Category Archives: Sales & Marketing

What are the Strategic Components of a Sales Model?

Interview with Sanjay Sathe, President & CEO, RiseSmart.com

Situation: RiseSmart is in the process of building an inside sales program to complement their outside sales capabilities. What are the most important strategic components of an effective sales model?

Advice:

  • In a marketing and sales system, marketing is the precursor to everything. If you can’t effectively deliver your message to your audience, you have no lead generation machine and sales must resort to cold calls.
    • In an online world, one of the key components of a marketing system is the email campaign, combined with tools for rapid and responsive follow-up.
  • In RiseSmart’s system, the inside sales team is primarily responsible for following up on leads.  The team’s role is:
    • To qualify the prospect responding to our marketing efforts. Is this person the right buyer for their company? If not, who is?
    • Does the company have a budget for our services? If not, when will they?
    • Is this the right time? Do they have a current contract in place? Are they actively looking?
  • The most critical aspect of the inside sales rep’s role is to be an effective filter in collecting and passing data to the field sales force.
  • Many inside sales reps fail because their performance is measured on the number of calls made, not the quality of the calls or information gathered.
  • Our incentives for inside sales are based on the quality of data gathered and on the success of field sales in closing the leads they receive.
  • The effectiveness of outside sales really comes down to choosing the right people.
    • The 80/20 rule applies here.  One out of five field sales reps hired is truly successful, one is marginal, and three don’t make it.
    • We hire based on experience selling to our target customer groups, subjective elements, and careful reference checks.
  • As CEO, I consider hiring good people the most important thing I do.

You can contact Sanjay Sathe at ssathe@risesmart.com

Key Words: Inside Sales, Field Sales, Qualify, Filter, Performance, Measurement, Incentive, Selection  [like]

What are the Strategic Components of a Marketing Plan?

Interview with Sanjay Sathe, President & CEO, RiseSmart.com

Situation: RiseSmart’s top opportunities are to increase visibility and gain market share. What are the most important strategic components of an effective marketing program?

Advice:

  • The best marketing plans don’t start with your company, product or service, They start with a focus on your customers, and the benefits you can deliver to them.
  • That means your first step should be to identify who your customers are.
    • This can be challenging in B2B businesses. For example, with RiseSmart’s outplacement solution, Transition Concierge, we have several possible customers: the HR department at the company seeking outplacement services; the CFO at these companies; the HR department at companies seeking good candidates; and the individuals who are going through outplacement and seeking new positions.
    • Each of these audiences has different objectives, priorities and approaches. To succeed, we need to connect to each of them where they are.
  • After you have identified your target customers, the next step is to develop messaging and message delivery systems that capture and maintain their attention.
    • Your messaging must express a differentiation that is easy to grasp – something that clearly sets you apart from your competition.  In technology marketing, Apple’s 1984 Super Bowl commercial, with its man-versus-machine contrast, is one of the most famous examples of this.
    • Your campaign must consistently touch your potential customer base. Research suggests that this requires a minimum of 4-5 touches to effectively gain customer attention and communicate your message.
    • Accompanying the messaging and the increased visibility that you seek, you must have an effective way to respond promptly and directly to customer interest or inquiries. Rapid and responsive follow-up are critical to success.

You can contact Sanjay Sathe at ssathe@risesmart.com

Key Words: Market Share, Visibility, Customer, Message, Differentiation, Consistency, Touches, Follow-up  [like]

What are Best Practices to Open New Markets? Five Thought Starters

Interview with Greg Curhan, CEO, Clickworker, Inc.

Situation: Clickworker was founded and has gained nice traction in Europe. Focusing first on Silicon Valley, they want to expand into the US. This means identifying companies that could use their service, as well as appropriate contacts within those companies. What are best practices to open new markets for a product or service?

Advice:

  • Start with a set of profiles of possible customers and contacts.
    • If you have a history of success, look for companies in similar industries, and with similar profiles as your current customers. Build a set of profiles of customer companies, and use these profiles against the lists that you develop to identify and prioritize prospects.
  • Develop a list of who’s in your addressable market and narrow this list to prospects.
    • Work with your staff and systematically review past jobs and companies that you’ve been associated with, including vendors and suppliers. Identify a list of possible target customers, and use LinkedIn, Link Silicon Valley and other social networking sites to confirm and develop your contact list.
    • Also work with companies that develop and update databases of local companies including contact lists, web sites, telephone numbers, revenue data and SIC codes. For example, Rich’s Business Information develops searchable lists of companies Northern and Southern California. Dunn and Bradstreet and others also sell searchable lists of companies and positions.
    • Subscribe to the locally published Business Journals in your target markets. These Journals generate Books of Lists of local companies and contact information.
    • Network with those you know and ask who they know. This is more effective once you’ve developed a set of profiles, so that you can clearly characterize what kinds of companies you seek.
  • This is an initial set of ideas. What has worked for you as you opened new markets?

You can contact Greg Curhan at greg.curhan@clickworker.com

Key Words: Customer, Profile, Contacts, Suspects, Prospects, LinkedIn, LinkSV, Social Networking, Rich’s, D&B, Business Journal, Network   [like]

Can You Increase Value in Social Network Discussions? Four Thoughts

Interview with Kenneth Vogt, CEO, Crooner Labs, Inc.

Situation: Individuals participate in social networking sites for several reasons – to network, to promote their businesses, products or services, and to gain insight through crowd sourcing. For these audiences, what are the best ways to increase the value in your discussions?

Advice:

  • Encourage participants to move from a short-term to a medium-term focus. Short term focus is about lead generation, immediate results and “Buy, Buy, Buy Now.” Think of the man in the flashy sports coat selling cars on late night television. It may generate a “sale” but with low engagement and commitment. If focus you instead on engagement, you start to build growth which is more sustainable – which will stay alive with more momentum.
  • Clarify your objectives. Are you interested in sales or influence today, or this quarter? How much effort do you want to put into it and what payback do you seek?
  • Be patient. Take the time to develop quality content. This time is an investment which pays back both medium and long-term.
  • Stop treating people as though they are stupid and can be manipulated into buying from you. There is a karmic cost to this approach. Look instead at the potential benefit that you can provide that will attract people to your content. Think in terms of reciprocity – give first and let others decide how they will respond.
  • Some time ago I tried an experiment. I proposed a simple question: “What do you want?” I asked the question three times, each time with a different thought in mind – first annoyance, then confusion, and finally empathy. But rather than speak the questions, I sent them via instant message one after the other. The words on the page were exactly the same each time, “What do you want?” Yet without tone of voice, expression or body language, the receivers could instantly tell me what I was thinking in each case. The same works in social networking. People can read where you are coming from based on how you position your content. So if you want to increase the value of what you have to say or offer, offer it openly and invite your audience to respond.

You can contact Kenneth Vogt at kvogt@croonerlabs.com

Key Words: Social Network, Discussion, Focus, Objectives, Value  [like]

How Do You Communicate Your Solution to Potential Clients? Eight Recommendations

Interview with Eric Bauswell, President, SurfaceInk

Situation: For a domestic engineering solutions company, one of the challenges is engaging potential customers with the idea that a domestic solution can cost-effectively meet their needs. If you can combine a manufacturing solution to the service solution, this helps. What have you done to effectively communicate your solution to potential clients?

Advice:

  • Know your clients. Clients have expertise of their own. However, they may lack expertise in all the disciplines necessary to create a full product. How will you fill the gap?
  • Know your strengths.
    • Design is an iterative development process. If you increase process efficiency you can complete more process cycles in a given timeframe, advancing to final product more quickly.
    • Identify your key differentiators. Target clients for whom your differentiator is a critical need. For example, we do not encourage all of our clients to manufacture overseas, but if they insist and lack experience managing overseas vendors, we can handle this for them.
    • Consistency of personnel across the life of a project is important, particularly the core team.
    • “Invention & Innovation” require a plan to mitigate the risk they represent.  Develop the design along parallel paths, stage higher risk components or pieces of the design that represent critical path inventions such that they are proven prior to moving forward, or even take that feature out of the current design in order to develop it to a production ready solution for the next product on the client roadmap.  Sometimes an invention or innovation is THE reason for the new product.  In these cases the key is managing the client’s expectations regarding the significantly elevated risks that come with invention and proceeding with the understanding that the phase gates and even the production dates will slide according to the progress against developing that critical path invention or innovation.
    • Expertise in material selection and understanding what can be done with materials in the manufacturing process is non-trivial, as is vendor qualification, particularly with new materials.
  • Know your competitors. How do they handle similar challenges to those that you face?
  • Know your vendors. “Right-sizing” your contract manufacturer to your client’s product is important. Things will go wrong, and you must assure that the contract manufacturer will give you the priority to get things back on track to meet your launch date.

You can contact Eric Bauswell at bauswell@surfaceink.com

Key Words: Engineering Services, Domestic, Outsource Partner, Strengths, Differentiators, Materials, Prototype, Parallel Path, Vendor Selection

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How Do You Build Meaningful Participation on a Social Web Site? – Six Thought Starters

Interview with Ken Ross, CEO, ExpertCEO, Inc.

Situation: We have built a good online community. Between our site and newsletter, we are in contact with tens of thousands of executives weekly. We constantly seek new ways to encourage active participation in our discussions. What have you done to effectively build regular participation in meaningful discussions?

Advice:

  • Know your audience and focus on topics that engage people. For example, we do a semi-annual compensation survey and get a great response when we publish the results.
  • We often learn more from mistakes than we do from success. Also, people love to talk about business blunders, particularly if the discussions include some well-intentioned humor.
  • Reach out to individuals with interesting backgrounds, experience and situations. Encourage them to post, or feature them in a discussion.
  • We send out weekly emails with titles and synopses of articles posted in the last week. This enables newsletter recipients to quickly scan topics and click on those of interest.
  • A common challenge is filtering posts which are trivial, self-promoting and lack relevance to the focus of the site.
  • The bottom line is that there is no magic bullet. Social networking sites are rapidly evolving so you must continually seek creative additions. This takes time, work and investment.
  • Now it’s your turn. What has drawn you to a social networking site? What have you done to effectively build regular participation in meaningful discussions?

You can contact Ken Ross at ken@expertceo.com

Category: Sales & Marketing, Strategy, Technology

Key Words: Online Community, Social Network, Social Web Site, Participation, Discussions, Mistakes, Humor, Newsletter, Creative

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How Do You Attract the Talent to Build an International Presence? Seven Guidelines

Interview with E.J. Dieterle, President & CEO, YES Partners, Inc.

Situation: As corporate wallets start loosening up, companies are looking at market expansion opportunities. International expansion is one alternative. In the past this was done largely by sending Expats. In more recent years there has been a trend toward hiring locally. How do you find the right talent locally?

Advice:

  • Everything starts with the basics – a good job description.
  • Finding people is easier these days with social networks like MySpace, Facebook, LinkedIn, Xing, hi5, Spoke and Plaxo. However, finding the right people remains a challenge.
  • Invest time and effort to research your target market.
    • Which country is a market or has the most likely prospective clients?
    • What is your competitive advantage there?
  • For a hiring company without an existing presence in the local market it is also a challenge to convince good local candidates that yours is the right company to join. It is important to understand the local business culture and values, and also to offer career-paths to qualified candidates.
  • Don’t assume the need for multiple offices as you start. You can start with a highly mobile person working from home who knows the local language(s), customs, and who already has contacts in your target market.
  • It is often assumed that it takes one year or more for an Expat to be efficient locally, and that hiring locally often accelerates first years’ startup-time. However, the local person has to understand and “fit” into the corporate/head office culture.
  • Working with an international executive search firm to find qualified local talent with the right fit to your business and needs can greatly improve your odds of success.

You can contact E.J. Dieterle at ejdieterle@yespartners.com

Key Words: International, Market, Expansion, Ex-Pat, Job Description, LinkedIn, Research, Competition, Brand  [like]

How do you Create New Value in a Commodity Market? Six Suggestions

Interview with Dirk Boecker, President, Toto Consulting

Situation:  Through the technology revolution in medical diagnostics, products in some markets have become commoditized. For example, a proliferation of low cost blood glucose monitoring products has driven down price while increasing incidence and prevalence of diabetes has driven up demand. How do you create new value in a commodity market?

Advice:

  • Taking a broader view of the market is key. Analyze the entire customer experience, not just your segment. Assess markets and industries surrounding your primary offering and look for un-served interfaces and gaps.
    • Where you find opportunity, elevate your offering to the next level by integrating your product as component. Create a compelling advantage but avoid unnecessary adaptation of your existing product or service.
    • Blood glucose monitoring is used to support insulin and diet adjustment in diabetics, a disease which is accompanied by a number of complications and complex to manage. Can your monitoring technology become part of a broader service offering, or even part of a personalized solution? Can you move higher up in the value chain?
  • Begin your transformation at the first signs of commoditization. Being first brings a huge advantage.
  • Once you identify an unmet need, consider working with related industry groups to create new standards addressing these gaps. Implementing the resulting standards will give you a new competitive advantage against your competitors.
  • Find other applications for your product or service. Consider new applications for the components used in your current offering. Find new customers outside of your historic customer base. Consider alliances with other companies experienced with the new opportunities you find.
  • Within your own organization begin a process that routinely analyzes the customer experience and general needs beyond your current offering. Working with an outside consultant can help by adding a new perspective.

You can contact Dirk Boecker at dirkboecker@mac.com

Key Words: Commodity, Differentiation, Market Identification, Market Research, Competition, Product Advantage, Competitive Advantage, Unmet Need, Standards, Alliance, Process, Consultant  [like]

How Do You Manage Your To-Do List? Five Recommendations

Situation: The Company downsized during the recession. The CEO and sales staff are overburdened by administrative and business development tasks. What’s the best way to bring to add resources to support sales and infrastructure?

Advice from the CEOs:

  • Look at what hats you are wearing. Wear the hats that fit best and take off the others.
    • If an activity is not core to your success, off-load it. For example: bookkeeping, shipping and receiving, records and basic correspondence.
    • These are necessary, but don’t generate revenue.
  • If your core businesses are sales and service, is one more profitable than the other? Can you outsource pieces of the less profitable activity short-term?
  • Where do you want to be personally in the next 2 years? On what roles do you want to focus? Build a plan to transition you into these roles.
    • The E Myth Revisited by Michael Gerber is a quick read that outlines the process.
  • You may not need to bring in a high level operations manager. Consider hiring an office manager to help organize you and your business development staff. For a smaller operation this person can take care of phones, bookkeeping, shipping and receiving and routine correspondence. This will allow executive staff and sales to focus on growing and servicing customer demand.
  • During the summer months hire high school or college summer interns. They provide an inexpensive source of labor, high levels of energy and creativity, and are eager for work experience.

Key Words: Business Development, Core Business, Sales, Service, Outsource, Role, Office Manager, Intern  [like]

How Do You Improve Company Competency to Support Growth? Eight Thoughts

Interview with Scott Dodson, CEO, AirXpanders, Inc.

Situation: Both in the case of a start-up, and when an existing company adds a new business unit, one of the biggest challenges is supporting rapid expansion during market launch. Talent necessary during the product completion phase may not be sufficient to support this growth. What can you do to improve company competency?

Advice:

  • Bring in “been there, done that” expertise to support the current team. In particular, you want to add individuals who have experienced both success and failure in similar markets, and in both larger and similar sized companies.  You want people who can be transformational to a company and not someone who can simply occupy a box.  Give them a chance to do more, add to their toolbox and they will in turn help the company achieve its goals.
  • A wide range of past experience with multiple employers is now seen as a benefit, whereas in the past it may have been a liability. It brings more knowledge to bear.
  • Among people with highly diverse resumes, how do you tell performers from non-performers?
    • Focus on what they did to transform their past company. Did they build alliances, make change happen or improve the organization during their incumbency? Look at ‘how’ they did it.  Chances are, this is a very leverageable skill.
    • Look for doers.  People who aren’t afraid to roll up their sleeves will make the biggest impact in the organization.
  • Look for people who possess “strategic humility.” Don’t be afraid of mistakes and foster an environment where the boundaries are continuously pushed.  The enemy of ‘good’ is ‘perfect’, and the best companies consistently make ‘good’ decisions.  If you make a mistake, own up to it, learn from it and move on.
  • Look for the ability to assess, develop, plan and mobilize resources to execute the plan.
  • Use LinkedIn to identify people with whom an applicant worked in previous jobs to conduct independent reference checks.
  • You can also use LinkedIn to identify candidates for open positions.
  • By adding resources with these traits to your team, you markedly improve your likelihood of success.

You can contact Scott Dodson at scottadodson@yahoo.com

Key Words: Ramp-up, Growth, Talent, Competency, Interviewing, LinkedIn, Reference Checks  [like]