Hey! They know who you are already

I love reading content and what other people intelligently write.  By intelligently, I mean people that have some kind of story or expert opinion.  I believe they call it: Thought leadership.  Different brands have various methods to gaining viewership and listeners.  You can learn a lot from others on how they connect their brand to their target.

Let me tell you, I absolutely dislike name dropping in the beginning of a content post.  There was an article I read that was well written and very relevant to today and it gave me a sour taste in my mouth.  It began as:

"As the CEO of _____,  I attend seminars and collect business cards from leadership of all industries.."

To some, this won't bother them. To me, I became disengaged.  I understand the importance of having people know who you are and what your company does.  This is an information age where you can find where people live, work, and what they do for fun.  The issue is the lack of authenticity in helping customers with what they want or need.

If you are going to commit to a thought leadership piece, name dropping who you are is very much a sales message that can be ignored by prospects.  Your target can find out who you are after deciding if they want to even work with you.

Scratch that..your target knows who you are because they see your name and title in every content piece that's attached to your collateral.

So much to do...do nothing

As a professional balancing your work and personal life, there's certain priorities that we as people place on certain tasks. Going back to what you know is a comfort zone.  Even if it's no longer effective, you say to yourself, "it's the strategy that achieved company success." Sometimes we simply have so many problematic issues, that we do the easiest thing.

Nothing.

We do nothing.  We see the problem and we do nothing.

One of my favorite comedians, Jim Gaffigan always jokes about having to do so much that you simply take a nap.  There's a proverbial nap you take when you notice numerous challenges to overcome.  We all have set a "danger" level system that ultimately prevents us from being proactive to challenges.

Marketing- Deliverables are constantly set to deadlines.  Sometimes you compile data that gives you more work and it becomes a bigger challenge.  With facing the creative and analytical side of marketing, it's easy to blur what's important to do.  Still the decision to do nothing brings much worse consequences than being complacent.

Sales- You've noticed that each quarter the sales target is not going to be hit.  You also realize there's internal struggle within your sales management teams. You also forgot about the competitors that's consistently beating you every quarter and slowly taking customers from you.  There's so much to do, the easiest thing is to do nothing.

The best time to seek out help for so much work, is at the beginning of that work load.  Playing "catch up" is not fun and it forces you to always have to come from behind.  If you can anticipate issues and keep an open mind, you can stop a lot of the road blocks from hampering your success.

It's cold outside..All you need is a good book

Baby it's cold outside....

It's cold outside and the last thing I have wanted to do is go bar hopping in the snow and 20 degree temperatures.  I've always been a sporadic reader.  It's something I need to work on and I'm fully aware of it.  When it's cold outside, it brings the opportunity for me to read books in their entirety.  Most of my reading seems to happen from Jan-April.

Coincidence? I think not.

I've had the chance to read some useful books via the Amazon Kindle store.  There's some really great "free books" that offer excellent sales and marketing insight. While there are "award selling" books, I love to read from lesser known people on how they obtain their success.  Here's a book with highlights that makes it worth reading!

1. Booked: The digital marketing and social media appointment setting system.... By Josh Turner.

Premise: On amazon kindle you can read this book for free.  It's a valuable book that shows the landscape of today's prospecting world.  The only negative is for grammar police, the book is written in a very loose conversational tone.  If you are looking for a formal book, it's not for you.  If you approach sales like an entrepreneur, it's a good book to read.  Josh takes us through a bit of his history and how he leveraged social media to grow his business.  The biggest takeaway in his book is how he used LinkedIn groups to establish himself as a thought leader.  The plan results in him setting up easier appointments  and eliminating having to cold call.

Content marketing..forever changing

Bob Dylan had a song called "Times are a changing."

Also a phrase we constantly hear every year.  The times are certainly changing for content marketing and it's becoming more important than ever to be relevant and fresh.

You see content marketers have had to think like TV show producers because producing content is a demanding job that takes understanding your target and being original.  Content is more than just, "putting a meme together."  It's about anticipating what people may want to read about and guiding them along the way for their final decision.

Each piece of content has to have meaning and unfortunately, I see a lot of "irrelevant content."  Here are some signs you're content strategy should change.

"It takes you under one hour to produce content"

If it takes you less than an hour to create, edit, and post content, there's a good chance it's not as polished.  It's also probably not very focused and worth the time for your target.  Inbound thought leader Hub Spot, states it takes 1-2 hours to produce a 500 word blog post.  I tend to agree. Companies get wrapped up in gaining attention that they forget unpolished content can damage credibility.  

"Lack of original images, and visuals"

One of my personal weaknesses is I've never been a visual creator with images.  I barely can take pictures with a camera (sad I know)  I realize this weakness of mine and am in the process of finding someone to handle that side of my blog.  There's so much content being "plagiarized" that those who offer original images and visuals on their content will become more noticed and credible.  While there are "free image" websites, if everyone uses the same images, it's easy to become less noticeable. The company that invests in original visual resources, will see their content stand out from the pack. 

Disclaimer: If you are a company using "Meme's" always think about your target and how they will interpret that meme.  Meme's are funny but sometimes but have become a "cheaper" way to ramp up content efforts. 

"Constantly changing your voice"

Building an audience to view and read your content takes a lot of time.  It's not over night success so it's easy to "doubt" your ability to connect with viewers.  I've seen a lot of businesses change their voice that they begin to lose what embodies their brand.  This is a super thin line because you have to scrap what's simply not working but never lose your identity.  Your voice has to be consistent so you can focus on a niche of people rather than everybody.

Some of these pointers are obvious things I have looked to take as challenges to make my content better.  There's far too much mediocre content out there.  Let's be the solution-Not part of the problem.

Now Playing- "Times are a changing"

How valuable are sales meetings?

" I'm on my way to a meeting"
" I'm in meetings all day"
" I have a meeting"

We all have said this at several times in a week.  Sure, we all do actually have meetings, but are most of them productive?

My meetings normally consist of one meaningful productive one followed by several "meetings" to talk about future meetings.  The future meetings then discuss future meetings that talk about a problem we know about yet decide to make another meeting instead of solving that meeting. ( Sorry for the run-on sentences to all grammar police.)

The issue I have with continuous meetings is it's like a dance that never ends.  Eventually there's a point we both agree "I like you. Let's work."  

We also tell people we are in meetings as a crutch to avoid saying, "Not interested, don't bother me." 

Meeting has become like filler words( Ummm..like..ehhh...well) It's become a way to stall what we really want.  Customers get self conscious toward their ability to negotiate a deal that makes them the hero and salespeople desperately try to meet a "tracker" agenda. 

 If both sides let go of their insecurities, we'd all have some great and more productive meetings. 

3 rules of engagement

Ah,  the rule of 3.  As marketers, we research numerous analytics on how to contact our prospects that we end up in analysis paralysis.  At Symbiont group we've been guilty of this act. At some point, it's something all businesses have done and it's time to put an end to it!  Applying the rule of 3 principle to all facets of prospect communicating can garner positive results in both business and personal.

According to copyblogger, the rule of 3 is a writing principle that suggests things that come in 3 are more effective and memorable than other number combinations.  When writing to prospects, we don't want to spam them with useless information-We want to give them valuable bite sized pieces of knowing who we are and why we contact them.  Each level of communication we send gives us a sense of where the customer is in their buying journey.  Here's how we communicate with prospects utilizing the rule of 3.

Level 1- Quick Introduction

If your prospect doesn't know who you are, we want to give them a bite sized introduction stating who we are and what we do.  The introductory email is simply used as a "feeler" to track the initial level of interest the prospect has in our proposed product/service.  They most likely do not know who we are, so we want to be clear and concise.  Level 1 is a great way for us to recognize prospects that are immediately looking for what we offer.   Sales and marketing can then work together to provide requested information for the prospect.

Level 2- Let's Get Personal

We've now entered the "personal zone."  The chances they did not respond to our previous communication was due to lack of awareness to our brand or weak positioning.  Now we have to differentiate and also reinforce why they should be speaking with us.  At Level 2, being a researcher counts much more than being a salesperson.  According to Appboy.com, personalized messages increase related conversion by more than 27% compared to other messages.   Our personalized message should involve something about their business or industry and then a call to action.

Level 3- "Professionally Persistent"

Getting to Level 3 means we simply have to be creative and politely persistent.  There's a thin line between persistence and annoyance-We have to cross that line with extreme care.  The chances of them not responding to our communication over a period of time could mean big changes in their organization or lack of interest.  We make light of how busy prospects get and we send them one last communication in hopes they respond with or without interest.  Tactful humor and a strong call to action will help you collect prospects who may or may not be worth "the chase."  If there is no response after level 3, we move on and continue to find the right prospects that would be of value.

The rule of 3 can apply to so many aspects in marketing and sales.  You can utilize this principle in voice mails, emails, and field sales.  There's endless possibilities for using it in marketing campaigns as well.   The rule of 3 allows you to be persistent enough to pursue prospects but professional enough to notice if it's not worth your company's bandwidth or time. 

Happy Prospecting!

I need clos...ure

For my Hunters and Business Development people.

How often have you researched a company, found the decision makers, and sent information to contact that person?  All the time.

How many times have you seen signs  that it's a "qualified" opportunity only to have that person not contact you to even say "not interested."  - Me! Me! Me!

In today's world of sales, ABC isn't as easy as 123.(Jackson 5 reference)  The customers hold all the cards and can decide to show whatever hand they want.  They can change the deck and we're left in the dark wondering if they gave us the right cards or not.  Closure is a word often heard in psychology and relationships-It's applicable to vetting out a prospect.

While I love to close and gain a yes or no, I believe the clos-ure is what helps me learn more about the situation.   Here are some tips I use to gain closure.

Tip 1: Hi! to the elephant in the room

If there's one thing that happens in meetings and communication it's avoidance.  We avoid conflict because we don't want to be seen as desperate, pushy, or any other negative connotation.  There's a thin line always and I respect that line.  Still, I have to address the elephant in the room.  No is not a good answer if I can't figure out why.   A very influential sales coach Dave Yoho has tips on how you get them past the word No but we haven't even reached that point.  We still need to figure out what's preventing them from giving us a straight answer. 

what have I done to deserve such disrespect!

Tip 2: Research..Not a salesperson!

My desire to get to the hidden objection has nothing to do with the sale.  It's everything to do with my prospects psyche.  What are they afraid of telling me?  Who did I forget to talk with?  Do I sound trust worthy?  There's a million combinations that impact a sales stall.  We all have sales cycles that we follow based off previous forecasts.  We imagine how the situation should look, then have to take a detour.  I channel my Sherlock Holmes and I get to the bottom of it all!

Elementary, my dear Watson...

Tip 3: Release them

Sometimes you have to know when to let go.  It's not always the right timing for change and if you did everything the way it should have-don't fret and move on.  As we pursue people for our business/services, there's a point where we may come off desperate.  Keep it moving and never let it affect your confidence.  Someone has to get "dumped" and

woosah..woosah