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Transcript of Sell Smarter Embrace the Sales 2.0 Movement to Increase
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Sell SmarterEmbrace The Sales 2.0 Movement To Increase Sales And Outsmart
Your Competition.
By Justyn Howard
Please share reely under the Creative Commons Attribution-No Deriv-
ative Works 3.0 license.
Copyright 2007, 2009 by Justyn Howard All Rights Reserved
Editor: Preston Hull, Layout:Valerie Spencer
mailto:justyn%40passivepipeline.com?subject=The%20Passive%20Pipelinehttp://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/3.0/http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/3.0/http://www.linkedin.com/in/valeriespencerhttp://www.linkedin.com/in/valeriespencerhttp://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/3.0/http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/3.0/mailto:justyn%40passivepipeline.com?subject=The%20Passive%20Pipeline -
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Its been almost 2 years since the rst edition o this book (then
titled the Passive Pipeline) was written. In that time the processes
and tools available to help Sales Proessionals work smarter have
been enhanced dramatically. Tools like LinkedIn and targeted email
marketing have become commonplace. Technologies like Twitter
and the iPhone have given us new opportunities, and a whole new
breed o sotware like InsideView, Genius.com and SlideRocket has
emerged.
Many o the tools I wrote about in 2007 have been replaced with more
powerul and easier to use resources.
In terms o eciency and productivity its a better world orproessional sales today. Unortunately, our economy has also
temporarily handicapped us, so its more important than ever or Sales
Proessionals to work smarter and more eciently. Its more important
than ever to embrace new tools and processes when engaging
with prospects and customers. Those o us who take this as an
opportunity to grow will increase their business dramatically while our
competition and those around us who choose not to do so will ndthis business climate very dicult.
Were acing reductions in sales orces across the globe. Companies
will be orced to do more with less. Those o us ortunate enough to
stay employed will have to become better than ever at maximizing our
productivity and nding new ways o conducting business.
Note rom theAuthor
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That has always been the spirit o this book, as well as improving the
buyer-seller experience by bringing a more proessional level o sales
to the mainstream.
Sell Smarter will give you new ideas and increases in eciency. There
are lots o ways to be more eective in your work, many o them
coming rom advances in intuitive web technology. Consider this book
an opportunity to grow your skill-set and leave your competition and
coworkers wondering how you blew out your sales quota in the midst
o a recession.
Did I mention you no longer have to cold-call? I havent made one in
nearly three years, yet I still managed to have a record year in 2008
and a 300% 4th quarter during the economic collapse. Yes, I am a
current quota-carrying Sales Proessional who uses everything written
in these pages. I simply wont share a tool or practice that I have not
used and ound success with.
I hope you embrace the ideas presented. I they help in some way,please recommend this book to a riend or colleague.
Thank you, and I wish you all the best in 2009.
- Justyn
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Be sure to register at
www.passivepipeline.com
or ree requent updates.
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Introduction 1
What You Will Learn . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
Whats Possible?. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
Adopt Or Perish. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
How To Use This Book 19
The Broken Model 21
How Salespeople Perpetuate Dysunctional Buying Practices. . . . . . . . . . 25
How Sales Managers Perpetuate Dysunctional Selling Practices . . . . . . . 30
Quick Tips: Proessional Selling 36
Data Is Power 38
The Power O Data In Sales. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38
Customer Relationship Management Sotware . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40
Assessing Your Current Solution . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42
Choosing A CRM Tool . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44
The Power O Queries . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53
Turbo Charge Your CRM. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56
Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57
Quick Tips: Client Relationships 58
A New Era In Email Marketing 61
Then And Now . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62
Why Email Marketing Works . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63
Standard Email Equals Lost Business . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65
Table o
Contents
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Choosing The Right Email Tool . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68
Build Your Mailing Lists . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72
The Absolutes For Email Success . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73
Building Your Email Strategy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74
Using Email Templates To Boost Productivity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 76The Elements O A Good Email Signature . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 78
Crating Emails That Get Responses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80
Avoid The Most Common Email Mistakes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85
Permission Based Email . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 88
Legal Considerations For Email . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 88
Reporting & Analytics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 90
Email Automation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91
Newsletters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 92Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93
Important Lessons About Communication 94
Blogging 96
Why Should Sales Proessionals Blog? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 98
Reasons Why You Should Blog . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 100
Is Blogging Right For You And Your Business? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 105Denitions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 109
Building Your Blog. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 110
Easy Ways To Build Blog Trac. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 119
Maximize Your Reach With Quality Content. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 123
Analyzing And Tuning Your Blog . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 125
Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 128
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Quick Tips: Sales Process 129
The New Proessional Networking 132
Your Personal Business Network Compliments O Web 2.0 . . . . . . . . . 132
Enter Web 2.0-Powered Personal Business Networking.. . . . . . . . . . . . . 133How LinkedIn Can Impact Your Sales . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 135
How To Build (Or Enhance) Your LinkedIn Network. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 141
Twitter: A Quick Guide For Sales Pros . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 144
Developing A Social Networking Strategy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 148
Managing Your Online Reputation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 153
Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 157
How To Create And Deliver A Great Sales Presentations 158Discovery vs. Presentation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 160
To present last? Or rst? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 160
In Person vs. Virtual. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 162
Slides. Slides. Slides. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 167
Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 173
Quick Tips: Meetings 174
Creating A Defned Short-List Process 176
Additional Tools And Resources 180
SlideRocket! . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 181
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LovelyCharts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 182
Jigsaw. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 183
Sales Success Forums . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 184
Zoomino. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 185
Microsot Live Writer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 186Remember The Milk . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 187
GetAbstract. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 188
Xobni. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 189
LeadLander. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 190
Google Reader . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 191
Google Alerts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 192
Tying It All Together 195Putting A Plan Into Action . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 197
CRM Resources . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 201
Email Resources . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 201
Blog Resources . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 202
Additional Sotware Tools . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 202
Recommended Readings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 204
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Introduction
There are many absolutes in sales, but one supersedes all others: In
order to earn business you must be invited to the table. You Must be
present to win.
Another absolute is that your chances o winning are directly aected
by the stature with which you enter the equation. I call this your
Credibility Upon Entry (CUE).
This book is a collection o tools, techniques and processes designed
to increase your eectiveness in these two areas. While there are many
stages in the sales process, without an eective means to execute
the rst two, the rest become useless. Many o the ideas presented
will increase your eectiveness throughout the sales process but our
ocus will be on getting you to the closing table, poised to win.
This book will help you build a set o processes and tools to
dramatically increase your presence, nd more opportunities and
increase your close rate. Best o all, many o the components are
automated. They work 24 hours a day to promote you and your
business and they do so more eciently and with better results than
you could possibly achieve alone.
Must bepresent
to win.
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Its no secret that cold-calling no longer works well. Its a act that you
spend more than hal o your time working on deals that you have
little chance o winning. And its an unortunate truth that less than
one quarter o your time is spent actually selling. With the tools and
technologies available to sales proessionals today, these truths will
no longer limit your success.
The concepts embedded in this book have been in use since the
onset o trading and selling. An example is traditional proessional
networking. Networking has always been the process o orging
relationships that will capture uture business. Well-executed networks
continue to generate business with very little maintenance. The sameis true with the Passive Pipeline, but on a much grander scale.
Networking will always be a staple o the business community, but
there are dozens o new, more eective techniques emerging that are
easy to use and less taxing on our most precious resourcetime!
In addition to increasing your market presence, these techniques will
create a sphere o infuence around your sales process that will make
it nearly impossible or competitors to derail you.
There have been tremendous advances in technology in the last ten
years, and the opportunities they present in sales are staggering.
Unortunately, most traditional sales wisdom was established beore
these new tools were invented or widely accepted.
New advances insales have been
absent or at least30 years.
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In act, its oten acknowledged that new innovations in sales process
have been absent or at least 30 years. Fortunately there have recently
been major developments in Sales 2.0 tools, though adoption o these
tools has not yet hit critical mass. In this book, I plan to show you
ways to advance your own selling practices beyond the majority.
Many sales proessionals are already using the techniques I will discuss
and these early adopters are cashing in. Others are so busy trying
to reach quota and are too entrenched to realize theyre being let
behind. A power shit is ensuing in our eld between those who
embrace technology and those who do not.
It will become increasingly harder or those who dont embracetechnology and new methods to capture business. The gap between
sales proessionals who understand how to be eective in todays
business climate and those who dont is widening every day.
At this very moment, by reading this book, you have a head start.
It will be years beore widespread change occurs. Even i changing
the way you work seems a little daunting, get started now. Seize this
opportunity to advance your sales career to a new level!
My belie and experienceis that i people have
a better model, better
skills and i they getbetter results, they will
change. Otherwise they
will all back on what they
know, even i it seems
dysunctional.
Mahan Khalsa
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The System
What You Will Learn
Sell Smarter is a series o tools and techniques that operate on the
same premise as networking: build your pipeline, inuse your infuence
via the network, and increase your income, all while spending your
time working with high-potential prospects and adding a great deal o
value to their buying process.
Each component o this system serves this purpose in some way,
while the core o creating a passive pipeline chains these components
together to create a perpetual business-building process requiring
minimal upkeep.The ideas we will discuss cover two major components:
1. The rst are the tools and techniques designed to posit ively
impact your sales, either through generating opportunities,
securing the opportunities you have, or enhancing your infuence
and outreach, all while saving you a tremendous amount o time.
2. The second component involves chaining all o these tools andtechniques together to unlock their real power. The entire process
creates an automated, cyclical pipeline-building machine with
many points o entry and a single uniorm purpose. Skillully
intertwining these ideas will elevate the eectiveness and
proessionalism with which you work.
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Here are some o the things you will accomplish in the
ollowing chapters;
Your prospective clients will preer to do business with you,
beore you ever even speak to them. You will manage your prospects buying and selection
process with exclusive authority.
You will know who is buying beore they ever tell you (or
your competition).
You can create at least three times more opportunities than
you are capable o generating with your current eorts.
You will become an invaluable resource to your prospects,
someone whose expertise they would not consider moving
orward without.
You will obtain the most comprehensive set o demographic
and contact data possible or your market.
You will be able to execute the most precise and eective
prospecting eorts possible, without wasting your time onineective and outdated methods.
You will build a highly visible list o proessional reerences
that will turn your contacts into your greatest lead source and
eliminate the need or sel-promotion.
You will save hours every week in building your business,
What it can
do or you.
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while seeing exponentially better results.
You will eortlessly build tremendous credibility that will
increase your stature beore ever interacting with a prospect.
You can own your territory in a manner that was neverbeore possible.
You can be the rst person into every deal you work.
You will close more business, make your boss smile, rame
your next W2 and steal your competitors commission!
These are pretty aggressive goals, and without the advances in
technology over the last 10 years, they would be impossible. Sales isa ast moving occupation. We tend to get so overwhelmed with the
task at hand that we ail to recognize innovation.
Our proession as a whole is notorious or being stuck on what worked
yesterday (in some cases it didnt even work then). Small pockets o
sales proessionals such as real estate and recruiting have admirably
embraced change and have ound great success in doing so.
The biggest change that will work to our advantage is that these tools
and techniques are no longer exclusive to those with tremendous
resources and technical savvy. The learning curve is gone. Anyone
can use these techniques with similar results, but the reality is that
not many are today. You still have a great opportunity to outmaneuver
your competition.
Own your
territory.
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Whats Possible?
Imagine i the ollowing were true:
You could be alerted when a prospect was evaluating acompetitors product or service.
Prospects sought you out or advice and expertise at the
beginning o the buying process.
You could see in real time when a prospect or client opened your
email or visited your website.
Your sales presentations were more relevant and more valuable.
You were involved with every buying process in your territory.
You could be alerted when potential clients were unhappy with
your competition.
All o these things (and many more) are already possible.
The next ew pages contain three real-world examples o how we
can leverage widely available technology to increase our sales and
outsmart our competition. As youre reading the next ew pages,
ask yoursel how these scenarios dier rom your current business
practices. Focus on not only the practice being executed, but also the
ease and passiveness with which it is perormed.
Whats
possible?
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Real-World Example #1
Yesterday I received a press release rom our marketing department
regarding a client in the banking business. Within ve minutes, I had
personally emailed every contact I had in the nancial industry. Theemail included a note stating that I thought their team might nd the
attached article o interest. I also included several links to various
articles I wrote and published on the web, to product pages, to
downloads, and I closed with a call to action.
This is pretty basic, right? You can do all o this today, right? But
do you?
The real WOW actor came a little later in the day. By utilizing one o
the tools we will discuss later, I was able to see who opened my email,
whether it was orwarded to any coworkers, and precisely which links
in the email were ollowed. Sounding better?
My call to action had prompted a ew responses already, but what
about the ones that hadnt responded?
I noticed a contact I hadnt spoken with or some time haddownloaded the RFP template that was included as a link in my email.
I called and told her I noticed she had downloaded the template. I had
the opportunity to chat with her regarding her uture business plans. I
asked her the ollowing questions:
Email
marketingthat isnttargeted is
useless.
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9
Is your team planning to source in the near uture?; Would you like a
sample business case that some o my clients have used in the past to
sell the project to executives?; and Anything else I can help you out
with?
Using traditional practices, this would have been just another marketing
email sent o into the abyss. I would have never known that she visited
our website, or that she was even interested in buying at this time. This
particular contact is just one o a couple dozen that took measurable
action as a result o this email.
Realistically, I probably never would have sent this email i it werent
or my Passive Pipeline. I simply never had the time or the data orprecision marketing o this nature.
I youre like most people, you may send out a mass (untargeted)
email or newsletter once or twice a month. Once in a while you may
even get a response and close new business. The days o those
ineective practices are numbered. We will discuss some more
amazing things you can do with your marketing eorts in 2009.
The
days oineectivepractices
arenumbered.
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Real-World Example #2: (this one hits on several ronts)
Establish yoursel as a sought-ater expert in your feld.
Have prospects that want and preer to do business with
you, beore you even speak to them. Manage your prospects buying and selection processes
with exclusive authority.
Know who is buying beore they ever tell you (or anyone else).
Be the frst person into every deal you work.
Blogging is a very important opportunity or sales proessionals, so
I have dedicated an entire chapter to it. Weve all heard o blogging,
and tens o thousands o people make a living at it, but what you
might not know is that it can be the #1 source o new opportunities or
your business.
Today, I noticed that a top-level manager or a company I have been
courting or over a year downloaded an RFP template (the same one
I mentioned in the previous example) that I had posted on my blog.
This in itsel is a great thing because the template was authored by mycompany and was understandably in our avor.
I called the contact to ollow up and ask him about his current plans
or sourcing this solution.
My
prospectwas ollowingme.
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As the conversation progressed, I learned that my blog had a direct
eed into his teams intranet site and that they had been ollowing it or
some time. Furthermore, they ound my articles very useul and began
to use my insight as a measure o their project strategy as they moved
orward.
I cannot imagine a better example o Credibility Upon Entry (CUE).
Not only did this prospect see me as an expert, his team was using
my materials to develop their strategy. On top o that, I was able to
manage the buying process through my RFP template. I was now
the rst person in the deal and the prospect was predisposed to rely
on my expertise. How hard do you think its going to be or another
salesperson to get the upper hand in a sales process like this?
Real-World Example #3:
Prior to my calls in both o the previous examples, I was able to, rom
within my contact management sotware:
See all relevant company data including size, locations,
competitors, etc. Determine any contacts I had in common with the person I was
calling including current and past employers (e.g. Dave used to
work at IBM with Joes current boss)
See buying triggers including acquisitions, jop openings, news
Establish
yourselas anexpertin your
eld.
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announcements, etc.
These are just a ew examples o how the tools we will cover can be
combined to elevate your business to a new level. There are dozens
more in the pages o this book. The power o combining thesestrategies is even greater the more tactics you utilize.
These things wont work or me!
As I was writing this book, I thought about the salespeople who are
process-regimented and not creatively encouraged. I played devils
advocate or a minute and went over the possible scenarios:
thats not how my company works mine either.
my company handles all o our marketing eorts mine too.
my company dictates what email programs and relationship
management sotware I use mine too.
I dont have time or all o this stu neither did I, which is
exactly why I had to embrace and develop these techniques.
My point is that I am well aware o the typical structure and tools
available on todays sales foor. The good news is, these tools wont
turn your company upside down or mean that a battle with IT is
imminent. I have worked or two organizations in the past 10 years,
each with very dierent requirements and procedures. In both, I was
able to deploy and develop the techniques in this book with very little
It works.
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resistance.
I have also used these practices in my own businesses. Those o you
working independantly or running your own business will have evenmore fexibility in building your Passive Pipeline.
You dont need to adopt everything presented in this book to make
a dramatic impact on your business. While the ultimate power o the
Passive Pipeline is in using all o the tools combined, dont be araid
to start with the ew you think will provide the greatest benet. You
can do away with the tools that dont make sense or your business.
I dont use them all in my 9-5 (err7-7) job. Some o them are not a
good t. Some o the ideas make more sense or my other endeavors.
The more ideas you can adapt to your business, the better the results.
Implement
the ideas thatmake senseor you.
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Adopt Or Perish
We need to ace the act that there are people working smarter and
more eciently than we are. I we dont start to recognize that the
business climate has changed and start using the powerul tools
available to us, someone else will. Your competition might be three
chapters ahead o you in this very book. Start today and stop letting
someone else steal your commission!
Adopt or
Perish.
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My Story
Im not an established author, sales coach, or motivational speaker.
What I am is a top perorming Enterprise Sales Proessional with a
creative mind and a knack or technology and writing. I am a student
o sales, a believer in helping my clients succeed, and an observer o
human nature. And one more...I have been able to remain at the top
o the sales board or nearly my entire career by deying tradition and
nding new ways to excel.
When I rst entered the sales proession, I pounded the phones to
make contacts and attempt to secure clients because thats the way Iwas taught. I was in a competitive industry at the time (I still am), and
I quickly realized I was going to need a more eective way to build my
pipeline and get a head start on my better-known and more seasoned
competitors. My natural curiosity, computer savvy, and desire to excel
began orming the ideas that evolved into this book. This was only
nine years ago, but it may as well have been a million years because
o the way technology advances.
As I began learning and applying the strategies I will be discussing in
this book, I presented a problem or my employers. I was at the top o
the sales board (usually by a good margin), but I didnt employ many
o the practices they were teaching and measuring. In some cases,
they stopped posting certain metrics because they didnt want the
About
me...
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rest o the sales sta to see that I had the highest sales and the lowest
metrics o anyone on the sales foor. I was doing very much the
opposite o what was taught and required o salespeople.
Luckily, some managers were accepting o my alternative ideas, andsome converted, but this was not always the case. Ive been called
un-teachable, dicult and lazy (though not according to my sales
numbers). Yet Ive had ormer employers later request that I teach
them about the methods I was using to succeed.
Technology has provided advantages that werent available when
the legendary sales books were written, or when your supervisor
entered sales, or when your companys ounders established theirtried and true sales system. Its time to embrace todays tools and
take our proession to a new level.
Embrace
todaystools.
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My Motivation
I absolutely love what I do and I hold a 110% conviction that we
maintain one o the most important, challenging and respectable
jobs that exists. Youve probably heard the phrase nothing happens
until someone sells something. Its true, and it breaks my heart
to see salespeople who, by using senseless, unocused methods,
are perpetuating the alse notion that we are to be avoided and
mistrusted.
As I developed the practices I will be sharing with you, I had no
intention o writing a book. I didnt really think what I was doing wasthat uncommon. I was simply trying to discover a better way to
succeed in my proession. I I was going to be doing sales or the long
haul, then I was determined to make the most o it.
Over the last couple o years, I really started to develop a system or
my approach to business. Technology became integral and allowed
me to do my work even more eciently. When I nally stopped long
enough to evaluate my evolving business approach, I came to anunexpected conclusion: my techniques really were unique. I began
to look around or other resources: books, seminars, workshops; any
means to help me expand my skills. I rapidly came to the conclusion
that this type o support didnt exist or sales proessionals. I had to
rely on books and seminars or Internet entrepreneurs and online
Love
whatyou do.
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marketing experts to learn more. It was rustrating because no
educational opportunities were put into a context that spoke to our
proession. The great authors and speakers and coaches in the sales
world had either missed these advances or chose to ignore them. I
think it was simply because they were unamiliar concepts and widely
unadopted.
There are hundreds o books published every year about the
human and psychological aspects o sales, selling style, how to ask
questions, negotiating and creating rapport, the way that business is
evolving, and how we must adapt. To date, there is little about how
technology can be used in sales to do our jobs more eectively. There
is not a single book targeted at sales proessionals regarding the
eective use o a CRM system, online personal business networking,
or targeted email campaigns at the sales representative level.
No one can argue with the act that the greatest impact in the last 50
years o business evolution is technology. However, when was the
last time you read anything about using technology in a sales book?
You may have read about how to manage your time using a PDA orthe dos and donts o email marketing, but tell me about something
that can really make a dierence in your sales potential! There are
some phenomenal sales tools available today, and they will play an
important role in your success.
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How To Use This Book
This book is composed o both explanation and application. I
recommend you read through once to ully understand the concepts.
Dont stop and begin work in any one area. Ater your rst reading, it
will serve as a workbook and you can begin to implement the ideas
immediately.
While engaged in this book, make note o the concepts and
methodologies that can be applied to your business. While most
people will nd all the concepts are applicable, certain elements
will have a more substantial and immediate impact. Focus onimplementing those ideas rst; move on to the others later.
As I have mentioned, the real power o what you will learn will
be realized when several o these ideas are working together
simultaneously. However, dont attempt to pull all the methods
together at one time, as you will likely nd yoursel overwhelmed. This
may result in several hal-attempts resulting in your ailing to obtain the
benets o each concept.
Sotware & Links
Throughout the book you will see reerences to sotware, websites
and blogs. Whenever possible, I have included a direct link to the
sotware download, article, website, etc. At the time this book was
Understand,then
implement.
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published all links were active.
I any o the links stop working, please email me atjustyn@
passivepipeline.com.
The majority o the tools and services discussed in this book are eitherree or available at a very low cost. They are also all easy to use.
The tools are
easy to use.
mailto:justyn%40passivepipeline.com?subject=The%20Passive%20Pipelinemailto:justyn%40passivepipeline.com?subject=The%20Passive%20Pipelinemailto:justyn%40passivepipeline.com?subject=The%20Passive%20Pipelinemailto:justyn%40passivepipeline.com?subject=The%20Passive%20Pipeline -
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The Broken Model
The world o buying and selling is constantly changing, while
mysteriously our approach to sales is not. Unortunately, mediocre
selling and buying practices have become the norm over the years,
leaving buyers skeptical and sellers willing to compromise in order to
make a sale. The more prospects resist, the more disconnected our
selling practices become.
For success in sales today, we have to identiy means to change
the apathy in the sales industry and deliver value to our prospective
customers in a dierent, more subtle, (but quite deliberate) ashion.Buyers today have what are oten unreasonable expectations. You
must know how to meet the consumers needs but they provide you
with little or no useul inormation with which to do so.
Because o past experiences and skepticism, some buyers attempt
to answer all o their own questions and then simply look or the best
bid. I buyers truly had the expertise to pull this o, they wouldnt
need outside vendors at all. The buyers request or demand that no
meaningul discussion take place between you and the very people
whose needs are meant to be met.
I you sell to businesses, youve likely heard, its all in the RFP. I you
want to secure a sale, you must ollow the outlined process and ask all
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questions in a public orum. By no means are you to vary rom these rules.
Any attempts to consult directly with the business owners or to
uncover what really needs to transpire in order to meet their needs are
oten met with scrutiny and you will probably (unknowingly) be labeled
as dicult. In an honest eort to do what is in the best interest o the
client, you are seen as making the buyers job harder.
In dealing with consumers, you may be perceived as just a
commissioned salesperson who knows little about the product and
who certainly doesnt have the consumers best interests in mind.
Consumers have been conditioned to avoid and mistrust salespeople
even more than corporate buyers, though its usually a silent matter.
The sad reality is that the buyers are not to blame or this scenario.
Salespeople have been using inadequate selling practices or so long
that the consumers suspicion is justied. You cant take it personally.
The problem stems rom thousands o salespeople beore you who
made buyers eel compromised. Executives have had their time wasted.
Receptionists have been reprimanded or allowing salespeople through.
Salespeople continuously cold-call people who have no interest in the
product or service being oered and add absolutely no value to the
prospects day.
These are just a ew examples, but you get the idea. The skepticism
we ace is, in most ways, justied. Its not personal, but its very real.
Buyers have
unreasonableexpectations.
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As a result we have been trained to get past the gatekeeper. We
have learned how to leave vague or urgent messages that prompt
a response. We develop elevator pitches to sell our product in 30
seconds (because we are conditioned to think thats all the time a
salesperson should expect to get).
As much as I would like to see a change in this grim reality, its unlikely
to happen (at least not in the next couple o lietimes). What we can
do is commit to working above the standard that exists in sales today.
I we can inuse the system with more eective practices, we will be
able to disassociate ourselves rom this pattern.
Change is urgently needed. Were never going to be exceptionallysuccessul in sales i we must continually battle the poor buying and
selling practices that we (as a whole) have created. Instead, we need
to move orward rom this point by building a new oundation which
osters success or both the buyer and seller.
In the grand scheme, we can see this as an opportunity to be the
trend setters or a new approach to sales. Its much easier to stand
out in a crowd when you adopt an approach that promotes a winningsituation or all parties. We have the capacity to turn a poor perception
o salespeople into a powerul tool or change. We ultimately want to
associate with the clients who appreciate our hard work, not the ones
that lump us in with the negative stereotype o what a salesperson
is.
Commit
to workingabove thestandard.
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How Salespeople PerpetuateDysunctional Buying Practices
The single biggest way that salespeople perpetuate this broken model
is the manner in which we solicit opportunities (prospecting). At some
point in your career, you have likely been told that i you make 100
phone calls, you will speak to 10 people, book 2-3 appointments and
make one sale (or some similar version o this nonsense). You are told
its a numbers game. More contacts equates to more sales.
I argue that the more ineective calls you make, the lower your
chances o success in the long run. Out o the 100 people you call,how many o them will need your product or service over the next
couple o years? Many o them probably will, but how many o them
do you alienate and irritate using the methods we currently employ?
More oten than not, those opportunities are lost orever.
The act is that a very small percentage o the people you contact are
in act ready to buy today. However, by calling these olks constantly
you are putting yoursel at risk o being categorized as the type osalesperson they would like to avoid. In their opinion, you are just
another needy salesperson about to waste their time (especially i they
dont need what you are selling).
A call
without valueis a prospectlost.
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The consequence o this tactic is that prospects dont call you back.
In act, they wont return any o your phone calls or emails. At some
point during this one-sided exchange, something important happens
that most o us ail to realize: that person makes a subconscious
decision at that very moment to never contact you. Even six monthslater when they actually need what you are selling, they will not be
calling. Why? Because they have ignored you or months and they
actually eel bad about it. Not only did they ignore you, but your
persistence made it worse. Your sales manager may applaud your
persistence; your bank account will not.
The second reason you wont be hearing rom them is that because
people dont like to admit when theyre wrong. Maybe they should
have called you and simply said that they didnt need your services
at that time. They didnt call because they viewed you as the
stereotypical salesperson, and they assume youd be calling them
again next week anyway. I you didnt, another one would.
Ultimately, rather than returning your calls, they will avoid the situation
altogether and call someone else, even i you have the best productor their particular needs, simply to avoid any guilt.
The best thing we can do is keep buyers away rom that emotional
pitall. Sales are driven by emotion (and i you dont believe that, then
you probably havent cracked a sales book in the last decade).
Stop pushing
buyers away.
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I youre like me, you have a limited number o prospects. It might be
your territory, a vertical or named accounts. The point is, you probably
dont have an endless supply o prospects. Every time you put one
o your prospective clients in the situation I described above, you are
essentially diminishing your territory. When your prospect list getssmaller but your quota continues to grow, what happens? You get
desperate or sales. You practice below-average sales methods and
you alienate your prospects even urther.
Traditional methods also lead to poor time management. The purpose
o a cold-call (over the phone, through email or in person) is to deliver
a message. Ninety percent o the time we never get that chance. This
means that 54 minutes o every hour spent seeking new clients yields
no results, other than to annoy the people we are trying to reach. I
that same hour were spent on eorts that could reach thousands
and build your Credibility Upon Entry (CUE), the results would be
exponentially higher. Similarly, i that hour were spent calling on people
who are actually in the market or your product or service, you could
substantially increase your success.
There are three possible outcomes o cold-calling: that you will not
reach the intended contact, that the person will not be interested in
what you have to sell, or that the person is ready to purchase your
product or service.
Your
prospectpool is notendless.
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None o those scenarios have much value to you. But the person
is ready to buy! you say. Sure, but other circumstances need to be
considered. Another salesperson (maybe more than one) is probably
already leading the charge. They either had an inside line or they were
simply in the right place at the right time. Maybe they even reachedthe client rst because o a cold-call. The Passive Pipeline is about
being in the right place ALL the time, and reaching opportunities with
the right timing and credibility needed to win.
Im not saying that cold-calling will not benet your business. One sale
out o 100 calls will certainly help (though I doubt the ratio is even that
high). What I am saying is that there are other ways to prospect and
nd opportunities. You must break the cycle o inerior sales methods
while maintaining and building your proessionalism and credibility.
Let your competition perpetuate the poor sales processes so that
when a buyer is ready, you will be their choice. There are better ways
to nd opportunities.
The beauty o the approach taught in this book is that your prospects
will begin to nd and approach you, and while this was a result o youreorts, it never eels like prospecting (to you or the prospect). You
build credibility beore entering any sales process, and have clients
who are grateul to be working with you (not the other way around).
Be in the
right placeALL the time.
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This new approach brings the client to you because o your
knowledge, expertise, integrity and respectul nature. It creates
a brand around your very name that tells prospects that you are
someone they should do business with. They didnt nd you by
chance. They ound you because o some very calculated eortson your part toward building your credibility and presence. This is a
perect example o how a sales eort doesnt have to mean being a
salesperson.
Here are a ew more examples o why traditional prospecting
methods dont work:
Real decision-makers rarely take time or pitches or cold-calls.The people who will take your calls dont have real power.
You have no competitive advantage when you enter the sales
cycle using these methods. You are constantly trying to prove
your useulness, simply because o the way you approached
the opportunity.
Gatekeepers are never going to connect you with the real
decision makers. You will be passed o to someone whocollects inormation, has little authority, or manages vendors
or a living.
People preer to do business with people they seek out, not
the other way around. It puts the client in control.
Build
yourcredibilityandpresence.
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I youre a subscriber to the 80/20 rule (its hard to argue with), then
80 percent o your opportunities come rom 20 percent o your eorts.
So the question becomes: why dont you get rid o the other 80% and
do the things that work 100% o the time? Technology and advances
in sales process have allowed us to identiy these eective practices,its no longer necessary to throw everything at the wall and see what
sticks.
Do the things
that work100% o thetime!
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How Sales Managers PerpetuateDysunctional Selling Practices
Most sales managers were salespeople at one point in time. They
have been operating on the same traditional buying and selling
practices as everyone else. Along with the rest o us, they ail to realize
that the business climate, as well as the most eective buying and
selling practices, have changed.
Today, the number o calls and appointments made doesnt
translate into sales. While it is an easy metric to track, i your eorts
arent resulting in sales, it is simply activity with no results. Pushing
salespeople to consistently court buyers who arent ready to buy is
not going to work either. Accepted sales wisdom tells you its all
about persistence. While its true that persistence is paramount to
success, persisting in doing the wrong things has no real purpose.
Traditional sales theory (especially around prospecting) simply does
not apply in todays business environment.
Most sales managers (and salespeople) also operate under themisconception that the product with the best eatures or lowest price
will succeed. Most managers dont attach enough importance to the
CUE with which you enter the sales process. Finding opportunities
and ailing to turn them into business is worse than not nding an
opportunity at all because o the drain on your time and resources.
Its our ault.
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There are many other actors at play that create such a misguided
buying/selling relationship. We have marketing departments that that
waste our time with unqualied leads, CRM sotware that we were never
properly trained to use and unrealistic urgency pushed upon us that
leads to more rantic and disconnected sales eort.
Most studies reveal that we spend less than two hours a day actually
selling. The rest o the time is spent on ineective prospecting, working
with CRM systems that arent working or us, orecasting sales, and
sitting in meetings, among other things. The two hours that we do
spend selling are primarily wasted on unlikely opportunities, trying to
orce-eed our expertise to prospects or ineciently drating responses
and communications. We are spread too thin, which has, in part, led
to our ineciency and lack o success.
The good news is that the practices, tools and techniques needed to
correct the situation are readily available.
Id like to recap the outcomes this book can deliver:
Successully obtain prospects that want and preer to do
business with you, beore you ever speak to them.
Directly manage your prospects buying and selection
process with exclusive authority.
Know who is in a position to buy beore the client tells you (or
or your competition).
The toolsare readilyavailable.
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Create at least three times the opportunities you are capable
o generating with your current eorts.
Eectively establish yoursel as a sought-ater expert in
your eld.
Obtain the most comprehensive set o demographic and
contact data possible or your market.
Execute the most precise and eective prospecting eorts
possible, without ever picking up the phone or asking or the
person who handles such-and-such.
Build a highly visible list o proessional reerences which will
make any competing sales person wonder why they evenattempted to take your commission.
Save hours (days in some cases) every week in building your
business while seeing exponentially better results.
Locate and be introduced to the people you want to do business
with, and present them with a billboard o your credibility
beore ever interacting with them.
Own your territory in a manner that was never beore possible.
Be the rst person into every deal you work.
Close more business, make your boss smile, rame your next
W2 and steal your competitors commission!
Get
betterresults.
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Here are two very dierent approaches to courting a prospect
which summarize the ideas presented in this book:
With the traditional model:
You have a list o companies to call and dial uriously to make just
a couple o connections. Ninety percent o the people you reach
become irritated and make a mental decision not to work with you.
Maybe two or three agree to an appointment. O these, ew have any
buying authority. You may spend months trying to convince them to
buy your product or service when the people with authority dont have
a need or your product or dont even know youve called. Or, you
may nd a legitimate buyer with a genuine need, but you are the ninthvendor they have spoken to! This is not a sales model I choose to
participate in.
A Smarter Model:
A buyer nds you because you have established a presence through
your passive pipeline. The buyer contacts you. You have now entered
the sales process on an equal ooting with the prospective client andyou are no longer perceived as a salesperson. You help the buyer
manage the purchasing process, provide them with useul inormation,
and begin to mutually explore solutions with them.
A better
way.
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The buyer is thrilled and satised to be working with you. The
sales cycle is shortened, and i by chance more vendor quotes are
required, they are simply accepted as a matter o process. Other
vendors and salespeople are being measured against the standard
that you have set.
In addition to this buyer, thousands o other potential prospects
are nding you through your Passive Pipeline. You are seen as a
proessional and you have the luxury o only working deals you have a
high probability o winning.
Final Thoughts Beore We Move On
Im going to get o the soapbox now and detail exactly how you can
start using technology to make todays selling climate work in your
avor. Much o what you will read in the next ew chapters will be
entirely new to you. You may start to wonder why these techniques
have not been made available beore. Let me address that now.
These are not new ideas. They are proven and they work. Many
top perorming salespeople, real estate proessionals and internetbusinesses are using them today with exceptional results. The
concepts we will explore have simply never been widely applied to
proessional selling.
Set the
standard.
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Great authors, speakers, and sales coaches o our time simply are
not in tune with the new resources available to us today. They are
superb in teaching the human aspect o selling, closing, prospecting,
time management and so on. I am not in any way discounting the
excellent speakers and authors out there and I think we shouldcontinue to rely on the best o them or guidance. I simply think we
need to augment these teachings to match the pace at which the
business climate is changing.
These are uncharted and unamiliar waters to most people in
the sales industry. Human nature oten resists change in avor o
whats comortable and amiliar. But the sales world is no longer
a comortable place. Chances are you arent satised with your
current selling situation or you wouldnt be reading this book.
No one has ever ound success by doing the same things tomorrow
that resulted in mediocrity today.
No one has everound success by
doing the samethings tomorrowthat resulted in me-diocrity today.
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Quick Tips: Proessional Selling
The most important sales skills you will ever learn come rom
a true desire to help your clients succeed.
You must invest time to stay abreast o your industry. Dont let
someone else come to the table that is more knowledgeable
than you.
Your relationship with your sales management team is the
relationship that will have the biggest impact on your success.
I your boss is demanding more o an activity that isnt yielding
any results, its time to have a chat. Determine with your boss
at what point a dierent approach is required to achieve the
results you both want.
Top perormance requires rest. Dont beat yoursel up or
downtime. Take it when you need it and enjoy it. When you
need to shut down, shut down completely.
Show gratitude to your internal support team (product
managers, operations, marketing, etc.). Anyone who hasa hand in your success or product delivery deserves your
appreciation. By working as a complete team, you will
accomplish your work aster and your clients will be given
priority. Very ew salespeople reward and thank their internal
support teams.
Quick Tips:
Selling
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Nobody cares how much you orecast at the beginning o
the month; they care how much you close at the end. Dont
all into the common trap o eeling pressured to project a
large number. You will only destroy your credibility with your
management team. Be honest with yoursel and your boss,despite your ego. I you cant be consistently +/- 15%, lean
towards being a sandbagger as opposed to a dreamer.
Whenever possible, do the things that really charge you up.
I one orm o prospecting gets you going and gets results,
do more o it. I ace-to-ace meetings leave you eeling
accomplished, schedule more o them. Dont mistake this with
doing the things that are easy; you dont want your results to
suer in avor o un.
Some o us run at peak perormance during our busiest times.
When this crosses the line to stress, make an eort to manage
that. Stress comes with the territory, but learning to manage
(and eliminate) it can help your career and enrich your lie.
Become an expert on setting goals. There are tons o books andonline resources. Being able to eectively plan and ollow through
with goals is the mark o very successul sales proessionals.
By coming into every situation with the commitment to helping
your clients succeed, you can overcome any other deciency.
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Data Is Power
The Power O Data In Sales
Most o us have that little plastic keychain card that saves us a ew
bucks at the local grocery store, but do you know that these cards
have become standard not only at every major retail chain in the world
but also at small community businesses? Its because these cards
provide these companies with the most lucrative set o demographic
and purchasing data you could imagine.
This inormation is used to determine which products are popular in
certain regions, which products have lost popularity, which couponsto print on your receipt, and which ad campaigns have been eective.
The cards have both saved and earned billions o dollars or these
businesses.
An excellent example o the power o data collection is Amazon.coms
email marketing program. The inormation you receive is remarkably
relevant to you. How did the olks at Amazon know those books
would interest you? How did they know to leave irrelevant books outo this valuable advertising space? Amazon.com is amazing at utilizing
data to increase their outreach and ultimately their sales.
On the other hand, I receive marketing material (even rom very
well known companies) containing products or services that I have
absolutely no interest in purchasing or using. Intuitively, I think these
Utilize dataproperly.
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companies are crazy or spending the time and money on marketing
these items to me.
Theres a good chance you are doing the same thing to your contacts.
Ask yoursel a ew simple questions: Do they really have any need
or what you are sending them? Is there relevant inormation in every
communication that you send? Are they even involved in the buying
process or what you sell? I so, have you appropriately related your
material to their specic role in that process? Do you know what that
role is?
Heres an embarrassing scenario: are your existing clients getting
emails about buying a product they already own? I they are, youneed to re-evaluate your marketing strategies. What does this relay
to your clients about your proessionalism?
I recently signed up or a workshop oered by a leading Internet
Marketing rm. A ew days later, I received an email asking why
I hadnt reserved a seat and stating that i I didnt act soon the
workshop would be lled. I wondered how a prominent internet
marketing company could make such a simple mistake. Theysimply hadnt utilized data properly.
Even the best businesses alter rom time to time, but it is important
to be cognizant o how proessional your eorts appear in the public
domain. Data is the key.
Relevant,
accuratedata is your#1 resource.
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Customer RelationshipManagement Sotware
Beore we go any urther, it is important that we lay the proper
oundation. Accurate data that is easy to manage is one o the most
important tools a sales proessional can have. Further, many o the
other ideas presented in this book depend on it.
The typical vehicle or housing data or sales proessionals is a
Customer Relationship Management (CRM) sotware tool. These
have also come to be known as Sales Force Automation (SFA)
platorms.
CRM systems come in a ew favors. There are standalone
applications which operate on a single computer (like Act!), Enterprise
systems which are typically housed on a companys network
(Microsot CRM, Sales Logix), and increasingly popular Sotware as a
Service (SaaS) solutions which are simply accessed through your web
browser (Salesorce.com, Landslide, Sugar CRM).
These systems vary widely in interace, ease o use, and reportingcapabilities, but they all serve the same purpose. Most salespeople
and managers conuse the purpose o these systems. CRM systems
do not simply hold contact inormation or provide reports or
management.
Lay the
properoundationor success.
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Your company has wasted a great deal o money i this is how they
use their CRM systems and in turn, you are wasting a great deal o
time and opportunities i this is how you are using it.
I you asked 100 salespeople to share their eelings about their CRM
tools, 99 o them will tell you that its a hindrance, that it consumes too
much time, and that it intereres with the sales process. When you nd
the one person who lights up and tells you how lucky they are to have
such a tool, and how they operate ten times more eciently using it,
hire that person. I they already work or you, give them a raise and sit
them near their colleagues who dont quite get it yet.
Management is primarily to blame or the ailed adoption o CRM solutionsby salespeople. The problem typically alls into one o two categories:
either the salespeople were never properly trained to use the system, or
the company itsel treats the CRM system as a digital rolodex.
Most oten, a company trains sales sta in the points and clicks o the
sotware but ails to train employees in whyproper use o the CRM tool
is so important. It is oten the case that the management team doesnt
ully understand CRMs capabilities either. The decision to buy a CRMsolution oten alls in the hands o the IT department. By the time the
sotware reaches the end-user, the value to the sales organization is
lost. The system is seen by salespeople as a burden with no value, and
millions o dollars have been wasted.
Operate
ten timesmoreeciently.
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Assessing Your Current Solution
Its time to nd out where you stand in terms o your current CRM tool. I
you are currently using Salesorce.com, Microsot CRM, Act! or another
popular product, then you are in good shape.
I youre not sure how well your current solution stacks up,
answer the questions below:
1. Are you able to properly capture all data that is relevant to your
line o work? Or, do you nd yoursel without the elds required to
properly capture all the data you need?
2. Can you easily sort or group your contacts based on a specic set
o criteria (location, employee size, industry, etc.)?
3. Is the system fexible enough to allow you to speciy several
criteria on which to report or with which to view your data (location +
company size + industry, etc.)?
4. Can you save the criteria you selected to easily go back and see
an updated view?
5. Can you export this data in a commonly usable orm (Excel,
HTML, Text, etc.)?
I you are unsure, try all o this with your current system. Make a list o
all the relevant contact inormation you want to store, and then ask
yoursel, is there a place or it all in your CRM package? Try to view
Are you
capturingall the datayou need?
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a list o contacts that are in the banking industry and are located in
a specic town. Now see what options you have or retrieving that
specic view out o the system.
I you were able to answer yes to all o the above questions, or i you
use one o the tools I mentioned earlier, then you can skip the next
ew pages o this book.
I you answered no, youll need to look at your options. I you are
part o a large sales team that has a standardized CRM system, do a
little more research. Chances are it has the unctionality I mentioned,
but you werent trained properly.
I the standardized system doesnt suit your needs, determine whetheryou can use another system. Personally, I would not work or an
employer who didnt provide the unctionality I required to do my job
well or didnt allow me to use alternatives tools.
I youre eeling deeated right now because youre absolutely stuck
with a system that wont meet your needs, there is a nal option. Ask
or a Microsot Excel export o your entire database (just your records)
and spend some time learning how to manipulate it. You will be able
to achieve the desired results using Excel, they just requires a ew
more steps. CRM products are essentially just databases themselves,
but they oer a prettier interace and apply some compelling business
logic.
Look at
youroptions.
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Choosing A CRM Tool
I you dont currently use a CRM tool, or i you are eeling compelled to
re-evaluate your CRM ater reading the last section, I will outline a ew
options available to you. In my opinion, you are in an enviable situation
i you are planning to use a new CRM tool. You have a clean slate and
my organizational habits love a clean slate! No at-ngered data entry
rom previous salespeople to clean up and no stagnant contacts.
On the next ew pages you will nd summaries o rthe eadily available
tools which I think are best suited or todays salesperson. Dont
consider this a comprehensive list. There may be a product built
or your specic industry that oers a lot o convenient tools. Theoptions I have reviewed simply represent the CRM tools I nd to be
popular and eature-rich. For what its worth, I use Microsot CRM or
my primary job and Salesorce.com/Landslide or my other business
ventures.
Get
organized.
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SalesorcecomSalesorce Automation (sa)
Description
Reps need solutions that make their jobs easier, not more complicated.
Salesorce gives them ast access to dataonline, ofine, and via
mobile devicesand links easily to popular tools like Microsot Oce
and Outlook. With a user interace rated simple and intuitive by PC
Magazine, Salesorce is the one SFA solution every sales rep will love
and use.Salesorce.com
My Review
Salesorce.com has taken the CRM industry by storm and or good
reason. First and oremost, it does everything a salesperson could
ever ask o a CRM product. Second and maybe most important to
you, they oer a ree single user version.
Concerns
My primary word o caution about this product is that you needa browser to use the non-enterprise versions. I you dont have a
constant internet connection (or have a slow one) this may not work
well or you. With the absence o views in the personal versions, the
user can still use the report builder to meet the same objective but its
not quite as powerul.
Sotware
ReviewPublisher:Salesorce.com
Ease O Use: Beginner
Free Trial: Yes
Free Single User Version: YesCost: Free or Personal Edition.
Team and Enterprise versions start
around $65 per user per month.
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Microsot Dynamics CRM
Description
Microsot Dynamics CRM is a customer relationship management (CRM)
solution that provides the tools and capabilities needed to create and
easily maintain a clear picture o customers, rom rst contact through
to purchase and post-sales. With modules or sales, marketing, and
customer service, Microsot Dynamics CRM delivers a ast, fexible, and
aordable solution that drives consistent, measurable improvements in
every business process, enabling closer relationships with customers
and helping to achieve new levels o protability.Microsot.com
My Review
As I mentioned, this is the tool that I use in my daily job. Microsot
Dynamics is a powerhouse and really delivers on unctionality. One o
my avorite eatures o this CRM is its excellent out-o-the-box query
engine.
Concerns
Microsot Dynamics CRM is not as user-riendly as some o the
other systems. The standard import tool is limited, and the available
documentation or this product is dicult to obtain and not very
comprehensive. Finally, and this may just be my experience, the email
tool built into Microsot Dynamics CRM leaves a lot to be desired.
Sotware
ReviewPublisher:Microsot Dynamics
Ease O Use: Beginner
Free Trial: Yes (30 days)
Free Single User Version: NoCost: Starts around $395/user annu-
ally, though you may be able to nd it
cheaper.
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LandSlide Sales Production System
Description
As a Sales Production System, Landslides Sales P3 is a new
category o sales sotware that helps move deals aster through your
pipeline. While SFA/CRM systems ocus on capturing data about your
pipeline & customers, the ocus o a Sales Production System is on
helping salespeople close more deals aster - with predictability and
replicability Landslide.com
My Review
Landslide is a breath o resh air in the contact/opportunitymanagement space. It delivers all o the tools you would expect,
while being more aligned with your actual sales process. Its really in a
league o its own, conceptually new, and certainly worth a look.
Concerns
This product is or orward thinking sales organizations. Its going to
be tough to get traditional-minded leaders to abandon their existing,traditional CRM solutions. To maximize its potential, this product
also requires that you take a deep look at your sales process, which
requires some work.
Sotware
ReviewPublisher:Landslide.com
Ease O Use: Beginner
Free Trial: Yes (6 Months) - here
Free Single User Version: NoCost: Not Available. Licensing beyond
trial requires 5+ seats.
Authors Choice!
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Act! 2009
Description
ACT! enables individuals and small business customers to instantly
access key contact and customer inormation, manage and prioritize
activities, and track all contact-related communications. It osters the
growth o productive business relationships. Renowned or its ease o
use, ACT! can be tailored by each user and oers robust integration
with the tools you use everyday. Sage Sotware
My Review
Act! has everything you need and is eature-rich. Outisde o myresearch or this review, I have never used the product, but I have
known many salespeople that are committed to it. It also provides
a desktop installation so you do not need connectivity to use it. The
built-in integrations with Microsot Word and Excel are solid. The
product is updated requently and current owners upgrade or a
minimal ee.
Concerns
As an individual user, I would go with Salesorce.coms ree product.
As a large organization, I would choose Salesorce.com or Microsot
Dynamics CRM. For a small- to medium-sized team that requires data
to be shared and centrally stored/reported on, Act! is a great solution.
Sotware
ReviewPublisher:Sage Sotware
Ease O Use: Beginner
Free Trial: Yes (30 days)
Free Single User Version: NoCost: Currently $230 or the single
user version.
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CRM Setup Notes
A new CRM system requires that you do two tasks right away.
The rst is to create custom elds you will want or your contacts
and accounts. CRM sotware allows the user to add custom eldsbecause everyones needs are dierent. The elds you choose to add
will vary depending on what you sell and your target audience.
Note: Custom elds in Salesorce.com, Act! 2009 and personal versions
o Microsot Dynamics CRM are simple to set up. I you are running a
network-based version o these tools, the custom elds are set up by
your administrator. In this case, contact your administrator and simply
ask them to add the desired elds.
The second thing you need to do is to import any o your existing
data. Unortunately, I dont have the space in this book to explain
how to achieve this or every CRM product, but the applications I
have mentioned are airly straightorward. Accessible documentation
is included to walk you through a complete data import (with the
exception o Microsot Dynamics CRM).Beore you import your existing data, take a look at the next section to
cleanse your data beore you bring it in.
The time spent cleansing
your data will have
tremendous rewards. This
step is vital!
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House Cleaning
Whether youve chosen to stay with your current CRM tool or are
about to import existing data into a new one, its important to cleanse
your data. Your data will be less eective i not cleaned properly. Illgive you a real-lie example:
A previous salesperson in my territory couldnt understand the last
name o one o his contacts. So he entered Cant Understand
Name in the last name eld. We regularly plug a persons rst or last
name directly into email campaigns to personalize them. As a result,
this poor contact has been getting emails addressed to Mr. Cant
Understand Name. How embarrassing or us and rustrating or him!
Another mistake to be wary o are names entered in ALL CAPS or all
lower case characters. This is undesirable or the obvious reasons.
Its also important to augment the data you already have. Incomplete
inormation is o little value. I you plan to target a specic industry,
but hal o your contacts dont have an industry associated with them,
you wont be able to use the sorting and other eatures o your CRMsotware to their ull advantage.
Youre going to spend a lot o time on this cleanup, but the good
news is, when its all done, youll be staring at a gold mine!
Prepare tosell smarter.
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Here is a list o things to do to clean your data:
1. Do a search or any accounts (companies) that dont have
contact records associated with them. Unless there is a compelling
reason not to, delete these accounts. They are only place holders.
I there is pertinent inormation in the record, then why doesnt it
have a contact?
2. Print (or export) a list o all o your accounts. Find any duplicates,
and merge the records together. This is usually done in a ew clicks.
3. View, Print or Export all o your contacts. Look or any oddities in
the capitalization o names (all caps, all lowercase, etc.) and correct
these or consistency.
4. Do a search or any contacts or accounts that dont have data
in the elds which you will use to target your audience (industry,
employee size, etc.). Spend some time now to complete all o this
inormation. Missing data is a good reason to reach out to your
clients and have conversations under the guise o cleaning up your
records. You can gain additional inormation and contacts easily,
primarily because it isnt technically a sales call.
5. Find any accounts that dont belong in your database. I you work
in territories, look or accounts that arent located in your region. I
you work in verticals, get rid o the companies that dont match. I
you work a specic company size, eliminate companies that dont
Dene:Clean Data
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match your size criteria. I dont mean permanently delete these
records, but get them out o your database and let your sales
manager deal with them. You may be hesitant to drop accounts,
but why clutter up your database and spend your time marketing
to a client base that is outside your area o expertise?
6. Look or contacts that dont have a company associated with
them. Unless you sell to individuals, match them up with an
account or delete them.
During this process, instead o doing laborious manual searches,
plug your criteria in and let the sotware nd them or you. In the
next chapter I will show you exactly how to build queries. I you are
unamiliar with how to do the things Ive described above, consult
the programs help menu or someone who is experienced with the
product.
Data cleansing is vital. I you complete this right now, and in any uture
data imports, you will never have to clean data again! I you settle or
incomplete or inaccurate data now, your eectiveness will be cut inhal, at least.
Do not skipthis step.
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The Power O Queries
The concept o a query is not one many people are amiliar with.
Most people think a query is simply jargon or searching. While thats
undamentally true, the real value o queries is that they are storedor uture use. You can dene the criteria or rules o your query
once, and get a snapshot o all records matching those criteria at
any point in time.
Next to having clean data, learning to build queries is the most
important (and benecial) asset to eective use o your CRM. I you
learn how to properly query your data, a new level o eciency will
open up to you.
I have close to 50 queries saved in my CRM and I use them all the
time. Within 30 seconds, I can see just about any group or subgroup I
need. Send an email to everyone whose name starts with T and who
works or a company that has ranchise locations, you say? Probably
not something I would realistically need to do, but easily possible using
queries.
I have separate saved views or all contacts within each industry I
market to. I also have a modied version which includes only contacts
with email addresses.
I have saved views or every relationship type (client, prospect, analyst,
Openup newlevels oeciency.
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media, etc.) and views or just about anything else I need.
I you were to look over the shoulder o 95% o CRM users, you would
nd thet they either had none o their own queries built, or that they
just had queries that came pre-loaded in the sotware (either by the
publisher or by their company). This is typical, and I dont intend to
alienate anyone, but its also a shame.
Any company that is not actively grouping and manipulating data
to perorm targeted sales activities is wasting money and losing
business. They might as well just have a huge ling cabinet in the
middle o the sales foor.
I you are ortunate enough to have well-thought-out queries or viewsalready saved in your system, get amiliar with them. You will likely need
to make a ew changes to get them just right, which we will discuss in
the next chapter.
How To Build Queries That Sell
The process o building a query varies by product, but in this regard all
CRM products basically work in the same way. Look or an advanced
nd or custom report tool in your sotware.
You will start by indicating what type o records you intend to search
(contacts, accounts, opportunities, etc.).
Next you will choose the search criteria. Most sotware will also
Targetyour salesactivities.
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have operators such as and or contains data which allow you to
complete advanced data dissections.
Make sure the report is dialed in exactly the way you want it, and then
save it. Aterwards, each time you run this query, it will be updated
with any new data acquisitions.
Some o my avorite queries:
Contacts I have not contacted in last 60 days
Contacts with no email (shows me where I have work to do)
______ Industry Contacts with Email Addresses
Companies with > _____ employees
Opportunities wi