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.
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.
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.
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.
LeadG2, on July 3, 2015
Each week we gather up the Top 5 (in our opinion!) posts or articles we've read online, and share them with you. Here are this week's "best" from around the web.
Steve Marx, on July 1, 2015
After 40 years of sales managing, sales consulting, and sales training, I have seen nearly everything. But I never cease to be amazed at those salespeople who pound their chest like Tarzan, have supreme confidence in their ability to wing it, and therefore don’t prepare adequately for upcoming meetings with prospects. They must think good prospects abound, that if you bust an opportunity there’ll be another one just as good right around the corner.
In the real world good prospects are precious, and blowing it because you weren’t prepared is unforgivable. A capital sin because it’s so preventable. The kind of mistake that should prompt your boss to show you the door.
Anyone who has ever brought a first baby home from the hospital knows how it changes your life. The days of being a childless couple suddenly seem distant, almost alien. You may have thought you were busy back then, but with a new baby in your life, you have discovered what busy really is!
This very scenario popped on a TV show I was watching recently. The new parents were finding themselves pulled in a thousand directions and unable to give as much attention to their friends as in the past. To try and explain this to their friends, they would tell them about their “7 or higher” rule. If something wasn’t a 7 or higher (on a 10-point scale), they probably wouldn’t even consider carving out time for it. And if a friend were to approach one of them wanting to discuss something or seek some of their wise counsel, that friend was likely to be greeted with the “7 or higher” question: My time is really limited these days, but if you tell me this is important, that it’s a 7 or higher for you, I’ll make time for it.
Steve Marx, on June 25, 2015
My colleague Jim Hopes wrote recently about the importance of expectations, explaining our lever analogy . People learn and grow in response to the expectations set by others—parents, teachers, friends, colleagues, mentors, and in the workplace, most especially managers who know how to do their job. Expectations are most effective when they’re individualized, tailored to the unique strengths of each person you manage and to where they are in their growth curve.
