What Leads You to Your Destiny…
Thoughts lead on to purposes; purposes go forth in action; actions form habits; habits decide character; and character fixes our destiny. -Tyron Edwards
You Are Losing Your Best Leads… to Your Own Company!
Written by Bill Rice, CEO/Founder, Kaleidico
[Contributing Author]
I think the biggest mistake sales people make is giving out their company website to prospects. Whether on a business card, in an email, or on LinkedIn. You’re losing sales leads with this foolish little move.
Think I’m crazy?
Okay, answer me this: How many sales leads did you get from corporate marketing last month labeled website lead or something similar? My guess is zero.
Now answer me this one too: How many prospects did you direct to the corporate website last month? Driven into waiting and appreciative arms of inside sales reps? My guess is many.
Why did you do that? I’m not downing your marketing department, corporate website, or inside sales. But wake-up! You lost a customer you were already in a conversation with. You need to capture your leads!
Personal Lead Generation
The first step is to think about all the ways (and places) that you point prospects away. Here are a few places to start looking:
- Business card
- Emails
- Email signature
- Cold calls
- Linkedin.com
You may not be able to remove your company URL from all of these places. However, you can probably make a good business case for adding Twitter or Linkedin as basic contact information in this Web 2.0 world.
This simple step will start driving your prospect traffic into your own personal blog or social profile(s). Of course, you need to make sure that you are answering your prospects’ questions and giving them a compelling reason to engage with you. Otherwise, you will lose them back to the company website or worse searching and finding the competitor’s website.
Setting Up Sales Content
The best way to make your personal lead generation work is to answer in plain English the questions and objections you get daily. If you are technically inclined this can be as robust as a blog with frequent posts and resources about your products or services. If a blog is out of your technical reach, or writing is not your thing, opt for posting brief but valuable content on Twitter or Linkedin.
These brief pieces of sales collateral will naturally attract prospects searching the Web for your company (and maybe you). It also gives you readily available material to link to in email introductions and follow-ups.
An added bonus to pointing prospects to these kinds of social resources, versus a cold and impersonal corporate website, is that it’s fresh and alive with the latest information and enthusiasm of your community (i.e., comments, Twitter interactions, or Linkedin connections).
Creating your sales content and lead generation outposts on a blog or social networks is one of the more complex steps. You might need a little more guidance. Here are a couple of resources that will guide you in more detail on building out your lead generation system:
- A Simple Presence Framework (by @ChrisBrogan)
- Linkedin for Sales: Resume or Sales Letter (by @Bill Rice)
Capturing Leads
Driving prospects to click on a link and landing them on your blog or social profiles is only half the battle. You need to capture those leads! The easiest way is to simply ask your prospects or readers to email or call you with questions.
Make your call to action clear and direct. Never make them hunt for your email address or telephone number.
Basic contact information and a request to connect with you should be the centerpiece of all your outposts and sales content.
Don’t lose another sales lead! Take the next 30 minutes to replace your company website URL with your personal lead generation system. Start directing prospects into your lead capture system. It’s guaranteed to save you time, money, and frustration… and it will get you a few more sales every quarter!
What does your personal lead generation and lead capture system look like?
On The “Trouble Bubble”
Written by Hal Alpiar
[Contributing Author]
TWEAKED SPIEL?
No it’s not a new orthopedic injury, a broken car part, a new kind of
mortgage, or gourmet sushi; and (LOL) it has nothing to do with Viagra!
It’s a question that – as a true sales professional seeking to stay on top of your game — you must ask yourself with increasing regularity.
Let’s say you have all the tools working for you: a website, ongoing training and news releases, business cards, realistic goals and a strategy for reaching them, advertising and promotional support. WOW! That’s great! But you know what?
Even with all that support, if you don’t have a professional business wordsmith assessing and revising and perfecting and polishing the words you’re using on your website, in your news releases, on your business cards, in your advertising and promotional efforts, in your emails and telephone calls, in your meetings and cold calls, you’re on the trouble bubble!
You might as well be driving a car with worn out brake pads and no oil change for 50,000 miles. (Whew! Lotta smoke!) You’re relying on people in your marketing or sales department who haven’t a clue about frontline selling? Or worse, some outside agency that’s more invested in winning an award than in helping you make sales? You’re on the trouble bubble!
It takes only one slightly wrong word to UNdo all your hard work. It’s common knowledge that years of extensive sales and marketing and personal communications research underscore that the words you use and the ways you use those words are what determine the differences between success and failure . . . with business, and in life.
Consider the difference in emphasis of “MY spiel’s been tweaked!” vs. “My SPIEL’S been tweaked!” vs. “My spiel’s BEEN tweaked!” vs. “My spiel’s been TWEAKED!” Even these four simple words can be interpreted four different ways. Imagine how others may hear and see your pitch.
“The difference between the almost right word and the right word is really a large matter — ’tis the difference between the lightning bug and the lightning.”
– MARK TWAIN
And of course talking “media language” with a news release is different from what needs to go on a webpage or business card. The ability of your words to work and get editor attention even varies considerably between trade and mass media. They have different motives for weighing what you say.
When you want to be sure there’s no room for confusion, and feel confident that the words you’re using to represent yourself and your company’s products and services are the best and most persuasive ones, get Tweaked!
Remember that if you seek success, you can’t do everything yourself, and your time is best spent doing what you most enjoy doing because that is inevitably what you do best. Outsource what you can – including polishing your spiel.
Oh, and unless you decide on a $10,000-$20,000 a month PR firm, Tweaks are not going to put you in the poorhouse. You can get a professional Tweaking done from a budget-conscious, experienced, professional Tweaker for probably less than the first commission that your improved words will generate.
And you can get a regular Tweak Cleaning, annual Tweak Insurance coverage, or On-Call Tweakability. Yeah, even a One-Night Tweak is possible, and may actually be a good place to start ‘til you get the hang of it.
# # #
Do I? Sure. For a good Tweak, call 302.933.0116 or visit www.TWWsells.com
If You Were Playing the Victim, Would You Know It?
Written by Jarek Mlodzinski, The Sales Journey
[Contributing Author]
For many years I hated the word “accountability.” It always carried the notion of punishment! To me, holding someone accountable meant we were being punished for falling short of our goals.
After reading the book, The Oz Principle, my perceptions about accountability changed. The authors use the famous story of the Wizard of Oz to show how often we look to the outside for answers to our dilemmas. Dorothy wanted to get back to Kansas, the Lion wanted courage, the Tin Man wanted a heart, and the Scarecrow wanted a brain. These characters looked to the Wizard to solve their problem, only to find that the Wizard was a fake, and they had the answer all along!
Are you playing the victim? Here are 6 indicators to know if you are playing above or below the line…
Tell me what to do, and I’ll do it.
As a rep, I waited for my manager to give me direction on approaching customer issues. It was a way to skirt the issue and use him as a scapegoat if his solution didn’t work. When a customer left for the competition, who was the victim? …Me.
Covering your tail!
Do you store emails, memos, and voicemails just to have proof that it isn’t your fault? When problems surface, and you pull out your “documented evidence,” others will accuse you of not bringing the issue to the surface.
Pointing fingers
Do you blame others when things go wrong? Every time I have pointed a finger, there was always someone blaming me for not doing something to prevent the situation. The old saying is true, “When you point a finger there are always thee fingers pointing back at you!”
Ignore/Deny
You may get away with denial in the short term, but ultimately “hidden” issues get bigger and emerge worse than before. If we try to ignore the issue and put off dealing with it, we will lose.
Wait and see…
Can you imagine if fire fighters or police officers took a wait and see approach? You may not be dealing with fires or fighting crime, but problems don’t go away by themselves. A wait and see attitude doesn’t put you in the problem solver category.
It’s not my job.
It doesn’t get any worse than this one. If there was a hall of fame for victims, “It’s not my job,” would their motto.
How did you do? Are you above or below the line? We all fall into the victim cycle sometimes, but we don’t have to stay there. Next week I’ll share steps for accountability and key behaviors to help you stay above the line!
What other examples of victim behaviors would you add to this list?
Your Career is a Marathon
To keep on going, you have to keep up the rhythm. This is the important thing for long-term projects. Once you set the pace, the rest will follow. The problem is getting the flywheel to spin at a set speed–and to get to that point takes as much concentration and effort as you can manage.
-Haruki Murakami talking about the initial stages of training for a marathon.
Expect Nothing In Return
You create social capital — mutual goodwill — when you volunteer at a soup kitchen, help your neighbor move a piano, have your Sunday School class over for a barbeque, or join a softball league. Any time you participate in your community, you’re generating social capital, both for yourself and for the other people involved. People with lots of social capital can find help when they need it; those with little social capital can spend a lot of time frustrated and alone.
You don’t have to sacrifice your own interests to create social capital. You can often create win-win situations where everyone profits. But the best way to build social capital is to help others without expecting anything in return.
excerpt via getrichslowly.org
Sometimes it’s easy to reach a point where you think, “I give and give and give, and they never return the favor.”
Remember… the people you give to may never have the power to give back to you… and that’s OK.
Just like those to whom you give, you too are receiving from a greater power… and the only expectation is that you continue to pay it forward.