How To Replace Cold Calling With Warm Instructions

Jamie Shanks

Cold calling is often cited as one of the least-favorite activities salespeople take part in. Even seasoned members of the sales team can feel a touch of anxiety and uncertainty when faced with a prospect’s name, contact info, and not much else. It is a time-proven method of drumming up business, however, and remains a staple for many sales teams.

The key to successful cold calling is to warm up your conversations with relevance and context, but how? Salespeople need to adopt a different approach to making the first move with a new, unfamiliar customer – one that provides better insights into potential customers. Cold calling success requires that both sales leaders and sales reps overcome five major obstacles.

Obstacle #1

Challenge: Not knowing how you’re connected with prospects, decreasing their trust.

Solution: Professional social networking sites such as LinkedIn allow you to see the business contacts you have in common with prospects, making you less of a stranger. This can help potential customers be more open to you and your services. With any luck, you’ll be able to identify former or current clients of yours who are also connected to your prospect, and are willing to put in a good word for you.

Obstacle #2

Challenge: You can’t get a comprehensive view of your prospect’s mindset.

Solution: Social Selling allows you to see 360-degree information about prospects before you ever call them. Learn professional insights from their LinkedIn profile, and identify specific needs from Twitter posts. After perusing the public information available on a potential customer’s social media profiles, you can merge the information you find into a unified concept of the prospect’s wants and needs. This puts the product or service you’re selling into the proper context for the prospect, creating the kind of relevance that allows you to increase sales opportunities up to 20 percent and close deals faster.

Obstacle #3

Challenge: Limited ability to control access to contact data across departments, teams, and individuals.

Solution: Social Selling can eliminate the lost time incurred when members of the sales team need to share information about prospects or collaborate on a project. With so much data available on the web, there’s less need to wait for another team member to get back to you with customer info. You can find a lot of information by simply searching through their social media profiles and getting a good feel for the prospect.

Obstacle #4

Challenge: You don’t know why the prospect needs you.

Solution: Of course your prospects could benefit from the product or service you’re selling, but if you can’t explain to them exactly why, you could lose the sale. Social Selling allows you to more fully understand how your solutions fit into a potential customer’s life. Once you have a firm grasp of the specific benefits you can offer prospects, you can better explain them to your prospects.

Obstacle #5

Challenge: Knowing too much.

Solution: People can share a lot of personal information online. However, no matter how open they are, using too much of that info during the initial contact can come off wrong, and prospects may feel like their privacy has been violated. Instead of bringing up specifics, use the insights you gain to customize your message so the prospect feels like your solutions suit their circumstances.

The cure for the common cold

Social Selling is the cure for the common cold call. Businesses have access to an unprecedented volume of sales data through social media. From general public opinions and trends to conversations about specific companies and products, companies can gain valuable insight into potential customers from the millions of tweets, status updates, and “likes” produced every day. If you can harness this information and apply it effectively, you can both shorten and sharpen the your buyer’s journey, even before first contact.

- See more at: http://www.salesforlife.com/sales-advice/how-to-replace-cold-calling-with-warm-instructions/?utm_campaign=Daily+Blog+Post&utm_source=hs_email&utm_medium=email&utm_content=23139223&_hsenc=p2ANqtz--ghX0KBzALsTc6ssqza866jd_c6Tfj-2rI4Dommx4HRvvOLyu2kngJF3V1acXjZgxRtgI4Vxhf2IeqcDYM09ikZIhA-g&_hsmi=23139223#sthash.n21hDhJK.dpuf

13 LinkedIn Mistakes That Could Cost You A Prospect

Jamie Shanks

All the leads you need are on LinkedIn. You can contact anyone, even CEOs, and arrange personal introductions. Why would you want to screw that up? Nobody does – yet common mistakes keep occurring. LinkedIn is the largest professional network but many salespeople make major mistakes including poor photos, bad headlines, irrelevant experience, etc. This is detrimental to your personal brand because your prospects are online doing their research on you. Don’t expect to make a great first impression if you’re committing these big LinkedIn profile no-no’s. Fix these 13 unlucky errors and watch your LinkedIn leads bloom like four-leaf clovers.

1. Bad Photos

Everyone has bad photos — they just don’t post them. Review what not to do in your LinkedIn photo and what the most common mistakes are. Then take a look at best practices for the perfect photo by using factors like your awesome smile, eye contact, and professional background. Look like the Social Selling star you are.

2. Self-Centric Headlines

You have 120 characters to generate intrigue. Talking about yourself won’t do it. Write a customer-centric headline where you condense your value proposition into a single phrase. Spend the time to get it right because you’ve got to pause the glance. Most importantly your headline should speak to how you can help your prospects and not just “Account Executive @ Company ABC.”

3. Boring Summaries

People judge books by their covers – and with over 300 million people on LinkedIn, there’s barely time to skim all the best covers to find the best books. A summary that offers value shows respect for the limited time of your future customers. Give them a reason to believe. On the flip side, not having a summary or having a summary that doesn’t include your value proposition, relevance to your prospects or a clear call-to-action then you’re missing out on new potential customers.

4. Random URLs

Do you introduce yourself as Your Name/pub/52/43b/ab4? Let’s hope not. It only takes a few seconds to create a recognizable Custom URL so prospects can find you. Edit your profile, go to “your public profile URL,” and then claim your name.

5. Too Few Connections

Do you have half a thousand connections? Why not? LinkedIn becomes valuable only as you build connections. Work a little bit on this project every week. This is the new ABCs of Social Selling: Always be connecting. Make it a routine to build new relationships each day that can potentially lead to your next opportunity.

6. Not Posting

Elevators are awkward when nobody wants to talk. Don’t turn your profile into an elevator. Prospects look for someone with something interesting to say. Create, curate, or comment, but you need to join the conversation. Work with marketing to help get the right digital assets that will drive more sales conversations.

7. Blank Backgrounds

Do you have a plain white business card with black letters? That worked in the 1950’s. Your LinkedIn profile needs a relevant and dramatic background image to distinguish your personal brand.

8. Staying Static

If pictures are worth a thousand words, quickly add up in your head how many words you can deliver with a video running at 24 frames per second. Your visual interest meter will peg when you add video and motion media to your profile like interviews, explainers, and narrated slideshows.

9. Going Off-Topic

It’s really nice to know that you were field-trained in lion taming while on safari. Show why it matters for sales, or get rid of it. No one has time for irrelevant experience in a professional environment. Especially if you worked at a fast food restaurant during your time in university, do yourself and your prospects a favor and remove anything that lacks relevancy.

10. Being a Lone Wolf

You don’t have any recommendations? Really? Social proof is all about trust and every professional has success stories. Contact good customers and ask politely for brief recommendations. If they are too busy, offer to draft samples for them.

11. Skipping the Proofreader

Your-you’re, than-then, active-passive – how do you remember it all? You’re in sales, not grammar school. Good writers have great editors. Have a grammar expert proofread your profile for the tiniest mistakes. If you’re sloppy with grammar, how can you be trusted with a multi-million dollar sales contract?

12. Accidental Stalking

They can see you, you know. Every time you view a LinkedIn profile, that person will see you under Who’s Viewed Your Profile. It’s one thing to stay on top of the prospects mind, but you don’t want to look desperate. Search anonymously or sign out if you need to go back to the prospect’s public profile. However seeing who has viewed your LinkedIn profile can be a very powerful tool. It’s a great opportunity to see if prospects can landing on your profile and if they are, don’t hesitate to reach out.

13. Neglecting to Optimize

What is a profile? Essentially, it’s a web page. Like all web pages, your profile should be optimized so prospects can find it easily. Mix Twitter-specific keywords with Facebook-specific topics to cover all your bases.

- See more at: http://www.salesforlife.com/linkedin/13-linkedin-mistakes-that-could-cost-you-prospect/?utm_campaign=Daily+Blog+Post&utm_source=hs_email&utm_medium=email&utm_content=22959330&_hsenc=p2ANqtz-_wkKzK_4Q5OQtdZbp2-xn-ljAASECocQhUr-9b1pbBiRFQboyEYSQvQfPq1uXa3j5fKpA8ChL3B4ifABTI0WpCtTuAEw&_hsmi=22959330#sthash.IgOmsbHn.dpuf

7 email mistakes that Salespeople should avoid - Cleaning Support Services

source: http://www.salesforlife.com/sales-advice/7-email-mistakes-salespeople-should-avoid-when-pitching/?utm_campaign=Daily+Blog+Post&utm_source=hs_email&utm_medium=email&utm_content=22765759&_hsenc=p2ANqtz-8WymrZVoBoa_9yAa9uic-J7l7Rsu6zB-ZYh96qITRY-zYZ48jqyiRGKVXB4NtFI8B7DtytHKhlsdGlg42bR7_-YzRNNw&_hsmi=22765759

In today’s competitive business environment, it is critical that salespeople leverage all available channels to connect with prospects. One often overlooked sales tool is email pitching. Despite commonly quoted statistics indicating around 99 percent of email campaigns are unsuccessful, this channel can be a powerful technique to initiate a mutually beneficial dialogue — but only if done correctly.

Here are seven critical mistakes salespeople make that dramatically decrease the value of their email communications.

1. Boring and Irrelevant Subject Line

The subject line of your email will either encourage your prospect to open and read it, or immediately trash it. Make it interesting and pertinent to their business. Jill Konrath, award-winning sales thought leader and author of Selling to Big Companies, advises using a subject line that is company-specific – such as including the name of an employee referrer or an exclusive factoid of interest. Avoid salesy subject lines that offer services or promote your product.

2. Content Isn’t Personalized

Templates are the downfall of many an email campaign. Kendra Lee, founder of sales and consulting firm KLA Group and author of The Sales Magnet, expounds the importance of crafting relevant emails that speak their language. After making an initial connection with the prospect, clearly demonstrate the research you’ve done to show you understand the company’s business. Use a conversational tone. Make sure your email is addressed to an appropriate individual, and signed by you personally with your contract information.

3. Emails Are Too Long

You have less than 20 seconds to catch a decision-maker’s attention when they open your email. Mark Wayshak, sales strategist and author of Game Plan Selling, reminds us that emails should be sent with the sole goal of eliciting a response – not educating a prospect, not building a relationship, and not making a sale. The ideal pitch email should contain 3-6 sentences and should focus on the company and its needs.

4. Emails Are Too Promotional

Don’t launch into a pitch about the benefits of your product – you’re simply trying to pique a prospect’s interest. Kendra Lee reiterates, “The only way they’re going to pay attention is if they see an immediate benefit that relates to them.” Try describing the experience of similar companies facing comparable challenges, and the results your partnership helped them achieve.

5. Call to Action Is Too Complex

Remember, all you’re looking for at this point is the initial bite. Nobody wants to sign up for a lengthy webinar or presentation that screams “I’m Selling!” Instead, focus on providing something of value to the prospect. Sam Laber, director of marketing at sales intelligence platform company Datanyze, agrees. He reiterates the importance of ensuring prospects understand exactly what action to complete after reviewing emails, such as responding to the email to receive relevant white paper data.

6. Poor Follow-Up Strategy

Nothing alienates a prospect more than excessive follow-up (or spamming). Worse is the salesperson who sends an email pitch and never follows up at all. An email campaign’s success relies heavily on the follow-up tactics used by the salesperson. Kendra Lee recommends cold calling prospects a few days after the email is sent, while Jill Konrath reiterates the importance of providing business value in every follow-up interaction.

7. Not Testing Various Approaches

It takes practice and analysis to determine what components of an email campaign work and what should be improved. Kendra Lee reminds us to “test and test again.” Only by trying out new subject lines, content, openings, closings, length, and other details can salespeople better understand what translates into higher rates of conversion.

Take the time to develop personal and valuable emails that demonstrate your understanding of a prospect’s business. Leveraging email pitches as an opportunity rather than annoyance will help you achieve your sales goals.

- See more at: http://www.salesforlife.com/sales-advice/7-email-mistakes-salespeople-should-avoid-when-pitching/?utm_campaign=Daily+Blog+Post&utm_source=hs_email&utm_medium=email&utm_content=22765759&_hsenc=p2ANqtz-8WymrZVoBoa_9yAa9uic-J7l7Rsu6zB-ZYh96qITRY-zYZ48jqyiRGKVXB4NtFI8B7DtytHKhlsdGlg42bR7_-YzRNNw&_hsmi=22765759#sthash.giuFRMTi.dpuf

3 THINGS YOU NEED TO KNOW WHEN A COMPANY HIRES NEW EMPLOYEES.

3 THINGS YOU NEED TO KNOW WHEN A COMPANY HIRES NEW EMPLOYEES.

 1. . EXPANSION. No company will hire new employee if they’re not expanding. Hiring employees only mean that the business is boosting up productivity that they need more people to do more tasks in order to deal with the fast-paced changing, growing and challenging environment of BUSINESS.

2. OVERLOOKING. When a business overlooks future dealings, the company is more likely getting a firm strategies to surpass future problems. Hence, overlooking these possible predicaments by hiring new people in a certain position will prevent them from downfall.

3. HUMAN RESOURCE DEVELOPMENT. There could be this usual feeling when the CEO, Supervisors, Leaders and Managers want to get more people who are perfectly fit for a position which will help them to sustain their business.

TIPS FOR A WELL-OPTIMIZED WEBSITE CONTENT

Is your last website track lost thousands of visitors? Are you creating content which has no specific readers? Well, you might be needing some guidance to create content that will drive your readers to your website.

TOP 4 MARKETING STRATEGIES USED BY MARKETERS - reported by Gigaom

Email Marketing - 86%
Social Media -72%
SEO - 70%
Content Marketing 64%

Comapnies with small budget spen more on content marketing. GIGAOM research reports small companies spend 28% of their budget in content marketing.

Well, let's get started with Creating Great Content!

There are two things to keep in mind before writing.

1. Your Goal.
- Ask yourself what is your goal? What is the purpose of writing a particular article?
- Raise awareness
- Building email list
- Up-sell / Cross-Sell
- Convert Visitors to Customers

2. Mission Statement
- What is your mission statement?
- know your type of audience
- write the best compelling message to your audience
- educate your audience

BIG QUESTIONS among writers for Content?

WHERE TO FIND INFORMATION FOR CONTENT?

Now, that's exactly a good question. There are several places to gather essential and worthy information. Some of the great content sources are:

* Blogs
* e-newsletters
* Infographics
* In person Events
* White papers
* Podcasts
* Videos
* Web Contents
* Print magazines

Your audience likes to read contents in different ways. Use different ways to serve your contents. Make it fresh. Make it specific. Make it intriguing and make sure your educate readers.

Creating Contents For Audience Engagement

* Be original
- Search engines love original contents. Copying other content won't help instead it dilutes content value and website rank.

*Actionable Content
- Make actionable contents for audience. The readers should know how to apply the information you provide.

FACT: 80% OF AUDIENCE JUDGE THE ARTICLE BY ITS HEADLINE

* Be answerable
- People use search engines in search of answers. The same psychology is applicable when people read web contents. Your content should deliver answers to questions.

* Content Headline
- Create click worthy title. Right after reading the headline audience will decide whether the content worth reading or not.

* Accuracy & Information source
- Provide accurate information in your content. Inaccuracy can harm your company reputation - and it will de-brand your company's on-line presence. Mention information source and link it to them. Linking to quality source brings trustworthiness.

* Exciting & Inspiring
Exciting and inspiring contents boost user engagement. Create promising introduction, leave your reader with a question, and include a story that teaches a lesson.

* Short but pointed Content
-   A longer content doesn't mean it's better. Make it short but straight to the point content, Make the content answerable and actionable.

SIMPLE RULES FOR WRITING A GREAT CONTENT

* Content are for human not for search engine bots. It's never been.
* Grammatical errors and spelling errors damage reputation.
* Images are videos make your content much lively.
* Do not write anything which is not true.
* Get rid of too much marketing speech.
* Use subtitles in your contents.

What is Content Marketing anyway?

Defination by CMI or Conetnt Marketing Institute.

- " Content Marketing is a marketing technique of creating and distributing valuable, relevant and consistent content to attract and acquire a clearly defined audience - with the objective of driving profitable customer action."

PLATFORMS AND CHANNELS USED BY CONTENT MARKETERS

* Social Media Networks like Facebook, Twitter, Google+ and LinkeIn.
* Video channels like Youtube & Vimeo
* Image sharing Sites like Flickr and Instagram
* Communities like Pinterest Quora & Foursqure
* Content Sharing Sites like Slideshare, Tulr & Stumbleopun

TOP PLATFORMS AND CAHNNELS

* FACEBOOK - 90 %
* LinkeIN - 83 %
* Google+ - 41%
* Twitter - 80%
* Youtube - 65%
* Pinterest - 26%

http://blog.red-website-design.co.uk/2015/03/13/7-tips-for-creating-website-content-your-visitors-will-love/

Could Your Facebook Likes Be Used to Measure Your Intelligence?

Written by

Christian Rudder

Facebook released the Like button in 2009 and it changed the way people shared content.

The idea wasn’t new—once-popular, now marginal, sites like digg.com and del.icio.us had been letting people “like” articles for years before that. But at these companies, the content was the star. Facebook laid curation over an already robust social network and, for the content creators, made it simple for anyone to attach that iconic little thumbs-up to their work.

They created a new universal microcurrency—I might not pay you for your writing, music, or whatever, but I’ll give you a fillip of approval and share what you’ve done with my friends.

Facebook said in May 2013 that it was recording 4.5 billion likes a day and in September of that year reported that 1.13 trillion had been submitted all-time. Researchers started using that macro-level data to make predictions; students from MIT developed a gaydar algorithm that was pretty good at guessing a man’s sexuality.

Since then, the power of predictive software has advanced rapidly; these types of programs only get smarter and faster as more data becomes available. A group from the UK discovered that from a person’s likes alone they could figure out the following, with these degrees of accuracy: Whether someone is . . .

• Caucasian or African American: 95%
• A man or a woman: 93%
• Gay or straight: 88%
• Democrat or Republican: 85%
• Lesbian or straight: 75%
• A drug user: 65%
• The child of parents who got divorced before he or she turned: 60%

Again, this is not from looking at status updates or comments or shares or anything that the users typed. Just their likes.

You know the science is headed to undiscovered places when someone can hear your parents fighting in the click-click-click of a mouse. A person’s “like” pattern even makes a decent proxy for intelligence—this model could reliably predict someone’s score on a standard (separately administered) IQ test, without the person answering a single direct question.

This stuff was computed from three years of data collected from people who joined Facebook after decades of being on Earth without it. What will be possible when someone’s been using these services since she was a child? That’s the darker side of the longitudinal data that I’m otherwise so excited about.

Tests like Myers-Briggs and Stanford-Binet have long been used by employers, schools, the military. You sit down, do your best, and they sort you. For the most part, you’ve opted in. But it’s increasingly the case that you’re taking these tests just by living your life. And the results are there for anyone to read and judge. It’s one thing to see that someone’s Klout score is 51 or whatever in advance of a job interview. It’s another to know his IQ.

If employers begin to use algorithms to infer how intelligent you are or whether you use drugs, then your only choice will be to game the system—or, to borrow wording from the corporate world, “manage your brand.” To beat the machine, you must act like a machine, which means you’ve lost to the machine. And that’s all assuming you can guess at what you’re supposed to do in the first place.

Apparently, one of the strongest correlates to intelligence in the research was liking “curly fries.” Who could reverse-engineer that? But while Facebook does know a lot about you, it’s more like a “work friend”— for all the time you spend together, there are clear limits to your relationship.

Facebook only knows what you do on Facebook. There are many places with much deeper reach. If you have an iPhone, Apple could have your address book, your calendar, your photos, your texts, all the music you listen to, all the places you go—and even how many steps it took to get there, since phones have a little gyroscope in them. Don’t have an iPhone? Then replace “Apple” with Google or Samsung or Verizon. Wear a FuelBand? Nike knows how well you sleep. An Xbox? Microsoft knows your heart rate. A credit card? Buy something at a retailer, and your PII (personally identifiable information) attaches the UPC to your Guest ID in the CRM (customer relations management) software, which then starts working on what you’ll want next.

This is just a sliver of the corporate data state, the full description of which could take pages. For the government picture, a sliver is all I have, because that’s all we’ve been able to see of it. We do know that the UK has 5.9 million security cameras, one for every eleven citizens. In Manhattan, just below Fourteenth Street, there are 4,176. Satellites and drones complete the picture beyond the asphalt.

Though there’s no telling what each one sees, it’s safe to say: if the government is interested in your whereabouts, one sees you. And besides, as Edward Snowden revealed, much of what they can’t put a lens on they can monitor at leisure from the screen of an NSANet terminal, location undisclosed. Because so much happens with so little public notice, the lay understanding of data is inevitably many steps behind the reality.

I have to say, just pausing to write my book, I’m sure I’ve lost ground. Analytics has in many ways surpassed the information itself as the real lever to pry. Cookies in your web browser and guys hacking for credit card numbers get most of the press and are certainly the most acutely annoying of the data collectors. But they’ve also taken hold of a small fraction of your life, and for that small piece they had to put in all kinds of work.

No matter how crafty the JavaScript, they’re villains in the silent-film vein, all mustachios and top hats. Or, a more contemporary reference: they’re like so many pasty Dr. Evils—underworld relics holding the world hostage for one . . .million . . . dollars . . . while the billions fly by to the real masterminds, like Acxiom.

These corporate data marketers, with reach into bank and credit card records, retail histories, and government filings like tax records, know stuff about human behavior that no academic researcher, fishing for patterns on some website, ever could.

Meanwhile, the resources and expertise the national security apparatus brings to bear makes enterprise-level datamining software look like Minesweeper. This data, despite the “mining” metaphor, isn’t a naturally occurring resource; it comes from somewhere—and that somewhere is you. The companies and the government are collecting disparate pieces of your private life and trying to fashion them back into an image they can master.

The more privacy you lose, the more effective they are. The fundamental question in any discussion of privacy is the trade-off—what you get for losing it. We make calculated trades all the time. Public figures sell their personal lives to advance their careers. Anyone who’s booked a hostel in Europe or bought a train ticket in India has had to decide if the private room is worth the extra money.

And not to confuse the issue here, but many people, men and women, trade on privacy when they walk out the door in the evening, giving it away, via a hemline or a snug fit, for attention.

So the exchange isn’t new. But our trading partners, and their terms, are.

Christian Rudder is the author of "Dataclysm: Who We Are (When We Think No One's Looking)," published by Crown, a division of Penguin Random House.He is co-founder and former president of the dating site OkCupid, where he authored the popular OkTrends blog. 

SERVICE vs. SATISFACTION - How these two differ and how do they affect your sales?

SERVICE vs. SATISFACTION

www.consultantsincleaning.com  

They're not the same thing. Do you understand the difference?

Let me start by saying I am a firm believer that we should be in the customersatisfaction business and not just the customer service business. There really is a difference. Have you ever lost an account where you felt you were doing everything on the list of specifications, yet the customer canceled? "But the place is clean". Right, but the customer was not satisfied. A "small" thing like an employee complaining to the customer at night about a vacuum not working or that they never get enough time to clean the area can lead to a customer cancellation.

Customer service is is the first step towards success. Make your clients feel valued and appreciated by going the extra mile to serve them.

Customer satisfaction is the next step on your journey to success. Satisfied customers are the ones that will come back to (and refer) you.

Customer feedback is the last piece of the puzzle. Do you have a strategy in place for eliciting feedback from your customers?

Think about it. Ever been to a restaurant where the service was bad? You got your food, it was good, but oh, the waiter had an attitude that made you want to get up an leave. You see, that restaurant had service and good food but you left as an unsatisfied customer. They had the concept, but not the demonstration.

The same can happen in our business. We can clean well, but if we haven't installed a training program that teaches our employees proper customer relations, etc., we will lose customers.

I remember so well several years ago hearing Tom Peters give one of his famed lectures in which he stated, and I am paraphrasing here, "If your company needs to have customer service representatives, what are the rest of your people doing"?

My interpretation of that phrase was that everyone in the company should be focused on satisfying the customer, and you should not need designated individuals visiting the customer to see "how are we doing"? I am not saying you should not be visiting your customers to maintain an ongoing positive satisfactory relationship, but I am saying that if you are visiting them to check on the cleaning, somebody missed the boat. So many companies have "customer service representatives" that go to the accounts during the day to check the work. Shouldn't that be done when the work is being performed? I am sure I'll get some push back on this, but so it is.

In my opinion, if you are focused primarily on "doing the specifications" and providing service and not overall CUSTOMER SATISFACTION, your account turnover will be high. Want a phrase that will lose customers day after day? Here it is - ready? "THAT'S NOT IN THE CONTRACT." Know anyone in your company who has made that statement lately?

Let me suggest you make your company an organization focused on satisfying the customer, not just servicing the account. Do the proper training throughout the organization, and you'll see your account turnover reduced.