August 24th, 2009
When Steve Hamburg made the life-changing decision to launch his own business, he quickly realized it required more than business savvy and technical know-how.
In this economy, a product or service is only as good as your ability to sell it.
That was because, like so many professionals, Hamburg had given little consideration to an important aspect of the business process–selling smarts.
“I went through a harsh reality check,” says Hamburg, who had stepped away from a career at a major firm with an established and successful sales process.
Hamburg’s not alone: This light bulb moment may surprise many service professionals, specifically those who do not associate selling to their field. But the current recession means that now, more than ever, professionals–including doctors, lawyers and accountants–are being forced to pick up the phone and drum up sales.
“A year ago I never thought I’d be working with lawyers. Now, 60 percent of my clients are lawyers who need help bringing in new business. The challenge is in changing bad habits and trying new things,” says Steve Fretzin, president and creator of Sales Results, a coaching and business networking program. “It’s like taking up a new sport or learning to play a musical instrument. It takes commitment, time and practice to achieve the desired results.”
Hamburg spent four years struggling to learn effective sales techniques on his own before putting his IT and corporate security consulting firm, Eclipsecurity, and its sales process into Fretzin’s hands.
Hamburg quickly implemented Fretzin’s Sales Results program, beginning with what Fetzin described as a “rock solid plan.” From there the program focuses on the sales process, with an emphasis on relationship building and learning how to walk a customer through the buying decision in a conversational manner. Fretzin calls it, “The art of selling without selling.”
“It’s like a combination of two old friends talking, and sharing a painful experience with your psychiatrist,” Fretzin says of his sales process, which puts a sharp focus on befriending a potential customer. “This program is customized to each person we coach […] the process is a step-by-step plan to get to a predictable outcome.”
Within eight months, Hamburg achieved the target he and Fretzin had set for his company–a seven-figure sales goal.
Two years later, Hamburg is still using the system, a factor he says has been especially important to his success during the economic downturn.
“Even though the economy has been rough all around, most of our clients are doing very well today,” says Fretzin. “Mainly because they have internalized a prospecting and business development strategy their competition has not. When they go up against another attorney or accountant who is selling the old-fashioned way, there is no comparison.”
The old-school way of selling, Fretzin says, focuses on features and benefits. For example, an attorney would describe for a potential client the numerous benefits and features of working with his or her firm.
“Today we know this is a problem because professionals end up doing a lot of unpaid consulting,” says Fretzin. “Our program focuses on questioning and truly understanding the clients’ needs and their compelling reasons to do business with you. This allows us to present a more focused approach to solving their issues. Plus, we [advise clients] don’t give out free advice anymore.”
Fretzin’s friendly selling techniques are similar to those that Diedre Wachbrit Braverman employs when she networks. The creator of Strategic Attorney Mentoring calls her approach “warm calling.”
“I call on professional advisors with whom I have some relationship–no matter how slight–to ask for referrals and to tell them how I can help them,” says Braverman, who also credits her website and time spent on social media networks as effective tools behind her company’s success.
Braverman says one of the factors that initially makes selling difficult for service professionals is a certain bias steming from the idea it can be unprofessional.
“Even those who take a more modern and pragmatic view wrestle with how to ’sell professionally,’” says Braverman, noting that while real estate planners may offer a gift certificate to clients, they will never distribute coupons. “Professionals have a fine line to walk,” says Braverman.
But she encourages her clients to recognize that the consumer looks to them for answers, and “they expect professionalism and expertise.”
Of course, some service professionals merely need a kick in the pants, says business development and consultant Thom Singer, author of The ABC’s of Networking.
“Just start,” says Singer. “The longer you wait to start building a network of professional contacts, the longer you will have to wait to see any results.”
Beyond sheer determination and modern networking forums, Hamburg says one of the most important principles he learned from Fetzin is pretty straightforward: “I ask myself, ‘what do they need?’”
“It’s such a simple concept, but what’s amazing is there are not really many people out there who get it,” says Hamburg. “That core approach has just had an amazing impact on my company.”
Fetzin says focusing on what the customer needs is essential to getting prospective clients to invest in what you have to offer them. “After all, people still have needs regardless of the economy being pretty abysmal,” says Hamburg. “It’s just a matter of approaching the organizations and letting them know you are the best one to do the job.”
Tags: increase sales
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June 19th, 2009
What is the biggest communications challenge my clients face? The simple answer is listening. My clients struggle with listening because their heads get in the way. They grapple with ways to communicate their messages and often ask me about how to go about saying what they want to say the best way. As we work through this question, the logical next question surfaces: What is the other person saying? Often, the response I get tells me that my clients are not listening with their hearts. They are listening with their heads.
When our heads get in the way, we cannot hear. Our heads say things like, “The other person isn’t interested in what I have to say,” or “The other person is only concerned with their agenda,” or “The other person doesn’t like me.” Our heads tune out the real messages and reinterpret what we hear. To listen with your heart requires a different kind of listening.
Here are the steps you need to take to listen with your heart:
•Really focus on the other person. What emotions do you hear? How does the voice sound? Lively, sad, angry?
•Don’t take what the other person says personally. Get out of the way of the message. Instead ask the person what he or she really means. Ask open, probing questions to better understand what might be going on.
•Get next to the other person. Instead of trying to solve the problem (That’s above the person), listen for where the person is. If your friend is hurting, feel the hurt with him. Don’t try and fix the hurt. If your teenage daughter is angry at you, feel her anger rather than defend yourself.
•Use your intuition to hear the messages behind the words. If you feel something inside, you are probably listening with your heart. Take a risk and share what you are feeling inside. “I sense that you are afraid of your boss.”
•Practice using metaphors to explain your intuition or to explain the other person’s feeling. Putting what we feel into a visual image helps us cope with it. “As you talk, I keep getting this image of a deep, dark well. Tell me how that works for you?”
Listening with your heart takes practice. The next time you feel frustrated with the way your communication is going, get out of the way and let your heart take over.
Tags: increase sales
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June 11th, 2009
If you want to have a fulfilling career in sales, you must first and foremost ask yourself these two questions: Do you enjoy serving people? Do you want to make your customer’s day better than it was before he or she met you or talked with you?” If you answered yes to these questions, then sales is really the right place for you and I believe I have a few valuable pieces of advice to give you. By taking these few simple tips to heart, you can truly start to transform your selling!
1. Don’t look at your profession as a job; look at it as a way of life—a hobby. Learn to love what you are doing! Get excited to learn all you can to become a master. Like a master gardener or chef, it starts as an interest and becomes a hobby. Then, as we learn more, we become an expert—we become experts doing something we love! And naturally, we love the results!
2. Overcome your greatest obstacle—yourself! Listen to what you’re saying to yourself! Are you your own worst enemy? Are you negative, defensive, or critical? Are you just plain self-defeating, manipulative, and relentless in relating all the reasons why you can’t achieve success? If so, take a personal inventory and if you do not like what you see, get the help you need to re-program the personal tapes you are playing to yourself.
3. View yourself as a performer; see yourself as the star. Imagine yourself performing on center stage, and enjoying being in the limelight. Feel happy inside, and see your self singing and dancing. Drop your inhibitions and choreograph fun. Because “making merry” really makes the selling experience a lot more enjoyable for everybody. Loosen up and make some light, playful folly! And, with your lively customers, share the stage with them whenever the opportunity arises. Treat them like celebrities and choose them to be your costars. Happiness is freeing; it is also, very contagious!
4. Develop that inner place of passion embellished with fun when you are selling. Connecting from this sensitive, playful place will bring the relationship your customer is consciously or unconsciously yearning for. When I sell, I see myself as a cake full of heart, frosted with fun. I love to play with analogies, metaphors, and images as I perform. I love to watch people drop their guard, become real, and lighten up. People love to feel that you care, that you are enjoying them, and that you are genuinely interested in their needs. We all want to feel like we matter!
5. Be what you want others to be with you. Pay full attention to the self-empowerment you gain from this modest concept! Every day, people in all walks of life are hurt, angry and/or frustrated because they feel they’re not being treated the way they want to be treated. Your first expression is the client’s lasting impression. Your actions, your choice of words, your eye contact, and your body language all reflect who you are and your comfort level with yourself. Remember, you are the best product you have to offer. Plain and simple: You are selling you, and that’s what people buy—you!
6. Master the desire, the passion, and the ability to compassionately reach out to people. Nothing compares to the wonderful, welcoming sensations we have when we sense that someone really cares about us. Everybody has a hungry heart. Humans thrive on healthy interpersonal connections—we are meant to be happy, social creatures. And it’s so easy to achieve this bond by kindly extending a personal part of ourselves to others.
Today, we are living on the fast track in a rapidly changing world. Due to our modern existence, smothered with automation and highly sophisticated technology, making contact with a truly caring and competent service specialist is becoming more and more of a rarity. In our time-pressed society we are all so busy multitasking, we have lost touch with the precious value for human caring and enjoyable interconnectedness with one another.
So what can you do to make a worthwhile contribution and difference in our spinning, out-of-control world? Be different than other salespeople, simply by slowing down your tempo. Take that extra moment to treat your new prospects as though they are someone special. Take a few moments to tap into them; ask them about themselves and their talents, and listen to their responses with genuine interest. Let them know you are there with them and for them. Treat them the way you would like to be treated! You will be truly amazed with the wondrous results—your efforts will pay off tenfold!
I realize that not everyone is nice and/or receptive, nor do they want to be, and that’s just how the ball bounces. But what in the world do you have to lose by graciously channeling yourself to this euphoric place and seeing where it takes you? Again, this effort costs you nothing. It’s free! It seems almost impossible for me to express in words the blissful feelings you will experience when you realize the beautiful contribution you are gifting to others.
Besides the joy you are giving others, look at the wealth of goodness you are flooding into your own soul. Your sunshine energy not only affects your recipient, it permeates our universe. Think of your actions as a much-needed, healthy new epidemic—your vibrant, radiant behavior will catch on and become contagious. It’s really that simple!
Enjoy this beautiful, soft whisper from the past that I just read this morning: “Blessed are those who can give without remembering and take without forgetting.” This quote comes from Elizabeth Bibesco, a 20th century English writer. Please lock this precious morsel into your heart and model it in your life! Envision each small contribution you make for the betterment of mankind, to add up and help make our world a better place.
Tags: incentive, incentives, increase sales
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June 9th, 2009
Customers are more empowered and connected, which is shifting the balance of power. Consequently, firms must rethink how they interact with customers.
The French have a saying: Plus ηa change, plus c’est la mκme chose. In times of great change (brought about by the Internet) it is important to reflect upon what has changed (in marketing), and what remains unchanged. When the World Wide Web first burst onto the scene in 1994, it led to a massive explosion in business innovation. The belief in those heady days was that “the Internet changes everything.” The network was seen as a disruptive technology that could destroy incumbent businesses, disintermediate existing channels, and overturn the rules of marketing.
A diverse array of startup firms used the Internet to create new business models such as portals, exchanges, e-retailing, auctions, and infomediaries. These Internet business models were expected to unleash revolutionary change in every industry. In the financial services industry, for instance, E*TRADE boldly told us to “boot our brokers” and contended that “someday, we will all invest this way.” And “being Amazoned” became a popular expression that described the destructive potential of the startups.
Today, the revolution is in trouble, and many of the revolutionaries have bitten the dust. The troubles of Internet-based companies can be traced to the misguided belief that the Internet is a business, and that “pure-play” businesses that use the Internet represent a radically new way of doing business. We now realize that the Internet is a means to an end, and not an end in itself. It merely provides a more effective means to connect and to collaborate with customers and partners. The fundamental principles and the final goals of business and marketing remain the same. Marketing is still about creating value for customers, and capturing value from the firm’s activities. Marketers still need to create distinctive offerings, find effective channels to distribute and promote their offerings, and build brands and customer relationships.
The Internet as an Enabler
The new realization is that the Internet is an enabler of more effective marketing for all types of firms, new and old. We are also realizing that established businesses have important advantages in exploiting the Internet, relative to startup businesses. They have customers, brands, capital, channel relationships, and economies of scale. They can leverage these assets, capabilities, and relationships by using the Internet to develop new offerings, increase their reach, and enter new market segments. They can weave the Internet into the entire spectrum of their marketing activities to improve the effectiveness with which they define, design, and deliver offerings to customers. The next generation of marketing will be about how to market through the network, and not how to market on the network. It will be about Internet-enabled business models, not Internet business models. And it will be an evolutionary change, not a revolutionary change. The revolution may be dead. But the evolution will live on for a long time.
And yet, this evolution demands a significant shift in our mental models about marketing. While the goals of marketing have not changed, the Internet does call into question some basic assumptions about marketing. Marketing, at its essence, will always be the process of creating value through exchanges. But the nature of exchanges between marketers and customers has changed dramatically. As customers become more empowered and more connected, the balance of power is shifting toward customers. We are moving from the age of information asymmetry to the age of information democracy. This shift requires firms to think differently about how they interact with customers. And this shift may be the most important development in the continued evolution of marketing.
In the past decade, relationship marketing was the most significant advance in marketing thought and practice. The key insight in relationship marketing was the shift from transactional exchanges to relational exchanges. Instead of maximizing the profit from each transaction, relationship marketing focuses on maximizing profits over the lifetime of customer relationships. It suggests that firms need to create and sustain deep relationships with their most valuable customers. Relationship marketing is a compelling idea, but I believe that it fails to captures the true change in the nature of network-enabled marketing exchanges. Relationship marketing makes the implicit assumption that firms create and manage relationships, while customers play a passive role in the relationships. This assumption is no longer valid in the networked world of business. Customers are beginning to play an active role in managing relationships. Value in marketing exchanges is no longer created by firms and delivered to customers. Rather, customers are becoming co-creators of value by participating directly in the marketing process.
As customers contribute their expertise, time, and resources in marketing exchanges, we are witnessing the emergence of collaborative marketing. I define collaborative marketing as the process of working together with customers to create value in marketing exchanges. Relationship marketing requires firms to think about relating to customers. In contrast, collaborative marketing requires firms to think about collaborating with customers and making customers an integral part of the firm’s marketing activities. In collaborative marketing, the network becomes the enabler of collaborative exchanges, which go beyond relational exchanges because they involve reciprocal dependence and maximization of mutual benefits.
The Emergence of Collaborative Marketing
Collaborative innovation allows firms to tap into customer expertise by integrating customers into the firm’s new product development process. For instance, Procter & Gamble has created the “P&G Advisors” program to collaborate with customers in developing new products. Customers try new products and provide feedback, allowing P&G to refine products and marketing plans. Before using the Internet, P&G would spend $25,000 to test a new product concept, and it would take two months to complete the test. Now, P&G can do the same test at a cost of $2,500 and get results in two weeks. P&G is also using the Internet to take these new products to market. For example, in launching its Physique hair care products, P&G invited consumers to register on its Physique.com Web site to sample the new products. Within 12 weeks, more than 5 million consumers visited the site, giving a strong start to the product launch. Similarly, the pharmaceutical giant Eli Lilly has created a Web-based community called Innocentive, which has attracted 7,000 research scientists to work with the company to solve chemistry problems in return for cash bounties. This is an astounding number, considering that Lilly has only 300 such scientists on its payroll. Lilly plans to create communities of researchers who can collaborate with each other and with the company to solve difficult research problems.
Collaborative Design
Collaborative design allows firms to become more deeply embedded in their customers’ design and development process. For instance, National Semiconductor is becoming a virtual design facility for its customers by offering a design tool called Webench, which is used by 500,000 design engineers every month to design and test circuits. In 2001, more than 43,000 designs were created on this site, saving customers an estimated $82 million and creating between $1.5 million and $2 million of new design wins for National Semiconductor. Similarly, Texas Instruments dialogued with more than 30,000 high school teachers in developing its new TI-92 calculators. By involving customers in the design process, it ensured that the product accurately met the needs of its customers, and it created a sense of ownership among the customers that leads to intense customer loyalty.
Instead of thinking about finding customers for their products, companies need to think about finding products for their customers.
Collaborative Pricing
Collaborative pricing allows customers to become active participants in defining the prices that they want to pay and adapting prices and services to their changing needs. For instance, computer manufacturer Hewlett-Packard has introduced a new pricing program, called “partition pricing,” for its high-end servers. In this program, customers pay incrementally for capacity as they need it instead of paying upfront for hardware. This flexible pricing approach allows customers to align the timing and amount of their payments with their forecasted growth. By introducing capacity on demand, pay-per-use financing programs, and flexible service offerings, firms can allow customers to better manage their cash flow by aligning costs to their evolving needs.
Collaborative Segmentation
Collaborative segmentation allows customers to configure offerings to suit their preferences and to self-select into segments. Firms like Herman Miller, Dell, and General Motors allow customers to configure, price, and order products, saving time for customers as well as for the companies. Instead of the firm deciding what segments to target with what offerings, customers what they want by choosing from a flexible menu of offerings that they can configure to suit their needs. By making customers active participants in the segmentation process, firms can make segmentation more accurate and more efficient, because customers know their needs better than marketers do.
Collaborative Communication
Collaborative communication lets firms work with customers to create “just-in-time” marketing communications that are relevant to customers. Automobile companies like GM and Toyota are partnering with Edmunds.com, an online automobile information provider, to create contextual messages that are triggered by customer activity and facilitate customer decision-making. Contextual messaging turns conventional advertising on its head. Instead of “just-in-case” marketing communications that characterize traditional advertising, contextual messaging becomes “just-in-time” communication, because it is initiated by customers, and it is relevant to their context.
Collaborative Support
Collaborative support allows firms to reduce support costs while increasing customer satisfaction by allowing customers to dialogue with the firm and among themselves to solve support problems. For instance, Cisco’s Networking Professionals Connection is an online community that allows customers to get answers to support questions from peers and experts. By making customers a part of the support operation, Cisco is able to decrease customer support costs, while increasing customer satisfaction. While the community originally started out as a customer support initiative, it is also becoming a valuable source of new product ideas and competitive intelligence.
While the benefits of collaborative marketing are compelling, it is not easy for firms to make the transition from the “command-and-control” mentality that characterized the age of information asymmetry to the “connect-and-collaborate” mentality that will be needed in the age of information democracy. It will require a fresh approach to designing processes, platforms, products, and pricing. Here are the key steps firms need to take on this journey:
Reverse Your Thinking
Firms need to think “outside-in” instead of “inside-out” about their customers and markets. Instead of thinking about finding customers for their products, they need to think about finding products for their customers. They need to understand what customers really buy from them in terms of the business outcomes, solutions, and experiences they seek. They need to understand what activities customers perform as they evaluate, buy, and use their products and services. They need to think deeply about when and where they hand off products, services, and information to their customers. They need to ask which activities they can perform better than customers. Conversely, they need to ask what activities customers can perform better than the firm. To take the first step forward to designing collaborative processes, firms first need to think backward from customer activities and customer processes.
Create Collaboration Platforms
To enable collaborative processes, firms need to build technology platforms that allow customers to connect to their business processes. They need to harness the power of collaborative design tools like National Semiconductor does, community management platforms like Cisco uses, collaborative ideation platforms like Eli Lilly uses, and collaborative configuration tools like the one Herman Miller uses on its Web site for configuring office furniture. These collaborative tools are essential to connect customers to the firm’s design process, sales process, order management process, and customer support process. To facilitate customer integration, firms need to map out all the business processes that connect to customers and then think about redesigning these processes so that they interface seamlessly with the customer operations.
Embrace Modularity
To allow customers to self-configure offerings, firms need to make their offerings more modular and their pricing more granular. Dell and Herman Miller are able to exploit the power of “customerization” — customer-driven mass customization, because they create modular products that are highly configurable. On the other hand, General Motors is limited to being able to offer its customers a “locate-to-order” capability, because they cannot create automobiles that can be “built to order.” By thinking deeply about the possibilities of modularity, firms can involve their customers much more meaningfully in the segmentation and product configuration process.
Align Incentives
Collaboration will not succeed unless both parties in the collaborative exchange have the appropriate incentives. A key challenge in involving customers in the firm’s marketing activities is the reluctance of customers to contribute time and effort to the collaboration. Firms need to think strategically about incentives for customers to share expertise. These incentives can be monetary rewards. For instance, Eli Lilly offers bounties for scientists to solve problems, and P&G offers free samples to its volunteer customers. Incentives can also be social recognition, like Cisco’s approach to certifying network engineers who are well-qualified to answer support questions. And incentives can be improved efficiency and effectiveness of the customer’s operation because of better process integration. The key is to create a compelling value proposition for collaboration, so that customers and the firm are motivated to engage in collaborative interactions.
Most firms see the Internet as an excellent channel for marketing to customers. But that is not where the Internet’s true potential lies. Its true power lies in marketing with customers, by making customers an integral part of the firm’s marketing activities, and by seeing customers as a virtual extension of the firm’s marketing organization. Seen from this perspective, marketing through the network will require firms to see the network as an enabler of collaborative exchanges. Firms that harness the power of collaborative marketing will be able to extend their enterprise downstream all the way to their end-customers and take their customer relationships to a higher level. – crmtoday
Tags: collaborative marketing, crm, incentive, incentives, increase sales
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June 8th, 2009
From 2006 through 2011, the number of mobile salespeople requiring real-time network connections will grow from 40 percent to 80 percent, according to a November report from Gartner. Additionally, 50 percent of surveyed companies believe mobile SFA will have a major impact on the way they do business in the next five years, an Aberdeen Group report states.
Once CRM systems got their bugs worked out, ancillary solutions further developed and handheld devices became a favorite of top executives and field staffs alike. However, early mobile sales force automation (SFA) and other CRM offerings had their approach all wrong.
Vendors tried to miniaturize entire CRM solutions for mobile SFA, “which is insane,” Rich Koch, vice president of marketing  for Saratoga Systems, tells CRM Buyer. “It’s kind of like doing surgery with salad tongs. You can’t store as much as you have in a CRM system on a mobile device.
“This is why mobile SFA had fits and starts,” he adds. “Vendors and IT [executives] were trying to shove a jet engine in there. The market ran ahead of itself and what the user actually wanted. Mobile SFA is like camping: You’re not taking the house; you need a Swiss Army knife.”
A Growing Market
From 2006 through 2011, the number of mobile salespeople requiring real-time network connections will grow from 40 percent to 80 percent, according to a November report from Gartner (NYSE: IT)  . Additionally, 50 percent of surveyed companies believe mobile SFA will have a major impact on the way they do business in the next five years, an Aberdeen Group report states.
Saratoga Systems, which has been in CRM development for 20 years, via its Apresta division offers software for this burgeoning market that prioritizes access and functionality field workers need from enterprise systems for smartphones.
Apresta’s technology could be likened to an iPod, Koch says. “You’re not carrying around CDs,” he explains. “Only the music you want and how you want it.”
With Saratoga’s version of mobile SFA, users get only the data they want — such as contact, inventory and pricing information, status of outstanding orders and data on what the competition is buying — in a browser-based interface.
Software Functionality
Once the mobile software is installed on the device and it connects to the Apresta server, it will pull and push data as requested — as long as the device receives service. When the handheld can’t get a connection — in rural areas, for instance — the user can still access information locally from the device.
Apresta’s caching system houses information within the device’s internal memory to allow information retrieval and editing offline. Once service resumes, real-time syncing resets without any direct command.
One Apresta customer, electronics sales firm Phoenix Contact, was able to increase its sales 25 percent with mobile SFA.
“Salespeople can structure a deal right in front of the customer, as opposed to the typical sales cycle in which they try to get information together in five or 10 days,” Koch notes.
“There is a customer demand for real-time interaction,” he adds, and Phoenix reps can even deliver photos by PDA and place orders in real-time from their BlackBerry devices. The Phoenix sales team now has 4,200 meetings with customers and prospects per month, up from 3,500 per month when it implemented Apresta two years ago.
A Competitive Advantage
Phoenix Contact is just one of a multitude of firms to implement mobile SFA, Ronn Duby, research analyst of customer intelligence research at Aberdeen Group and author of The Mobile Sales Solutions Benchmark Report, tells CRM Buyer.
“Top performers at organizations of all maturity levels plan to invest in mobile sales productivity tools to drive top-line growth,” he notes. “They believe that providing their sales professionals with a competitive advantage through timely access to key information such as recent account activity, supervisor’s notes or revised proposals is vital to successful attainment of corporate revenue goals.
“Part of this success includes growing revenues through enhanced customer satisfaction or support levels at the point of customer interaction,” he continues. “Sales professionals cite the ability to improve customer satisfaction or support levels as a top driver for their investment.”
On the Road
There is an argument to be made for rollover of the total CRM system onto a handheld. Technology has progressed since mobile SFA’s early days enough to make this solution sexy to small business BlackBerry and PocketPC users, “any organization that has a remote sales force, external sales force or remote field service force,” Amedeo Tarzia, senior vice president for Sage Software mobile solutions, tells CRM Buyer. “Definitely all are conducive to mobile SFA,” he says.
“After several false starts, converged devices are finally in a form factor small enough for people to consider as an alternative to a cell phone and powerful enough to run robust mobile applications over more readily available wireless bandwidth,” Tarzia adds.
“Users are used to the desktop and want rich applications as much as possible on a device. With a Web-based browser, you’re not getting much traction,” he explains. Compression and encryption capabilities enable devices to store and transmit large packets of data without compromising device memory or clogging connection bandwidth.
From Optional to a Must-Have
Sage Software’s mobile SFA has reached beyond early adopters in financial services and pharmaceuticals to horizontal market acceptance, from a nice-to-have add-on product to a need-to-have offering, even for small to medium-sized companies.
Some firms are equipping their field sales and service personnel with BlackBerry devices and PocketPCs to extend their investments in CRM, Tarzia notes. “We are seeing increased interest in mobile SFA solutions over the past six to 12 months,” he says.
Key drivers of this growth are similar to those of desktop CRM software, Tarzia states, “a move towards more business intelligence and graphing capabilities as well as tighter integration with back-office work flow engines to allow users in the field to drive back-office process.”
Additionally, syncing can be done real-time, on-demand or scheduled, based on user needs and device capabilities.
“In general, we see mobile users syncing up at least a few times during the day, especially prior to customer calls to ensure they have the latest information, as well as following calls, to ensure that information captured during the call or visit on the device itself, is transferred back to the internal Sage SalesLogix system,” Tarzia concludes.
Tags: crm, CRM incentives, customer retention, increase sales
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February 7th, 2009
Self-Discipline really encompasses nearly everything in life. Do you remember in school when you were given 30 days to write a term paper? Did you start it that first night?
Most of us didn’t. Instead, we thought about it every night. “Got to get moving on that ratty project. But I’ve got almost a whole month left–it can wait.” As time goes by, worry about getting a failing grade looms larger in our minds. At first the pain of starting the term paper is greater than our concern about the failing grade, so after a week we still haven’t started. Two weeks go by. What are we doing every night before we go to sleep? Worrying about that F. “I better start. Tomorrow I’ll get moving on it.”
A week before the term paper is due, the F is getting larger–but it’s still not quite large enough to offset the pain of working at preventing it. All of a sudden there are only three days left before it’s due, and at last the F looms larger than the pain of working on the term paper. So we start.
As you lay it out you begin feeling some enthusiasm. “This isn’t bad. I may get an A if I do this and do that.” When you walk in with your paper you’re happy, but you wasted 27 days worrying about starting. In other words, you operated at a deficit emotionally for 27 days when you could have been in the profit column the whole time. Move into the emotional profit column right now; starting today, get your priority tasks and actions handled promptly. Plan your actions, then act on your plans. Apply this determination to every area of your life and it will make an enormous difference in your income, growth rate in business as well as your satisfaction and growth rate personally.
The portrait of a man who was being called the Whiz Kid on Wall Street appeared on the cover of a national magazine many years ago. He was one of the first to put a conglomerate together, and some of the federal laws affecting business in the early ’70s came about because of the trends that his creativity set off. At the time he was 42; he was running one of the largest industrial combines in the country, the conglomerate he had built himself. So the magazine had assigned a journalist and a team of researchers to do an in-depth report on this entrepreneur.
One of the researchers went to the small city the dynamic executive had left 15 years earlier. A few items turned up there about an alcoholic with the same name who had been sleeping on park benches at that time. The researcher passed this information along, and as the journalist was concluding his interview with the Wall Street powerhouse in his plush office, the journalist laughed and said, “Believe it or not, a man with your exact name was sleeping on park benches and getting ousted by the police when you lived in your home town. I guess the poor guy was a real wino. Isn’t that something?”
The president looked up and smiled. “That was me,” he said.
The reporter was flabbergasted. “This can’t be. You’re kidding.”
The president of the conglomerate leaned back in his leather chair and shook his head. “I’m not kidding. The wino sleeping off drinks on park benches was me.”
The journalist stared at him for a moment and realized that the man was telling the truth. He also realized that now he had a whole new story. When his apologies were waved aside, he said, “I have to ask, what made you change?”
Listen to what he said because so many people fit this mold: “When I was sleeping under newspapers in the park 15 years ago, I knew that someday I would do what I’m doing now. I was just waiting until I was ready to start.”
Do you know how many people are like that? “Well, next year’s my year. I’m going to get to work then. You just wait and see–right after the first of the year I’m gonna start shaping up.” But, of course, the time to get going never quite comes for most people. They have good intentions, but are lacking the two most vital components of any good deed: the motivation to begin and a strategic plan to keep them moving forward.
You see, by not beginning, you’re not risking failure, but you’re also confining yourself to the level of success you currently have. If you’re happy with that, fine. If not, make that plan and get fired up!
If your potential for greater success is nagging at you, don’t wait. Time is flying by so fast. Start today to achieve the greatness you know is within you.
Tags: corporate incentives, increase sales, rewards
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February 4th, 2009
The most important thing you do for your success is to take control of the suggestive elements in your environment. Be sure that what you are seeing and listening to is consistent with the goals you want to achieve.
Listen Your Way to Success
Listen to educational audio programs in your car. The average person drives 12,000 to 25,000 miles per year which works out to between 500 and 1,000 hours per year that the average person spends in his or her car. You can become an expert in your field by simply listening to educational audio programs as you drive from place to place.
Take Courses in Your Field
Attend seminars given by experts in your field. Take additional courses and learn everything you possibly can. Learn from the experts. Ask them questions, write them letters, read their books, read their articles and listen to people with proven track records in the area in which you want to be successful.
Get Around the Right People
Associate only with positive, success-oriented people. Get around winners. As we say, fly with the eagles. You can’t fly with the eagles if you keep scratching with the turkeys. Get away from the go-nowhere types and above all, get away from negative people. Get away from negative coworkers. If you’ve got a negative boss, seriously consider changing jobs. Associating on a regular basis with negative people is enough in itself to condemn you to a life of underachievement, frustration and failure. Associate only with positive people. Get around winners.
Visualize Your Goals
The last thing before you sleep and the first thing in the morning, think about and visualize your goals as realities. See your goal as though it already existed. Your subconscious mind is only activated by affirmations and pictures that are received in the present tense. See your goal vividly just before you go to sleep. See yourself performing at your best. See the situations that you’re facing working out exactly the way you want them to.
Feed Yourself Mental Pictures
See yourself living the kind of life that you want to live. See yourself with the kind of relationships, the kind of health, the kind of car, the kind of home you really want. Visualize just before you fall asleep at night. The first thing you do when you get up in the morning is to feed yourself mental pictures. Those are the two times of the day when your subconscious mind is most receptive to new programming, when you fall asleep and when you wake up.
Action Exercises
Here are two things you can do, all day long, to keep your mind and emotions focused on your goals and financial success:
First, listen to audio programs in your car and when you travel around. Continue feeding your mind with a stream of high-quality, educational, motivational material that moves you toward your goal.
Second, resolve to associate with positive, optimistic people most of the time. Get around winners and get away from negative people who criticize, condemn and complain. This can change your life as much as any other factor.
Tags: co-marketing, increase sales, marketing incentives
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January 29th, 2009
Sometimes salespeople get a bad rap. Sometimes they create it.
Sales requires self confidence — but there’s a fine line between self confidence and cockiness. A finer line between self-assured and arrogance. And the finest line — between proud and egotistical.
As a professional salesperson, there’s a career of difference between self talk = self performance (the right way) and loose lips sink ships (the ultra-wrong way).
Salespeople are not the most loved group of professionals to begin with. We rank above politicians, tax collectors, and (especially) lawyers, but below dentists and dog catchers. All that a salesperson can hope to do is establish a great reputation, and let that propel him to success.
Since the prospect buys the salesperson first — reputation is as valuable (and critical) an element as a he or she can have. How is yours?
One bad event, situation, or story can ruin years of hard work. Continuing stories of neglect or overpromising breed career destruction. A salesperson’s self-delusion (failure to admit the problem, and thinking nothing is wrong) will make the situation worse.
Sales hot-air can occur at any level. Customers, prospects, bosses and co-workers are all potential victims.
“Come on Jeffrey,” you say, “Get to the point. Give me some examples of self-destructive talk — what is sales “hot-air?” Relax, helium breath, here `tiz.
7.5 examples of Hot Air — (even though I’m sure none of these apply to you).
1. BTNA — Big talk – no action. Too much time talking about the sales you’re going to make and not enough time making them.
2. Bragging too soon – Before the deal is signed, sealed, and a check delivered.
3. Bragging too much — No one but you wants to hear it. If you really need to hear yourself — just make a tape of yourself and replay it in your car until you get as sick of it as others.
4. Bragging at the expense of others — Beat the competition, but don’t beat them into the ground. A variation of this is making someone else look like a fool. Bragging about someone you took advantage of or tricked.
5. Using others as scapegoats to get yourself off the hook — Better known as covering your butt, or the inability to accept responsibility. Blaming others for your failings is obvious to those listening, and makes a fool out of the teller.
6. Exaggerating the facts — Each year the fish that got away increases in size. Stay within the parameters of what you know to be true — or less. Understated is always better.
7. Using insincere words — Honestly, truthfully, quite frankly, and I mean that, are words that alienate.
7.5 Talking past the sale — Knowing when to shut up and go home. Employing any one of the above elements after a sale has been consummated — but before you leave will jeopardize the sale. It’s known as “buying it back,” and it happens often. The rule of thumb in sales is “less is more.”
Hot air has interesting negative side effects…
• It wastes everyone’s time.
• It’s the most unproductive and negative use of your time possible.
• It makes you look like a fool.
• It lowers your respect factor by 100.
• It gets people talking behind your back.
• It prevents advancement.
• It can get you fired.
Who wants that? No one, but these side effects are linked to people with severe cases of hot air.
How do you know if this is you? How do you know if you’re blowing hot air? Well, no one is without some guilt. It’s hard not to brag if you just made a big sale, and took it out from under the nose of your biggest competitor.
The rules are simple:
• Don’t say anything behind anyone’s back you wouldn’t say to their face.
• Don’t say something you wouldn’t want said about you.
• Don’t say anything you have to remember (lies must be remembered, or you get tripped up with the truth).
• Don’t say anything you couldn’t say in front of your mom.
The key is to temper your remarks with humility.
Your challenge is to always bring out the good side in your words.
Your challenge is to employ self-discipline in getting past hot-air.
Your challenge is self-rule or self destruct.
Tags: incentives, increase sales, marketing tools
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January 27th, 2009
Here are a few thoughts on financial freedom and how to find it for yourself.
Financial freedom is a buzzword for our generation. It is the pursuit of literally millions of people. So what is it? Is it that elusive? Can anyone achieve it?
Let me start by saying that this is not about how to earn money, or even more money. Rather, it is about how to find financial freedom, which surprisingly, may or may not involve making more money.
The first step in finding financial freedom is to realize that financial freedom has absolutely nothing to do with how much money you have or make.
What? Exactly. Financial freedom is something that goes on inside of you.
This is why someone who makes very little can be happy and someone who makes a ton can be extremely stressed out over his or her financial situation. So the first step is to realize that financial freedom is more about our attitudes toward money than about the amount of money.
“Okay Chris, I’m with you. So what are the attitudes that provide financial freedom?” Here are a few that keep me in financial freedom.
I do not have to worry about money. I used to catch myself saying, “If I had more money, then I wouldn’t have to worry about…” But do you know what? I don’t have to worry anyway. I can control my income. I can control my outgo. I can make choices that can alleviate any of my worries. I also realized that things always work out. So why worry? I choose not to worry. I work hard, invest, plan for the future and I do not worry about it.
I can be happy regardless of my financial state. I know people who are worth hundreds of millions of dollars and I know people who don’t have two nickels to rub together. Some are happy and some aren’t. And none of the people who have a lot of money say to me, “Chris, I’ve become so happy since I got money.” They were happy before they had money and they are happy now that they have money. Their happiness has nothing to do with the money. Billionaire David Geffen once said, “Anyone who says that money will buy them happiness has never had any money.”
Money is a means to an end, not the end itself. Another way to look at it is that money is a tool to build the house, not the house itself. I would set some financial goals if I were you, but go beyond that to know what greater purpose there will be when you reach them. What will the house be used for that you build with this tool?
I am free. I am free to earn – some people think it is bad to earn more money. It isn’t.
I am free to save – some people believe it is bad to save. It isn’t.
I am free to give money away – some people feel they will be better off hoarding it. They won’t.
I am free to spend – some people believe that they can’t spend anything on themselves. They can.
We are free to make choices. That is financial freedom.
Embrace delayed gratification. Here is the principle: Buy it now and struggle later. Another principle: Delay buying it now, invest the money, and have all you want later on! And you won’t even have to touch the principal! We tend to think that having it now will bring enjoyment, but unless you can do it and not cause yourself financial stress, you will actually get more from waiting!
Have more by managing better. The fact is that most of us earn enough. What would be beneficial is to set our priorities and live by a budget. As we get control, our budget will loosen up a bit and we will find ourselves enjoying it more. Money that is already there can be your answer if you put it to work for you.
You can experience financial freedom no matter how much money you have. Granted, it is great to build wealth and that should be our goal, but no matter what level you are currently at, or what level of wealth you ultimately attain, if you keep money in the proper perspective, you can be happy and free.
Questions for Reflection:
Q. Do you have an investment plan? Do you follow it? How well?
Q. Do you have a plan to invest in hard assets? Income producing assets?
Q. What ideas do you have that you can invest in?
Q. Are you investing in your company? If so, how? If you don’t have one, have you considered starting one? What would it take for you to step out and do so?
This week, take some time and put some thought into your Financial Freedom plan, then take the action necessary to accomplish your Freedom!
Tags: charity marketing, incentives, increase sales, point rewards, sale incentives
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January 15th, 2009
In the comic strip, Peanuts, a hapless Charlie Brown occasionally would be stalked by ominous rainclouds. Although the rest of the sky would shine bright and blue, poor Chuck would be stuck under a dark cloud, getting doused by its showers. While his friends and neighbors enjoyed the beauty of the day, a drenched Charlie Brown would be a scowling onlooker.
The lingering raincloud seemed to suggest Charlie Brown’s inability to break clear from his problems. A melancholy character, he was prone to fits of worry and self-doubt. He concocted problems where none existed and fretted about those which were real.
While we do not have to contend with perpetual drizzle like Charlie Brown, many of us live under the gloomy shadow of self-induced rainclouds. When life’s twists and turns work against us, we retreat into a rotten attitude or heap blame on our surroundings. By doing so, we neglect to deal with our problems and only add to our misery.
The Five Truths Leaders Understand about Problems
1. They’re unavoidable.
For the aspiring leader, problems may be the most faithful companions of all. The road to success is seldom paved smoothly, and is oftentimes under construction. Potholes and barricades abound. At every bend in the journey, a leader’s vision must peer around obstacles and through formidable walls to foresee a positive future. Leaders who sidestep problems stunt their growth – they end up shallow and debilitated. The successful leader stares down problems and resourcefully addresses them.
2. Perspective on the problem, rather than the problem itself, determines success or failure.
We see problems, not as they are, but as we are. That’s why attitude plays such a crucial role in separating those who lead from those who follow. Alfred Armand Montapert said, “The majority see the obstacles; the few see the objectives; history records the successes of the latter, while oblivion is the reward of the former.” Leaders look at problems from a healthy, self-confident vantage point.
| A Wrong Perspective
Problems are unsolvable
Problems are permanent
Problems are not normal
Problems make us bitter
Problems control us
Problems stop us |
A Right Perspective
Problems are solvable
Problems will pass
Problems are natural
Problems make us better
Problems challenge us
Problems stretch us |
3. There’s a big difference between problem spotting and problem solving.
Anyone, even the fairly imperceptive, can identify problems, but few people have the initiative to tackle them. As novelist John Galsworthy observed, “Idealism increases in direct proportion to one’s distance from the problem.” As rule, don’t voice complaint about a problem until you’re 1) able to put forth a recommendation for solving it, and 2) willing to take an action to solve it.
4. The size of the person is more important than the size of the problem.
You can tell the caliber of a person by the amount of opposition it takes to discourage him or her. Joke writer Robert Orben says that he once saw an ad from an entertainer that read, “Lion tamer – wants tamer lion.” Clearly, this performer wasn’t looking for greatness but merely for something manageable. To lead at the highest level requires wrestling with problems seemingly beyond our ability to apprehend.
5. Problems, responded to correctly, can propel us forward.
Leaders are not discovered in the limelight; rather they are forged in the darkness under heat and pressure. Leaders gain respect on difficult terrain, after taking a few blows and being shaped by the problems they encounter. As a matter of fact, courage and valor go undetected until seen through the lens of adversity.
Tags: increase sales, performance incentives, problems
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