The Business Wise “Week in Twitter” Review

Posted on May 25, 2012 by bwisedeb

Does your Twitter feed feel like a hundred people are all yelling at you at the same time? Lucky for you, the week-long Twitter din is about to fade out, thanks to this week’s Business Wise “Week in Twitter” Review. So sit back, relax, and let this week’s sonorous selection of insightful and informative tweets whisper sweet nothings in your ear:

@B2BMKTGInsider: 11 Best Marketing Books for Your 2012 Summer Reading List tinyurl.com/7su3a44 – our beach reads always include a page-turner on content marketing

@KevinKennethLau: 3 Cheap Yet Effective Ways To Boost Your Social Media Marketing Campaign su.pr/2maHPD – cheap and effective? Sign us up!

@JamesBlute: 7 super easy to Follow Twitter Marketing Tips shar.es/2WnzC – great advice on how businesses can use Twitter effectively

@Crowdcontent: Content Marketing Lessons While Skydiving ow.ly/b75pp – re-examining stale business issues from a different angle always helps

@wittlake: Is Your #B2B Marketing Content Turning Away Prospects? Review of new research bit.ly/JznEIe #contentmarketing – insightful post about how to avoid innocent, but potentially harmful mistakes in content development

@HarvardBiz: Boringness: The Secret to Great Leadership s.hbr.org/Jolhxx – really funny article on what makes a good leader

Hear that? It’s the sound of your knowledge increasing. And it’s ever so peaceful. Follow @businesswiseinc or search the hashtag #BWiT to ensure the information you need is audible amid the clamor of your Twitter feed.

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The Business Wise “Week in Twitter” Review

Posted on May 18, 2012 by bwisedeb

After another week-long Twitter feeding frenzy, you’re pretty full. Of course, you’ve left just enough room for dessert: Business Wise’s “Week in Twitter” review. Enjoy the sweet morsels of business wisdom that came out of this week’s Twitter oven baked to perfection (they go great with a cup of coffee):

@whatcounts: What’s the daily secret for better email marketing? Find out: j.mp/JWOtHK — how blogging can improve your marketing content

@raintoday: Zombie Marketing: How Dead Marketing Ideas Still Walk Among Us ow.ly/aVzOB — it’s always good to ask whether the conventional wisdom still applies

@DrewMcLellan: Write the Way Your Prospects Talk lnkd.in/_c6QQ5 — while writing in plain, easy-to-understand language is never bad, thinking about the language your prospects use is a great idea

@HeinzMarketing: Five sources of sales resistance (and how to overcome them) heinzmkt.in/Kj6MW1 #FocusSQ – a helpful way to think about why prospects may be resistant to sales advances

@Eloqua: No need to panic! Why #email marketers don’t need to fear social media. elq.to/Hy6Rah #social — social media is a great new tool, but good old e-mail still gets the job done

@marketo: 5 Content Marketing Lessons from Gene Simmons of KISS goo.gl/fb/GUiDj — because we’re all rock stars at heart (or at least I am)

Well that was tasty–the perfect final course after another full week. Lucky for you, the Business Wise “Week in Twitter” review will be on the menu again next week. Follow @businesswiseinc or search the hashtag #BWiT to ensure you get the most delicious bites out of your Twitter feed.

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Mad Men, TV Ad Men, and *Real* Entertainment

Posted on May 16, 2012 by bwisedeb

Next week on Mad Men: Don, Peggy, and Pete overcome their personal failings, stop drinking on the job, and work together in a professional manner to grow their business. At the end of a hard but rewarding week, they participate in a team-building exercise before heading out for ice cream.

Okay, maybe that episode wouldn’t offer much drama–or ratings. But I’d watch it.

In our first Business Wise “Week-in-Twitter” review, we included a tweet from @copyblogger that included a link to an article about the new advertising reality show The Pitch and the concept of creativity in selling.

The piece got me thinking about how the advertising business is portrayed in popular culture–and how different that image is from the work you and I do every day in the real world of sales and marketing. Robert Bruce, the author of the Copyblogger piece, made excellent points about the popular notion of “creativity” in selling–and how at odds that notion is with the sales methods that actually work.

I love Mad Men. And while I admire the artistry and talent that go into creating the advertisements that win awards, I only love the marketing when it leads to sales. That’s why I go to the office every day, and leave TV and art museums for nights and weekends.

When I watch the marketing world, here’s what I see:

  • creepy sales guys
  • art directors that want to be the next Picasso
  • copywriters who dream of their best-selling novel
  • people consumed by a desire to push the creativity envelope–to do the next big thing rather than land the next big deal

And most ad agencies and PR firms do little advertising or PR for themselves, which should tell you something already.

B2B sales is less glamorous than all that, but can show the real value of how sales and marketing can work together to close deals and grow businesses. Now that’s entertaining.

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The Business Wise “Week in Twitter” Review

Posted on May 11, 2012 by bwisedeb

We made it, guys. After trudging through another week of seemingly endless tweets, we’ve arrived at the oasis that is the Business Wise “Week in Twitter” review. Unload that heavy pack, grab a seat in the shade, and quench your thirst for useful and interesting B2B material from this week’s pool of tweets:

@HubSpot: 9 essential components of fantastic email copy ow.ly/aHMak — thorough advice on writing effective marketing e-mails (particularly like the section on e-mail subject lines)

@MeltingPosts: 12 Things To Do After You’ve Written A New Blog Post goo.gl/VwXh3 — a nice list (with a cool graphic) of ways to expand the reach of your blog posts

@harvardbiz: How to Engage Your Customers and Employees s.hbr.org/J8uOq7 — a thought-provoking piece on what customers and employees respond to in today’s business environment, and how you can engage both groups

@B2BOnlineMktg: Revitalize Stale Email Marketing Campaigns ht.ly/1jATXz — you can never have too much advice on how to sharpen your e-mail marketing!

@MariSmith: 19 Ways to Build Relationships With Blog Comments bit.ly/JaAIq3 — great tips on making connections through blog comments, and a good reminder of the value of personal responsiveness

@AtlantaMagazine: Today in Atlanta History: The first glass of @CocaCola is served bit.ly/Jc88V2 — I think this company might hit the big time some day

Refreshing, isn’t it? Make sure to follow @businesswiseinc on Twitter–or search the hashtag #BWiT–to squeeze the most out of your saturated feed.

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The First Business Wise “Week in Twitter” Review

Posted on May 4, 2012 by bwisedeb

Feeling buried by your Twitter feed? Us too. It’s tough to keep up when so many potentially helpful links cascade away faster than our mouse can catch them.

We’re here to help. We’d like to present our first Business Wise “Week in Twitter” review, selecting the handful of links that came across our feed over the course of the week that we found most helpful, informative, or thought-provoking on issues relevant to our business–and, more importantly, to your business.

We’ll post our review every week here on the Business Wise blog. We’ll also tweet about it from @businesswiseinc (it’s a lot easier looking for one tweet than sifting through a million of them), and include the hashtag #BWiT so you can always find it.

Without further ado, here’s what rose to the top of the Twitterverse this week:

@copyblogger: Traditional Advertising is Truly Dead copy.bz/IFi8IZ — great post on the new advertising reality show The Pitch and the concept of creativity in selling

@pushingsocial: The Key to Writing Blog Posts That Get Noticed t.co/kTP25dbb — why blog posts that provide value to readers are always better than ones that just look good

@B2Community: Loyalty Test: Bad Customer Service t.co/cDeXxuqn — excellent snapshot (with graphics!) of the potentially far-reaching impacts of bad customer service

@Inc: Can you answer a 9 year old’s questions about what you do? If not, you’ve got a problem ow.ly/aFRxt — a good reminder to focus on clear and simple language rather than tired (and mind-numbing) business jargon

@InvokeSelling: Why Making Friends with the Gatekeeper is Useless goo.gl/rmQrY — yet another example of a “gatekeeper dilemma” you don’t need to have, especially with trustworthy data that can get you to the real decision makers!

@FastCompany: This Is Your Advertising Life Summed Up In Animated GIFs t.co/H8QbW1bi — just for fun…

That’s all for this week. Follow @businesswiseinc on Twitter–or search the hashtag #BWiT–to make sure you get the most out of your crowded feed.

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“You Don’t Know Me, But I Know Everything about You”: What Not to Say to Your Prospects

Posted on May 2, 2012 by Scott Leslie

A few months ago, I got a voicemail from a sales rep whose company shall remain nameless. It went something like this:

“Hi Scott, I just noticed that someone from there was taking a look at our website. I know they were looking at [this page and that page]. I’d like to know what we can help you with. Please call me and I’d be happy to answer your questions about our services.”

Later that day, I got an email from the same sales rep. It read:

I just wanted to follow up with you and answer any questions that you may have had. I will be in Atlanta on Monday and would be more than happy to come by. I can be there at 1:30 if that works for you.

Directly below this was a forwarded internal email with the ‘hot lead’ website visit info that included the tracking information details from our visit to their site.

Something about these messages rubbed me the wrong way. It wasn’t a privacy thing–smart companies should use website tracking tools to understand their prospects’ and customers’ priorities. And we know you know we’re on your site. But I was unsettled by the fact that the sales rep explicitly told me he’d been monitoring our activity on his company’s website–and actually forwarded me an example of the tracking information he had. I’m not sure I want to go into business with Big Brother.

Nevertheless, the experience was valuable, because it made me think about what would have been the right thing to do in that situation. A more constructive approach might have been for the sales rep to focus on the services his company can provide us rather than the behind-the-scenes information they have about us:

Hi Scott, I’m calling on behalf of [company] to let you know about some business-to-business services we provide that might be able to help you at Business Wise. We’ve helped other companies like Business Wise achieve great results, and would be excited about the opportunity to add value to your product. Let me know if you’d be interested in talking so I can tell you a little more about what we offer and answer any questions you might have.

More generally, the experience also emphasized how important it is to evaluate your prospecting strategies from the viewpoint of your prospects, and drove home the point that professionalism is always an effective strategy.

After receiving the messages, I wondered for just a moment if their sales approach was indicative of the service we’d receive if we were a customer. I guess we’ll never know.

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Thoughts from our CEO on our 32nd Anniversary

Posted on April 26, 2012 by bwisedeb

While my formal title is President, I’m a professional sales person at heart. After thirty-two years at Business Wise, and the prior eight at the Ohio Desk Company, I know from experience that nothing feels as good as that final handshake when you close a deal.

The simple grasp of a hand means months of hard work paying off. It means you’ve cemented another relationship and moved your business forward. And it means it’s time to move toward new challenges, new connections, and the next satisfying handshake.

The path to that next handshake starts with a plan and a process. Today, instead of the shoebox with three-by-five cards, we look to our CRM or internal prospect database–the sales and marketing “map.” But, what if your map is out of date? How long will it take you to reach your destination if the distance markings are inaccurate or the highway exits are mis-numbered?

Even for the best explorers, a map works better with a compass (for me, a GPS system works even better!). It’s no secret that trustworthy data remains at the heart of what Business Wise provides. At the same time, you need more than data alone. You need to create connections–meaningful ones–that translate into strong business relationships and closed deals.

You deserve more than a trustworthy database. You deserve to know that we understand your business development goals, and what you need to achieve them. Recently we changed our tagline to “Trustworthy Data. Local Contacts. Successful Connections.” It reminds you and us that our work never ends.

Updates to the data continue on a daily basis. Contact names, email addresses, and firm demographics continue to change. For us “Wise Guys,” our challenge remains: help sales and marketing professionals motivate and succeed in making connections to grow new business.

As we celebrate our 32nd year, we continue to work with and motivate our valued subscribers toward their new business development goals. We will continue to make the business of doing business easier with ever-improving data and tools that are current, highly local, and responsive to your needs. We hope you’ll continue to tell us how to help you make meaningful connections and close deals. Let’s shake on it.

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Business Wise Insiders: Where the Sales Elite Are Invited to Disagree

Posted on September 30, 2011 by elissamancini

This morning Business Wise Insiders/Dallas met for its Inaugural Meeting. Invitations went to a potpourri of existing clients and prospects from industries including financial services, staffing, hospitality, banking, IT and insurance. Despite the differences in products, services and solutions, the common thread was readily apparent: we were all trained sales professionals and executives, outside our usual work zone with the ability to connect eye to eye for roughly 74 minutes.  I felt…camaraderie.

The topic of discussion this morning was “The Seven Winning Behaviors of Top Sales Performers.” With a room full of top-performing sales people one would think enumerating these behaviors would be a no-brainer.  Confidence? Relationship-building? Empathy? Nope. Turns out that while multiple qualities have value, they’re not the differentiators for top performance. Maybe it’s easier to be consciously competent than “unconsciously incompetent.” Or maybe it’s difficult to separate the good luck from the good behavior. Are we certain of the sales we make are because of what we do, or are in spite of what we do? The actual survey results were:

  1. Assertive
  2. Discovers Prospect Pain
  3. Cold Calls Consistently
  4. Plans the Sales Process
  5. Views Professional Sales as a Career
  6. Training Investor and Practitioner
  7. Role Plays Consistently

Participants’ reactions varied. Some were silent, some were compliant. But present in the eyes of several guests was just a hint of what generates much educated banter: disagreement.

A couple earnest voices rang out, “Cold calling doesn’t work!” and “Sales isn’t a respected career!” Other guests answered with their contradictory experience, “95% of my sales will come from cold calling this year!”  And there was that energy. The meeting of the minds where ideas are born and where people grab the opportunity to learn from each other. We hoped it would peek out this morning.

The point of Business Wise Insiders is to bring together sales professionals and executives from Best in Class companies to network and learn together in a forum where experience and education are prized. Build new relationships, develop referral opportunities, and maybe just do a little business at the end of the day.

P.S. Congratulations to Ms. Lucy Finger of Imprimis Group for winning our attendee drawing of a $20 Starbucks Gift Card. Hopefully she’ll use it to invite a new contact she met at Insiders to coffee!

If you weren’t able to join us this morning, plan to join us at future meetings. Our next Business Wise Insiders Meeting with be October 25th, from 7:30A-9:00A at 15851 Dallas Parkway, Suite 190, First Floor Conference Room, Addison, Texas 75001. Clients and invited guests only. This invitation is non-transferrable. If you have questions about our group, call 214-306-0605.

Insiders is a peer group of B2B sales professionals, committed to continuous professional improvement and success, who share an interest in new business development, exchanging leads and learning.

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Congratulations to Evan Lee from the Metro Atlanta United Way

Posted on September 16, 2011 by Lee Summey

Congratulations to Evan Lee from the Metro Atlanta United Way.  Evan won the monthly drawing ($20 Starbucks Gift Certificate) from the Business Wise Insiders attendee drawing.  Hopefully, he’ll choose to invite new found contacts for coffee and an opportunity to broaden referral opportunities.

 
Companies that invest in tools like Business Wise for their sales and marketing staff, tend to be best-in-class companies.  While I recognize that you’re the choir I’m preachin’ to, it’s important to remember that other BWise subscribers may serve as great referral sources for you.
 
In addition, you’ll discover tips from your peers on what’s hot, what’s not and what ideas work for new business development.  Several “how to” questions were answered today about BWise Mobile. Specifically, how to prepare a targeted list and then pull up the companies within a mile radius from your next appointment!
Great time saving ideas.
 
Business Wise Insiders meets at our office on the 2nd Tuesday of the month from 7:30 to 9AM . There’s no charge to BWise subscribers.  Join us!

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‘You cannot fail at prospecting unless you fail to prospect!’ – David Sandler

Posted on May 12, 2011 by Scott Leslie

As David Sandler says: ‘You cannot fail at prospecting unless you fail to prospect!’

Even with the best of intentions, however, accountability to prospect remains a problem:  it’s a problem for sales people to make sure they do enough of it and for sales managers to follow up on their sales people’s commitment to do it.

Here’s how BWise can help sales managers follow up on commitments made by sales people to prospect. (Yes guys, that means picking up the phone and making calls to your best prospects, over time, until they either buy or tell you to ‘go away’! )

Step 1: Ask your sales team to use the BWise Activity Manager to record calls to their top prospects.

Why record prospecting calls in the BWise Activity Manager and not your CRM? To keep your CRM clean and filled only with real opportunities.  Ask your team to only enter the prospect into your CRM once an appointment is set.  The BWise Research team will continuously update the prospect data in BWise, letting your sales people focus on making calls, vs. wasting time updating prospect data.

(For the sake of brevity, for we’ll assume your team has been trained on how to use the BWise Activity Manager to record their prospecting activity and is actively doing so!  To view a 10 minute video tutorial on how to record Prospecting Activities in the BWise Activity Manager, click here.

Step 2: View the # of appointments your salespeople set (which they record as ‘Completed Calls’ in BWise)

Here’s a step-by-step guide:

  1. Login to your BWise account. (here’s a handy link for you to do this right now!)
  2. Click Activities Manager.
  3. Click the Completed tab. (you would click the Follow Up tab to create a report of follow up prospecting calls vs. ‘Completed’ activities that resulted in an appointment)
  4. Click Find.  The Find Activities window will pop-up.
  5. Select User to a single, named user or leave it set to All Users if desired.
  6. Enter Completed Date range. (leave this blank to display ALL appointments recorded)
  7. In the Results section, check Set Appointment (Note: these Result values may be customized to match your preferred terminology under Admin tab; to display ALL types of results, leave all Result values unchecked.
  8. Click Accept.  A list of Completed prospecting activities will display in the Completed tab grid.
  9. If desired, click Exportto send this data to Excel.  That way, you can produce Pivot Tables, etc. to summarize this data. This is especially useful if you have a large amount of Activities data and wish to summarize data by user, Activity Result type, etc.(Note: When you attempt to open the file in Excel, a ‘security’ message may display, as Excel may not recognize it as a ‘true’ .XLS file file.  Go ahead and allow Excel to open the file. Then, be sure to do a ‘Save As’ in Excel, set File Type to Excel and Save the file to the desired folder.)

Filed under: Business Wisdom, Cool Features, Prospecting | Leave a Comment »

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