Even before I discovered The Invisible Sale and started to build my Painless Prospecting approach to business development, I recognized the value of becoming known for knowledge. Whether it was appearing as a keynote speaker, writing articles for Advertising Age, or getting interviewed on NPR talking about the work I was doing to change the …
I recently listened to Barbara Winters, VP and principal analyst at Forrester, to discuss how Gen Z and Millennial B2B Buyers are reshaping the buying process and what companies should do to succeed with these buyers.And what she had to say, kind of blew me away. Honestly. Here’s why.When I wrote The Invisible Sale, I …
Today’s post is the final installment of our three-part series — LinkedIn Sales Prospecting for Introverts. If you missed the first post, Building Connections That Matter, or the second post, How To Leverage Content Marketing Strategies On LinkedIn To Attract Qualified Prospects, feel free to read those before continuing on to today’s post, Introvert-Friendly LinkedIn …
Introverts, rejoice! Sales prospecting doesn’t have to be a daunting task, and LinkedIn, like other social media sites, offers the perfect platform to help you build meaningful connections and leverage your introverted strengths. As a fellow introvert, I’m here to share a few practical tips that have worked for me and others in the business …
The world of sales prospecting has changed dramatically over the past decade. Traditional prospect badgering approaches to business development are giving way to digital sales strategies, especially virtual selling skills-based tactics, forcing businesses to evolve to succeed in today’s fast-paced digital landscape. This guide will provide the tactics and insights necessary to master digital sales …
My sons love to fish. I like to fish. The problem is, we don’t know how to fish — or better stated, we don’t know how to FIND where the fish are hanging out. And we’re not alone. There is an entire industry devoted to helping folks like us find and catch fish — charter …
All B2B content falls into one of two content classes: there is 1st-Click Content (the kind you’re most familiar with) and 2nd-Click Content, the kind most B2B marketers are not yet producing but should be, to truly arm their Sales Teams for social selling success. But not all 2nd-Click content is created equally and today …
Have you ever been at a networking event and met someone you really hit it off with, but there was just something off-putting about them that made you hesitant to work together? They had the connections, the skills, the product, the charisma…but man, their breath just stank? Now, the nice, reasonable guy in me would …
There is a dangerous dogma that has infiltrated digital sales and marketing thought. One that if left unchecked, will cause numerous content marketing and lead generation programs to fail. Yet, as you read posts penned by lead generation agencies and lead generation thought leaders, listen to popular podcasts or attend demand gen conference sessions, you …
This week, the Wall St. Journal proclaimed “Business Travel Won’t Be Taking Off Soon Amid Coronavirus.” In the article, numerous CEO’s remarked they intend to maintain a smaller travel budget, field fewer face-to-face sales calls and in general, continue leveraging the efficiencies of virtual selling for the foreseeable future, if not forever. This shouldn’t come …
NEW Research strongly suggests that Social Selling and digital sales tools, which have been steadily becoming more central to successful sales prospecting over the last 10 years will continue to dominate post Covid-19 outbreak. Read More…
...Coronavirus has turned the world, especially the sales world, upside down. Traditional sales methods like face-to-face selling and in some cases, even phone sales, have been rendered pretty much useless. Increasingly sales reps are relying instead on email, social media outreach and video-conferencing. But while our tools today are somewhat different, our sales & marketing …
Are you a first time Zoom user? If you’re like any of my friends, chances are the answer to that question is YES. Or maybe your team has chosen Facetime Calls, or GoToMeeting or Google Hangouts or Skype or any host of other video calling platforms to meet during this time of social distancing. It …
Recently I ran across and interesting discussion on LinkedIn about the effectiveness of cold calls — or maybe better stated — lack of effectiveness. One comment in particular jumped out at me and really got me to thinking about a future where the cold call could again be an effective outbound sales prospecting tool. Every …
Marketing has always had its 4P’s, and now Sales has its 5P’s – a proven relationship first approach to consistently closing more deals with less work.
...Should solopreneurs, freelancers and consultants focus on becoming famous or the most noted authority in their category in order to drive future business growth?
...The single biggest mistake sales teams make today is focusing exclusively on prospects and ignoring these social agents who will introduce you to prospective customers both offline and online.
...What are the 5 most important questions to ask on a first sales call in order to write a winning proposal?
...Are you properly prepared to develop stronger interpersonal relationships with your sales prospects to improve the effectiveness of your lead nurturing?
If not, read on…
...To Sell Greatly, a salesperson has to be relationship first. And the most important skill in building strong, enduring relationships is the ability to be a good listener. Ironically, most of us are terrible listeners. It’s like we completely understand the importance of listening well, but we just can’t bring ourselves to actually do it …
How does the Millennial style of communication hold up in the world of sales, which depends so much on interpersonal relationships and the soft skills that make sales happen? More on that here.
...Every year the Content Marketing Institute publishes a seminal report on the state of the Content Marketing Industry. This year, we thought we’d share it but through the lens of sales prospecting and using content to Sell Greatly. Content Marketing Still Focused on The Top of The Funnel. Few content marketers report they use it …
Prince wasn’t just a great singer, he was also a great sales prospecting philosopher. Don’t believe me? Let’s look at two of his songs and how he contrasts the painful traditional ad agency business development process vs a painless prospecting process preferred by agencies like Converse Digital. Traditional RFP Based Business Development Are you familiar …
WARNING: If you are of the mindset that all prospects are leads, you’ll probably disagree with what I’m about to say. I’m a huge fan of online product demos and webinars because they let me easily self-educate about a product or service I’m considering. And as a business, you should love these tools as …
Today I had the honor of presenting at ContentTech. To a packed room of senior level marketers and a few sales people, we talked about the gulf between Marketing and Sales. Specifically, what causes it and how to fix it. For most marketing teams today, their role in the sales prospecting process is all about …
What do you do when you’re in the car, or on the treadmill? Maybe you make phone calls or listen to the radio. These days, a lot of people are finding new audio entertainment in the form of podcasts. In fact, podcasting has exploded. The latest stats report over 600,000 podcasts are available and over …
Measuring the true sales impact of social media efforts his hard and sometimes downright impossible. In the early days of social media that was ok. Social media was the bright shiny object that everyone wanted and few understood. Social media gurus would quip, “what’s the ROI of your mother?” and folks actually took that as …
Over the last 10 years, content marketing has emerged as a powerful driver for effective social selling and inbound sales lead generation programs. And while largely heralded as a way to drive inbound leads there is another, even more powerful reason that ad and PR agencies should develop a consistent content marketing program. Let’s talk about …
Recently I participated in an interesting discussion on the #Digital360Chat Twitter Chat hosted by Bernie Fussenegger around the idea of sales & marketing automation, specifically about automating the connection process on social media. It’s hard to really go deep on a subtopic in a Twitter Chat, so today I thought we could explore this key …
Whenever you read about Social Selling, everyone spends a lot of time talking about creating content. It makes sense, because content is at the core of a successful social selling program. But you shouldn’t be paying your salespeople to create content. Instead, teach them how to properly curate content (maybe even give them the proper …