When They Google Will You Be There?

February 2, 2012 – 11:14 am

I’m not sure ANYTHING could be more obvious.  Before your customer buys, he or she – 100% of the time – will search the internet for information.

If you’re NOT there, you’re NOT part of the decision process.

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By Todd Youngblood | Posted in E-Rep | Tagged , , , | Comments (0)

Could it be any more obvious?

January 24, 2012 – 4:37 pm

Every sales professional must have an e-Rep for two fundamental reasons:

  1. When a customer or prospect does an internet search, if you’re not there, your competition will be.
  2. Time.  You don’t have enough.  Your customers don’t have enough.  An e-Rep save lots and lots of time.

To reiterate…

100% of the time, customers will search the internet at the beginning of their buying process.  If your e-Rep is not there when they search, YOU are NOT part of that process.

How many times do you repeat the same value proposition, address the same objection, deliver the same product/service overview presentation?  Takes time.  And do your customers have time to listen precisely when you are available?  No.  …but your e-Rep is there 24 X 7 X 365.  And your customer doesn’t have to try to accurately repeat what you said.  Your e-Rep does so perfectly every time.

Every professional sales person must have an e-Rep.

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By Todd Youngblood | Posted in E-Rep | Tagged , , | Comments (2)

Challengers 39; Relationship-Builders 7

January 19, 2012 – 6:23 pm

As a sales pro, which team would you rather join? The one that scores 39 points or the one that can only score 7? (And does it make you a bit uncomfortable to reject relationship-building as your strategy of choice?

Let’s back up a bit and consider the old saw, “In God we trust, all others bring data.” In my experience, virtually all decision-making executives have it burned into their brains. It’s therefore also burned into my brain.

So here’s some data that has captured my attention BIG TIME. It’s a continuing analysis, including more than 6,000 sales reps across a wide array of industries. The research exceeds all standards of scientific rigor and statistical significance. It concludes there are five types of sales reps, with super-star reps spread across the five groups as follows:

  • 39% – The Challenger
  • 25% – The Lone Wolf
  • 17% – The Hard Worker
  • 12% – The Reactive Problem Solver
  • 7% – The Relationship Builder

Two questions leap to mind immediately:

  1. What are the characteristics of a challenger rep?
  2. Is my focus on relationship-building misguided?

According to Matthew Dixon and Brent Adamson in The Challenger Sale, a Challenger:

  • Always has a different view of the world
  • Has a deep understanding of the customer’s business
  • Loves to debate
  • Constantly pushes customers our of their comfort zones mainly by taking control and discussing money

Think about some of the implications… Constantly debate and challenge the all-knowing customer’s view of the world? Know as much or more about the customer’s business than the decision-makers and influencers do? Spend your life causing discomfort for your customers? Yes, yes and yes.

Is this a book you need to read and think about deeply? YES!!!

And relationship-building? Relax. It’s still vital. Just recognize that being good at it is nothing more than a baseline job requirement, NOT something that will set you apart.

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By Todd Youngblood | Posted in Differentiation | Tagged | Comments (0)

Discovery: BEWARE! It ain’t the same!

January 12, 2012 – 4:44 pm

Asking deep, penetrating questions, then listening intently, really hearing the customer’s perspective, have long been the core best practices of great salespeople.  The context has always been “understand the customer’s requirements, issues, objectives and pain points.”  Personally, I’ve long been proud of my ability to ask good questions and to listen carefully.

Then I got to thinking about progress and obsolescence.  Is there a better way?

Listen to my musings and let me know what you think…

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By Todd Youngblood | Posted in Process Thinking | Tagged , , , | Comments (0)

Please stop

December 14, 2011 – 1:22 pm

Brace yourself. The sentence in the next paragraph has been specifically designed to make you uncomfortable, trigger your gag reflex and cause you to roll your eyes uncontrollably. Ready?

We are an innovative, market leading, premier provider of high quality, customer focused solutions, reliably delivered through trusted partnerships grounded in our rich history of great service and superior people.

Are you OK? Able to continue? I know, reading that clap-trap all lumped together in the context of a blog post, exposes a whole collection of company-describing words as meaningless drivel. You’re embarrassed for the knucklehead who would try to pass that sort of trite, cliche-ridden, totally undifferentiated nonsense off as a “value proposition.”

Speaking of value propositions… Any of those words or phrases on your web site? Or in any of your proposals? Or plastered on your sales collateral? Or pop out of your mouth during sales calls?

Using any of them one at a time or in different combinations does not make them any less pathetic. Please stop. Please delete those words and phrases from your marketing materials and stop uttering them yourself.

You’re better than that. You know that deep down inside customers don’t care about you. They don’t care about your products. They don’t care about your services. They don’t care about your company. They’re in the money-making business. Your value propositions talk cash.

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By Todd Youngblood | Posted in Differentiation | Tagged , | Comments (0)

Nurturing a Business Relationship

December 9, 2011 – 6:40 pm

Sometimes a picture is worth a thousand words.

We all know that nurturing business relationships is vital to sales.  Everything gets a little easier when there’s a good relationship.  Mistakes get forgiven faster – even ignored – when there’s a good relationship.  All of your ideas – at a minimum – get a serious hearing when there’s a good relationship.

So here’s some evidence that a business talk radio show is an awesome tool for nurturing business relationships.

Take a look at the decision-making executive in the first photo.  (Cindy MacPherson, a partner with The Interior Partners, an extremely successful interior design firm primarily serving the construction industry out of Atlanta.)

  1. Is she out of her normal element?  Yes.  This is a seasoned exec in the interior design business after all, wearing the clunky headphones, with a microphone in her face surrounded by a bunch of high tech equipment & sound absorption panels and enduring decorations chosen by two style-challenged radio guys.
  2. Is she having a positive, fun experience?  Obviously, yes.

And that’s the key.  A positive, fun experience translates into a memorable, positive experience.

Cindy will retain that memorable, positive vibe regarding her marketing services provider.  That would be Carol Flammer of the Atlanta Real Estate Forum.  (With me in the second photo, and my client.)  There we sit; elbow to elbow; as a host/co-host team;  intently focused on serving her client.  (Or in my case, the client’s client.)

And that’s the key for my business.

My partner and I are not a pair of vendor guys in this scenario.  We’re our client’s partners.  We’re actively helping Carol deepen a business relationship with her client; our client’s client. Think that helps us solidify our business relationship with Carol???

Think about it…

NOTE:  Out of deference to my readers, a photo of my Dreamland Radio partner, Todd Schnick, who has the classic face-made-for-radio, has not been included in this post.

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By Todd Youngblood | Posted in Radio | Tagged , , | Comments (2)

Silver or Electronic?

November 29, 2011 – 11:13 am

You tell me…  Is it better to be a silver-tongued devil?  Or an electronic-tongued devil?

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By Todd Youngblood | Posted in E-Rep | Tagged , , , | Comments (0)

Huh? What?

November 17, 2011 – 9:31 pm

Whenever I use the either of the terms “Content Marketing” or “e-Rep,” I often get that, “Huh? What?” response. On the one hand, that delights me. Intelligent Content Marketing deployed via an e-Rep is quickly emerging as an extremely powerful sales and marketing strategy, and YPS is well-versed in helping folks apply it as part of an overall, disciplined process. This ought to turn into a heck of a profitable line of business for us!

On the other hand it dismays me.

How can such a simple concept, implementable using widely available, mostly free, “cloud” resources combined with the existing knowledge and experience of your team be so painfully ill-understood? Can I afford to wait around for demand to build up? Obviously not. So here’s a thought…

Sign up for this free course in Content Marketing. As you progress through it, keep three things clearly in mind:

  1. Absorb, retain and apply all the free insight into the power of Content Marketing
  2. Recognize that the course itself is a component of our e-Rep. In other words, we’re providing value to you, at your convenience, at no cost via my “electronic alter-ego.” Hopefully that will boost our credibility with you a bit, and enhance our business relationship with you a bit.
  3. How can you use your content, deployed via a similar e-Rep, to establish and develop relationships with your customers and prospects?

Sign up here. Learn, absorb and apply on your own. And someday – maybe – buy a bunch of services from The YPS Group e-Rep.

Think About It…

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By Todd Youngblood | Posted in E-Rep | Tagged , | Comments (0)

To win the “Race Against The Machine,” build an e-Rep

November 14, 2011 – 10:04 pm

The evidence builds.  It becomes more and more clear all the time how computers, networks and “The Cloud” are steadily taking over more and more tasks up to now performed by humans.

And it’s not just mundane, low-skill tasks.  It’s also highly specialized, high knowledge-content work that takes years of study and a ton of experience to master.  (Golly whiz, sounds a bit like high-end sales, doesn’t it?)

Sales professionals cannot afford to ignore this trend.  Watch my mini-rant and let me know if you agree.

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By Todd Youngblood | Posted in E-Rep | Tagged , , , , | Comments (2)

The fundamental core of differentiation and greatness

November 4, 2011 – 8:49 am

“To be really great in little things, to be truly noble and heroic in the insipid details of everyday life, is a virtue so rare as to be worthy of canonization.”

–Harriet Beecher Stowe, American writer

My RSS reader threw the above quote right in my face this morning.  Now, as I reflect back on yesterday – and how I:

  • Whined about totally re-arranging the equipment configuration in our Dreamland Radio studio 20 minutes before an important interview to get a tad better audio quality (The sound quality IS a tad better now.)
  • Got annoyed at my business partner’s scowl when we realized I’d forgotten to bring in a new batch of microphone sanitizers, again…
  • Re-sent an audio file to a client because the first version still had the pre-show briefing at the front end (Hey, the interview itself at least was edited flawlessly)
  • Forgot to stop the pendulum on my prized chime clock which hangs in The YPS Group’s test studio.  Of course, it struck 4 exactly in the middle of a client’s perfectly articulated statement.
  • Realized I hadn’t returned a client’s phone call at the end of crazy busy day (Talked to him this morning and he said it was no big deal.)

I realize, I’ve still got a long way to go.  How many little details did you miss yesterday?

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By Todd Youngblood | Posted in Differentiation | Tagged , , | Comments (0)