Reversal of opinion

For the record, after reviewing our marketing efforts in January, I’ll publicly admit a shift in my thinking. I’ve always thought holiday cards were hokey and a complete waste of marketing time. So I’ll readily admit I wasn’t optimistic about the value of creating an electronic New Year’s missive.

However, I was intrigued enough to try one because our Xmas card: Do you know if Santa read your wish list? Johnny does… drove a significant bump in Free Account signups. Our Xmas “card” was a humorous and cleverly disguised product demo highlighting a kid using VisibleGains’ Outlook plugin to share his gift wish list and receive notifications when Santa read it.

As a new year’s follow-up, we decided to create a parody of the Old Spice Man—inspired by a draft script I created long ago. With some copy tweaks, we were off and running. We sent it to our core email distribution list. Happily, the HTML Open Rate on the New Year email Parody was 12.74%.

Data from our video app tells us roughly 1 out of 3 folks viewed the video and most stayed until the end. Google analytics (below) shows a spike in traffic the same day we sent it out when we didn’t have any other campaign running. Additionally 2.5% of viewers signed up for our Free Account that day. I know 2 to 3 percent is pretty standard but for the investment of time—and as a way to fill the lull between vacations when people are slow to get back to full throttle—we were happy.

So for a couple of hours of creative fun, we fed our Free Account program which in turn drives business. That’s better performance than many of the trade shows with speaking engagements we’ve invested significant more time and resources in! (Fodder for another blog post—or rant. In my humble opinion, trade shows are often too expensive for the return on investment.)

Are corporate Ground Hog’s Day cards or valentines worthwhile marketing investments? (Just kidding, I think.)

One of the hardest things for sales people to do when prospecting is to communicate the benefits of their solution to the right stakeholder—especially knowing they’ll likely be communicating first through a gatekeeper.

According to research conducted by The Bridge Group, Inc., on average it takes 9.3 touches to get the first meeting.   And, you need that first meeting to start the sales conversation, right?

Not necessarily.  TimeTrade didn’t.

They were able to send a single email with content so compelling it was digested and shared with 10 others before the first meeting—which, by the way, TimeTrade successfully secured within 10 days of sending the email.

Situation
TimeTrade President and CEO Gary Ambrosino craved a new way to open doors.  He was excited about the idea of including video in email to personally connect with prospects’ pain points and highlight bottom-line impacts of using TimeTrade’s online scheduling system.  In the short time it takes to view a video, Gary was confident he could present TimeTrade’s value proposition and actually use its scheduling product in the associated call to action to motivate prospects to book a first meeting at the very moment they were jazzed about the offering.

Solution
TimeTrade used VisibleGains applications and best practices to create a single communication including:

• A personal video introduction with an animated overview; and
• A set of actions the prospect could choose to do such as:
• watching a product demonstration,
• learning more from information presented on the TimeTrade website and
• booking a meeting.

Results

• One email sent to one person who shared it with 10 different people generated 14 views

• 10 Days later, TimeTrade had a booked meeting

• 90 Days later, TimeTrade had a signed deal

“With a single link, our sales rep in the prospecting process was able to reach and touch 10 people, leading to closed business.”
- Gary Ambrosino, President and CEO, TimeTrade 

Conclusion
Getting a first meeting is a key milestone in the selling process, often requiring Herculean effort and tons of guesswork by salespeople about the right time to follow-up.  The initial back and forth exchange between a sales person and prospect kicks off a salesperson’s direct involvement in the prospect’s buying process.

Salespeople open doors and earn the right to subsequent interactions when they demonstrate a persistent understanding of their prospect’s pain points.  Sending compelling content and following up when a prospect is engaged with it (thanks to the alerts sent by VisibleGains in this example when email is opened and content is read) helps salespeople get the first meeting, advance the sale and close the deal.

Are you taking full advantage of the opportunity to start sales conversations in email?

TimeTrade is the world leader in online appointment scheduling systems used by businesses to create new customers, accelerate the sales and service process and make it easy and fast to respond to customers—24/7. TimeTrade’s scheduling software solutions are built on the flexible TimeTrade Appointment Cloud SaaS platform that has the power to scale up to meet the real-time scheduling demands of the largest deployments.

This is a follow-up to my blog post, Do Not Create Resistant Donkeys! in which I introduced WEAC and STRONG sales tactics (mnemonics coined by me). WEAC tactics can turn your Prospect into a “donkey”, resistant to change, while STRONG tactics help unleash your Prospect’s inner racehorse, galloping across the sales finish line. This is a follow-up to a webinar we delivered.

In a series of blog posts, I explore how salespeople can employ STRONG tactics to put the Prospect in charge of change and feel empowered or strong. In my previous post,   No judgment-allow all issues to be on the table, I focused on the N in STRONG sales tactics.

Next (and last!) stop is G:

• S: SUPPORT the change process through reflections

• T: TRUST your prospect’s perspective of the change balance sheet

• R: RESPECT how difficult the change process is

• O: OFFER ENCOURAGEMENT for taking action

• N: NO JUDGING—you may be surprised what you learn 

• G: GUIDE, but do not drive the process

Why?

You’ve heard the expression: “You can lead a horse (or donkey?!) to water, but you can’t make it drink.” Well, people, like horses, will only do what they have a mind to do. To make change happen, it’s critical your Prospect hear her or himself arguing for change by articulating the desire, reasons, and need for things to be different, as well as the belief it can be done (“I can do it! Yes, I can!”) A guiding approach will empower your Prospect to fully engage and be much less likely to provoke that dreaded “resistant donkey”!

How?

• Be curious. You can best guide if you are truly open to learning from your Prospect.
• Follow the 20/80 rule:  talk 20% of the time and listen the other 80%.
• Engage in a dialogue, not a monologue.
• Be careful not to come across as manipulative. Your agenda needs to be about helping your Prospect make the best decision-not about closing the sale at all costs.
• Heed our marketing intern’s advice in her terrific post: base your sales “story” on your Prospect’s specific needs—not your “bells and whistles”—or risk “the sound of crickets on the other end of the phone.”
• Reflect back your Prospect’s own words whenever possible. Sales writer Art Sobczak explains: “If you ask about a difficulty or challenge they have, and then address that in your recommendation using their exact language, they won’t object to their own words.”

TIPS

• Do not be afraid to share your ideas with your Prospect. Your perspectives are a critical part of the conversation, as long as they are presented with respect and curiosity and after—NOT BEFORE—you have  listened to your Prospect.
• Remember to listen for the “confidence” message too. If your Prospect has concerns about her or his or ability to make change happen, then take the time to offer encouragement. I address this issue in detail in my earlier blog in this series.

Listen to yourself:  Who is arguing for change? You or your Prospect?

Peggy Kriss, Ph.D. is a clinical psychologist in Newton, Massachusetts and a consultant to VisibleGains. Stay tuned for more psychology informed blogs by Dr. Kriss.

Image source: National Archives of Australia

The National Retail Federation annual convention is underway at the Javits Convention Center in NYC. This is the show where retailers from all walks of life come to learn about the latest and greatest in the world of retailing. I decided to take in the show to learn from the innovative, new ways retailers can engage customers. The conference theme this year is Engaging with Shoppers in a World of Fragmentation and Change.

So imagine my surprise (or maybe not) when I arrived at the Javits Center and was greeted by massive lines (multiple) for check-in. No problem, I thought. My colleague and I had our bar codes handy on our smart phones. We would just whiz through express check-in while all these other poor folks wait for a human to slowly process their registration.

After making our way past the long lines that were almost 1000 people deep, we found a representative from the National Retail Federation who told us these were the lines for express check-in (those with the bar code for scanning).

Why the long lines? She wasn’t quite sure, as the conference opened yesterday. Perhaps it was because President Clinton was speaking today? Don’t worry, she said. The lines move fast.

Not really. It took an hour for us to get to the check-in counter. Once there a check-in person, who was courteous, manually scanned our barcode, which automatically printed our badge. We were finally on our way—more than an hour since we stepped in the line.

Inside the exhibit hall, almost all of the companies offered technological solutions to help retailers do a better job engaging clients—driving more sales and maximizing profits.

So why the disconnect between the host of the event and purveyors of technology?

1. Change is hard. Here was the National Retail Federation, an organization dedicated to helping retailers grow their businesses, operating in an old model. Not much thought had been given to their “customer experience”. The innovation of bar codes wasn’t fully embraced. Why not use self check-in? So many vendors on the floor were selling Kiosk check-in solutions! And, why not use customer registration data for streamlining check-ins? Simply knowing how many registrations were processed on Day 1 could improve check-in logistics on Day 2.
2. Change requires vision. The goal of leaders is to set a vision and enable the organization to carry it out. Here was a perfect opportunity for leaders of the National Retail Federation to partner with vendors to showcase how all the technology inside the exhibition hall could be applied outside to improve the attendee experience. However, my hunch is the conference was run much as it had been the year before.

Never underestimate how hard change is for all parties. Even so, embrace change for the good of your customers, pretty please. Put yourself in your customers’ world and do whatever you can to make it better. Anytime you need reminding—just think of me in that 1000 person queue.

What “long lines” in your customers’ experiences can you eliminate by embracing change?

This blog is inspired by David Meerman Scott’s recent post where he adeptly writes about lessons learned from political stories and applies them to marketing strategy.  And learning from DMS, I  reprint his disclaimer:

“This is a marketing blog, not a political blog. I am not talking up the merits of any candidates but rather using their marketing as examples for all to learn from.” 

So with that said….

It’s the political season and everyone is talking about which presidential candidate connects best with the voter. Genuine? Trustworthy? Feels my pain? Has a viable plan to meet my needs, hopes and dreams?

Spend an hour or two reading B2B tweets about effective sales communication and you’re likely to hear the same chatter about sales “to-dos”:

• Engage in a dialogue not a monologue.
• Really Listen
• Be Curious
• Build Trust

All of these admonitions could come from a campaign manager or sales manager. Hence, the lessons from one can be easily applied to the other—Campaigner can learn from Salesperson and Salesperson from Campaigner.

The predictably intense focus on every word, facial expression, question, or answer muttered by Candidates during primary season, coupled with 24/7 polling, yields data galore on every perception, impression, and reaction of the Voter. Consequently we can all learn from politics about “closing the sale”.

Enter the satirical New Yorker piece on what a “President Romney” might sound like given his penchant for what the New York Times and Boston Globe referred to as Romney’s “guessing” game.

In December 2011, the New York Times reported:

For a candidate who is exceedingly risk-averse, Mr. Romney has developed an unlikely penchant for trying to puzzle out everything from voters’ personal relationships to their ancestral homelands.

“Sisters?” he asked. (Nope, stepmother and stepdaughter.) “Your husband?” he wondered. (No, just a friend from the neighborhood.) “Mother and daughter?” he guessed. (Cousins, actually.)

The results can be awkward. “Daughter?” he asked a woman sitting with a man and two younger girls at the diner in Tilton, N.H., on Friday morning. Her face turned a shade of red. “Wife.”

And the creative license taken from the New Yorker in response to the Times’ report:

Chancellor Merkel looked somewhat taken aback at being mistaken for Sarkozy’s aunt. When she’d regained her composure, she said to President Romney, “I know you will have much to add on the question of the debt crisis in the euro zone, Mr. President.”

President Romney looked at the German Chancellor carefully, up and down. “I’d say you’d go about one-forty, give or take five pounds,” he said. “Am I in the ballpark?”

So what can be learned from all of this? All of the candidates have positive and negative relational qualities and moments.

This same New York Times article gives Romney some positive spin:

Mr. Romney has plenty of moments when he wins positive reactions and seems to make a genuine link, undercutting his caricature as robotic. And he is hardly giving up on mastering the art of the soft sell: he personally insisted on spending more hours talking to voters this election and fewer sequestered in his Boston headquarters.

The point I want to make here is that this guessing game is not something to be taken lightly! On the positive side, candidate Romney in this spoof took on a curious stance towards his “Prospect”. And he was engaging in a dialogue not a monologue. But was he really listening? And what about trust?

What’s wrong with guessing you might be musing? The problem is that guessing can make the receiver feel embarrassed and offended. It is hard enough to pull off when there is a high level of comfort and familiarity between two individuals.

There has been a lot written in sales blogs about the importance of taking the time to build trust and about the necessity for matching the type of communication to your Prospect with the stage or level of “intimacy” of the relationship. My colleague Bill Carney recently addressed  this critical issue in a lighthearted way, focusing on email communications. Give it a read—in addition to a good laugh—you’ll learn a lot about this “matching” issue, which will help you to avoid some of Romney’s missteps.

Making the sale—in the marketplace or in politics—needs to be done in a thoughtful, callibrated step-by-step way:

• Allowing lots of opportunities to understand the concerns and hopes of your “Prospect”; and
• Listening instead of assuming and having your conversation content and style attuned to the level of intimacy you have at any given time with your Prospect.

Yes, being curious is an important quality in building the relationship BUT curiosity is not a green light for guessing. There may be a time to play the “guessing game” with your Prospect, but the price of entry to the competition must be earned.

What sales lessons have you learned from observing the 2012 Candidates?

Peggy Kriss, Ph.D. is a clinical psychologist in Newton, Massachusetts and a consultant to VisibleGains. Stay tuned for more psychology informed blogs by Dr. Kriss.

2011 was a great year for VisibleGains. Kicking off 2011 was the big launch of our 2.0 product, which executed on our vision that any B2B marketer could make personalized, interactive, video-based campaigns.  Our customers stretched the limits of our product to innovate in ways we never expected. One particularly interesting innovation was how our customers used Video Apps deeper in the sales funnel.  Instead of only using them on landing pages, we saw customers using them as prospecting collateral, in Free Trial nurturing, and as interactive proposals.

Focusing on Salespeople Users

We focused much of the second half of 2011 on enabling the sales teams to be even more effective in using Video Apps and other content throughout their sales life-cycle.  We introduced an Outlook Add-In, developed technology for generating personalized sites to host the content, and introduced tracking, alerting, and reporting features to help salespeople get feedback on what’s working.  As a result, we have many more people using VisibleGains every day than we ever have and we’re getting a ton of feature requests around email productivity for salespeople.

At a Crossroads

There’s no doubt that VisibleGains could leave rich media behind and pivot into a full-fledged sales email productivity company.  We have the resources, the customer base, and the early traction to justify it.  The problem is that we don’t see email productivity as a sustainable, long-term, business.  The quick “fix” that salespeople get from knowing that someone has read their email or clicked on a link is fleeting.  They’ll be hooked for a few days or weeks, but then they realize that they have to get back to banging the phones and closing deals.  The product quickly turns into a “nice to have” rather than a “must have”.

Don’t get me wrong, the Outlook Add-In has been huge for us.  Sales reps don’t use a lot of tools besides their email and phone, so if you don’t integrate with them, they’ll never even try your product.  We’ll continue to support and enhance it in 2012.  We’re particularly excited by a core group of our users who are embracing selling best practices: doing research on their prospect, writing relevant and personal emails, and using personalized rich media and content to elevate their communication.  The Outlook Add-In gives these reps the tools to use content and rich media with the click of a button, effectively helping them to do the right things without a lot of the work.

We strongly believe that it is best to hitch our wagon to the emerging wave of trends rather than propping up a dying trend.  We support sales and service pros who live and breathe social, engage in real relationships with their clients, and use email only as a means to an end.  They don’t send 250 of the same email template each day and then use tracking tools to see if they got a hit.  They believe quality over quantity.  They use technology to make their relationships stronger, not to cheapen them.

What’s next?

Our long term vision remains unchanged.  In order to compete in the internet-enabled world, marketers, sales, support, and service providers need to step up their game.  They need to do the extra work to personalize their communication to connect with their prospects and customers.  They need to provide content that educates and better communicates their value proposition.  At VisibleGains, we are going to remove every barrier to make this new reality just as easy as sending that same boring email.

Our main product goal for 2012 is to continue to dramatically simplify the process of working with video, rich media, and other content.  We’ll introduce a new mobile app, a Gmail plugin, and continue to enhance our Outlook support.  my.visiblegains.com will be overhauled with a new design, better content management, and simpler sharing.

We’re excited for 2012 and how our company will evolve and grow.  We’re looking forward to the journey.

This is a follow-up to my blog post, Do Not Create Resistant Donkeys! in which I introduced WEAC and STRONG sales tactics (mnemonics coined by me). WEAC tactics can turn your Prospect into a “donkey”, resistant to change, while STRONG tactics help unleash your Prospect’s inner racehorse, galloping across the sales finish line. This is a follow-up to a webinar we delivered.

In a series of blog posts, I explore how salespeople can employ STRONG tactics to put the Prospect in charge of change and feel empowered or strong. In my previous post, Offer encouragement for change if the Prospect decides to take action, I focused on the O in STRONG sales tactics.

Next stop is N:

• S: SUPPORT the change process through reflections

• T: TRUST your prospect’s perspective of the change balance sheet

• R: RESPECT how difficult the change process is

• O: OFFER ENCOURAGEMENT for taking action

• N: NO JUDGING—you may be surprised what you learn 

• G: GUIDE, but do not drive the process

Why?

The change process can be a vulnerable experience for a Prospect. He or she may be vigilant of being judged negatively—as not being smart, brave, experienced, or capable enough to manage the change process. The DANGER is that your Prospect may avoid change entirely in order to avoid feeling this way. Furthermore, if your prospect feels judged, he or she will not honestly share information and feelings with you—further derailing the process.

How?

1. Avoid “hot words”.Salesperson#1: “Wow, that is a horrible problem! If you don’t know who’s reading your emails, how do you know whom to call first? You must waste a lot of time!”

   vs.

   Salesperson#2: “When you don’t know who’s reading your emails, how do you organize your day each morning and decide whom to call first?”

   There is quite a bit of judgment in #1 such as the use of the “hot” words “horrible” and “waste”. When a Prospect feels judged, he or she may get stirred up and decide to go into shutdown mode. He or she may feel annoyed or embarrassed at being judged or just overwhelmed and hopeless by the gravity of the problem. Once this happens, your Prospect’s main goal is to stop feeling bad—as opposed to being motivated to make a change.

   There is curiosity and a supportive stance in #2. The Prospect is more likely to relax and focus on the problem at hand instead of needing to cope (via shutdown mode) with all kinds of negative emotions. Furthermore, he or she is more likely to take the time to explore the problem further and will thereby have more “emotional bandwidth” to be able to listen to possible solutions.

2. Avoid sarcasm
3. Use validating language such as:  “I get that.” “That makes sense.” “Sure.” “Yep.”
4. If you find yourself getting frustrated with your Prospect, STOP and ask yourself, “Am I judging my Prospect?” (“They are never going to change! They just don’t get it!”) If the answer is “yes”, then a great way to shift your attitude is to adopt a CURIOUS stance. “I would like to understand more about this concern that you have. When did it begin? Can you say more about this?”
5. Avoid leading questions in which there is clearly a preferred or desirable answer. Such a question implies that not making a change is an undesirable option-hence the Prospect feels judged unless he or she responds affirmatively to your question.INSTEAD OF: “Wouldn’t it be better if you just took the plunge and made a change now?”TRY: “I have had clients with similar concerns. Would you like to hear about how they dealt with such concerns and how they are feeling now?”

Tips:

• Do not be afraid of “negative” talk.  If your Prospect is concerned that “it might not be the right time”, go ahead and reflect that back. You may be surprised. When presented in a nonjudgmental way, it may actually mobilize your Prospect toward a deeper consideration of both sides and ultimately mobilize him or her toward change.
• Listen to yourself: Are you truly open to hearing everything on your Prospect’s mind?

Peggy Kriss, Ph.D. is a clinical psychologist in Newton, Massachusetts and a consultant to VisibleGains. Stay tuned for more psychology informed blogs by Dr. Kriss.

Selling isn’t easy. In the technology industry, it often requires a lot of effort, time, and resources. Selling isn’t simple, either. Or is it?

This is the question I attempted to answer, while conducting a project investigating selling practices and techniques. I focused on our own product here at VisibleGains, which is, quite appropriately, a tool for salespeople to simplify their sales process. Should reps really risk overcomplicating their pitch in order to give a clear picture of their product for prospects?

Quite simply, the answer is no.

Prospects searching for tools to solve problems often make their decisions largely based on first impressions; in fact, a sales director whom I interviewed claimed he could determine a product’s relevance within just 10 seconds.

Most prospects, especially prospects involved in sales, don’t care about your technology’s fancy bells and whistles, minute details, or largely even its price. If it increases their productivity, solves a critical problem they are facing, or generally simplifies their everyday tasks, they will want to buy it.

Since your prospect isn’t converted by listening your sales pitch, anyway, make sure to polish and perfect an excellent value proposition—one that will concisely sum up your product’s best qualities that are relevant to your prospect. Relevancy is key—according to an article published by Forbes this week, a sales pitch should no longer be interpreted in its conventional form of a sales rep throwing information at a prospect, but a two-way conversation. “A good pitch is one where you ask questions, listen to the prospect, and offer them a solution to a problem,” says Wendy Weiss, an author and sales coach.

When I participated in a sales call myself, with the aid of one of our account execs, I realized the true importance of this principle. While selling to two prospects involved in sales, I began to mention our product’s integration with popular marketing automation systems, which was followed by the sound of crickets on the other end of the phone. The sales guys didn’t have the faintest idea about Eloqua tracking codes, but they loved the product’s applicability to their salesforce.com data. Sellers must tailor their pitch to their prospects’ needs, and truly engage in a dialogue, not a monologue.

This may seem like a no-brainer to some, but it’s surprisingly forgotten by many in our industry. As a sales rep, you have to do your homework beforehand and research the company and your target persona within it—if you think outside the box, your product may be able to solve problems they don’t even know they have.

Remember to simplify, personalize, and engage. If you can accomplish these goals and establish a two-way, one-to-one, trusting relationship with your prospect, you’ll be converting opportunities faster than the time it takes to deliver a full-blown sales pitch. Literally.

Abha Gallewale is a digital marketing associate at VisibleGains and an undergraduate economics student at Tufts University. 

What do you do before picking up the phone to call or email a prospect? You check out both the person and company you’re contacting to make sure your message is relevant—right? Skimming a prospect’s LinkedIn profile and company web site is hopefully your M.O. these days. Did you know you can use Google’s “site search” feature to save valuable time doing it? It’s simple—by including the search parameter site:website-name, you can focus Google’s powerful search exclusively on the website-name specified, such as LinkedIn or your prospect’s company web site.

Here’s 3 Google site search tips to help you.

Tip #1: Use Google’s site search to search LinkedIn’s public profiles for a particular person by name.

How? Google the person’s name plus the parameter “site:linkedin.com”. To see how this works, let’s Google someone who’s likely to be active on LinkedIn such as sales expert, Jill Konrath. Google: Jill Konrath site:linkedin.com

Try searching Jill’s activity on LinkedIn with Google by clicking here! (Let Me Google That 4 U)

The cool thing about using Google to look up Jill this way on LinkedIn is that Google will return links to her profile PLUS any events, answers and comments in groups she’s posted, giving you even more insights into her expertise and interests.

Tip #2: Use Google’s site search—plus advanced search qualifiers—to find the names (and profiles) of people with particular titles at a company.

Let’s suppose I wanted to find the names of any Directors or VPs working on Pitney Bowes digital email delivery service called Volly™. I can Google: “Volly” (dir OR vp OR vice) pitney bowes site:linkedin.com

Try searching LinkedIn with Google by clicking here! (Let Me Google That 4 U)

Try searching Pitney Bowes site as well (Let Me Google That 4 U)

Tip #3: Use Google’s site search to find specific information you want from a busy company web site.

Now that I’ve searched LinkedIn to identify executives at Pitney Bowes working on Volly, I want to bone up on Volly before contacting them. But when I go to Pitney Bowes web site, I’m overwhelmed with all the other offerings. I can laser-search for info only on Volly by Googling (gotta love proper nouns that become verbs!): volly site:pb.com

Try searching Pitney Bowes site with Google for a specific product by Clicking here! (Let Me Google That 4 U)

Use Google’s site search feature to swiftly gather the precise info you need to personalize your communications.

P.S. Just for fun, here’s a non sequitur and entertaining Google gimmick to try. Even if you’ve already seen it, it’ll still bring a smile to your face—especially if you’re missing snow like some are here in Boston. From a fresh Google search screen in Firefox or Google Chrome, Google: let it snow. You’ll soon enjoy snowflakes softly falling—ones you don’t have to shovel—and a frosty pane to write on using your mouse.

SNOW… (Let me Google That 4 U)

(Clicking Defrost returns your screen to normal. Happy 2012!)