The Center for Sales Strategy Blog

This week's posts went in a variety of directions. Although the posts varied wildly in topic (we had everything from lions to McDonald's to Pete Carrol!), they all related to looking out at the world around us to look inward. You'll see what I mean below.

The Center for Sales Strategy Weekly Wrap-Up

• On Monday, Dana Bojcic wrote about how an injury turned her son into a caged lion, and warned managers not to cage the lions on their team. Are you caging your lions? Are you a lion that need

• On Tuesday, Mike Anderson told us the common connection between McDonald's, Mercedes, and you, which was a post about professional branding. Your brand is the thought that comes to mind when someone says your name.
  

If you find it a bit daunting to develop a keyword strategy, you’re not alone! Many people don’t fully understand which keywords they should go after, and they don’t know how to find out. The concept seems simple. We want our website to appear when someone searches for a solution to a problem we can solve. But it can be hard to get started.

Here are a few simple tips to help you get in the mindset of finding the right keywords.

1. Start with your target personas in mind.

Think about what problems you solve for them. What are their needs? What are they likely to type into a search bar? The keywords will come naturally.

2. Use long-tail keywords.

Thanks to Google’s release of its Hummingbird algorithm last fall, long-tail keywords have taken center stage. Long-tail keywords are longer phrases that usually consist of three or more words. For example: “how to fix a leaky faucet.” They’re more specifically relevant and tend to have less competition, allowing you to rank higher. Long-tail keywords are also more likely to reflect what your buyer personas are typing into their search bar, giving you not just any visitors, but qualified ones. It’s important to remember that you’re no longer writing for search engines—you’re writing for humans. Search engines want to match your content to what people are searching for.

Four-day weeks always seem to fly by. We took a long weekend, then came back on Tuesday, and hit the ground running! Now that we're officially in summer mode, we're reading our books outside on the patio and generally spending more time in the sun.

The Center for Sales Strategy Weekly Wrap-Up

• On Monday, many of the employees here at The Center for Sales Strategy weighed in on their favorite business books they've read in the last year. I don't know about you, but I put in my Amazon order!

• On Tuesday, Alina Diaz gave us five steps to developing a strong social media strategy. I like that she focused on individuals rather than companies -- there are great takeaways for everyone who reads that post.
  

Today is Memorial Day. A day to remember those who have given their lives for us, and a day to be with friends and family. To celebrate togetherness, and (hopefully) eat something fresh of the barbecue.

Memorial Day is the unofficial start of summer. The weather is warmer, and if you're anything like us, you find yourself winding down outside instead of in front of the television.

But what should you read? I asked my colleagues about the best business book they've read in the last year. Here's what they had to say. 

Jim Hopes, Chief Executive Officer

Tell to Win: Connect, Persuade, and Triumph with the Hidden Power of Story

The premise of the book is that the most successful communicators are those who are adept at telling stories.  The business environment is replete with facts and figures thrust upon us by seemingly un-ending Power Point slides and voluminous presentations.  But research indicates the most effective way to connect, persuade, and to gain genuine interest in other people is to be an effective story teller.  Don’t tell me why I should do something, rather illustrate the impact of what you have to sell has on real people in real situations.  Tell me about how you changed a life or solved a pressing problem for someone.  People want to hear your story, not your data.

Dani Buckley, Inbound Marketing Consultant

The Power of Less: The Fine Art of Limiting Yourself to the Essential...in Business and in Life

You can be much more effective professionally (and personally) when you learn how to break goals down into manageable tasks and to be more focused when you work. I’ve learned some great new ways to do this, as well as some tried and true tips on how to create and maintain new habits. It’s an easy read and very applicable!

Emily Estey, VP/Senior Consultant

Daring Greatly: How the Courage to Be Vulnerable Transforms the Way We Live, Love, Parent, and Lead

The book is about a lot of things, but mostly about vulnerability. Vulnerability is where innovation and creation begin.

This week was busy! We launched a new self-directed online course called Brand & Connect, which is a really powerful way to learn how to establish your profile online. People are searching for you as soon as they know your name -- you can guide them on what they find.

The Center for Sales Strategy Weekly Wrap-Up

• On Monday, Brittany Ransonet asked us if our personal brand was keeping us from getting that first appointment. Then she offered to help whip our brands into shape. Thank goodness for that!

• On Tuesday, Steve Marx told us about the difference between product danglers and process danglers, and made a clear distinction as to which kind of dangler we should be.

This week was a great one for us. I especially liked Matt's post about how to determine the ROI of your inbound marketing program. It can be hard to measure, especially if you can't easily connect your inbound efforts to your sales pipeline. The rest of the week had valuable information as well, both on our site, and around the web.

The Center for Sales Strategy Weekly Wrap-Up

• Matt Sunshine told us what to watch for when he wrote 7 Ways to Know if Your Company Blog is Giving You A Return on Your Investment

• Christi Cool discussed the world record holder in Girl Scout Cookie sales, and reminded us that age isn't necessarily a factor in The 8 Talents Every Salesperson Needs to Succeed

As an inbound marketer, I download pretty much every piece of premium content I find. (Premium content? That’s the material for which you need to fill out a form or you can’t download it, a form asking for your name, email, phone number, perhaps job title, and the like.) For me, it’s purely research on marketing trends, learning how to do inbound marketing better, and of course, checking out the competition.

I find it very interesting that even though I sometimes use my gmail account (not my work email) that I constantly get calls from companies where I downloaded some premium content, and they’re trying to sell me marketing automation services. It's not hard to do a search on LinkedIn to find the few Hasenbauers that are out there. It's not like my job title and my company are hard to find. Most anyone can see that I work for a company that does marketing automation and inbound marketing.

So why do these companies bother calling and following up on leads that have no chance of converting? Great question.

Three Questions to Ask Before Making the Call

Before any inbound marketer picks up the phone and calls a lead, there are three questions they should ask themselves:

1. What is the history of this lead with my company?

Happy Cinco de Mayo! We had another evenful week. How do you measure the success of your week? Do you look at your scratched-out to-do list and see how much you've accomplished? Do you reflect on your week? Do you plan next week on Friday afternoons?

If you’re a salesperson, you probably understand the importance of having an online presence and building a valuable personal brand. Even if you aren’t doing a very good job of managing it, you still understand how important it is, right?

A big part of that brand includes your social media presence. Sure, Facebook is great for sharing cat videos with your old college buddies, but I’m talking about the professional side of social networks—for example, using Twitter to showcase your expertise and knowledge in a particular area and using LinkedIn to “meet” prospects long before you actually meet them in person. If you’re not yet using LinkedIn, Twitter, and even Google+ effectively to interact and engage with prospects, customers, and other industry thought leaders, don’t worry… this post is written just for you.

Here are five easy ways salespeople can start using blogging and social media to increase your sales performance and grow your personal brand.

1. Share content from your personal or company blog. 

Do you or your company have a blog? This is the best source of content you could possibly have to share with your network and stand out against the competition. Share old and new blog posts, share links to landing pages to download ebooks, and invite others to subscribe. 

Take it one step further by including a personal takeaway. Don’t just share the link – add a line about why you think this article is important or useful or a quote from it that you found memorable. 

Can you believe it's May already? At this rate, the year will be over before we know it. We're excited for the summer preview weather we've been having, but if you're in a part of the world where summer preview means tornado season, we hope you're staying safe.

The Center for Sales Strategy Weekly Wrap-Up

• Matt Sunshine wrote about The Center for Sales Strategy's recent conversion to HubSpot Platinum status and discussed how and when we got involved in inbound marketing in the first place.

• Steve Marx argues that brevity is only a virtue in some circumstances. He wrote this piece of advice 20 years ago, and noted that nothing has changed except the delivery channels.