyer personas are so powerful: the smaller your target audience, the more focused your marketing can be. A buyer persona allows you to laser-target your marketing to not just a general industry or demographic, but a specific person.

What Data Should a Persona Include?

A buyer persona can include things like:

• Demographics like age, gender, nationality, etc. (if relevant)
• Industry, job title and responsibilities
• Level of experience, technical expertise
• Preferred communication method or style
• Preferred social media networks, blogs, and other sources of information
• Preferred content formats (blog posts, podcasts, infographics, slides, etc.)
• What questions they’re asking, challenges faced, common objections, typical buyer’s journey

…But don’t feel like you have to include everything. It can be easy to get bogged down in irrelevant details. Don’t worry about how many kids or pets your persona has, whether she drinks tea or coffee (unless it has to do with your business), or whether you should dub her Jane or Joan. Only worry about details that are from real data and affect how you do your outreach.

Focus on relevant, actionable information you’ll be able to use in your marketing, such as your customers’ trusted information sources, what topics and formats they prefer, and what challenges they face.

How to Gather Data for Your Personas

While buyer personas are fictional, they should still be based on real data.

A buyer persona that’s spun out of thin air or your imagination won’t be very useful for targeting a real, specific audience. For your buyer personas to be useful, they need to accurately reflect your real audience.

How do you gather that data? You can:

• Dig into your analytics. Whether you use Google Analytics or another service, you’ll have access to general audience demographics that can put you on the right path to building an accurate persona.
• Send out a survey. Whether to your email list, clients, or customers, you can send out a survey to gather the data you need.
• Interview your customers. (This process is really great for creating customer case studies or success stories you can use on your website, too.)

From the data you gather, you can find commonalities, and use that information to put together into a true data-based buyer persona.

You can use a template from Hubspot or Buffer to get started, and modify, expand, or simplify it to suit your needs.

Are Personas Really Necessary?

There are no one-size-fits-all answers in marketing, and you can be successful without using personas. That said, personas are a great marketing tool with a lot of benefits:

• Personas help you to target your content with a laser-focus. You’re talking one-on-one instead of trying to shout out into a crowd.
• You not only know what content appeals to your customers and readers, but where to find those users. In doing your persona research, you’ll discover the best websites and social media platforms and places where your ideal customers are, so you know exactly where to market.
• Personas can also be used to segment your audience and create personalized content for each segment. If you target a few different types of ideal customers, you can create a detailed persona for each group, and then more easily create content that targets each specific group or segment.

And personas aren’t just for businesses; they’re also a great way to build any blog audience. With an ideal reader persona in mind, it makes it much easier to come up with specific blog post topics that your readership will love. It will also give you ideas on other content to produce, monetization strategies that will work, and how to market your blog and build your readership.

What’s the Downside?

Many people don’t use personas, and there are valid reasons for that.

Probably the number one reason is that personas can be very time-consuming and costly to produce. If you want accurate, data-based personas, you’ll need to spend time doing the research. Whether you’re putting together a survey, gathering and sifting through analytics data, or taking time to personally interview clients, it’s an investment.

Some marketers also point out that it can be difficult and even detrimental for businesses to try to put together buyer personas in the early stages of their business and content marketing.

As Marcus Sheridan of The Sales Lion writes,

Until you’ve been in business for some time, and gotten a chance to work with a variety of clients, it’s impossible to know who your ideal personas are.

And until you’ve had the chance to produce content (become a great teacher) and watch what gets results and what does not (as you’re listening to your audience the entire time) it’s impossible to know who your buyer personas are.

Oh, and one final point: Because your business is always evolving, so are your buyer personas.

He also points out that involved, complicated processes to create buyer personas can result in “analysis paralysis,” and postpone any actual marketing.

So how can you avoid those issues and get the benefits of buyer personas?

You can probably benefit from a detailed buyer persona if:

• You have a good general idea of the specific audience you’re trying to target.
• Your blog or business has been around for a while, and you have enough customers or readers to gather real data from.

On the other hand, if…

• You’re just starting out and don’t have a client base or audience yet
• You’re not sure who you’re targeting specifically

…then a more basic persona might be helpful for you, but a detailed data-based persona is probably out of the picture.

How to Use Personas in Creating Content

Once you’ve created your personas, you can them as an aid in:

• Brainstorming blog post topics. Next time you’re thinking of blog post ideas, pull out your buyer personas for inspiration. If you’ve interviewed your customers about their challenges and questions, you should have plenty of material for blog posts.
• Writing blog posts. When you’re writing your posts, keep your persona in mind. Think of writing a blog post as chatting with or writing a letter to a specific person.
• Writing web content. When you write your homepage, about page, contact page, FAQ, etc., think about what your persona wants to see there and how you can answer their questions and start building a relationship with your web content.
• Brainstorming additional content. Would your target audience prefer to listen to a podcast, see an infographic, or download an ebook? What topics would they find most helpful and relevant? Your persona will help you find out.
• Building your blog audience. With your persona, you have a source on which social media networks you should be on, what blogs they follow that you can guest post on, and what sources of information they trust where you can market.

In all your marketing strategies, starting with your personas in mind will help you to target your ideal audience and get better results.

Sales Playbooks are an integral part of any selling strategy. And if your playbooks are PDF or paper-based, you’re on the right path to refining your sales processes, but we’ll be honest – your strategy could use some personalization. Paper Playbooks are static and outdated the second your prospect switches gears – or catches you off guard with unforeseen data. Digitizing your existing paper-based Sales Playbooks easily and quickly prepares you for having interactive and buyer driven conversations, providing your buyer with only relevant information at every step. You could sell better.

Today’s business environment is ever-changing; it’s dynamic and fluid, just like a conversation. Buyers are sick of being sold to, and they’re hanging up the phone on the same old selling tactics. Digitizing your existing paper-based Sales Playbooks will easily and quickly prepare you for having interactive and buyer driven conversations, providing your buyer with only relevant information at every step.

It’s not about the process – it’s about the conversation. And it’s personal. Follow these five best practices to digitize your paper-based Playbooks and stay agile:

1. Consider the different groups using your Sales Playbooks – Playbooks are not just for Outside Sales. Dynamic Sales Playbooks ensure that all teams, from Sales Management to Sales Engineers, have the right information at the right time to streamline sales and keep the process on track.

2. Automate routine activities with templates and workflow – Time is the currency of sales. Automating time-consuming tasks and following a prescribed process improves productivity and efficiency; ensuring more time for selling and less searching.

3. Use a variety of media to deliver content – PDFs and links are far from the only way to consume content. Including other forms of media (PPTs, videos, and other forms of dynamic content) presents your reps with well-rounded representations of content.

4. Provide just-in-time guidance and coaching tips – Spoon feeding your reps with accurate information, in real time, and on a deal by deal basis, provides reps with actionable insight and builds confidence and prepares them for the win.

5. Start plays with verbs for action (e.g., conduct, provide) – Selling activities are often confusing, lengthy and fragmented. Guiding your reps with quick and straightforward to-do’s in the form of actionable steps simplifies the sales process.

Change is the only constant. Digitizing, and therefore personalizing, your existing paper-based or PDF Sales Playbooks improves your sales strategy by ensuring valuable and in-context conversations, delivering the right message at the right time to your customers. In today’s business environment, your reps must have on-demand access to effectively communicate with prospects that are just like you: human. Keeping up with changing wants and needs is really the only natural way to sell; otherwise, you might just run the risk of pitching phone books for eternity. And when was the last time you saw one of those?

Want to spread the word and help your team go from paper to digital sales playbooks? Download our How Stuff Works: Digitize Your Sales Playbooks today.

After rising 17.4% last year, Latin America's digital buyer population will grow 12.9% in 2015 to reach 110.0 million. By 2019, that number will pass 150 million.

A lot of sales teams use the cold calling 2.0 model that Aaron Ross pioneered and popularized in his book Predictable Revenue:

1. Send out cold emails to a list of targeted leads.
2. Use an open tracker or sales CRM (e.g., Close.io) to see which recipients actually open the email.
3. Call those leads who opened the emails.

This is generally a good approach because these prospects have self-selected themselves. The fact that they have opened the email is an indicator that they are a better fit than those who didn’t open the email.

But there’s a mistake sales reps and sales development representatives (SDRs) often make: they assume the prospect knows who they are or what they are calling about just because the prospect opened their email. While the strategy of calling leads who have opened your email is good, assuming they’ll receive your call with open arms is wrong. Yet, that’s exactly what sales reps and founders often do.

In this article, we'll look at the most effective ways of engaging—instead of frustrating—your prospects with your cold calls.

How to irritate your prospects within the first minute of your cold call

Let’s look at the typical scenario of how sales reps handle prospects who have no idea why they are receiving their call.

Sales rep: “Dear Mr. Smith, I just emailed you some information and saw that you’ve opened my email. I wanted to see if you had time to look at that information and if you have any questions that I can answer.”

Prospect: “Who are you? What email? I didn’t open any email from you. How did you get my phone number?”

Sales rep: “Oh yes, you did. I can see it in my tracking software here. In fact, I can even tell you that you opened our email yesterday at 17:47 Pacific time!”

I am sure you can agree that it’s not a good way to start a conversation.

What it means when an email gets opened

Just because someone opened your email doesn’t mean that they care about what you sent them, that they’re interested, or that they even read the email. Many people open an email only to delete it.

Even if someone did read your email, they might forget it the next day. (If no one ever remembers your emails, your emails are probably too generic, and you want to become better at writing effective cold emails).

Yet, many sales people refuse to let go of the assumption that just because an email has been opened, it means that the prospect actually read it and cared about what you said. And when the prospect doesn’t react the way they expect, they struggle with this resistance, which creates a lot of needless friction early on in the sales conversation.

To turn your unproductive conversation around, you need to change how you approach your prospect. Let’s look at the two typical responses you might get from your prospects and ways you can engage them instead of frustrating them.

Response #1: “I didn’t get any email from you.”

Here’s a common scenario, in which the prospect has no recollection of opening your email.

Sales rep: “Dear Mr. Smith, I sent you an email yesterday and wanted to follow up with a call to see if you had a chance to look at it and if there are any questions I can answer for you.”

Prospect: “I didn’t get any email from you.”

Sales rep: “Of course, I’m sure you’re getting tons of emails, which is exactly why I chose to go the extra mile and pick up the phone to call you. I don’t want to send you another dozen emails to clutter your inbox. Instead, let’s take three minutes right now to create clarity on both ends and figure out if this is the right fit or not. I have three questions for you, and we’ll immediately know if it makes sense to invest any more time in this. Does that sound fair?”

Rather than trying to fight against the prospect’s statement that they didn’t get your email, you embrace it.

Response #2: “I saw your email, but I’m not interested.”

Here’s a scenario in which a prospect remembered your email but didn’t like it.

Sales rep: “Dear Mr. Smith, I sent you an email yesterday and wanted to follow up with a call to see if you had a chance to look at it and if there are any questions I can answer for you.”

Prospect: “Oh yeah, I read your email, but I’m not interested.”

Sales rep: “Of course you’re not, nothing in that email could have made you interested. I apologize for even sending it. Let me in one sentence tell you what we do and then take three minutes to discover if this makes sense or not. I’ll tell you why I am calling you in the first place: we’ve serviced 10 companies in your area and increased their revenues by 15% on average in just three months. That’s why I’m proactively reaching out to those companies for whom we believe we can create similar results.”

Bottom line: call with the right expectations—none

When you call a prospect who opened your email, don’t have a lot of expectations. Don’t act based on your best-case assumptions.

Your sales script shouldn’t rely on your prospects expecting your call or knowing what you sent them. Instead, you should expect them to not care or know about you and your offer at all. Embrace that reality, and your results will dramatically improve.

Further reading:

Why you need to call every signup user within 5 minutes!
If you have a SaaS product and offer a trial, call as many users as you can within five minutes of them signing up. Here's why you should do this, and how to do it right...

Should you use a sales script?
There’s this almost religious debate among sales professionals: should you work with or without a script? The answer is not either or, but instead do both!

Six Simple Steps To Getting Started With Cold Sales Emails
If youre not writing cold emails yet, read this first. It's a simple primer to quickly get started writing effective cold emails.

It is always frustrating when a new sales hire does not perform as well as expected.

Hunting for qualified candidates is a lot of work, so it is important that the employees you commit to hire and train can pull their weight.

If you have a new salesperson that is not performing as well as you had hoped, take a close look at his or her process to determine whether his success rate is being negatively affected by mistakes in his sales method or by his personality.

 

5 Signs Your Employee Needs Training, But Is Not Necessarily Wrong for Sales:

 

1. He focuses on the product rather than the needs of the customer.

Have you ever noticed how easy it is to spot advertising that is directed at you and how easy it is to ignore advertising that is clearly for a different audience?

Prospective clients will not care how amazing your product is if they cannot see how it will solve their problems. Salespeople need to know their product well, but they must not forget that sales depend on filling clients’ specific needs and not simply impressing them with facts. Thankfully, this flawed sales approach can be fixed easily with role playing practice and re-tooling of the sales presentation.

 

2. He does not ask enough questions.

A potential client will usually have objections at the ready when a salesperson asks for his business. The worst thing that a salesperson can do in the face of an objection is to take the client at his word and give up.

The trick to overcoming objections is to ask the client questions about his objection.

Most of the time, persistent questions will reveal that the initial objection was only a part of the story. Asking questions also leads to further discussion that can build enough trust and uncover enough information for the client and the salesperson to make a deal.

Stumbling over client objections can cost business, but effective methods for pushing through are very teachable.

 

3. He relies too heavily on the presentation.

   

Your sales presentation slideshow was probably painstakingly crafted for maximum effect, but people, not slideshows, make sales.

Your sales team needs to learn to watch and listen to potential clients while presenting your product and step away from the script when a client loses interest.

Practice makes perfect here, so teach your team to pay attention to the client’s responses and use the presentation as an enhancement to their pitch rather than the pitch itself.

 

4. He gets hung up on pricing.

Very few clients are lost solely because of the price of a product.

If your sales team is continually squabbling over prices and discounts with clients, they need to re-evaluate their approach. If the client disputes the price, it is likely that the salesperson failed to demonstrate value or build enough trust during the sales process.

Have your employees focus on relationship building and framing the value of the product within the context of the client’s company whenever the client takes issue with the cost.

Waiting to reveal pricing information until the end of a presentation can also be a mistake, because speculating about the price will distract customers from being able to concentrate on the value of the product. Restructure your sales presentation to disclose pricing toward the beginning if necessary.

 

5. He has trouble asking for the sale.

In the midst of friendly, trust-building banter between salespeople and clients, it can be easy to forget that selling is business. Nobody wants to feel pushy, but salespeople need to learn how to ask difficult questions and close deals with urgency while maintaining good relationships with their customers.

New salespeople especially might be uncomfortable turning a friendly conversation toward a sale, but this hesitance can be overcome with a shift of mindset and some practice making graceful segues from chitchat into serious business.

 

3 Signs Your Employee Might Be Ill-Suited to Sales:

 

1. He seems satisfied with mediocrity.

You probably make an effort to track sales goals and progress with your team. While it is reasonable for a new hire to expect lower than average numbers for his first few months on the job, once he gets familiar with the process you should be able to see a bit of hunger and Competitiveness coming to the surface. If a salesperson on your team is not motivated by competition, try to find out why.

 

2. He is a sore loser.

   

Salespeople have to be able to make peace with failure because it will happen regularly.

Optimism is the critical trait in a sales personality assessment that makes it possible for salespeople to get right back to work after they lose an opportunity.

If an employee on your team is sulky or ambivalent for a long time after he loses a sale, he might not be able to sustain his productivity long-term in the face of such frequent rejection.

 

3. He does not listen to repeated correction.

Salespeople can be disorganized whirlwinds of charisma and ambition, but their Need for Achievement should motivate them to comply with your company’s standards, whatever they are.

If you set goals with an employee and work to help him improve his approaches and he does not make an effort to meet your expectations, he might end up having a negative effect on your team.

Hiring a salesperson is an investment; so if you feel that your new employee does not possess the ideal personality for sales, give him ample opportunities to prove you wrong. Additionally, it is always good to look for new ways that your employees and their unique skill sets can be useful to you.

If a salesperson has been with your company long enough to get a feel for the day-to-day work, he already has a leg up on an outside hire, so try to find new opportunities for him that will allow him to shine.

Of course, it is always easier to avoid making the wrong hire in the first place. Next time you hunt for new salespeople, use a reputable sales personality assessment to determine whether your candidates have the Drive necessary to succeed as a part of your sales team.

What mistakes have you noticed employees making that cost them sales? What did you do to fix them?

 

The post Does Your Employee Need Training or is She Ill-Suited to Sales? appeared first on SalesDrive LLC.

How to Sky Rocket Your Leads with Social Prospecting

72% of marketers say social content has helped them close deals (Brafton). And there are a ton of consumers out there in the “world of social” holding conversations about what they want to buy and who they plan to purchase from. They are asking for recommendations, posting pictures of their favorite brand products, tweeting this, and posting that. Within this myriad of thumbs-up, hashtags, and likes is invaluable information consumers are sharing on their journey to purchase.

Social media has evolved so far beyond simply sharing a good recipe or posting family vacation photos. It has become a platform ripe with opportunity to make a sale. You need to take the time to be where your customers and prospects are – engaging them in conversations, sharing content to help them make decisions, responding to their questions or complaints, and yes, even making sales.

So which channels should you be using?

While the most effective social sales channels will vary according to your business and your customer and prospect profiles, here’s a breakdown of the most popular:

LinkedIn for B2B

• Companies are finding that their LinkedIn Company Page is a powerful and effective way to nurture leads and increase sales. In fact, 50% of LinkedIn members are more likely to purchase from a company they engage with on LinkedIn. Source: LinkedIn
• In a study of more than 5,000 businesses, HubSpot found that traffic from LinkedIn generated the highest visitor-to-lead conversion rate at 2.74%—277% higher than Twitter (.69%) and Facebook (.77%). Source: Master the LinkedIn Company Page
• Top sellers are nearly twice as active in LinkedIn groups than everyone else.   Source: How to Get 58% of Your Revenue Via LinkedIn Groups

Facebook and Twitter Top the List for B2C

• 58% and 52% of B2C marketers rate Facebook and Twitter respectively as effective social media platforms.
• YouTube was rated the third most effective social platform with 49% of B2C marketers rating it as effective.

Leveraging the Power of Social Media with DaaS

Have you heard of Data-as-a-Service (DaaS)?

To give you an overview:

“Data-as-a-Service (DaaS) is a game-changing process that leverages the modern data ecosystem and real-time data analytics to create a customized “always on” dataset of consumers where purchase is imminent.

DaaS combines a company’s first-party CRM data with real-time triggers and Hard-to-Find-Data (HTFD) sources to deliver better targeting and a stream of in-market consumers.

The benefits? More effective and ultimately lower media spend per conversion, a more efficient funnel and better marketing ROI.”

There are many powerful ways in which DaaS can be used to generate more leads by sourcing and targeting consumers who are actively searching for products you or your competitors sell.

One of the most exciting aspects of DaaS is in its ability to source social consumers – people who are having conversations and are ready to buy the products and services you sell.

However, since you can’t monitor every social conversation or be in all places at once, DaaS actively monitors the social ecosystem to find prospects who match your ideal customer profile.

A DaaS solutions provider monitors social conversations across a variety of networks based on any set of key words. For example, in the case of a furniture retailer, a variety of conversations may be picked up on Twitter.

Every social prospect talking about furniture will not match your ideal prospect profile. For a furniture retailer, a large percentage of purchases occur in brick-and-mortar locations. Imagine the power of then further refining these social prospects by mapping them within a certain radius of your store location.

Social marketing is a many-pronged approach. With a little commitment and the right DaaS solutions partner, you can truly skyrocket your leads and sales to new heights.

To learn more about how Data-as-a-Service is generating new business opportunities for companies, download our free solutions guide.

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The language of startups has become pervasive. It feels like it started with Eric Ries’ great book The Lean Startup when words like MVP and pivot started showing up in all conversations. Back then it was new, fresh, and focusing.

Today, there are hundreds of words that people throw around in the context of their startups. Many, like traction, are completely meaningless. If you need a dose of some of the language, just watch a few episodes of Silicon Valley.

I’ve noticed something recently. For founders outside Silicon Valley, and even plenty within Silicon Valley, the language seems forced. Fake. Awkward. Uncomfortable. Words are used incorrectly. They are strung together in meaningless sentences. They are used to obscure reality or try to avoid the meat of a question.

It’s not necessarily a cliche-ladened problem. It’s also not a verbal tick issue. It feels like some people are trying to fake it, without really knowing what they are saying.

Don’t try to fake it.

Let’s wander away from startups for a moment and use the example of my fake philosophy expertise. I’d use words and phrases to demonstrate my fake philosophy prowess such as existentialism, free will and determinism, philosophy of language, being and nothingness, nihilism, anthropotheism, and neonomianism. I barely know how to spell the last few words, let alone understand the philosophy behind them. I could give you a definition (e.g., anthropotheism is the belief that gods are only deified men), but I have no real concept of what underlies the word or the philosophy behind it, or how it fits together with anything else. I can look it up on the web (that’s where the definition came from) and if I didn’t say I had no idea what it meant, it puts me in the fake smart category. But when I start a discussion with someone who has studied philosophy, either formally or informally, I’m hosed and it’s quickly clear that I’m faking it.

An easy example from my daily life is the founder who leads off talking about his business by saying, “We’ve got a lot of traction.” He then goes on to say nothing about what this means, gives no metrics indicating “traction” (whatever that is), and generally stays vague about what the company does. When he takes a breath, I ask, “what do you mean by traction?” After some nonsense tumbles out, I ask more precise questions about metrics, and get answers that don’t demonstrate any real, meaningful progress of any sort. I ask a few more questions to try to find leading indicators of progress and get qualitative descriptions of why people would want the product.

Then there is the misused definition problem.

Founder: “We had $50K of MRR last month.”

Me: “How much MRR did you have the previous month?”

Founder: “$14K”

Me: How much MRR did you have the month before?”

Founder: “$27K”

Me: “Why did you have so much churn from the $27K month to the $14K month?”

Founder: “We didn’t — that was just how much we sold that month.”

Me: “What do you mean, that’s how much you sold that month?”

Founder: “Well — that’s how many money in transactions went through our system.”

Me: “You realize that’s not MRR, but that’s gross sales?”

Founder: “What’s the difference?”

Me: “What percentage of each transaction do you keep in your marketplace?”

Founder: “5 percent — we are trying to grow market share.”

Me: “So your net revenue last month was only $2.5K, right?”

Founder: “Um, OK.”

If this happened every once in a while, that would be fine. But it happens every day. Sometimes it’s simply lack of understanding of what the words and metrics mean and how they work. But other times, it’s clearly an effort to demonstrate how much progress has been made by either avoiding the real metrics, obscuring what is going on, or trying to come up with a big number to get someone’s attention.

Don’t worry about loading up your discussion with cliches and trendy words. Focus on telling the story of your business. And don’t try to fake it.

This story originally appeared on Brad Feld.

Why do lead scoring?

It helps sales prioritize leads and you know who to focus your efforts on to warm up. It also gives you insight into what marketing activities work well in the buying cycle for your business, so you can adapt it to new prospects and shorten the buying cycle and increase conversion rates.

So here’s a checklist you should follow to harness ultimate success:

1. Have complete alignment between sales and marketing

• Both teams need to define the ideal customer and agree on what makes a qualified lead that is passed over to sales.
• The sales team need to follow up with leads passed over from marketing and both teams need to agree within what time period.

2. Really think about your scoring criteria

• Take a look at all the different ways prospects and customers can engage with you (media, whitepaper download, attended an event, visited your shop, took part in a competition, pages visited on your website) and score each interaction accordingly. For example, registering for an event but not attending would have a lower score than actually attending. And visiting your pricing or free trial web page would have a high score whereas a visit to your careers page would be a negative.
• Develop a persona of the ideal customer. What do they look like? Age, gender, location etc.
• Have positive and negative scores. It’s the only way to cut out the time wasters and make your time and effort more efficient and effective.
• Believe it not, you should assign scores for when contacts don’t engage with you. Has it been 3 months since they opened an email from you? Even longer since they downloaded a whitepaper or acted on a discount code? It might be time to take a new approach with these contacts to re-engage them.
• Look at your existing data. What were the key factors in converting a key customer? Use the buying cycle pattern and buying signals to influence your score. Did an attended event contribute to a sale VS sharing your content on their social networks?

3. Three groups are optimal

• Don’t create too many different segments. Three is optimal: hot, warm, cold. This lets you easily spot the gold dust from the garbage. And if you make too many different lists you’ll soon find you’re not sure what the difference actually is between them and you don’t have the resource to create different content and automation programs to nurture each group. As you develop your lead scoring you might realize you need more than three segments but I wouldn’t create more than five.

4. Set a tipping score

• At what point do they become a marketing qualified lead (MQL) and leave marketing’s nurture pot straight to the sales team’s desk? And what do sales do next? Make sure they have all the content they need to make that call and convert the prospect into a customer.

5. Learn and improve

• Never rest on your laurels. Things change and you need to change with them. Constantly review how your lead scoring is performing – are the leads you’re passing over to sales converting faster or are they dragging and end up being ignored by sales and are excluded from your nurture program? Has your business’s strategy changed so therefore the definition of your ideal customer? What results have you seen? Shorter conversions, bigger orders etc.?

I hope this checklist is helpful in getting you started on your lead scoring journey. If you’re already doing lead scoring check out this blog by my colleague who talks about using lead scoring in your marketing automation. And vice versa.

Today I received a message from an affiliate marketer who is interested in joining one of the affiliate programs that my company manages. Among other (good) questions he asked:

What exactly are you looking for in an affiliate?

It isn’t every day that you receive a question like this. In fact, in more than ten years of running affiliate programs, I can recall only three instances when a prospective affiliate asked me this.

However, it is an extremely important question the answer to which underpins the very approach to effective affiliate program management or should do so.

In my opinion, the top four things that advertisers should be looking for in affiliates are these:

1. Quality & Targetedness (of Referred Traffic)

Looking at the current spread of payment models on ShareASale affiliate network, we see that 97% of merchants tie affiliate payouts to sales, 3% to leads, and none to clicks:

In an industry where over ninety percent of affiliate programs operate on pay-per-sale model, the remainder on pay-per-lead model, and only eBay pays for clicks (but only for “quality” ones!), there is little to no use in referring garbage traffic to merchants. However, when it does happen, it hurts advertisers driving their EPC down, skewing their performance metrics, and making their affiliate program(s) less attractive to prospective/inactive affiliates.

2. Marketing Complementarity

Complementarity is a quality demonstrated when one “adds something to the other or helps to make the other better” [source]. “Marketing complementarity” is when one marketing activity contributes to the other, driving better results than when the latter is not complemented by the former. Advertisers (should) want (to work with) affiliates whose promotional methods and techniques add value to the pre-sale process, complementing merchants’ own marketing activity (vs cannibalizing it).

3. Incrementality (of Referred Business)

Did you see how Zappos structures their affiliate commissions on CJ? Here is how they do it (highlighting mine):

Affiliates get a 125% payout boost (from 8% to 18%) when they refer a new customers rather than returning ones.

Every merchant wants new business. Affiliates that do this for advertisers become their “most valuable players” — loved and treasured.

4. Innovative Thinking

It’s easy to throw up another coupon site or another pay-to-play “ranking” blog post. True value (both for advertisers, and for end-consumers), however, comes with innovation. It doesn’t have to be anything “revolutionary” or big. Small changes that simplify people’s lives often make all the difference. See a few examples here, look at things through the consumer’s eyes, and think how you can make things easier for them, gaining their loyalty to your tool, website, or service.

Of course, there are other characteristics, qualities, and attributes that could be listed here. If I’ve missed something that you believe belongs to this list, I warmly welcome your comments (via the area below this post). Many thanks in advance for adding your thoughts on the subject.

In a perfect world, marketers would produce hyper-relevant content based on customer data and anecdotal evidence from salespeople’s conversations. Reps would know the ins and outs of the sales content library, and would be able to pull up the latest version of the “Here’s the Exact Answer to Your Question” ebook at a moment’s notice.

Unfortunately, it’s not a perfect world.

According to research from ChaiOne, salespeople report that keeping up-to-date with the flow of marketing content is no easy feat.

Sales reps had the following to say when asked about what difficulties they had keeping track of sales enablement collateral:

• “My attention span is short; I work in 15-minute chunks. I don’t have the time nor desire to read everything that hits my inbox.”
• “I need quick and easy access to the most situation-appropriate content to address my lead’s needs.”

Furthermore, it’s cumbersome for reps to log every time they use a piece of content in a call or email in their CRM.

Which leads to a problem for marketers. Here’s what they had to say:

• “I do everything I can think of to support my sales team, but I don’t get feedback from them about the collateral I create.”
• “I know a little about leads based on website analytics, but I have no metrics on how they react to our content and whether they eventually become customers.”

So how can Marketing and Sales work together to ensure that sales enablement content is both relevant and easy to deploy?

ChaiOne concludes that sales teams would benefit most from a mobile tool that’s able to quickly surface relevant collateral during sales conversations, such as Sidekick for Business. For more information on how Sidekick for Business can streamline sales enablement and provide usage data for both Sales and Marketing, click here.

Check out the infographic below for even more insights into how marketers and salespeople think about sales content management, and what leaders can do to ease each team’s pain.

One of the easiest ways to improve the effectiveness of your sales calls is to have an airtight sales voicemail script. Besides preventing you from crafting messages on the spot and rambling on the phone, voicemail scripts increase your chances of getting a callback.

In this guide, you’ll learn how to create effective voicemail scripts that elicit responses. From key elements you must include to actionable tips that improve your execution, this post will teach you everything you need to know — including the exact scripts used by top sales experts.

Let’s get started.

Table of Contents

• Why Sales Voicemail Scripts Matter
• Elements of an Effective Sales Voicemail Script
• 5 Actionable Tips for Creating and Executing a Sales Voicemail Script
• 10 Best Sales Voicemail Scripts and Templates
• How to Optimize Your Sales Voicemail Script

Why Sales Voicemail Scripts Matter

With 80% of sales calls going to voicemail, you can’t afford to not leave a message.

Many sales reps are prepared with what to say when a lead answers, but fumble when the call goes to voicemail instead. Given that many people ignore a call if they don’t recognize the number, leaving a voicemail is your opportunity to identify yourself and deliver your message.

Make it as impactful as possible by using a voicemail script to ensure that you say everything you need to without saying too much.

Moreover, a voicemail is another touchpoint with a prospect. Since it takes at least eight touches before a lead will agree to meet, you don’t want to waste the opportunity of leaving a well-thought-out voicemail.

Finally, the more voicemails you leave, the higher chance you have of receiving a callback. And not just leaving any old voicemail, but one that strikes the right chord with the recipient. By being prepared with a solid script, you increase the chances of them returning your call by 22%.

Elements of an Effective Sales Voicemail Script

Although voicemail scripts will (and should) vary based on several factors, certain elements apply across all voicemails.

1. Your Name and Company Affiliation

Voicemail scripts should contain your name and the company you represent.

Even if you’ve spoken with the prospect before, including this information is important to provide context. That said, use your discretion to know whether to share your name and company at the beginning or end of the call.

2. Your Phone Number

Calling out your phone number within the body of your message is best practice.

Although your prospects can find this information through caller ID, dictating it will reduce the effort required to respond to your message. Plus, it’s recommended that you do so twice — earlier in the message and at the end — in case your recipient doesn’t listen to your message all the way through.

3. Your Reason for Calling

State the intention of your message and do so clearly. A great way to do this is by sharing why you’re reaching out to the prospect.

Did they leave an inquiry on your website or download a lead magnet?

Did a mutual acquaintance suggest you reach out to them?

By creating relevance and context, it becomes much easier to grab the prospect’s attention.

4. The Benefits of Calling You Back

Your goal when leaving a voicemail is not to sell to your prospect. Instead, your focus should be to grab your prospect’s attention and incentivize them to return your call.

This means that a good voicemail should be more about the prospect than the salesperson — especially when cold-calling.

How can you help or add value to this person’s business? Can you help them save time or make more money? If possible, mention tangible benefits the prospect can gain by working with you.

But remember not to get bogged down in features and tools. Rather, convey concrete benefits such as results from past customers, how much they can expect to earn or save, etc.

5. What You Want the Prospect to Do or Expect

After a prospect finishes listening to your voicemail, they should be clear on the next steps. This can include calling you back or looking out for a follow-up email.

To keep the sale moving, you need to be as specific as possible — even down to your availability.

If you’re asking the prospect to call you back, let them know if there’s a good time to reach you. It can be as simple as “You can call me back at XYZ-1234. I am typically available Monday through Friday from 9 AM to 3 PM.”

Essentially, you want to avoid ending your voicemails with vague statements or instructions like, “The ball is in your court. Please get back to me when you’re free.”

5 Actionable Tips for Creating and Executing a Sales Voicemail Script

Now that you understand the basics of what needs to be included in your voicemail script, it’s time to discuss tips to help you improve the effectiveness of your script.

1. Be concise.

Too many reps are the inside sales equivalent of chatty grandmas — pitching solutions, discussing features, and sharing lengthy value propositions over voicemail. Often, this leads to long, rambling messages.

Best practice stipulates that you keep your message under 30 seconds. This is the sweet spot to prevent potentially getting cut off by the recipient’s voice mailbox system, or having the listener hang up early because your message was simply too long.

Save your sales pitch for an actual sales call and make your point quickly.

2. Research your prospect.

Although you will work with a script, it is still important to personalize your message to the recipient.

This is where you need research. When researching, be sure to note the prospect’s pain points, competitors, recent internal changes within the prospect’s organization, and specific business metrics that matter to your prospect.

Another element to research, especially when cold-calling, is to find any connections in the prospect’s organization. Simply mentioning an internal connection can be a great way to warm up your message and create a sense of familiarity.

3. Be mindful of your tone and delivery.

Here are some general rules to keep in mind when executing your script.

Keep your tone mellow and steady.

If you sound too relaxed or overly familiar, you might come across as unprofessional. Likewise, if your tone is all over the place, you might come across as overenthusiastic and sales-y.

On the flip side, if you sound rigid or robotic, your message might appear impersonal.

A good rule is to keep your tone conversational and try to speak to your prospect like you would a business colleague.

Don’t be afraid to vary your cadence.

Make use of strategic pauses, and change the speed of your delivery to emphasize key parts of your message.

Prepare before you pick up the phone.

You don’t want to cough into the receiver or sound hoarse. As a general tip, drink water and clear your throat before sales calls.

Be confident.

You should exude confidence throughout your delivery. This means you want to keep the “maybes” and “ums” to a minimum.

4. Avoid sales speak and buzzwords.

Many qualified prospects don’t mind hearing from sales reps as long as they’re helpful, knowledgeable, and show integrity.

However, if you approach a sales voicemail like a used-car salesperson, your prospects are going to delete your messages faster than you can say “lowest price guaranteed.”

Remember, you aren’t trying to sell them anything (yet). You’re simply there to communicate how you can add value. This also means that you want to avoid technical jargon.

5. Convey a sense of urgency.

Your prospect will only prioritize what’s important to them. If your voicemail gives off the impression that they can respond whenever they want, you won’t make their to-do list. That’s why you need to create enough urgency that’ll make your prospects edgy until they call you.

One way to do this is to state the benefit of what you’re offering. Will it save the prospect’s time, money, or make their processes more efficient? Include these in your script.

Now that you’re equipped with the tips for creating and executing a sales voicemail script, let’s go over some real-world examples.

10 Best Sales Voicemail Scripts and Templates

While there isn’t a magic sales voicemail script that guarantees a 100% response rate, there are voicemail script templates that can significantly improve your odds of getting that oh-so-elusive callback.

Here are 10 voicemail scripts tailored to the four most prevalent scenarios you’re likely to come across as a salesperson: reaching out to prospects, following up a lead inquiry, following up with an old lead, and dealing with no-shows.

Sales Voicemail Scripts for Reaching Out to Prospective Buyers

Strategy 1: Establish relevance.

Marc Wayshak, bestselling author of The High-Velocity Sales Organization, shared his scripts for sales voicemails with Sales Insights Lab. You can see the script below.

Hi, [prospect’s name], [your name], [your phone number].

I just emailed you a brief report I put together on [the prospect’s company] that will show you some of your strategic strengths and weaknesses. I think you’ll find it useful given [reason].

If you find the report useful, just shoot me a message back — and I can give you some more insight.

Again, this is [your name], [your phone number].

Here’s what this script looks like in action.

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Why This Strategy Works

The key strategy here is to make the voicemail hyper-relevant to the prospect. Sharing that the caller created a tailored report and mentioning a recent change in the structure of the prospect’s organization shows that the caller knows and cares about the prospect.

It makes the receiver think, “This doesn’t sound like a mass-delivered campaign. Maybe this person could help my company.”

Strategy 2: Build familiarity.

Matt Easton, a sales coach at Easton University, shared his most effective voicemail script.

“Hey, [prospect’s name]. This is [your name] with [company]. You and I [how/why/when you connected].

I wanted to reach out to you personally ’cause I’ve got an idea that may be a game-changer for you, but I’m not sure.

Can you give me a call back on my mobile [your phone number]?”

Here’s what this script looks like in action.

Why This Strategy Works

By establishing a connection, the prospect mentally re-categorizes the caller from “a complete stranger who’s calling” to “an acquaintance who’s reaching out.”

According to Matt, this script also works well for several reasons.

• The phrase “reach out personally” conveys that the caller is someone of importance who took out time specifically for this prospect.
• The phrase “I’m not sure” subtly conveys that the caller isn’t concerned with simply “peddling a solution” or “making a sale.” Instead, they want to be sure that the idea could benefit the prospect.
• Finally, asking the prospect to “give me a call back on my mobile” once again establishes a sense of familiarity between the caller and the prospect.

Strategy 3: Create FOMO.

When buyers feel FOMO, they are more likely to act urgently. John Barrow taps into that instinct with this voicemail script.

“Hi, [prospect’s name], the reason for my call is that one of my clients similar to you used my sales training to [insert result].

I’d love to share with you how they did it to see if we can produce the same results for you.

Could you call me back at [your phone number]? This is [your name] with [company]. Once again [your phone number].”

Here’s what this script looks like in action.

Why This Strategy Works

This script works because the caller provides value and still makes the message hyper-relevant to the prospect.

By sharing that a client “similar to the prospect” achieved XYZ results, it makes the possibility of also achieving those results feel more realistic for the prospect.

But what’s even more powerful is that the caller finishes the voicemail with a fantastic closer — “I’d love to share with you how they did it to see if we can produce the same results for you.”

No hard selling. No strings attached. Just the promise of immense value.

Strategy 4: Warm up your prospects.

Will Barron’s referral voicemail script gets prospects warmed up.

“Hi, [prospect’s name]. My name is [your name] calling from [your company]. [Referrer’s name] suggested I should book a meeting with you.

He gave me your details because we have helped them over at [referrer’s company] [insert specific benefit relevant to current prospect], and they think we can do the same for you.

I’ll send over an email right now with details on how [referrer’s name] thinks we can help you.

It’d be great to speak to you this week.”

Here’s what this script looks like in action.

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Why This Strategy Works

According to Will, this script works because it uses three principles of influence — social proof, likability, and authority.

Here, the caller uses social proof and likability by leveraging a mutual acquaintance (the referrer). The caller also establishes authority by sharing that they had solved a problem for the referrer.

Strategy 5. Grab their attention.

Matt Macnamara designed his pattern-disruption voicemail script to intrigue the prospect.

“[Prospect’s name], no need to call me back.

I’m about to send an email with the subject line [insert subject line]. When you get a minute, I’d appreciate it if you’d share some thoughts and feedback on that email.

It’s [your name] with [your company]. If I don’t hear back, I’ll call again next week.”

Here’s what this script looks like in action.

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Why This Strategy Works

According to Matt, this script works for two reasons:

• This message starts with a pretty powerful pattern interruption — “you don’t need to call me back” — which means it’s likely to stand out to the prospect.
• By not asking for a call back, the caller has also eliminated the need for any immediate effort from the prospect.

Unlike most sales voicemail scripts, this one moves the conversation away from the phone and to a channel that the prospect might be more receptive to: email.

Sales Voicemail Script for Following Up on a Lead Inquiry

Let’s say a prospect has already made an inquiry, and you call them. Aged Lead Store shares a voicemail script that can help you out.

“[Prospect’s name], this is [your name] from [your company].

I’m just following up on the [the specific inquiry, including where/how it was made].

I’m getting ready to send an email that’s got a lot more detail on [your company] and exactly how our process works, but let me tell you [insert value proposition relevant to the inquiry].

I’d love to tell you more about that.

We can follow up on a call — my number is [your phone number]. You can also text me on that number or just reply to my email.

Hope to talk to you soon; have a great day.”

Here’s what this script looks like in action.

Why This Strategy Works

Following up on a lead that has shown interest in your products or services requires a slightly different approach. Here are two things this script does differently from the previous ones:

• It clearly explains why the caller is reaching out and ‌the action the lead took that prompted them to reach out.
• It restates the value of the product or offering the prospect asked about.

This voicemail also gives the lead two options regarding how they can respond to the message. This might increase response rates as it provides a simple, low-effort alternative for people who are interested but might be in places or situations where they cannot take or make calls.

Sales Voicemail Script for Following Up on an Old Lead

No matter what you sell, this voicemail script from Real Estate Uncensored can help you re-engage an old prospect.

“Hey [prospect’s name]. This is [your name]. I’m a [your job title] with [your company].

I’m not sure if you remember or not, but about [insert time frame] you [insert how you got their information] and said [insert what they showed an interest in].

I’m just trying to touch base with you to see if [insert a question asking whether they are still interested in the product or service].

If you have [insert: “already purchased said product or service”], I don’t want to keep bothering you, so could you please get back to me and let me know where you are in the process?

Thank you so much. The best number for me is [your phone number]. I look forward to talking to you.”

Here’s what this script looks like in action.

Why This Strategy Works

This script is pretty similar to the lead inquiry voicemail script. However, one detail particularly makes it suited to old leads: It gives the lead an easy out.

This might seem counterintuitive. However, saying “I don’t want to keep bothering you” encourages the prospect to respond to your voicemail.

If the person is still interested in the offer, they’ll reach out because they think, “This person might not call again!”

On the other hand, if they’re no longer interested, they’ll probably reach out because they think, “I just have to let them know I’m not interested. If not, this person will keep calling me!”

Sales Voicemail Scripts for Dealing with Meeting No-Shows

No one likes being stood up, but in sales, that’s sometimes the name of the game. When a prospect skips your meeting, you’ll need to call them. Tanya Aliza, a business success coach, shares three voicemails to help you address the situation.

The Call Immediately After the Meeting is Missed

“Hey, [prospect’s Name]. [Your name] here.

I’m calling you now at our scheduled appointment time, and I hope all is okay. I was expecting to chat with you.

Hey, listen — I’m free for the next [insert time limit]; I’ve blocked this time out for us in my schedule. Please call me back as soon as you get this message.”

Here’s what this script looks like in action.

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Why This Strategy Works

Perhaps your prospect had the date wrong on their calendar. Or maybe they had to attend to an emergency. This quick call is a great reminder so they can get in touch and reschedule as needed.

The Call a Couple of Hours Later

“Hey [prospect’s name]. [Your name] calling here again.

I haven’t heard from you since the last message I left when we were scheduled to meet today, and I’m just calling because I hope everything is okay.

Can you please call me back as soon as you get this message today?

Talk to you soon.”

Here’s what this script looks like in action.

Why This Strategy Works

If you haven’t heard from your contact via a call or email, this voicemail allows you to restart the conversation. The tone of concern will let your prospect know that there are no hard feelings — you care about them as a person, not just a prospect.

The Call a Few Days After the Missed Appointment

“Hi, [prospect’s name]. It’s [your name] calling here again.

I left you a couple of voicemails yesterday regarding our scheduled appointment time that we had blocked off, and I haven’t heard from you yet. I truly hope everything is all right.

Hey, listen, here’s what I’m going to have to do for now — I’m going to have to cross you off my list for the time being.

I know you said you wanted help [insert pain point they needed help with], but I understand if maybe right now just isn’t the right time and that’s completely fine. If things change, just let me know.

But if you could also do me a quick favor and just send me a really quick text or call back so I know that you’re okay.

If you could do that sometime today, that would be absolutely wonderful.

Have an awesome day.”

Here’s what this script looks like in action.

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Why This Strategy Works

A meeting no-show can be a tricky situation. The goal of this script is to help the salesperson manage this situation in a way that perfectly toes the line between empathy and firmness.

The third script also does something similar when it says “I’m going to have to cross you off my list for the time being” but ends on a more empathetic note of “could you do me a quick favor and just send a quick text so I know that you’re okay.”

What makes this script interesting is how a more empathetic approach allows the salesperson to provide ample opportunities to get the deal back on the table without sounding — for lack of a better word — desperate.

How to Optimize Your Sales Voicemail Script

Becoming an expert in leaving effective sales voicemails requires more than creating scripts. These scripts — and the overall skill — must undergo refinement through rigorous testing, practice, and measurement.

Schedule practice activities that offer ample opportunities for repetition and feedback. A great idea could be role-playing with colleagues and friends where they give honest feedback on your hypothetical voicemails.

You can also create a system to evaluate your voicemails. Start by creating a score sheet with a rating system. Then, grade each voicemail by the following criteria:

• Would you return that call?
• Would you save that voicemail?
• Would you return that call right away?
• Was the message based on research?
• Was the message missing any of the basic elements discussed earlier?

Once completed, starting with the voicemails that score the lowest, begin identifying and working on areas of weakness in your script and delivery. Your goal? Consistently score high on these exercises.

The Art and Science of Sales Voicemails

All the above strategies go to show that leaving effective sales voicemails is both an art and a science.

By leveraging these tried-and-tested scripts, you can supercharge your efforts and drastically improve your response rates.

As you continue to refine these scripts (and your overall process), over time you’ll develop scripts and formulas that are unique to you and your niche.

Sometimes it seems that our lives are just one big scoreboard. Sometimes we hit a home run; other times we get shut out.

That’s also how it can be with your data: sometimes the data you collect through your marketing efforts is complete and ready to go, but other times it’s a swing-and-a-miss. And that’s not just with your contact data. What about the profiles you create on your customers?

It all comes down to scoring. Whether you’re scoring the quality of your data or your leads, you need to make sure that you have a plan in place to go after quality, not quantity. Information services companies, like Neustar, can help you put that plan into action.

But let’s get back to my baseball analogy—especially since I just won the last game of my men’s league (totally shameless self-promotion).

Picture this:

Yankee Stadium holds fifty thousand fans, and the coffee brand Wanna Java wants to reach the caffeine-cravers among them with a special offer. So they run an ad on the scoreboard inviting people to sign up for coffee deals via text or web. Now, in the mobile era, you can log onto the website right from your seat. The problem is you may have had too many beers and hot dogs, or just be too into the game, to input your data correctly or completely. Some of it’s wrong; some of it’s missing.

Your Starting Lineup: Data Scoring

This is where data scoring comes into play. Data scoring is all about the quality of the data. The data score is the value assigned to your data as it’s collected and is usually based on the extent to which it’s complete or in the correct format. In the data scoring process, you define the rules. Is a person able to be contacted based on the information s/he provided?

When Wanna Java looks at my profile data, it should be able to surmise that it’s incomplete. But with the right system, they could score my data and immediately quantify which information is missing. For example, if I missed a digit in my phone number, or my email address was incomplete, or I only gave my first name. Depending on how much or how little data I provided, the system can either spit me out (keeping their database clean and free of unusable contacts) or identify me based on the fragmented data I provided (through a data augmentation provider, or over time themselves.) Once they’ve filled in the blanks by appending additional information or fixed the errors, my data is complete and Wanna Java could begin sending me coupons and other communications so I can get my java fix.

Lead Scoring: Your Pinch Hitter

But what happens after you know your data is good to go? That’s when lead scoring comes into play (no pun intended.) Lead scoring is about assigning a value to your lead, and the various activities they do, in order to automatically track their stage in the buyer’s journey and deliver offers that accelerate that journey. The lead scoring process allows you and your sales reps to focus on the best leads, or those with the highest potential to convert by simply looking at a leads cumulative score.

In our Wanna Java coffee scenario, once you’ve collected all the right information about me, the question then becomes: Am I the right lead for you? Am I a potential customer who’s likely to come in to Wanna Java daily to get my fresh cup of coffee? Am I going to buy packaged beans from you to bring home? What am I really interested in as a customer? What entices me? What motivates me?

Creating a lead scoring model is a key step to success. Your ideal model will ultimately tie into your product, industry, and consumer. What should you consider as you build your lead scoring model?

• Your customer data—This helps you deploy a scoring system that is completely customized to your business needs.
• Your buyer personas—This is a detailed description of your buyers which highlights their behaviors, goals, skills, and attitudes.
• Your sales teams’ perspective—Talk to your sales team. Understand your customers’ habits—and know the difference between interest and intent.

I also know that not all lead scoring strategies are created equal. It’s important to ensure that you’re sending high quality leads to your sales reps or building out your marketing lists to ensure the focus is on quality, not quantity. That focus translates into higher conversions and increased revenue, which is how you ensure that you’ve created a scoring model that will hit it out of the park and round all the bases—especially for sales and marketing—to ultimately drive revenue home.

It’s About the Long Game, Not the Short

When Wanna Java captured my information while I was back at Yankee Stadium, they should have already begun to process my contact information. That way, they could effectively market to me and potentially turn me into one of their best customers. Once they’ve turned me into a Wanna Java-be, they’ll begin to learn my buying habits. With proper modeling and automation tools in place, they might begin to notice that I order the same drink in the same store at the same time every day. They might determine that because of this, I’m a loyal customer who’d be very interested in trying out new offers or new products. Or that I’m the type of person who brings my friends coffee drinks since I often buy more than one on each visit.

So what’s the upshot? Consumers are complex and they chart their own course. We know what we like, but we’re also creatures of habit. Chances are, if I buy the same drink every day, I’m not too adventurous. But if one day I buy tea, and the next day I buy coffee, and another day I buy a soda or the drink of the week, then I might be offer-driven. I might be open to new things. By listening and understanding my habits, as well as the habits of other customers, businesses can build me into a category that will enable them to market to me most effectively, more personally, and know whether I’ll convert. And, it all starts with an effective data and lead scoring strategy.

How have you used data and lead scoring to make your marketing more effective? Please share your story in the comments below!

Most of us are ignorant about prices. Experiments have shown that people will:

1. Pay more for an item priced at $39 than one priced at $34
2. Spend more when the dollar sign is removed (1,500 vs. $1,500) and more again if the comma is removed (1500 vs. 1,500)
3. Think that prices written in a smaller font are less than the same price written in a larger font.
4. Buy relatively more premium-priced beer than standard-priced beer if a third super-premium beer is added to the choices on offer but buy relatively less premium-priced beer if a cheaper beer is added to the mix
5. Pay a lot more for any particular brand of beer when it’s being sold in a fancy hotel than if it’s being sold somewhere less fancy like a grocery store

(Good summaries of these and other examples can be found here and here.)

What is a marketer to do when faced with such ignorance? There’s economic reward to be gained by devising pricing and payment strategies that confuse the hapless consumer into handing over more money. But what about the impact on brand reputation?

Unbundling: Unbundling means pricing items or services separately rather than as part of a package. It’s been a lifesaver for the airline industry generating a lot of additional revenue. (Spirit generates almost 40% of its revenue from these non-fare fees.) Consumers hate these fees but pay them anyway because they shop on fares and just grumble about the add-ons. That makes the economics too compelling for airlines to ignore whatever the cost to the brand. Southwest is an exception. With a brand built on being a consumer champion and acting differently from the main carriers, it’s committed itself to a no-added-fee strategy and has made that an important part of its overall marketing message. It’s cost them a bundle but, in this case, adding the fees would have been off-brand and even more damaging to its reputation than it’s been for other carriers.

Comparative Pricing: People find it difficult to assess value without a frame of reference. That’s why comparative pricing is so commonplace. Whether it’s sale prices (30% off) or competitor price comparisons (30% less than the other guys), marketers position their product as being good value compared to something else. These strategies are a core part of the marketing arsenal and are proven effective. The risk is brand dilution and commoditization—too much price discounting or focus on price can cheapen the brand. One flavor of comparative pricing with little brand risk is anchor pricing. This has become standard practice for software solutions with typically three tiers of pricing, a basic tier (often free) with limited options, a top tier with every conceivable bell and whistle and a middle tier that most people choose because it seems, in comparison to the two extremes, to be the best choice. As you can see from the SurveyMonkey example below, the desired choice is often helpfully drawn to your attention.

Automatic Payment: Automatic payments are why you’re still getting that magazine every week that you never have time to read. They are popular because they are convenient but also because they help people avoid even having to think about prices. It’s one factor that’s helped fuel Uber’s success. Rather than sit in a taxi and watch the meter click higher and higher, Uber has your credit card and that’s all it needs. No physical payments. No worries.

Dynamic Pricing: On the other hand, Uber has eroded its customers’ peace of mind by embracing surge pricing (aka dynamic pricing). When the same trip can cost different amounts at different times of day, that becomes something you have to think and worry about. Dynamic pricing boosts revenue but it has a cost in terms of impacting people’s trust in the brand.

Flat Pricing: Uber’s surge pricing model has given competitors an opportunity to differentiate themselves. Wingz offers an Uber-like service, taking people to and from airports but offers a flat-fee that brings back peace-of-mind to its customers. Sometimes simplicity and transparency that consumers will always say that they want will actually work out to be the best approach.

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Over the past few years, there has been no shortage of commentary and analysis on the modern-day Titanic known as BlackBerry.

The Waterloo, Ont.-based company that arguably invented the smartphone grew from virtual nothing to one of the most important technology operations in the world with startling speed. Its fall from grace came almost as blindingly fast.

In their new book, Losing the Signal: The Spectacular Rise and Fall of BlackBerry, Globe and Mail reporters Sean Silcoff and Jacquie McNish document the fascinating story through unprecedented access to company co-founders Mike Lazaridis and Jim Balsillie, as well as numerous other important characters.

Silcoff joined me for a chat about the book and the lessons it can provide to other companies, especially Canadian ones. Here’s a condensed version of that conversation.

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There have been other books on BlackBerry? Why did the two of you want to do this one?

It’s probably the most interesting and compelling business story, not just in Canada, but I think globally in the last couple of decades when you factor out the big scandal stories like Tyco or Enron or Arthur Andersen.

These were conventional narratives of companies gone bad and there were issues of corporate malfeasance and such, but that’s not what happened in the story of BlackBerry. It’s a classic rise-and-fall story about a small company that came from out of nowhere against very long odds and really changed the world.

Just as it was reaching its highest heights, the disruptor got disrupted and its downfall wasn’t pretty. We felt like the story hadn’t been fully told. There were a couple books before, but they captured the company at the height of its power and I don’t think reflected what was going on inside the company.

Timing worked out really well for us because both Mike and Jim were prepared to speak and reflect. They saw a lot of value in opening up about the rise and the fall. They were supportive of sharing the lessons they had learned both on the way up and on the way down.

Getting Mike and Jim to speak meant we were able to get a lot of other people to speak as well, who hadn’t before.

How did you get that access? Who approached who?

It came out of a story that ran in The Globe and Mail that ran in September, 2013. It was a big piece, about 6,000 words, and we really felt like it was the first story of what led to BlackBerry’s decline. It was about a year-and-a-half in the making.

Once Jim and Mike had stepped down as CEOs just about every business medium was chasing them and no one was able to get them. Some people had bits and pieces, but no one had the full story.

I was able to get a fairly senior source to quite unexpectedly help out on that story and that opened up some doors with people.

That piece established something more than the conventional or lazy narrative of the company’s decline. There are still people today on Bay Street earning very good salaries who will tell you that BlackBerry went down because Jim was too busy trying to buy a hockey team and Mike was distracted by the physics institute he was trying to build. We tried to get much deeper than that.

When I ploughed into the numbers, I realized you could draw a straight line from the appearance and abandonment of the [BlackBerry] Storm by Verizon and the appearance of Android. It showed us the right questions to start asking. RIM insiders really appreciated that we were going to that depth and asking those questions.

How straight do you feel the sources were with you? Jim in particular comes off as a manipulator in the book, so how conscious of that were you?

From the outset, Jim told us he wasn’t interested in myth-making. He didn’t want to participate in a book that made them out to be legendary characters.

As a storyteller, you want to talk to enough people and triangulate things enough to know that you’re getting the straight goods. After a while you can sense when some people are sort of burnishing their own recollections and making themselves look good.

I’d say that wasn’t really the case for the central characters. There are a handful of people more on the margins that you could tell had an agenda, but we knew how to steer clear of that. Or I think we did.

There are some outcomes and conclusions in the book that remain fairly controversial. There are points in there where Jim and Mike have differing recollections or points of view and we try to air those and let them speak for themselves as opposed to drawing our conclusions.

Also, when you spend a lot of time with people you tend to notice patterns in how they tell stories and what was reassuring to us was to hear a source tell the same story the same way months later, as opposed to the facts always changing.

There was a real consistency to stories, so that told us we were getting an honest reflection from people the overwhelming majority of the time.

The impression I got from the entire story is that this was a company that was always flying by the seat of its pants and so it was inevitably going to go wrong. Did you have that sense as well?

They were always moving really fast and it was a company that was always growing by leaps and bounds. Even when the iPhone appeared [in 2007], two years later they were still the fastest-growing company in the world.

It’s one thing if you’re selling software and scaling up means hiring another person, but when you get to a certain level – and they hit that level right around the time the iPhone came out – they had to go from one factory to five and they had to globalize their supply chain.

Growing a goods-making company at such a pace when you’re starting from such a small base is an extraordinary challenge.

When you’re a pioneer and you’ve beaten everybody and nobody’s efforts to unseat you have worked at all, it gives you a bit of a comfort zone. Not that they were comfortable, but they were always the leaders, never the followers.

The moment that switched they really became quite lost. The line that sticks with me, and it’s interesting to hear Jim speak about it so matter of factly, is this period of strategic confusion that they were in. You really sympathize and empathize with them.

They built this amazing company and were so successful where they created a category that Silicon Valley’s biggest, baddest and most well-financed and smartly run companies want to get into and dominate. That’s a bit of a curse. Mobile data became this amazingly valuable market that Apple and Google wanted to come to.

It’s one thing for Google, with a bunch of guys working on a secret project, to pivot on their smartphone plans and tear up the blueprint and start over again. It’s another thing for a company that’s running at full steam and that’s what BlackBerry was forced to do.

I’d challenge anyone to put themselves in that position and try to figure out the best way forward, especially when it’s a two-headed organization where the tension points are starting to open all through the company.

I look back at it and think what could BlackBerry have done differently at the time? They hadn’t gone back to raise money in a few years, so maybe that would have been a good time to go to market and raise a war chest and set aside a bunch of people to try and do the full innovator’s dilemma salvation plan.

But you also have to remember that BlackBerry thought it had its competitive response to the iPhone in the Storm. The Storm was a failed product in a number of ways. It was buggy, but it also took a pre-iPhone approach to the phone. It was a much more mechanical thing where the screen actually pressed down.

Mike thought people wanted that clickable screen. So the company effectively came to market with the wrong kind of product and then it tried to fix that product a couple of times.

That was the best that they made and you see it in retrospect so clearly now but nobody at the time realized that the Storm’s failure really opened up that rare opportunity for Google to come in. It was a golden opening.

When you think about it, the iPhone appears in 2007 and the company’s first truly competitive response to that that takes it into the modern era really doesn’t come till early 2013. That’s a very, very long time in technology and by then BlackBerry was so far down and the trend was so well developed that it was really hard for them to come back.

The book is very much straight reportage. Why you didn’t do more of your own analysis?

There is some analysis in there but I think we want people to get to the end of this book and be entertained, informed, feel like they’ve read a great book. If they have other questions, if they want the scholarly analysis, that’s available elsewhere, I guess. We just wanted to tell a really great story.

Have you heard from Mike or Jim on what their thoughts are?

We have heard back from Jim. We were on stage with him at the Empire Club a few weeks ago and the feedback was fairly positive. I think it’s difficult for RIM insiders to read this book because there was a lot of trauma there and a lot of things that people didn’t want to read.

What’s the biggest lesson that anyone reading the book should take away from it?

Technology is a brutally competitive business where only the paranoid survive. These are well-worn views about technology and you can’t repeat them enough. It’s an interesting business where your customers, partners and suppliers can all become your enemies at a certain point.

It’s a danger for a startup to say about big, giant companies like a Microsoft or a Google, “Oh, we don’t compete in their space.” The way technology or innovation works is you never know when you’re going to veer directly into the path of a giant because that’s where the business takes you. Nobody can take for granted that even their best friends can become their biggest enemies in business.

One lesson that’s really important for Canadian companies is we don’t have any shortage of great innovators and engineering talent in this country, but we seem to have this pervasive problem with salesmanship and commercialization.

That’s an issue Jim really likes to hammer on a lot. If you read his piece in the Globe a couple of months ago, Jim really goes on about that. Commercialization is really a skill that runs in short supply in Canada. It’s not good enough to build the coolest, most innovative technology, you really have to go out and sell it. You see that in the story of BlackBerry.

What’s the future hold for the company?

Some kind of rebound is possible, the question is: from what point? If you look at the numbers, in the most recent quarter BlackBerry made 40 per cent of its revenue selling smartphones and almost as much from service fees for its older phones that are gradually coming out of service.

Their smartphones sales were $1.3 billion in the most recent quarter, they were $1.6 billion in the quarter before, $1.9 billion a quarter before that, so the trend isn’t good for smartphones. The service access fees were $1.6 billion last year and that’s going to be $800 million this year. Eventually that’s going to be zero.

So we’re talking about a company whose two biggest sources of revenue appear to be on a steady downward clip. There’s some good news on software and licensing and certainly they’ve got tens of thousands of patents and that’s obviously worth something.

They’ve got $2 billion in cash in the bank, so it’s a company that has time, options and assets, but what it doesn’t yet have is a demonstrable, positive upward trend to give anyone reason to believe it’ll be bigger than it is now any time soon.

I think it’s going to be a much smaller company before we know how bright a future it’s going to have, but it may well continue to flourish. They have an awfully long runway and [current CEO] John Chen is a skilled turnaround guy. We certainly weren’t writing the eulogy for this company by any stretch.

MORE ABOUT BLACKBERRY & DISRUPTION:

• The inside story of how the wheels came off at Research in Motion
• BlackBerry’s back-to-basics approach is starting to show results
• BlackBerry’s transformation into a software company, in three charts
• Don’t believe the hype: companies can be innovative at any size
• Being boring is Apple’s latest, and most profitable, innovation
• Slideshow: Legendary CEOs and how their successors fared

The post “Losing the Signal” co-author Sean Silcoff on what went wrong at RIM appeared first on Canadian Business - Your Source For Business News.

If you're looking to save money, big purchases can be a great opportunity to do so.

Unfortunately, when it comes to big-ticket items like a new car, most of us make mistakes and end up overpaying. The experienced and crafty car salesman doesn't help our cause, either.

We spoke to Scott Chesrown, who spent nearly a decade working in auto dealerships before transitioning to VP of Marketing at Vroom, a New York City-based car sales startup that brings the car buying, financing, and selling process online.

Chesrown shared four common tricks that car dealers employ to get you to spend more:

1. They start very low on the appraisal of your trade-in.

The first step in buying a new car is trading in your old one. Car dealers love to price your old car much lower than it is actually worth and assume you will start negotiating from the price they suggest, Chesrown tells us.

Don't get off to a lousy start by trading in your car for an unfair price. Do your research ahead of time, using resources such as Kelley Blue Book to determine exactly how much your car is worth. If you're armed with that information, you become the person controlling the conversation. "In today's world, buyers can hold the upper hand in the transaction," Chesrown says.

2. They get you in the door by offering low prices and then sell you something different (and more expensive).

Car dealers thrive on the classic bait-and-switch tactic. "Most tools online are geared towards getting you in the store because that's when car dealers have the most opportunity to sell the car," Chesrown explains. "The cars are right in front of you, it's usually a high-pressure situation, and these guys know how to sell cars. The stigma of the car dealer is still very much true in the industry."

What they'll do is tell you a great deal is available to lure you into the store, knowing that they can switch you on to a different, pricier car. Or, they'll tell you the "great deal" was already sold, and proceed to selling you something more expensive.

You have two options to overcome this trickery. You can call the dealership right before visiting and ask them to confirm that the vehicle is in stock. If they do, don't stop there — ask them to email or fax a signed statement indicating it's available for sale. Option two is to forego the dealership all together and buy online, or opt for a service such as Vroom, which can help you find a deal online and then deliver the car straight to your doorstep.

3. They try to sell you a bunch of protection services for your car that you don't actually need.  

"By the time most consumers get into the financing process, they're exhausted," Chesrown tells us. Dealers will use that to their advantage, and try to extract more money out of you when you're fatigued and desperate to leave with a new car.

"They'll start throwing on extended warranties and different types of protection you probably don't need on your car," explains Chesrown. "People end up buying a lot of things that ultimately don't protect them."

To avoid this pitfall, make sure you know exactly what these additional items cover and then ask yourself if you truly need them. Most of the time, you'll find you don't need so much protection.

A common trick to look out for is tire protection. Often, you'll find in the fine print that you're only covered if a nail was found in your tire — any other damage not involving a nail will not be accounted for. Also, dealers may try to sell you an extended warranty that just covers their electrical system. This doesn't necessarily make sense, Chesrown explains, as modern cars don't have a lot of electrical problems.

This doesn't mean you should opt for the other extreme and forego all service contracts. "It is important to have a service contract," Chesrown tells us. "I'm a very big fan of extended warranties on cars — when they cover the right stuff."

4. They mark up the interest rate on the car.

When it comes to financing the car for you, dealers can make a lot of money by marking the interest rate up, and oftentimes, consumers are completely oblivious that they're getting ripped off.

"The perception of most consumers is that the interest rate came from the bank, which they trust" Chesrown tells us. "The interest rate did come from the bank, the car dealers just put more interest on top of it."

Customers with excellent credit (780 or above) should expect an interest rate between 1.49% and 3.49%, and customers with average credit should expect between 4% and 6%, Chesrown says. The range accounts for factors such as income, debt, and the amount you want to borrow. 

While the best dealers will always try and get you a competitive rate, they will also typically start at a slightly higher range to hold back a percentage for profit. Chesrown's rule of thumb is that if a dealer is quoting you an interest rate for the first time, expect it to be 2% higher than what the bank is actually charging them.

"The best way to protect yourself is to learn what your credit is, and then talk to your bank directly about what you would qualify for and the interest," advises Chesrown. "That would then give you the ammo you need before walking into a dealership."

One final tip from the expert: Don't jump the gun and tell the dealer how much you want to pay per month before you're approved. "That allows the car dealer to pack your payment full of all the products if they can beat your monthly payment, which they can usually do by extending out the length of the loan," Chesrown warns.

SEE ALSO: How To Stop Wasting Money On Expensive Groceries

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