LeadG2, on July 24, 2015
We've found several excellent thoughts and ideas online this week, and now it's time to share them with you! Here are our "best" from around the web.
It's much easier to sell to a client than to sell to a prospect. Customer loyalty makes marketing and sales easier, lowers costs, and increases customer lifetime value (CLV). So how can you make it happen? This post from Sales Benchmark Index digs into how to create loyal customers who continue to buy from you again and again.
My job includes constantly searching for industry and consumer trends, so I subscribe to a voluminous list of trade and news publications… more than I could possibly read thoroughly on any given day. However, I’ve taught myself to speed-scan the headlines rapidly, and separate the important stories that I need to know from the merely interesting stories that might be nice to know (if I had more time).
Chances are, you do precisely the same thing as you’re checking email, your Facebook page, or your Twitter feeds. At rapid-fire speed, you visually sift through hundreds of messages… “Junk, junk, junk, junk… Oh! This one looks like something I should read!”
I don’t raise this issue because I care about the way you prioritize the information you consume. I raise it so you’ll stop and think about the information you send.
When your client or prospect receives your message, logic tells us that it resides among hundreds—perhaps thousands—of other messages and issues that are screaming for that person’s attention.
John Henley, on July 20, 2015
Salespeople too often rush to deliver their proposal to the prospect, often believing that the sooner they deliver it the sooner they’ll get the order. Maybe—but only if it’s the right proposal, fully vetted.
Instead of being in a hurry to hand off the proposal, be in a hurry to uncover all the possible objections. Ensure that the vetting process happens by finding all the decision-influencers, running the plan past them, and looking for problems. When you’re present for that vetting, you can fix the problems and switch thumbs-down opposition to thumbs-up support. If you’re not there, you won’t know the issues and you won’t be able to do anything about them.
LeadG2, on July 17, 2015
It's Friday, and it's time for our Top 5 favorite news articles and industry blog posts from this week! Here are our "best" from around the web.
Just how do UX design and content quality affect your SEO ranking? This video from Moz explains how your site's user experience and content quality influence where your pages appear in the search results.
LeadG2, on July 14, 2015
As Baby Boomers are retiring, Gen Xers (those born from about 1965 to 1980), now with several solid years of experience, are moving into decision-making positions. A few days ago I read an article in the Wall Street Journal about how this shift is affecting the culture of companies and how they’re run. The article explained a few shared characteristics of these younger bosses.
Steve Marx, on July 13, 2015
"If you wish to persuade me, you must think my thoughts, feel my feelings, and speak my words." — Marcus Tullius Cicero (c. 106-43 B.C.), Roman philosopher, lawyer, and orator
Empathy may have been too touchy-feely a concept in Cicero’s day to have been awarded its own word. In fact, the modern word empathy is a 19th century creation in German (einfühlung), migrating to English in the early 20th.
But as soon as a concept is given its own word in Webster’s (the lexicological equivalent of a star on Hollywood Walk of Fame?), the word takes over. It can take on all sorts of meanings never intended at its creation or denoted by its creators.
Today, for most people, empathy is pretty indistinguishable from sympathy, from the concept of wanting to comfort others in whatever distress they may be experiencing, of being, well, touchy-feely. The drive to comfort another may be useful in sales from time to time, but true empathy—the ability to project yourself into the other person’s shoes—is essential to the success of anyone who is trying to sell almost anything.
LeadG2, on July 10, 2015
Throughout the week we're reading news articles and industry blogs, and Friday is the day we share our Top 5 with you. Here are this week's "best" from around the web.
Greg Giersch, on July 8, 2015
Defining what position your own professional brand should take is hard work. Which is why most salespeople and development officers are still talking mostly about their company, their products, and their causes on their LinkedIn profile.
It’s important to be proud of your company. If you are, you might even say you’re blessed, or damn lucky, depending on your point of view. But when someone is deciding whether or not they want to take time to meet with you, it’s about you.
Tina Rice, on July 7, 2015
The movie Chef, starring Jon Favreau, John Leguizamo, and Sofia Vergara was in the theaters last year, and is now available on Netflix and for rental.
Some called it “the feel-good movie of the year” — and I agree — but it’s also a GREAT way to get up to speed on Social Media!
John Henley, on July 6, 2015
I am a big NBA fan and I really enjoyed watching the Finals this year. It was amazing to watch Andre Iguodala of the Golden State Warriors emerge as the MVP. It’s not because I like to see LeBron get shut down (although I do enjoy that!). It’s because Iguodala became the first player in the history of the NBA to win the Finals MVP award without starting every game of the series.
He wasn’t a starter when the Finals began, which partially explains why the Cleveland Cavaliers went up 2 games to 1 before Golden State got their groove. In the course of the series, which the Warriors turned around and won 4-2, Iguodala went from being the first player off the bench (their sixth man, in basketball jargon) to becoming a starter and ultimately the MVP.
