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SEPTEMBER 13, 2012

One of the biggest reminders that sales is changing in midmarket companies is that customers have much, much higher expectations now. As a customer, I want the event organizers to recognize me as having signed up and I want to get special emails directed just to those of us who put our money down, don’t you? courtesy of IBM.

Company 192

Company Customer Conference Twitter 192

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MAY 23, 2012

Customers demand a more personal and local experience. For an example of a mid-market company that is listening and responding to customers using analytics strategies, take a look at Laurie McCabe’s post about Speedo International (yes, the swimsuit folks). There is no more mass marketing. I, for one, am ready for that.

Loyalty 201

Loyalty Retail Customer Lead Rank 201

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NOVEMBER 8, 2012

What is the best way to worsen a relationship with a prospective client, a customer, or an invaluable referral partner? Unless you are a 100% web-based business with sophisticated on-line tools – and even then, send me a postcard once in a while. Answer: Only communicate through email. Call me, don’t just email me.

Customer 239

Customer Referrals Guarantee Outbound 239

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APRIL 30, 2013

There are SMB and mid-market sales organizations who have not embraced a cloud-based, customer relationship management system, better known as CRM or SCRM. The “S” stands for social, and indicates that a CRM system has the capability to interact with and bring in social media content right into customer and prospect records.

CRM 291

CRM Revenue SugarCRM System 291

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JULY 22, 2014

I can remember the first day I heard about the search engine – it was early 1999 and it seemed like a nice, helpful tool – not a world game-changer as it has become. How Many Sales Research Tools Are There? There have never been more tools to allow you to search for insight about the contacts you’re speaking with and their company.

Ideal Customer Profile 234

Ideal Customer Profile Banking Engineering Twitter 234

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FEBRUARY 7, 2013

In sales we work hard to create mutual next steps with prospective customers and ultimately to help buying opportunities for these prospects – these buyers. But time and again, we get bombarded with interruptions, alerts, tools, and technology. Three Tech Traps to Avoid: Tool Overwhelm. With many tools comes overwhelm.

CRM 238

CRM Outbound Tools Study 238

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JANUARY 11, 2013

Ed and I spoke recently about the trends, and I shared with him my concerns about how so many smaller organizations are overwhelmed by tools, technology, and strategies for growth. So many new cloud-based tools have not only come to market, but many are tried-and-true now. They want to be where their customers are.

Coremetrics 238

Coremetrics Analytics Trends Outbound 238

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OCTOBER 18, 2013

These include prospects, customers, former customers, vendors, partners, and referrers? In other words, does your contact management tool bring in the social profile and activity on social for each of your contacts? What is the system you have for when new contact information comes to you? How do you handle pre-prospects?

CRM 193

CRM Ideal Customer Profile Top of Funnel Lead Rank 193

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MARCH 26, 2013

Mid-sized companies need better tools to help understand what customers need and want. It went on to say that many midsize businesses still rely on traditional, non-integrated customer management, sales tracking or marketing systems. New insights into their customers, giving the company competitive advantages. •

CRM 235

CRM Guidelines Data Compensation 235

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JUNE 12, 2013

Most people know how to identify prospective customers or clients and they track them in a CRM system with next actions set. There has never been a better time to find simple and even free tools to capture your prospective customers and all your connections). Don’t stop with social tools, though.

Referrals 224

Referrals Lead Rank Lead Scoring Networking 224

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AUGUST 26, 2014

Create relevant content - Now that you are clear on who your buyers are create content around how you solve issues for them – such as reduce risk for them, or reduce current costs, or help them offer more services to their customers. Many of our clients don’t take advantage of these tools yet though.

B2B 232

B2B Revenue B2C Ideal Customer Profile 232

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NOVEMBER 26, 2014

Imagine a time when you can work totally on the go with your mobile device – phone or tablet – to create business, follow-up with customers, train your team, assess your pipeline, and work a smooth system. There are new tools and ideas coming out now that will change forever how we think about business process, marketing and sales.

Workbooks 232

Workbooks Analytics Territories Ideal Customer Profile 232

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JUNE 26, 2012

As more and more of your customers are spending time involved in social media, you too need to build your midmarket company brand. Even if a percentage of your customers are on social tools and platforms now – you need to be there as well. If you don’t have time, you can hire help through some amazing web tools.

B2B 183

B2B Lead Rank Lead Scoring Hiring 183

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APRIL 4, 2013

We are, as a business community, being BOMBARDED with sales tools. Once we have the tools, we still need to craft interesting and compelling content in the form of sales messages to our prospective customers and existing clients. What is our end goal? What is our end goal? What are we trying to accomplish?

Webinar Metrics 224

Webinar Metrics Outbound Social Selling Buyer 224

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JULY 31, 2014

Do you use alerts to keep tabs on your prospective buyers and existing customers? Now there are bigger and better ways – from tools like GageIn to data tools like Avention we can track new contacts at our prospective customer companies – a key way to grow opportunities.

Ideal Customer Profile 229

Ideal Customer Profile How To Twitter Google 229

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AUGUST 28, 2014

I did an unscientific survey of webinar tool sites as if I was evaluating and making a purchase from my smart phone. For this experiment I looked up webinar tools and webinar platforms. In my search I looked for “webinar platform” and “webinar tool” to get dozens of choices. It could have been any B2B product or service.

Webinar Metrics 214

Webinar Metrics B2B Decision Maker Ideal Customer Profile 214

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JANUARY 31, 2013

Many salespeople would LOVE the opportunity to work with someone who can offer them ideas, tips, tools, skill explanations, and just be a sounding board to confirm that what they are doing is a sound practice. Ways to help retain more customers. Ways to relate better to customers and potential customers. How to prospect.

Sales Coaching 169

Sales Coaching Coaching Ideal Customer Profile Energy 169

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JULY 31, 2013

Keep assessment tools in mind when hiring – they are getting easier and are less costly with quicker results and a very high rate of accuracy. DO use your gut when you think there is a problem or an issue with your customer or with your prospect. If you think something is wrong, ask your customer.

Hiring 183

Hiring Lead Rank Lead Scoring Compensation 183

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MAY 16, 2012

You have a robust, helpful CRM tool that gives you several helpful reports which you can review each week, and lists you can easily pull up on a just-in-time basis. You have a poor CRM tool, perhaps not cloud-based and it is difficult to use with poor reporting capabilities. You probably fall into one of three camps: A.

Opportunity 206

Opportunity Pipeline Hiring Top of Funnel 206

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MAY 28, 2013

For midsize companies there was no shortage of ideas, examples, and tools to help any company improve marketing, sales, and procurement. Delighting Your Customers. This contest for us to decide between three films that best represented “Your Customer in Context” was innovative. What does “your customer in context” mean to you?

Company 208

Company Film Study Lead Rank 208

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MARCH 29, 2013

That surprised me – I did not know that the two organizations have worked together on delivering strong customer solutions for that long. Bagala continued to tell me that IBM has invested in ERP and CRM for many years and built strong practices around them, which help customers get functionally integrated solutions.

Microsoft 189

Microsoft Conference CRM Compensation 189

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JULY 15, 2013

It is always exciting to hear about new sales tools to help shorten the sales cycle, qualify better, grow social connections, and sell more. Sometimes, though, an old school tool can get the job done as a companion strategy to all the cutting edge technology you are employing. He grabbed my new card and put that on his desk.

Inside Sales 194

Inside Sales Hiring Lead Rank Lead Scoring 194

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SEPTEMBER 3, 2013

I would go so far as to say that some sellers waste 2 months out of every year going after the wrong prospective customers. We get calls from companies every week who want us to evaluate or use their sales tool. Instead the message is the same one they leave a VP Sales about how this tool will help my sales team.

Inside Sales 232

Inside Sales Buyer Lead Rank Lead Scoring 232

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NOVEMBER 22, 2013

Three major takeaways from the study include: How CxOs are opening up to customer influence. How CxOs are crafting engaging customer experiences. The study showed that customers are next in line in influence – even before the corporate board or non-executive employees. How is your company collaborating with customers?

Study 216

Study Influencer Lead Rank Lead Scoring 216

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JANUARY 29, 2013

In a bigger organization, a marketing team might have specific customer reference team members who focus solely on building up a reference library and referral program. In many SMBs and mid-market companies, often the strategy to ask happy customers for referrals just does not happen. It might just have to start with you, Mike.

Referrals 263

Referrals InsideView Outbound LinkedIn 263

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MARCH 25, 2014

I am very humbled, and quite honored, since it seems that quite a process was put into place and many different tools to measure reach was used to take a list of 500 influencers down to the top 30. LinkedIn is certainly a social selling tool and Koka the perfect representative of how adding insight to help potential buyers builds your brand.

Social Selling 232

Social Selling Oracle Eloqua Influencer 232

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FEBRUARY 27, 2013

Spend time searching and listening for what is happening in your market, with your competitors, with your customers, and with your strategic partners. Doing this alone can give you enough good reasons to contact prospects and existing customers to add value. 2. Become an Influencer in Your Industry Niche. They KNOW who you are.

Twitter 232

Twitter Strategy Prospecting Promotion 232

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NOVEMBER 26, 2013

If you have a profile, make sure you’ve done the key steps to maximize it – professional headshot, strong headline, helpful, customer-focused summary, and your contact information are the basics. join groups in the industries your customers and prospective buyers belong to. Don’t move on to the next steps until this is done.

LinkedIn 226

LinkedIn Trade Show Ideal Customer Profile Lead Rank 226

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AUGUST 14, 2012

Research: Learn more about your competition and your customers’ market sectors by setting up a regular process of quick research on Twitter, LinkedIn Answers, Focus, Quora, SalesGurus and other places your buyers are, and tie that in with either Google alerts or a strong Inbound program to learn about customer segments.

Social Media 233

Social Media B2B Strategy Media 233

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JANUARY 31, 2014

Have a note pad at your desk or use a tool like Evernote to track every commitment in one place. Customize your CRM for your sales team so that they don’t need lots of keystrokes to get data entered and updated. Get your sales force on tools that save time, such as Timetrade (for booking appointments or demos).

Opportunity 227

Opportunity Webinar Metrics Lead Rank Lead Scoring 227

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MAY 30, 2013

It is time to review how a customer experiences your brand says IBM. A shocking statistic of $83B lost each year in poor customer experiences. They conduct analysis of customer insights. Finally, they take a broader view of the customer experience , beyond just marketing. Creating a consistent customer experience.

Marketing 241

Marketing Lead Rank Lead Scoring Survey 241

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MAY 10, 2013

We included it because I’m crazy about LinkedIn as a sales tool, and because LinkedIn and I go way back – nine years, in fact. What I liked about LinkedIn then is what I continue to like about it as a tool for those in business -. I’m glad that it was figured out along the way, because LinkedIn is my go-to-tool.

LinkedIn 206

LinkedIn Lead Rank Hiring Webinar Metrics 206

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SEPTEMBER 6, 2012

Now, keynoting about enchantment (title of his 10 th book), Guy reminded the audience of IBMers, customers, and guests on simple things, like creating the foundation to become an enchanting company or have an enchanting product: - Achieve Likability. The time of the Chief Executive Customer has arrived. Achieve Trustworthiness. -

Influencer 187

Influencer Case Study Enterprise Enterprise 187

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FEBRUARY 21, 2014

Now we are a mobile society of sellers and we need tools that are simple and easy to use. That doesn’t mean stop putting content out there – because through LinkedIn, and Twitter, and other social sites you can share ideas and add value to potential buyers, partners, and customers which will lead them to your site and your world.

Lead Rank 231

Lead Rank Lead Scoring Microsoft Twitter 231

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OCTOBER 15, 2014

Listen for disgruntled customers of your competitors. Verizon regularly looks for unhappy customers of competitors and tries to connect with them on Twitter (according to Kashmir Hill of Forbes.com.) AT&T has a Twitter account called @ATTDeals that targets their competitors’ displeased customers. read the article here.

Social Selling 223

Social Selling Company Ideal Customer Profile Twitter 223

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OCTOBER 3, 2014

The first tip in email productivity I’d share is to use a tool like Sidekick , Yesware , Toutapp or Vision. These will help you stay on top of email and know when your buyer or customer has opened the email you have sent. It has happened to me, and I still remember the specifics surrounding a couple of glaring situations.

Survey 279

Survey Ideal Customer Profile Twitter Inside Sales 279

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JUNE 2, 2014

There is one, and I was reminded of it last week at InsideSales ‘ customer conference Accelerate ’14 in lovely Park City, Utah. There are dialing technologies, CRM technologies and thousands of sales tools to help in every aspect of the buying journey. You can’t improve what you don’t measure.

InsideSales 221

InsideSales Lead Rank Lead Scoring Ideal Customer Profile 221