This guest post is written by Andy Paul, a leading authority on sales for small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) and the Founder of Zero-Time Selling. Andy is also the author of the award-winning book, Zero-Time Selling: 10 Essential Steps to Accelerate Every Company’s Sales.  Zero-Time Selling was selected as one of the Top 3 Sales & Marketing books of 2011. Andy is our featured guest in a webinar on Thursday February 9 @1PM EST. You can view a preview and register here. Take it away, Andy…

There is a lot of talk about content in marketing and sales these days. A company no longer has just brochures, datasheets or a company website; it has a pool of content about the products and services it markets. The company makes strategic and tactical decisions about how to most effectively communicate that content to potential customers, whether by blog, tweet, email, brochure, slide deck, webinar, datasheet, phone call or other means.

What does “content” mean for your customer?

When asked to define “content”, salespeople tend to have a very parochial point of view, believing that content is solely the information developed by their company, about their own products and services, that they can supply to their prospects.

Unfortunately that narrow perspective creates a mismatch with the information needs of their prospects. The problem for a sales person is that their potential customers have a much broader definition of and requirement for content. To the prospect and customer “content” is the sum total of the data and information they need to make a fully informed purchase decision in the least time possible.

In their buying cycle, prospects are looking to gather not only the specifics about particular products and services but also information and data that will help create the overall context for the decision they have to make. For instance, an informed buyer may need to know where technology is evolving in your product segment, not only for you but also your competition. They may need to know what their competitors have done or are doing with similar products. They may need to have an understanding of what products will be coming to market in the near future that could impact their competitive position if adopted by a competitor first.

Think Globally, Act Locally

In the early days of the environmental movement, grassroots activists encouraged their followers to ‘Think Globally, Act Locally.’ In other words, you needed to consider the implications for the global welfare of the earth in the actions you took locally in your day-to-day life.

Similarly, salespeople need to think more globally about the content they provide to prospects and the positive impact it can have on their local decision-making. It is no longer enough for your sales team to be a conduit for proprietary content only.

A salesperson can create real value for the customer by taking a broader view of the customer’s need for information and identifying and providing the 3rd party content that assists the customer to make a more informed purchase decision in less time.

3 Easy Steps to Becoming an Effective Content Provider

1. The salesperson needs to thoroughly map out the entire set of information the customer will need to A) make an informed purchase decision and B) make the decision to purchase your product. A and B are not the same data. Unless a salesperson is new to the company they should have the customer and product knowledge to complete this on their own.
2. The salesperson defines a list of the 3^rd party content they could provide that would create value for the customer. The goal is to make the customer smarter, in a global sense, about their problem, their requirements and the value of the solution that you can provide. Yes, the customers could go online and find this information for themself. But, envision the credibility and trust you will build with the customer if you proactively provide it.
3. The salesperson goes online and finds the information they need. Here are a few quick ideas about finding relevant content that would be valued by your prospect:
• Set up Google Alerts for keywords associated with the prospect’s industry as well as for your products/services. Check these daily for content that will provide value to the prospect.
• Subscribe to key blogs in the prospect’s market space. Provide links to postings from bloggers in their industry that discuss the problems solved and benefits received from solutions like yours.
• Find 3^rd party industry or academic research on your product category. Even if all you can find online is the abstract from a research report, you can usually learn enough information from that to understand what its conclusions are. If you were working on a big enough deal then perhaps it would be worth buying the report for the customer.
• Search YouTube (www.youtube.com ) for videos that address the installation or implementation concerns the prospect might have for a solution like yours.
• Check resources like SlideShare (www.slideshare.com ) for presentations that address areas of interest to the prospect.
• Search online for industry conferences in their space and look for interesting presentations that are relevant to the prospect’s buying cycle. Find a link to the conference proceedings. If not, email the presenters and ask for a copy of his or her slides.
• Use a tool like VisibleGains for Sales to provide the 3^rd party content to the customer in Zero-Time. Track which content the prospect looked at so that you can focus your follow-ups on the topics that matter most to the prospect.

Being an effective content provider requires an investment of time and thought on the part of the salesperson. This investment is usually the difference between a successful salesperson and one who is always playing catch-up with his or her quota.

Please be sure to join me on Feb 9 at 1pm EST for a webinar presented by VisibleGains: The First Seller with the Answers Wins! 4 Essential Elements of Effective Sales Lead Follow-up. I’ll be speaking about the steps every company should take to maximize their returns on the sales leads they generate. Click here to register for the webinar. Everyone who registers for the webinar and completes a free online assessment on my website will receive a free copy of my award-winning book, Zero-Time Selling.

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:

• Support the change process by asking questions, listening and reflecting
• Trust the Prospect’s perspective on the pros/cons of change, and the risks/benefits of the solutions available
• Respect how difficult the change process can be
• Offer encouragement for change if the Prospect decides to take action
• No judgment—allow all issues to be on the table
• Guide, but do not drive the process—motivation for change needs to come from within your Prospect 

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

188 billion email messages sent each day?! That’s a boatload of email!

We concur with the Infographic’s conclusion—email is here to stay. However, email is not always the most effective way to transmit your message. New(er) technologies—like Facebook and Twitter—introduce additional ways for humans to communicate. Think about what you’re trying to accomplish and select the best media available to you.

Email gets a deserved bad rap from marketing campaigns and spammers pushing unwanted messages that ignore communication fundamentals—such as this basic truth: the receiver must want to receive the message sent!

When your emails are written to be personal, with timely, relevant information the receiver really wants, they can help you build relationships one-to-one. Make your emails better and create relationships using VisibleGains.

Click to download .PDF version

Embed this image on your site:
<a href=”http://www.visiblegains.com/is-email-dead” target=”_blank”><img src=”http://www.visiblegains.com/Portals/54582/Infographics/visiblegains-emaildead.png” alt=”Is Email Dead? [Infographic]” width=”550″ border=”0″></a><BR><div> courtesy of <a href=”http://www.visiblegains.com/”>Visible Gains</a></div>

I recently realized we’ve taken for granted a powerful shortcut for creating Outlook message templates that’s been in our company toolkit for a while. I was talking to a prospect recently about email workflows and described our process for sending multiple personalized emails containing a similar core message. He was amazed at this shortcut, even though it seems pretty obvious to me. I’m documenting it here to share more widely. Hopefully you already take advantage of using Outlook’s standard signature setup; this just kicks it up a notch for creating multiple personalized emails containing similar message text.

5 Steps to use Outlook’s signature function for creating email message templates

Step One: Click New E-mail

Step Two: Click Insert, then click Signature

Step Three: From drop-down menu, click “Signatures…”

Step Four: Click “New”. Enter a name, as well as text, for a complete email message. (Remember to also include an email signature in this “Signature” template entry!)

Step Five: Select the appropriate standardized message by “Signature” name each time you want to send similar text in a new email. Don’t forget to add a subject line and the first name of the person to whom you’re sending the message in the message body. Also, modify the templated text appropriately to ensure it’s relevant to the individual receiving it.

This shortcut saves me time when I want to repetitively send only slightly different emails over and over again–such as a follow-up to a hands-on product demo I’ve just given. Let me know how this shortcut works for you.

Got any Outlook tips to share with us?

In a webinar we presented for the second time today, Trish Bertuzzi and Cliff Pollan offer tips for helping B2B salespeople win at the game of “Prospect Hide & Seek”. They talk about keeping prospects engaged in all steps of the selling process to avoid the salesperson’s nightmare of “being left out alone in the dark”.

While Bertuzzi and Pollan share many things you can do, they also emphatically stress one thing not to do: “Do not create resistant donkeys!” (Listen to Cliff Pollan’s words of caution.)

How many of you have defaulted to using the weak sales tactics described below (my mnemonic: WEAC) when trying to “convince” a prospect to break from the status quo and purchase your product?

• Warning of consequences for not changing
• Explaining how change should occur
• Arguing for the benefits of your solution
• Convincing someone they need to make a change

STOP!

Psychological research tells us WEAC sales tactics may very well halt whatever momentum in the sales process you’ve established by causing your prospect to behave like a donkey digging in its heels.

Why? The reason has to do with a natural tendency we all have to be apprehensive about change. Prospects, for example, often worry about selecting the very best solution or how a change might impact employee relationships, increase costs or demand more of their time. Pushed externally, a prospect may feel even more off balance. The more out of control a prospect feels, the more likely he or she is to gravitate back to a place of security—the status quo.

Remember, resistance is natural in the sales process. The mere existence of it does not suggest something wrong. The takeaway here is that the relational stance the salesperson takes can either strengthen or reduce this natural tendency.

Q: So what can you as salesperson do to minimize natural resistance and keep your prospect actively engaged in the “daylight” of your sales nurturing?

A: Put the prospect in charge of the change process. Use STRONG sales tactics (another mnemonic coined by me!) to facilitate keeping the prospect actively engaged:

• Support the change process by asking questions, listening and reflecting
• Trust the prospect’s perspective on the pros/cons of change, and the risks/benefits of the solutions available
• Respect how difficult the change process can be
• Offer encouragement for change if the prospect decides to take action
• No judgment—allow all issues to be on the table
• Guide, but do not drive the process—motivation for change needs to come from within your prospect

What sales tactics have you tried to prevent your prospect from becoming a resistant donkey?

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.

Photo Credit: pmarkham flickr

I recently called my satellite TV provider—DISH Network—and asked what they could do for me as a longtime subscriber. I was perfectly happy with DISH Network’s service. In fact, over the years I’ve referred new customers to them by gushing online via social media as well as offline. However, an offer from Verizon for FIOS TV had piqued my interest since we already receive our Internet service through Verizon. Without much hesitation, the customer service rep from DISH Network told me nothing could be done to match Verizon’s offer. Oh, and don’t forget to mail in the last month’s check—thank you very much.

Really? No, really?!

At the time, DISH Network was actively recruiting subscribers and I was truly confused by the service rep’s indifferent response. Guess what I did? I switched to Verizon for FIOS TV, of course.

We’ve all seen statistics on customer retention versus acquisition. Lots of really smart Ph.D’s have explained the concept of Customers Lifetime Value (CLV). In the simplest of terms, it’s a lot cheaper to keep a customer than to get a new one—common sense without the fancy TLA (Three Letter Acronym). Within the past few years, I’ve noticed CLV has been modified to CCLV (Connected Customers Lifetime Value) and CEV (Customer Engagement Value).

Basically, anyone selling anything should expand their thinking beyond their existing customers to their customers’ network and sphere of influence.

Product marketing sometimes casts customer retention in terms of switching costs. Think about what a pain it is to switch cell phone carriers. The Cell Carrier Lobbyists fought tooth and nail against LNP (Local Number Portability) until they could figure out ways to lock up customers. There’s really no reason to have specific phones for specific carriers. Europe doesn’t. Instead of focusing on change penalties, how about improving the value of the services delivered by understanding my needs and what makes me choose to be a loyal customer and refer my friends?

Airlines attracted and successfully retained loyal customers for a while with frequent flyer programs. I know—I booked most of my flights on United even though there weren’t always direct flights to where I was going. But then United and other airlines blew it by instituting too many restrictions.

Most businesses truly do strive to please their customers. Most business people appreciate the power of referral marketing and naturally hope through careful management of customer relationships, we’ll gain new customers via referrals.

I invite you to pause now and honestly ask yourself: when was the last time you reached out to your customers individually? I don’t mean sending a newsletter or some marketing automated message, but making a direct one-to-one connection. And, not when there’s a problem, but when there isn’t—simply as a way to listen, learn and share information.

Connecting genuinely on a more personal level—one-to-one—is a powerful way to cultivate happy customers, and, hopefully, referrals. Here are several tips to help you get started:

• Tweet a congratulatory note or comments to new customers who use Twitter accounts.
• Actively participate in LinkedIn groups around conversations you care about.
• Reward your customers with information that helps them stay on top of their game—even if the data you share has nothing to do with what you’re selling.
• Offer favors, connections and networking opportunities to advance your customers’ careers.
• Find out what makes each customer tick—what they’re passionate about. Do this to find common interests you share and can connect through.

Having said all that, my hope is to personally connect with more of our customers. Please DM me @biasforaction or give me an old-fashioned phone call to chat. My direct phone number is 781-350-3416, extension 113. My email is bcarney at VisibleGains dot com (so the SPAM bots won’t pick me up).

Just back from attending HiveFire’s user conference for content curators. Content curation has taken off! My learning from the conference is that the reason why has much to do with TRUST!

What is content curation, you ask? Simply put: content curation is the process of sifting through the boatload of information “out there”—blog posts, tweets & news feeds—and passing on the golden nuggets others in your network find valuable.

After sitting in this curation conference and being bombarded with the “T” word, I was struck by the incredible potential content curation has for salespeople to virtually build trusting relationships as the foundation for generating sales and referrals.

I found this trust theme particularly interesting having just read a blog by Steven Woods, CTO at Eloqua, on “Trust, Reputation, and Inside-Sales”.

“There is a significant shift underway in how we establish and build trust… [having] numerous profound implications for society in general, but more specifically, it is causing significant shifts in the way that people buy… the evolution of trust is opening up new opportunities for inside sales teams.”

“As the emphasis on face-to-face interaction as a way to build trust decreases in lieu of other ways of building trust, the need to be “in the field” also decreases. It is unlikely that field sales as a discipline will disappear any time soon, the economic bar at which a face-to-face interaction is “necessary” is in the middle of a dramatic shift.”

Marketers are all over the power of content curation for building trusted reputations of brands and products. According to Hivefire’s B2Marketing trends 2011 survey, 82% of B2B marketers now use content marketing as a strategy in their marketing programs. Forrester Research cites the use of online content curation to build thought leadership and authority relationships as one of four critical emerging technologies for B2B sales and marketing.

Posting a Youtube video occasionally on Facebook to share with friends or sharing links to articles of interest with your network are forms of content curation. Chances are you already do this to some extent. Now think about someone you know professionally you consider as a go-to person or expert. My guess is that they regularly share information on a particular topic you find valuable. By doing so consistently, they’ve established themselves as a trusted source.

Bottom line: every communication you send—and online interaction you have—is an opportunity to build trust capital you can leverage strategically to boost sales. Continuously earn deposits in your prospects’ trust banks by routinely sharing valuable, golden nuggets of information. Here are a few content curation tips to help you get started:

1. Add real value by selecting content of specific interest to an individual prospect or customer. Make sure it’s information your reader truly cares about; do not be guided by what you find interesting or stimuating.
2. Less is more—don’t overload your prospect with too much information.  Remember, too much information and they will shut down (read more in my previous blog).
3. Don’t be afraid to share information about your competition; it is a critical way to show that you are trustworthy.  Nobody wants to do business with an “information censor”.

Stay tuned for future posts with additional practical tips to help you create a simple, disciplined routine for continuously discovering and sharing valuable information with prospects and clients.

How are you building trust virtually? Is content curation one of the trust-building tools you use?

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.

Is “prospect” a dirty word in our changing culture of commerce? I propose that salespeople will be much more successful if they work to create “prospect communities”- the goal being for prospects to feel excited, involved, informed, engaged in discussions and interacting in the eco-system surrounding their companies.  This community approach will dramatically increase the motivation of the prospect to make the transition to customer.  Why? Because being part of a community increases trust, sense of value, reduces resistance, identifies needs, reduces fear, and makes people feel really good.

Chris Brogan said in his recent blog “I am not a customer. I am not a user. I might be a client. I might be a member. I may even be a loyalist. But don’t call me a customer. ‘Customer’ is a dirty word.”

Twitter expert, Laura  “@pistachio” Fitton  expresses this sentiment in her “4 enchanting ways to improve your inbound marketing” blog post where  she talks about the importance of building an “enchantment ecosystem” so your customer has lots of ways to feel valued, be part of a community, actively giving and receiving and overall having lots of opportunities to interact and feel positively about the  company.

Let’s extrapolate from what we are learning about the changing customer and apply it to the prospect.  Look at LinkedIn Groups or a Tribe as Seth Godin puts it.  Using groups creates multiple opportunities to engage prospects and customers alike.  If they are active participants in a group or tribe you can rest assured that they are passionate about a specific topic and have come together because they care. A post from triplepundit explains it this way: “think of success as the strength of the relationships your stakeholders will walk away with”.

What’s the worst thing you can do as a member of these groups?  Sell Stuff.  You run the risk of alienating the group and groups tend to stand up and force selfish people out. You will undermine trust, reduce your perceived value, increase resistance, distract them from the important task of focusing on their own needs and fears, and foster unhappy feelings.

Here are 7 tips for creating a “prospect community”:

1. Make your first contact remarkable:  clear message, value focused and delivered to match the stage and readiness level of the prospect.
2. Be thoughtful about what content is shared. Don’t overwhelm people with content.  Send information that will be valuable and relevant to the needs of each receiver.
3. Create an organized system for your content (both self-created and curated) that makes it easy for your sales team to send out tailor-fit content, as a way of building trust, and facilitating an on-going dialogue.  Consider a landing page that is less cluttered than what is found on your website.
4. Use multiple channels to interact with your prospects:  Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, newsletters, phone calls, surveys, or perhaps your local Starbucks.  Share your exceptional content, compelling testimonials, and constant visceral and tangible reminders of the value that comes from interacting with your company.  Ask them for feedback on their needs, dreams and their experiences as a prospect with your company.  Don’t wait; be proactive and curious.
5. Create an outstanding customer referral system. Check out my recent blog for four tips for fueling your “referral engine”
6. Create events both on the phone and live in your office, thought leadership or product oriented. Mix it up and have some events for both prospects and clients:  conference calls, an invited speaker event, birds of a feather or round-table discussions.
7. Create regular community building opportunities for your own employees:  How about holding weekly Friday bag lunch discussions to ask questions, celebrate successes, and learn from each other’s interactions with the outside world.

Are you just selling stuff or are you passionate about it and willing to contribute to the community?

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.

In my previous blog, Refer or Die, Sales Use of Social Media, I highlighted the New York Times Study (Click to Open the Download Link) on “The Psychology of Sharing:  Why Do People Share Online?” described as “A first-of-a-kind inquiry into the motivations behind why we share.”

I am talking about the study a lot these days and its results permeate many of my conversations.  “Do your endorphins surge when you share a cherished product with a friend?”  Great ice breaker.

At a women’s entrepreneurial networking meeting sponsored by the Wellesley Pod for BIG, I asked our speaker, the very successful career and life  coach and radio personality Mel Robbins to remind her audience not to be afraid to ask your network for help with growing your business-because, I explained,  “research shows that people share because it feels good, it gets their endorphins going.”

“Yes,” Mel replied, “BUT you must be very specific in what you want them to do for you.  If the request is too general, they will forget about it and not respond.”

John Jantsch gives similar advice in “The Referral Engine”.  “We rate and refer as a form of survival,” he explains.  But, here is his “BUT” in terms of getting customers to refer to you:

“You simply need to stay top of mind and make it easy for them to do.  Hint: Ask and remind!”

Here are four tips for fueling your “referral engine”:

1. Write for them –  Send  an email to your referral agent that they can quickly and easily forward with a short note to the person they are connecting you with.  Don’t leave the work on writing and assembling materials to them.
2. Use share buttons –  On your website and blog, include share buttons that allow them to grab information that they can share to make the introduction.
3. In person event/networking –  hold an event with the right agenda where your referral agent can invite connections you want to include in your network.
4. Identify people –  Use LinkedIn to identify specific people and groups you may have in common you want to meet through your referrer – the more connections the better.  Don’t exclusively leave it to them to identify people.

For any business, customers are its single most important asset.   Customers represent the lifeblood of the company, a source of revenue, new growth and ideas for future opportunities.  But we often forget that it is also the best source to find new clients.

Here is a customer case example that I stumbled upon in the Q&A section of a webinar that CSO Insights held:

An example was a software firm we benchmarked. They showed us a report from their LMS system that showed quantity of leads per various lead sources. Top on their list was tradeshows, which accounted for 42% of their total lead flow. Last on the list was a source titled, DebbieC which was responsible for .05% of the leads for the previous twelve months.

…. DebbieC turned out to be the name of a customer who regularly sent referrals to the company. On an annual basis she sent 56 referrals. When they started tracking leads through their sales cycle in their CRM system, they found that 46 of those leads turned into opportunities that closed!

That insight prompted them to reallocate some of their lead generation funds to start a formal referral management program, which while generating small numbers of leads, is way out performing any other program for deals that close.

It is interesting that many B2B companies do not have programs to help them get referrals.  I think that is because marketing focuses on getting new names through other vehicles and account managers most often are responsible for current client relationships and see their role as having these clients succeed.

Account managers do not see or are not incented for the broader goal of getting referrals to help generate new revenue from new accounts.

John Jantsch has done a great job of evangelizing this opportunity.  His book “The Referral Engine” is worth reading, as it provides a blueprint for a holistic approach.

What are you doing to drive referrals?