Category Archives: Sales

Sales

Selling Under the [Buying] Influence


There are as many models for “buyer roles” in the sales marketplace today as there are sales methodologies.  But as is often true with a tool that works (you’ll pry my Moleskine notebook from my cold, dead hands) I have my favorite model for buyer roles too – the “Buying Influences” of Robert B. Miller and  Stephen E. Heiman.

Miller-Heiman’s Strategic Selling was a ground-breaking sales methodology that like Neil Rackham’s S.P.I.N. Selling has influenced almost all thinking on the subject since it was introduced.  In the Strategic Selling methodology, a key tenant was thinking about selling through the eyes of the buyer broken down by role or “buying influence.”

The epiphany of this model included:

  1. “Selling” should really be looked at through the buyer’s eyes.  This was revolutionary and still remains a challenge in some organizations.
  2. The single-sale-to-single-buyer paradigm is no longer relevant.  Buying is done by a group, either in organized or loosely federated teams.  This is a truth to this day, arguably accelerated by the internet and social media providing the opportunity for buyers to be more educated than ever, and instilling a drive to have a voice in collaborative decision-making.
  3. These teams had various roles, and the roles could be grouped into common types with common business priorities:
    1. Economic: The one buyer with $ authority
    2. User: The person or people who will interact with the solution on a daily basis.
    3. Technical: the person or people who will need to deeply understand the solution or do the care and feeding.
    4. Coach: An active fan of your solution, who will help you sell it into their organization.
  4. The salesperson should incorporate this into the sales strategy.

If you’re still looking at selling from the inside out, and think you have one buyer per sale, it is a very valuable exercise to dust off your copy of this book (or get digital and download it to your Kindle) and do a gut check. 

You’ll be glad you took the time to sell under the influence!

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Sales

Are All Opportunities Created Equal?


The answer, of course, is NO!

But if you are like most organizations, I would wager that you and your sales team have a natural tendency to “shoot at anything that moves.”

Acting with the discipline to treat opportunities differently depending on their qualification can pay huge dividends as a return on organizational effort.

We all have a limited set of differentiated offerings.  It is also true that available time for selling is tighter than ever before.  So it makes the manner in which you identify, qualify, and pursue opportunities a higher stakes game than ever before.

In his re-creation of Michal T. Bosworth’s concepts in The New Solution Selling, author Keith M. Eades draws one key distinction that can be helpful in sorting the wheat from the chaff.  The image above is a modified version of the “Solution Selling Process Flow Chart Model.”  In it you will notice that opportunities fall into two types: “Latent,” where the client is not actively looking, but your solution is a strong fit; and “Active,” where the client is looking for a solution to a specific problem, and your solution may be a strong fit. 

You can quickly sort opportunities at your firm into these two types as one way to triage potential pursuits and if/how you are going to manage them.

Sales to Latent opportunities are typically longer (more nurturing, education and collaboration with clients) but also generate less competition and more profit per deal.

Sales to Active opportunities need to be scrutinized (what is our unique win strategy?  What is our profit position? Should we pursue?) but are often a faster path to closure.

The challenge is not to develop the perfect process, but to begin to differentiate the way in which you engage on pursuits. 

Interesting things will happen when you do.   Your hit rate should increase,  you should see a higher return on your effort, and people on your team will begin to feel that you are playing to win.

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Sales

Please Read CRM and Leave Me Alone!


Begin rant here…

If you look at it from the perspective of the sales representative, one of the principal benefits of CRM (and I’ve selected, implemented, and used them all – Microsoft CRM, Salesforce.com, Oracle CRM, Sugar, you name it)  is creating a “book of record” for opportunities and client touch points. 

I know where my opportunity stands.  I know the sales stage we’re in.  I know the people making the decision.  I know our allies and our detractors.  I have all my correspondence to and from our buyers.  I have the latest feedback from the  influencers.  I’ve documented our partners on the deal. Ditto the competition. I know our relative strengths and weaknesses.  And, here is the coolest part – SO DO YOU!  In fact, everyone in the organization has this information in one, centralized spot.

This is why my pet peeve is doing perpetual deal reviews for various members of a pursuit team – catching them up.  As the Sales Rep, this consumes  untold cycles of my time.

If you want to know about a deal, please go review the notes on it in CRM! 

Otherwise, why am I doing this typing?  (I’m the one who already knows this information, remember?)

…Rant ended

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Marketing, Sales, Social Media

Sales People – Play Your *Position (*It’s Changed)


Parents who have watched their children growing up playing soccer can appreciate this.  It’s the phenomenon I call “swarm-ball” where the young kids cluster around the ball, eyes fixed on it, and move as a swarm up and down the field, flitting around to the brink of exhaustion.

Years go by.  Then, something magical happens.  All the coaching sinks in and like a light-switch, the players lock into the concept of playing their position.  Suddenly all the lost energy becomes focused and efficient.  Players are making passes, assists, and goals more often with less exertion and more accuracy.

Sales people have a position to play in a selling process too – and it’s changed.  Radically.

In recent years, as the internet has exploded and buyers are more educated than ever, sales people can no longer afford to just “chase the ball.”  Buyers don’t like it.  They won’t tell you – they just won’t buy from you.

It boils down to this, you are no longer the source of information on your product or service.  Whether they have it or not, clients will come to you feeling as though they have all the knowledge about their purchase (want proof of this trend? Ask your Doctor if Web MD has caused her any frustration in this area with the medically “brilliant” patients she now must deal with).  Clients do their homework first.  We all do this when we buy. 

My respected friend, Ardath Albee (follow her on Twitter immediately if you don’t yet – http://twitter.com/#!/ardath421 )  is a thought-leader in content marketing.  This is the art and science of generating interest, attention, value, and engagement (that leads to YOU and the active selling position you play).   Here is Ardath’s new concept of a sales funnel:

The bottom line is that you as a sales person no longer work the entire funnel.  You and your organization need to need to put good, valuable content out there to capture the interest, gain the attention of, communicate value to, and Engage potential buyers.  This is where your position kicks in.  At this point is where you can make a huge difference as a sales person.  You can have more qualified sales conversations, and close more sales, if you play your position. 

Don’t to shoe-horn your clients into being “sold” on your product.  Instead, play your position by leveraging content marketing techniques to engage clients in the front end of the funnel while you bring value to buyers in key conversations and their decisions to buy. Be the best possible player you can be from “engagement” onward in this funnel and you will score more goals!

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Sales

Guaranteed Better Sales Interactions? Plan On It


We don’t always do the best job that we can at preparation.  But one thing is for sure – there is no shortage of meetings each day, especially in sales and marketing.    Due to the collaborative nature of selling today, those meetings burn not only y0ur time, but the time of other valuable people in your organization.  It pays to do them effectively and efficiently.  So when is the last time you pre-planned an important meeting? 

On my better days, this makes the difference between a highly successful meeting or one that lacks specific direction and outcomes.

You can do a pre-meeting plan in a phone call, or more formal written document.  But whatever form it takes, I guarantee that you will have better meetings, and accomplish more in them if you take a few minutes and plan ahead.  It works for non-sales meetings too.

So what comprises a good pre-meeting plan? 

To fit your unique situation, you’ll ultimately need to answer that for yourself.  But here are some suggestions from my “g0-to” pre-meeting plan document to get you started:

1.  Meeting Logistics: 
Communicate the time, date, exact location, attendees from both organizations, dress code, and a reminder to bring business cards.  It seems simple, but at least one or two of these are almost always missed.  By the way, your client will give you points for asking for this information ahead of time. 
Not all their vendors come off this organized!

2.  Client Snapshot:
Include a brief, relevant overview of the client organization to baseline the participants.  Especially in the age of the internet, you never look so unprepared as when a team-mate asks a basic question that they should have known going in. 
You’re on for preparing them!

3.  Client Goals, Problems, Needs:
What does your client need from this meeting?  How often do you go in to a meeting without the answer? Too often if you ask most clients.  Preparing for this item is the only way you can know that you will deliver “in-meeting” value. 
Provide “in-meeting” value or your follow-up won’t matter!

4. Sales Objective for the Meeting:
What do you hope to accomplish from this meeting?  Some people are not comfortable with this prep question.  I don’t know why.  Clients know that we are all in business to give and get.  Don’t just go in for a visit.
What’s annoying to them is you being unclear on what you want!

5.  Main Agenda Topics and Topic Owners:
Being organized ahead of time to avoid confusion or conflict makes a huge difference on the impact of the meeting . The collaborative nature of selling has introduced a variable that did not exist in the “1 vs. world” model of sales meetings.  We all think we’re smart and we all hate silence.  Have this mapped.
Someone will say something dull unless you script it out!

6.  Potential Objections, Planned Responses, and Owner:
If you can do just one item on this list before your next meeting make it this one.  This is the most critical item and most often missed opportunity.  Prepare for objections before you get in there.  Here is a fun exercise to run before the meeting: Ask 4 participants what our ideal answer to a client’s question/objection will be and watch how far-flung the responses are.    Practice this, or at least plan for it, and your meeting will be many times more effective.
A crisp response to a tough question can mean a win or a loss!

So there it is, your starter “Pre-Meeting Plan.”  Now go make it yours and watch your meetings soar.

Good Selling!

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Sales

Leaping Lizards – I’m All In!


Pop quiz…You see a slimy lizard crawling on the forest floor.  Do you:
a.) Run away, or
b.) Grab it and see how COOL it looks close up? 

I recently spent the week at Shawnee National Forest with my family over Spring Break.  Getting lost in the wilderness  was wonderful (our National Park system is truly a treasure), and I was reminded of a valuable life lesson that often comes from spending extended time with children.  It’s an attitude I call – “I’m All In!”

I am happy to say that my wife and I have raised 3 kids (1 boy and 2 girls) who are only too glad to grab the varmint and ask questions later.  In fact several creatures, including the one pictured above, came back to us for inspection during our trip.  Kids have this impulsive and inquisitive quality that I think we tend to lose as we “grow up.” 

And so it can be with selling.  You start out with a fire in your belly, eager to take chances, lean into the wind and be aggressive.  You go out and grab that new client,  working a bare new territory into results,  whatever the situation calls for – You’re All In.

Over time, there is a tendency to grow cautious.  Sometimes for good reasons, after all you don’t want to chase any unqualified opportunity that comes along.  But sometimes, it’s just plain old complacency setting in.  Before you get involved, you want the “Glengarry Leads,” safe and predictable.

Get out of your comfort zone!  Remember that child-like instinct and just go ahead and grab that creepy crawly.  You can always put it down later if it’s too gross.  But it might just turn out to be that big deal you’ve been searching for.  I’m All In!

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Sales

I Fired a Prospect Today. Yep.


It may seem completely counter-intuitive. I’m the sales rep.  I’m supposedly the person who never met a deal he didn’t like. The one who will drag our company’s resources through any unqualified pursuit to the bitter end – all the while golfing, wining, dining and fretting away the company’s resources – or so legend has it.

So why did I do it? Why did I let this deal go?

1. It was the right thing to do for the prospect: Our stepping back was the most transparent and powerful message my firm could send the client. We know the right way to do this engagement, and we are not going to compromise your success or our reputation by short-cutting.

2. It was good for my business. Here’s a question: What is the WORST hand in poker? The SECOND best hand. That’s the player who stays in, doubles down, fattens up the pot (drives up their cost of sale)…and then loses.

3. It will free up precious time. Let’s face it, time is more valuable than money at this point in your life. You only have capacity for x number of deals per year. This client will take all the time and information that you offer, but they are not going to buy at your solution/scope/price. What is the opportunity cost to you for not spending that time on other opportunties?

4. It was good for my psyche. Training/re-training yourself that not every deal is a good deal is an important lesson to learn and reinforce. Nothing is more powerful than the will to walk away. It’s good for your sense of self as well as your ability to offer more objective counsel to your customers going forward.

So (never thought I’d say this…) what are you waiting for? Go out and fire a prospect today!

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Marketing, Sales

Honesty is the Best Policy


I was just informed by a client that I lost a large project for which I was told I was a finalist.  It’s a long story,  but the bottom line is that I was mislead. 

Lying certainly does not fly when I’m the customer, but I found out today that it also does not work for me when I’m the seller. 

There were many times throughout the buying process when this client could have warned me or signaled me that there was not a chance for me to win.   I know what you’re thinking, maybe he needed me for leverage.  In this case, it turns out no – the alternate solution was not a similar service.  The only thing I did not get was the truth, and I was asking the hard qualifying questions all along .

In the karmic nature of the universe, this type of behavior tends to pay us back ,  so I’m not dwelling on what to do next with this client.  I’m sure it will work itself out.  I just don’t think that the fibbing is worth the energy.  Paraphrasing Mark Twain, “If you tell the truth, you don’t have to remember everything you said.”

One good thing will come of this situation, however.  This was a solid reminder to treat those with whom you work with transparency and honesty.  I think that if you do, you will get it back in return.

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Sales

$100k Hiding Right in Front of Your Face


That’s right, I said hiding right in front of your face.

There’s a lost art in sales today called eagle-eye prospecting. With all of our sales and marketing automation, conference calling, web leads, emails, social media, etc. – sometimes some good old-fashioned field work wins the day.

Here’s how I landed a $100k deal this week using this technique.

On Tuesday I had one scheduled meeting when my daily goal is two. I needed that extra meeting.

While visiting my first client, I checked out the surrounding area and found that I was very near a new prospective client. I gave her a call to see whether I could ‘”pop by to say hello,” and the rest is history.

She said “yes, that will work well this morning.” We refreshed a conversation about a project that we were discussing in November that had just been green-lighted and I closed it on the spot.

How many times do you do your first meeting and then go back to hide in the office hitting the phones, emails, or administration tasks?

In sales, we make the biggest difference when we are face to face and belly to belly.

My new client’s direct quote? “…sometimes these spontaneous meetings work better for me than trying to schedule one anyway.”

So take a minute to do a search in your CRM by zip code, or just eagle-eye a new prospect while you’re out.  Then challenge yourself to snag that extra meeting.

You could find $100,000!

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Marketing, Sales, Social Media

Your Client Is Like Santa Claus…


I could not resist looking through the red and white lens for this week’s post.  There are a lot of analogies to be drawn here.  I’ll skip the most obvious (we should all be thankful to our clients for the gift of business they give us…) and get to some of the other comparisons:

…He sees you when your sleepin’… You may think you’re getting away with it when you are dogging it at work in a sales role.  You may even pull one over on your boss.  But, your clients will notice.  In a world where product differentiation provides only the slimmest advantage, responsiveness and even proactivity remain your key strategic differentiators.  If you slow down, your clients will sense it. There is a great book on this concept called “Selling the Invisible,” by Harry Beckwith.  Read it.

..He knows when you’re awake…If you are a solution-maker for your client, you will get their attention.  If not, you’re toast. You need to work on these relationships in earnest.  What have you done for your client that is truly different or better than anyone else?  What has your firm done to stand out as leaders in your industry? What are you doing to show that you’re awake?

…He knows if you’ve been bad or good…It used to be that your customer would need to try your product/service and let you succeed or fail a few times before learning if you were bad or good.  What’s changed?  The internet and  Social media are the new norm.  You don’t go car shopping without knowing the VIN#, invoice price, and full specifications of the car your buying, and your client doesn’t buy from you without knowing your offerings as well or better than you know your own.  They now also know what your other customers think about you– BEFORE they even contact you.  Better be on your toes!

I hope your year is winding down to a successful end this week.  The next 10 days are a good time to reflect on 2010 and prepare for an even better 2011. 

…So be good for goodness sake!  Happy Holidays

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Marketing, Sales, Social Media

Are You LinkedIn?


I had the pleasure of co-facilitating a workshop on LinkedIn this week.  There were more than 20 people in the room with varying degrees of familiarity with the LinkedIn platform.  It was a fun event, and we received some great feedback on the usefulness of the tool, particularly for these folks, many of whom are in a job search.

They say you never learn something until you teach it.  What I learned was just how far this platform has come in the past 6 months.  As an early adopter, I sometimes take it for granted.  But seeing it through the eyes of a newcomer really highlighted just how powerful this tool set is.

LinkedIn is:

  • Your Personal website.  It’s YOU.com (just Google yourself and see)
  • Your LIVING Rolodex (it grows exponentially as you nurture it)
  • A “P [professional] RM” System  (moves with you from job to job)
  • A Social Media Platform  (hooks into Twitter, “like”, “sharing,” etc.)
  • A Database of Corporate Information (“Company” entity added)
  • A Job Posting / Search System (powerful for recruiters /job-seekers)

If you (or anyone you care about) are still not on LinkedIn, you need to get on pronto.  If you are a power user, it’s time to take a look at the new features available to you.   LinkedIn has centralized some very useful training information in a section called “The Learning Center” http://learn.linkedin.com/ where you can quickly update your knowledge and skills.

Get to it!

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Sales

Before Proposing – ALWAYS Ask for a Meeting


Here is a little pre-Thanksgiving humor for my sales compatriots out there courtesy of Scott Adams.  If you’ve ever been in this sales situation, you’ll get a kick out of the Dilbert strip above.  Scott has a great site by the way, where you can buy relevant strips for your marketing efforts.

So what’s the lesson here? I have given up on responding to vague and/or rushed RFPs, and I would recommend you do the same.  If the prospective client is not willing to sit down with you and work through some basic questions that will allow you to craft a response both more accurate and relevant to them, you’re probably column-fodder on their spreadsheet anyway.

I can’t tell you how many times early in my career I took valuable time (in some cases all night) responding to a long RFP for which I knew in the pit of my stomach we had no prayer of winning.

Now, asking for the “pre-proposal discovery meeting” has become a valuable step in qualifying the opportunity before burning the resources to craft a solution and response.

Don’t let your Pointy Haired Boss make you work all day Thursday unless you have had your meeting.

Happy Thanksgiving!

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Marketing, Sales

2010 = Rearview Mirror – How To Start on 2011…


 According to Chad White, research director at Responsys and author of the Retail Email Blog, as of Oct. 29, 57% of top online retailers had begun their holiday email marketing campaigns.

The holidays are upon us.  Retailers are in full swing.  People are making final Thanksgiving preparations with their guests. 

If you are in B2B marketing or sales, and you don’t have active opportunities rolling deep into your sales funnel by now – you’re too late for 2010. 

Whether or not you hit the mark this year,  you need to be building your base for 2011.  In B2B sales and marketing, this the time of year to book your last deals and focus on building a foundation for January and beyond.

So what do I recommend?

1.  Lock down schedules.  For any business that you book between now and yearend, time will get tighter by the week to get things done for the executives, legal departments, and other parties to your deals.  Get your calendars locked with confirmed calendar responses so your time remains sacrosanct.

2. Say “Thank You.”   Press the flesh.  Take this opportunity to say thank you to your good clients and even your solid prospects for the good business and future business.  Schedule some time for coffee or lunch to cath up and discuss next year.  Buying is an emotional decision, This does make a difference.

3.  Execute holiday campaigns flawlessly and ferociously.  While it may seem counter-intuitive, messages arriving during this time can have a higher hit-rate because your clients in B2B businesses have the same lull now.  Their in boxes are quieter over the next 2 months, and they are in the office more.

4.  Plan your marketing calendar for Q1 and Q2 2011.  Do it now, so you can spend your time January on execution , not dallying with a plan.

5.  Clean House.  Use this time between the holidays to catch up, clean up, and focus. Toss old files, clean out (and back up) your hard-drive.  Do all the things you never have the time to get to during normal business months.

That’s All, Folks!   On to 2011!

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Marketing, Sales

Throw Away Your Sales Funnel


In the past five years, as the internet explosion spilled over from technology  hobbyists into full use by the general public, and finally adoption by the business world, it added velocity to a trend that I would argue was already underway  – the death of sales.

Sounds ominous (and a bit like a play starring Dustin Hoffman) but it’s true. The traditional sales approach is dead.

As a career sales rep and process wonk who for many years has practiced and studied both sales and marketing processes, I have analyzed my fair share of process models. For many decades, the conventional thinking in this area focused on affecting or acting on the customer, “selling them,” “generating demand,” ” qualifying them,” etc.

Your buyers have rendered this approach irrelevant. The consumer is now in charge of both the initiation and pace of the sales and marketing processes. No room in this post to argue that fact, so if you’re struggling with it, just take a leap of faith and read on.

Organizations that understand this new buyer-driven reality can capitalize on the new model and thrive, but not with the same old funnel.

You have to abandon the traditional sales funnel (generate leads, qualify opportunity, propose, close) and adopt one that manages the new reality.

The ways in which authors and analysts are depicting the traditional sales and marketing funnel model is also changing (finally). I ran across one particular funnel that really impressed me. I think it is dead-on.

Ardath Albee, an emarketing expert and author you should check out immediately, has conceived a funnel that truly addresses today’s sales and marketing realities. I have included an image of it in this post.

You’ll first notice that it is a horizontal funnel. This is brilliant way to visually depict that the process is not one of seller throwing buyer into a hopper to be squeezed and refined as if by gravity into a sale, but one of myriad, opt-in choices that the prospective buyer must be attracted to in the marketplace. It fully acknowledges that content and value attract buyers.

The model then goes on to show a largely buyer-driven process (acknowledging that business buyers rarely act alone but rather in committees or teams). Only then do we see some traditional selling tenants kick in, and even they are more collaborative in nature.

You should definitely check this model out. Here is a link to Ardath’s blog entry for more information.

By the way, Ardath also wrote a book called “eMarketing Strategies for the Complex Sale” which explains her philosophy on creating the unique and nurturing content that will attract your buyers to the front end of this funnel.  I’m currently reading it and will post more on this topic in later posts.

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Sales

Sales Team Meeting – A Shot in the Arm


Got together with my national sales team last week. It was an extremely valuable exchange of ideas.

When was the last time you gathered your sales team together for a face to face?  For us, it had been too long.

These meetings (when properly planned and executed) are so valuable you really need to do them annually at a minimum.  What type of value do you get?

  1. Comrodarie: More than putting faces with the names, you realize that you are not in this alone. Others are struggling and succeeding with you, through the same obstacles and leveraging the same resources.
  2. Best Practices Exchange: There is no better way to make a “best rep = all reps” changes than getting the entire team together to interact in person. You all learn more than you bargained for – guaranteed.
  3. Process Improvement: When you get the whole team to surround a problem, you can make not only incremental changes but also take some quantum leaps because you are all there for consensus to action.
  4. Energy Boost: You leave with a shot in the arm. You leave with the energy of just having met with an incredibly talented team of people and a sense of the overall goal. You feel like storming the field.

The day that we all arrived home, each and every rep connected with me to say it was a great investment of their time and that they learned a lot.  They look forward to attacking the rest of the year.

So when was your last sales meeting? 

More importantly, when is your next one?

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Marketing, Sales, Social Media

Are You Content Marketing?


If you are marketing today and not doing so through organized publicity of your intellectual capital through Content Marketing, you’re missing the boat!

Before you jump in, there are a few things you need to know:

  1. It’s a LOT HARDER THAN YOU THINK!   This takes planning, organizational alignment, rigorous scheduling, and new processes to start,  and – most importantly –  discipline to maintain.
  2. It’s a LOT SIMPLER THAN YOU THINK!  The tools available to support your efforts in this area were simply inconceivable only a few years ago.  Now they enable you to do this complex job more efficiently and effectively.
  3. It’s about WILL POWER!  Focus and tenacity are the hurdles here.  If you have them, you can be winning with content marketing in very short order.

What are the benefits?  “Brand Stickiness,” “Google Juice,” – whatever you want to call it, will bring recognition>leads>business!

The graph displayed here is an image from an excellent research piece done by Roy Young of  Marketing Profs and Joe Pulizzi of  Junta 42 “(B2B Content Marketing, 2010 Benchmarks, Budgets and Trends” [download here] that will give you an overview of the major components of a content marketing effort, along with some very useful statistics.

Some highlights:

  • Nine out of 10 B2B marketers are using content marketing to grow their businesses.
  • Enthusiasm for content marketing is high; however, marketers are still unsure about the effectiveness and impact
  • Content marketing deployment is high across industries, with no single industry reporting below 78% adoption
  • Web traffic is the most widely used success metric (56%) followed by direct sales (49%)
  • On average, B2B marketers allocate approximately 26% of their total budgets to content marketing initiatives
  • The largest challenge is “producing the kind of content that engages prospects and customers” (36% of respondents
  • Social media and article posting are the most popular tactics and are currently used by 79% and 78% of B2B marketers

Get this paper and digest it today!

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Sales, Uncategorized

“I Love It When A Plan Comes Together”


We tend to wander when we don’t have a destination.

The topic is Sales Account Planning.  Not the most thrilling subject – until your account plan starts bearing fruit!  Then you feel like a genious who’s master plan is coming together.  In the words of Hannibal from The A-Team, “I love it when a plan comes together!”

And yet, it seems to me that Account Planning is a threatened species in today’s business world.  What might be some driving factors?

  1. Today, the buyer is a co-owner of the cycle.  The Seller not longer controls information.  The Buyer controls and equal share.  So, how can the seller propose to pre-determine where he or she will sell their next deal?  Hint:  the ones who carefully choose their targets still can!
  2. It’s risky today to call your shots, and people are more risk-averse in this economy than ever.  It is much safer to chase the next RFP that comes through email than to aim and fire where everyone knows you’re shooting.  Hint:  It’s worth the risk.  You will miss some, but you’ll hit more by aiming than by blind shotgun blasts into the dark.
  3.  It’s a lot of work.  Once you lay out an org chart and determine “I’m going to map this in the next quarter,”  you have a lot of work to do.  Who’s got the time?  Hint:  Hard work is goo for you – and – social media and network accelerators like LinkedIn can make this relationship mapping go exponentially faster than it used to!
  4. It takes too much time.  If I take a few hours to write a plan, I’m not in the field selling!  Hint:  a few hours invested in this activity will help you avoid many hours of wasted time chasing bad business like RFPs, hunting in the wrong vertical markets, etc.  Focus your work on the 20% of your effort that pays 80% of your bills. 
  5. It’s too formal.  “We just do things more ad-hoc around here.”  Hint:  Good, then you be safe and ad-hoc in there, and I’ll get more business out here!

If you decide to see the wisdom and start account planning, remember that your plan should be a living document.  It should  predict as best it can the context of your prospect or client, but evovle over time.  “No battle plan ever survives contact with the enemy.” — Field Marshall Helmuth Carl Bernard von Moltke.  Meaning, your plan is going to change!

Whatever form your account plans take, you need to be doing this.  There is no better way to create your future in sales.

What do you think about account planning?  How do you do it in your organization?  More on this topic in future posts.

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Sales

The Two-Year Sales Cycle That Proves Nurturing Works


Yesterday, I had the satisfaction of closing a sale on which I’d been working for over two years.  I can’t describe the feeling better than to say this is why you get into sales!

A two-year sales cycle is crazy!” you say?  I would submit that it is more the norm these days when you look at the total life of a deal.  As you can imagine this represented the culmination of many, many touch points with my client.

In their outstanding book “Professional Services Marketing,” the partners at Wellesley Hills Group espouse the concept of “Nurturing.”  I could not agree more.  As mentioned in the book, the “long sales cycle” equals the months and even years that it takes to foster a strong relationship while the client builds to a point where they have a real initiative and funding and are thus in active buying mode. The concept is that the “short sales cycle,” once the client is able to buy, is much shorter – perhaps only several weeks. 

But you need to focus on the nurturing that puts you in a position on the long-cycles so when that buyer is ready, you are a trusted source for solutions and the obvious choice.

What are you doing to stay in front of your highest priority customers monthly, or even weekly, to nurture your way to more sales?

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Sales

The Art of Selling Is in the Heart, Not the Brain


It is all too easy to forget this fundamental in our age of ROI, NPV and Cost/Benefit, but it is critical to remember –  At it’s core, buying is an EMOTIONAL decision.

I was reminded of this today when I picked up a tweet from the Harvard Business Review that mentioned the concept in a blog post by Clif Reichard.   Cliff is a 55 year veteran of sales and customer service.  We can all learn a lot from that type of experience.

Cliff says that  “…Many sales organizations do little to create an emotional connection with prospective customers and concentrate instead on hype-filled sales pitches. We do the opposite: By conveying our warm feelings, we create an emotional bond without appearing phony or insincere. Then, by making an objective presentation, we show that we respect our customers’ ability to make their own judgments. The art of selling is in the heart, not the brain…”

Being honest with yourself, when is the last time that you and your team put as much energy into the heart of a pursuit as the brain?

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Marketing, Sales

Ah, The Dog Days of Summer!


Been a while  between posts  –  I just returned from some vacation.  The prep time before and digging out after have been significant, as always.   But, should be back on track for posting now…

It’s great to unplug and step away from the daily grind and see the forest for the trees though.  When you realize what you’re working for – it makes it so much easier get back and hit it.  It was a great time off with my wife and kids: hiking, swimming, fishing.  My son caught his first Musky…thought he won the Superbowl!

One of my take-aways this time was that I really love what I do.  Not everyone can say that.  There is a real vocational dimension to helping people with their most important projects that motivates me to do the best for my clients. 

Also, although some people automatically think technology is extremely cool and fun (guilty) it is also continuing to change the game for everyone, so you need to pay attention. 

On that note, I was reviewing some of my favorite blog reads while away and I think this one from Seth Godin wins.  It’s a concise summary about the transition from the production > information > “information about information” economy and gets you thinking about all the opportunities yet to be seized…  

Better get back to work!

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