The only e-book you’ll ever need???

May 15, 2012 By Leave a Comment

The Yellow Pages.  When I was a kid, the Yellow Pages fascinated me.  I recall being amazed that every year somebody would just give us this amazing book – for free!  “They” would leave it on our front porch.  If my family ever needed anything, we could “let our fingers do the walking” and find it in just a few minutes. So just to recap what to me was amazing:

  • Has everything (not really, but as an 8 year old, it seemed like it)
  • Updated every year
  • Free!

Yesterday, while using the weather app on my iPad, up pops an ad for the Real Yellow Pages.  (Yes I’m still hooked on the “free” thing and have not upgraded to the ad-less version.)  Downloaded that Yellow Pages rascal tout suite!  After a few minutes of nostalgia – the pages look exactly they way I remember them from the 50s – I concluded…

The Real Yellow Pages iPad app is awesome!

After flipping through a few pages though, it dawned on me that for the most part the only info I was getting was a business name, address and phone number.  That’s it? I’m expected to make a purchase decision based on that?

The Real Yellow Pages iPad app stinks!

So which is it?  A brilliant reincarnation of an iconic brand? Or the pathetic, low-budget appeal of a dying business model aimed at techno-phobic baby boomers?

More digging convinced me that it’s a little bit of both, but sadly, mostly the latter.  I really, really like “flipping through the pages.”  Gives me a warm, fuzzy, remember-my-childhood feeling, and it does in fact enable some intelligent shopping.  For example, I’m looking for some water-proof pants designed for a bicycle rider.  Looked under Bicycle Dealers and there was a listing with a link to bike dealer’s web site.  Found ‘em!  Success!  Ummm….

Except it was just one bike dealer; more focused on bikes than on apparel.  So I went to Google.  Typed in “bicycle rain pants.”  In 10 minutes I had ordered exactly what I wanted; the highest rated pants from the highest rated supplier at the lowest cost. They’re scheduled for delivery to my house tomorrow.

The point of the story?  Examine your business model!  Yes, it might still be working. But it might be working like the Yellow Pages.

Filed Under: E-Rep Tagged With: , , ,

I just got another slap up-side the head

May 1, 2012 By Leave a Comment

This is one of those blog posts that tells you something you already know.  You are probably like me though, and sometimes forget the basics.

Almost two years ago, I was in Milwaukee doing some work for a client.  Since I was out there anyway and business was good that year, I accepted a long-standing invitation to speak – unpaid – to a CEO networking group in the area.  I had stopped dong unpaid speaking gigs eight or nine years back when I concluded they were rarely worth the time and effort.  It’s “you get what you pay for” in reverse.  Members of the group get your consulting for free for a few hours, and value what they get according to the cash investment they made – zippo.

Sound a bit cocky?  Yup.  But hey, Mr. Big Shot here figured the only other option was sitting at the Milwaukee airport bar waiting for the only flight back to Atlanta.  So the dog and pony show was on!

Speaking in front of groups is something I truly love doing, and I think I did a pretty good job of it that day.  Even remembered to ask the group to opt in to our e-newsletter.  Of course 100% of the hands went up signaling agreement.  (They’re CEOs after all, so they’re polite.)  The ONLY reason I followed up though, and entered the names and e-mails into the system to complete the double-opt-in process, was a rain delay at the airport.  Otherwise I’d have blown it off.

This past Friday, I re-learned – yet again – how vital it is to get subscribers to your e-newsletter.

Got a phone call out of the blue from one of those CEOs.  This woman had not only read all the e-newsletters, but also had been following this blog, listening to our podcasts and watching our videos.  She bought a 2-day seminar on the spot.  There’s a decent chance this thing will turn into a 6+ month engagement.

So the lesson?  Actually, there are three.  First, don’t ever get cocky and think you’re above executing all the basic blocking and tackling.  Second, make sure your e-Rep is robust and continuously feeding meaty, valuable text, audio and video content to your constituents out there in cyber-space.  And third…

Never, never, never pass up an opportunity to get someone signed up for your e-newsletter.

By the way, you might want to sign up for our e-newsletter.

Filed Under: E-Rep Tagged With: , , , , ,

Growing Mind Share = Growing Sales

April 24, 2012 By Leave a Comment

Mind Share; the percentage of a person’s brain cycles dedicated to some topic. For a sales professional, it’s the percentage of a customer’s brain cycles focused on the value your products/services can provide.

The higher your mind share gets, the more you sell.

So measure Mind Share!!!

Now an intriguing question…  Is your average mind share per decision maker greater than, less than or equal to that of the average rep?  Getting the answer to that question is a heck of a challenge, but having way above average mind share means way above average sales achievement.  So how can you begin to get a handle on it?

Start with a rough cut for your 10 most important contacts.  (Use this tool.)  Estimate the number of minutes each contact invests per year in:

  • Meeting with you face-to-face
  • Talking to you on the telephone
  • Reading text written by you (Things like E-mail, Proposals, Blog posts, Other…  Assume for now that people read about 250 words per minute)
  • Reading text written by others about the value you can deliver (Brochures, Catalogs, White Papers, Articles, Case Studies, Blog Posts, Other)
  • Listening to a live presentation about the value you can deliver
  • Listening to a podcast about the value you can deliver
  • Watching a video about the value you can deliver
  • Other

Add up all those minutes, then divide by 525,600 minutes per year.  Actually make that 527,040 since it’s a leap year.  (Just kidding…). Multiply the result by 100,000 to make it an easier number to think about; let’s call it the “Mind Share Index.”

What do you think of your answers?  How do your good customers compare to your not-so-good customers?  To your prospects?  How high does the index need to get before somebody buys?  What’s the most effective way to boost the index?  What’s the most efficient way to boost the index?

I’ll answer those last two questions for you.  Get ‘em reading more blog posts, listening to more podcasts and watching more videos.  Did I say, “e-Rep?”

Filed Under: E-Rep Tagged With: , , ,

And you don’t have an e-Rep yet because…???

April 18, 2012 By Leave a Comment

It’s free.  It saves the sales or marketing professional time every day.  It never gets sick, or takes a day off, or even takes a break.  It’ll communicate with whomever, whenever, wherever, on-demand.  It establishes new business relationships.  It nurtures existing relationships; all of them.  It shortens sell cycles.  It increases close rates.

And you don’t have one???

Need something to help you get started developing and maintaining your very own e-Rep?  Your very own 24 X 7 X 365 sales and marketing assistant?  No matter how techno-phobic you are, you already have virtually all the skills required.  And this e-book will fill in the few gaps left.

Get your copy of the e-Rep e-book now.  And sign up for this free e-newsletter to further boost your e-Rep knowledge and skills.

Filed Under: E-Rep Tagged With: , , ,

Information foraging

April 17, 2012 By Leave a Comment

As you build your e-Rep, keep the notion of “information foraging” in mind.  That’s what readers of web content do.  (You included!)

The overwhelming majority of web content is drivel.  There is an enormous quantity of fabulous stuff out there, but it’s scattered around and surrounded by nonsense.  These facts, plus the power of Google search, are the drivers of this “foraging” behavior.  In researcher Jakob Nielsen’s words, “Instead of spending a lot of time on a single page, users move between many pages and try to pick the most tasty segments of each.”

Think in terms of a predator pursuing its prey.  And you are the prey!  You want to be the prey!

You want your prospects and customers to pick up on your “information scent” and chase you down.  They’re all hungry for relevant information, they all know how to effectively use search tools and they all eat “information snacks” at every opportunity.

So publish a lot – i.e., spread your scent around.  Make sure each bit has real value – i.e., be tasty.

Do it!

Filed Under: E-Rep Tagged With: , ,

Publish or perish!

April 4, 2012 By Leave a Comment

Publish or perish; the classic refrain of the collegiate-level academic. No more!  Make no mistake.  Do NOT kid yourself.  If you are in sales, you are in the publishing business.  It’s a new niche of the publishing world, but one that’s real, and more importantly, at the front end of every buying process.

Consider a typical business buying process.  It consists of stages like:

  1. Develop the various Strategies required to realize the organization’s Vision and Mission
  2. Design, implement and execute Business Processes to fulfill the Strategies
  3. Identify issues, constraints and problems with the Strategies
  4. Determine the Needs for addressing those issues, constraints and problems
  5. Identify Sources of Supply to fulfill those Needs
  6. Choose the optimal Source of Supply
  7. Buy, implement and maintain the “X” provided by that Source of Supply

OK, now pick any of those seven steps, and think about what the decision team will do.  They’ll first tap into the knowledge and experience of team members.  Next, they’ll assign one or more folks to fill in the knowledge gaps.  (And there are ALWAYS knowledge gaps.)  The assignee(s) will search the internet for insights and information to fill in the knowledge gaps.

I repeat,  “…will search the internet for insights and information to fill in the knowledge gaps.”

There are all kinds of other actions for each stage of the buying process, but if you, the sales professional, are invisible for the internet search, consider yourself late to the party and relegated to playing catch-up – even worse – playing catch-up according to some competitor’s rules.

Somebody else will have already published something that captures the buyer’s imagination.

You have a better idea?  Doesn’t matter.  You have a better product or service?  Doesn’t matter.  Better price?  Better support?  Better whatever?  Still doesn’t matter.

You must publish.  You must continuously publish strong, compelling content that showcases your value at every stage of the customer’s buying process.  In other words, you need an e-Rep.

Disagree?

Filed Under: E-Rep

Relationships, Arrows & Chum

March 26, 2012 By Leave a Comment

As my understanding of the sales and marketing power of an e-Rep deepens, it becomes easier to state its value simply.

It’s relationships, arrows and chum.

Relationships:  Interviews, in the context of a radio show, are the single best way to generate lots and lots of great content.  (More on content in a minute…)  There’s a “by-product.”  It never ceases to amaze me how quickly a business-grounded personal bond can develop as the result of an interview.  One unmistakable signal that a bond is forming?  Humor.  Genuine, out-loud, bring-tears-to-the-eyes , laughter due to an unexpected twist in the business conversation.

Two examples follow.  The first is two customer executives and my partner needling me about my book, The Dolphin And The Cow.

The second is me interviewing a residential real estate professional.  The three most important things in real estate are location, location and location, right?

An e-Rep establishes and nurtures business relationships.

Arrows:  Every single piece of content developed is an “Arrow In Your Quiver.”  Arrows get used in two distinct ways; in volleys and one-at-a-time in extremely focused shots.

Remember the movie Braveheart?  Remember that scene where the English archers simultaneously launched hundreds of arrows at the Scottish army?  Frighteningly powerful!  And effective.  Every time you publish a piece of content, you, your boss, your team, your colleagues, all the other employees in your company, your customers, …anybody and everybody with a vested interest in your success can share it on LinkedIn, tweet it on Twitter, post it on Google+, and Pinterest and…  A massive, attention-grabbing volley of e-Rep arrows.

Each volley of e-Rep arrows has high odds of attracting an interested buyer.

The second use of arrows:  Let’s say you just made a new contact.  You’ve been somewhat successful in differentiating yourself from the competition.  How can you reinforce that progress?  How about sending a link like this to the prospect?  (Note well, by the way, that all kinds of relationship building happened while conducting the interviews that yielded the audio clips used in the post.)

An e-Rep arrow reinforces a key point and/or addresses an issue raised in a sales call.

Chum:  I used the word chum here as a metaphor for Search Engine Optimization or SEO.  The more chum you throw in the water, the more fish you attract.  The more content you and all your sales colleagues publish, the more prospects you attract.  And don’t hand me this, “I don’t understand how to do SEO” nonsense.

THE key to SEO is lots of good, valuable content.  So it’s not some staffer publishing a post on the corporate blog every other week.  It’s YOU.  You and ALL the sales reps in your company; publishing a blog post EVERY week; and firing all those volleys; and aiming all those issue-killing, value-reinforcing single shots.

Google LOVES a sales-team-ful of e-Reps.

It’s that simple.  Relationships – Arrows – Chum.

Filed Under: E-Rep Tagged With: , , , , , , ,

Facebook For Business…For People Who Say Facebook Isn’t For Business

March 22, 2012 By Leave a Comment

Podcast: Play in new window | Download | Embed

Today’s audio Show Notes:
Facebook For Business, For People Who Say Facebook Isn’t For Business

1. There are 800 million reasons why you need to experiment here. And there will be ONE BILLION people on Facebook sometime this summer.

2. Facebook is the third best driver of traffic to my personal blog, and mobile Facebook is 10th. As for Dreamland’s site, Facebook is the 4th best driver of traffic.

3. From my experience, as much as I love Twitter more than Facebook, a hell of a lot more conversation starts around Facebook than Twitter or G+ or Pinterest. This all may change, but those are the facts as of this writing.

4. “But Facebook is where I talk with friends and family.” Bunk. Don’t tell me you don’t mix bix with pleasure, I don’t buy it. We talk about personal stuff at the water cooler every day.

5. You ain’t going to sell anything direct on Facebook, that’s true, but you are going to get on someone’s radar, you will keep top of mind, build trust, become friends… In other words, you will advance relationships.

6. And yeah, don’t friend someone you don’t know at all. That’s cold-friending. Similar to cold-calling. But make a connection somewhere else, then connect on FB!

Remember, FACEBOOK IS A NURTURING TOOL.

7. “Oh but Todd, I don’t have the time” – To that I say, “Utter crap.” I am not asking for three hours. I am asking for 15 minutes. Or less.

8. “Facebook doesn’t make any sense to me.” Well, then you haven’t spent 15 minutes trying, or experimenting. 800 MILLION+ people have figured it out. So can you!

Or you don’t know how to make conversation with people. So, in that case, you best just solve that problem first…

###

[join the Dreamland mailing list here]

[drawing by hugh macleod]

[this podcast was recorded on my iPhone 4S]

Filed Under: E-Rep, Social Media Tagged With:

Arrows In The Quiver

March 20, 2012 By Leave a Comment

When it comes to building your e-Rep, keeping the “Arrows In The Quiver” strategy in mind is extremely useful.  Think about each piece of content you produce as one more “arrow” that can be fired whenever, wherever at whomever.  The basic notion is described further here and here.

As a sales manager or executive though, an additional level of thinking about the metaphor is essential.  (Sorry for the violence to follow here, but it’s an important point…)

It’s not just a single archer launching off a shot here and there. It’s more like Genghis Kahn and a huge, angry, bounty-lusting, blood-thirsty horde; charging on horseback, firing off sky-darkening, bushel-basket-fulls of flaming volleys.  And each bolt is dipped in dung.  If its initial impact doesn’t get the job done, the infection it causes will.  Maybe you should also be working on a mini-nuclear warhead to attach to the arrowheads…

Overstating the case?  Getting everyone on your team producing lots of compelling content not that high on your priority list?  Better hope all your competitors stay lazy and stupid…

Filed Under: Content Marketing, E-Rep Tagged With: , , , ,

“GO VIRAL!!!” vs. “go viral”

March 6, 2012 By Leave a Comment

Get viewed by more than a million people in less than a week.  That’s the generally accepted minimum for “going viral.” Let’s just go with that as a definition for now.

Going viral is the benchmark.  It’s the essential badge of honor that differentiates between a legitimately talented marketer and a wanna’ be.  If one of your blog posts or videos or pithily-captioned images or whatever hasn’t gone viral, don’t even try to pretend you really know what you’re doing.

The above paragraph is total bull&@%#.

As a B2B sales pro, I could care less about attracting the attention of a million people.  I’m not selling to a million miscellaneous people.  I’m selling to a meticulously selected few decision-swaying executives.  Yes, I want my virus to be extremely virulent, but I only need it to infect that chosen few.

Am I suggesting you should repeatedly expend the considerable time and effort required to produce a set of digital pieces that effectively communicates your highly customized value proposition to only 3 or 4 key people for every significant opportunity you are pursuing?  Yes!

Allow me to repeat.  Yes.  I am urging you to repeatedly expend the considerable time and effort required to produce a set of digital pieces that effectively communicates your highly customized value proposition to only 3 or 4 key people for every significant opportunity you are pursuing.

Think about the situation where 4 people in your customer will be deeply involved in making a decision about your proposal.  One of those folks is your champion.  You’ve never met two of them.  Because of an odd set of circumstances a few years ago, the fourth thinks you’re a knucklehead.

It could take weeks – even months – to get appointments with them all.  You might never get in front of #4.

What if?

What if you made a short video concisely articulating the guts of your value proposition including the financial impact, and laying out an implementation plan?  Your champion, obviously, would look at it carefully.  Your champion would also (at your request) forward it to the other three with a strong endorsement for moving forward.

Now it’s you and/or your team (via your e-Rep, a digital extension of yourselves) explaining the value and sorting through the complexity.  You no longer need to depend on your champion to get it all communicated.  And it all gets communicated right now instead of next week or next month.

As I might have mentioned, you need to repeatedly expend the considerable time and effort required to produce a set of digital pieces that effectively communicates your highly customized value proposition to only 3 or 4 key people for every significant opportunity you are pursuing.

go viral, my friend, go viral.  Let others worry about the GO VIRAL thing.
Filed Under: E-Rep Tagged With: , , , ,
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