I just got another slap up-side the head

May 4, 2012 – 11:20 am

And so the lesson learned?  Actually, there were three.  First, don’t ever get cocky and think you’re above executing all the basic blocking and tackling.  Second, make sure your e-Rep is robust and continuously feeding meaty, valuable text, audio and video content to your constituents out there in cyber-space.  And third…

Never, never, never pass up an opportunity to get someone signed up for your e-newsletter.

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

Post, but first – PLEASE… Think!

April 19, 2012 – 6:00 am

Put yourself into the shoes of the decision-maker.  If you can skim through some text, or listen to a short audio or watch a quick video to acquire some chunk of information or garner a bit more insight into some topic, why on earth would you burn all the time required to have a face-to-face meeting?  You wouldn’t.

As a sales pro therefore, you must post text and/or audio and/or video – and lots of it – to provide that info and insight at the exact instant the buyer wants it. 

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

Seems pretty obvious to me…

April 18, 2012 – 7:26 am

Picture this…  A sales assistant who:

  • Is on-call 24 X 7 X 365
  • Flawlessly delivers each of your sales messages every time
    • To anyone
    • Anywhere
    • Any time
    • On demand
    • As many times as requested
  • Relentlessly “pulls” prospects into your sphere of influence
  • Nurtures relationships with all of your contacts
  • Works for free

Too good to be true? 

No.  Actually, it’s too obvious to ignore.  Consider the following definition:

e-Rep:   An e-Rep is a digital extension of the B2B sales professional; an “electronic alter-ego.” It is developed by continuously harvesting the knowledge, experience and insight of an individual, embedding that intelligence in an electronic format (text and/or image and/or audio and/or video) and distributing and promoting it via a wide variety of electronic media like web sites, blogs, e-newsletters, LinkedIn, Twitter, etc.

Why on earth would you not have your own e-Rep?  No matter how techno-phobic you are, you already have virtually all the skills required.  There’s a bit of start-up effort to get the thing launched, but after that it saves you time every day.

Simply put an e-Rep helps you sell more faster.

Get a copy of the e-Rep e-book now.  And sign up for this free e-newsletter to further boost your e-Rep knowledge and skills.

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

Publish or Perish, Baby…

April 4, 2012 – 5:40 pm

You simply MUST be there when they, the buyer, do a Google search.  To be there, you must publish.  You must continuously publish strong, compelling content that showcases your value at every stage of the customer’s buying process.

It’s just that simple.  Any questions?

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

THE really important equations

April 2, 2012 – 6:00 am

First, some math we can all understand:

  • (Much of) My Life = My Work
  • (Most of) My Work = Fun
  • Therefore, My Life = Mostly Fun

My Dreamland Radio business partner, Todd Schnick, recently wrote a post about the importance of having fun at work.  He’s so right.  (And truth be told, I’m a good bit better at doing so than he is.  Take that, TS!)

Carnitas de Marlin

Look at the picture to the right, and consider the following…  At Pyosa, my client of 2+ years in Monterrey, Mexico, it is traditional for a bunch of co-workers to celebrate a colleague’s birthday at a group lunch.  My main contact, the sales exec, had a birthday 4 days prior to my scheduled visit.  The guy postpones his celebration until the day I’m there, and then takes me and the gang to what he calls “The McDonalds of Mexico.”

And it actually does have some things in common with Mickey D’s.  Except that it’s a today-cool-decor place with professionally efficient, sit-down service and the food, traditionally prepared Mexican seafood, is downright A-W-E-S-O-M-E.

That’s me taking a bite of a Carnitas de Marlin.  “Delicioso taquito al grill de marlin abobado con queso gouda y pico de gallo.”  (The grip demonstrated with my left hand is technically and traditionally correct.  The right hand assist was flagged as “cheating by the Gringo loco.”  The red drink is hibiscus tea, better known as “Jamaica.”)

Horchata

Those who know me know that I rarely miss a meal, or a chance to taste something different.  The next pic is one of me trying Horchata.  That would be what’s left after soaking a pile of rice in water for a few days, filtering out the rice, adding what tasted like 8 or 9 pounds of sugar and putting it in a glass.

Looks like milk, but not even close.  Went amazingly well with the (what I insisted was an imported-from-America) ice cream covered brownie and the Mosta con Mango o Fresa.  That would be heart-healthy mangoes surrounded by whipped cream, some other stuff and what looked and tasted like a molasses-infused, Pennsylvania Dutch shoo-fly pie crust.

Aghhhhhh…..  My job “obligates” me to go back to Mexico next month to work with these people; Jose, Emilo, Jaime, Hugo, Alfredo, Antonio, David, Ramses, Rodolfo, Daryl and Lupita.

Sigh…  I guess we all have to “work.”

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By Todd Youngblood | Posted in Life | Comments (1)

Lie, Cheat And Steal

March 19, 2012 – 9:40 am

Well sort of anyway…  Recently did an interview with Jay McDonald, a successful serial entrepreneur, CEO and now Vistage Chair.  His version of “lie, cheat and steal” makes a ton of sense.

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

Build credibility BEFORE you meet the customer

March 16, 2012 – 1:07 pm

As a sales rep, you know better than anybody what your customers and prospects need to know. You’ve done your research. You know their issues, challenges and objectives. You know the value they could accrue by using your stuff. They just won’t take the time to meet with you and listen! Well, maybe it’s you that needs to listen up. I think there’s a question that needs answering…

Build credibility BEFORE you meet the customer.  Build an e-Rep.

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

MASSIVE “Establish Business Relationship” cycle-time reduction

March 12, 2012 – 5:02 pm

Every sales pro knows that establishing a solid, credible, cordial business relationship with the decision-maker is fundamentally essential for success.  Every sales pro also knows that doing so takes time – precious, fleeting, oh-so-valuable time.

Most business processes, being at their core pretty scientific, can be studied, dissected, and redesigned so that the cycle time for their execution can be dramatically reduced.  I’ve always firmly believed that this was true for all but one business process.  The exception being establishing a business relationship with an executive-level decision-maker.

Thankfully, I’m wrong.  Dead wrong. 

A business talk radio show can reduce the cycle time to less than an hour.  Invest an additional 50.39 seconds to listen to three audio-clips-worth of executive business relationships getting established.  The first clip is with a VP of Business Development for a major Control Systems Integrator.  (VPs of Business Development, by the way are my primary targets.)  My co-host and I met this gentleman face-to-face for the very first time roughly 25 minutes before the recording.

Note a few extremely significant facts:

  • The radio show guest – my prospect; the guy I want to buy from me – less than 30 minutes after shaking my hand for the very first time – is comfortable enough with me to take a cheap shot
  • He, me and my co-host have a hearty laugh at my expense
  • After the laugh, he and we immediately get back to discussing a serious business issue (…one that has high odds of leading to sale for us.)

The next clip is with the Chief Information Officer of major textile manufacturer.  The Proven Method, our client, is sponsoring a radio show to connect with CIOs, their target decision-makers.  My co-host and I had met this gentleman-and potential-customer’s-customer less than 10 minutes prior to the following recording.  (Note:  His name is Peter Appleyard.  We humans, due to our genetic/linguistic wiring, struggle mightily with pronouncing “er” when the next syllable happens to include the letters “p” and “l.”  I had to re-record the intro 3 times until I could spit out “Peter” vs. “Petel.”)

After our guest had the chance to chide me during the episode’s commercial break as you just heard; and after my intrepid partner had the opportunity to “scold” me for my mispronunciation, he did this….

Yeah, it’s the little things.  Little, interpersonal interactions that bring the decision-making-holder-of-the-deal-making-power into our close-the-deal world.  You just listened to Todd & I do it twice.  We got the opportunity to establish a strong business bond with both of these executives for two reasons.

  • We invited them to be guests on our own business talk radio show
  • The business talk radio show experience we gave them inevitably created a fun, memorable moment amidst the serious business at hand

What’s your lame excuse for not using this powerful selling tactic?

To get a more holistic (yet not quite the whole thing) feel of the business talk radio show selling strategy, listen to both of the complete, ready for prime time interviews here and here.

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

“GO VIRAL!!!” vs. “go viral”

March 6, 2012 – 3:52 pm

Get viewed by more than a million people in less than a week. That’s the generally accepted minimum for “going viral.” Let’s just go with that as a definition for now.

Going viral is the benchmark. It’s the essential badge of honor that differentiates between a legitimately talented marketer and a wanna’ be. If one of your blog posts or videos or pithily-captioned images or whatever hasn’t gone viral, don’t even try to pretend you really know what you’re doing.

The above paragraph is total bull&@%#.

As a B2B sales pro, I could care less about attracting the attention of a million people. I’m not selling to a million miscellaneous people. I’m selling to a meticulously selected few decision-swaying executives. Yes, I want my virus to be extremely virulent, but I only need it to infect that chosen few.

Am I suggesting you should repeatedly expend the considerable time and effort required to produce a set of digital pieces that effectively communicates your highly customized value proposition to only 3 or 4 key people for every significant opportunity you are pursuing? Yes!

Allow me to repeat. Yes. I am urging you to repeatedly expend the considerable time and effort required to produce a set of digital pieces that effectively communicates your highly customized value proposition to only 3 or 4 key people for every significant opportunity you are pursuing.

Think about the situation where 4 people in your customer will be deeply involved in making a decision about your proposal. One of those folks is your champion. You’ve never met two of them. Because of an odd set of circumstances a few years ago, the fourth thinks you’re a knucklehead.

It could take weeks – even months – to get appointments with them all. You might never get in front of #4.

What if?

What if you made a short video concisely articulating the guts of your value proposition including the financial impact, and laying out an implementation plan? Your champion, obviously, would look at it carefully. Your champion would also (at your request) forward it to the other three with a strong endorsement for moving forward.

Now it’s you and/or your team (via your e-Rep, a digital extension of yourselves) explaining the value and sorting through the complexity. You no longer need to depend on your champion to get it all communicated. And it all gets communicated right now instead of next week or next month.

As I might have mentioned, you need to repeatedly expend the considerable time and effort required to produce a set of digital pieces that effectively communicates your highly customized value proposition to only 3 or 4 key people for every significant opportunity you are pursuing.

go viral, my friend, go viral. Let others worry about the GO VIRAL thing.
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By Todd Youngblood | Posted in E-Rep | Tagged , , , , | Comments (0)

Fire all the sales managers?

February 29, 2012 – 9:52 am

It’s not a totally crazy idea.  It might even be where we’re inevitably headed.  In any case, it’s worth pondering, if for no other reason because doing so would remove so much expense from a business.  (Anybody need some extra cash to invest?)

In fact, what got me thinking about the possibility of eliminating sales management was being told by the CEO of one of my clients that he was going to ignore my suggestion to hire a sales manager.  ”Don’t need one,” he said.  ”My CRM system is my sales manager.  “Hmmmm…  Since I had a hand in designing their sales process, and helped map it into their CRM, and preached incessantly how a good process supported by a solid CRM system ensured great discipline and accountability in the sales force, it was a bit tough to argue.

To that, add the power of today’s technology-based collaboration tools.  This  company has an internal wiki for sales best practices and tools that the sales team continuously updates and uses.  It’s like an electronic mentor.  No, it IS an electronic mentor.

And there’s more.  This outfit is also hell-bent on using  technology-based collaboration tools (dare I say e-Rep) to sell more.  This led them to learn a lot about blogs and social media.  Lo and behold!  Things like LinkedIn groups and the comment streams on sales blogs provide a whole ‘nother universe of sales mentorship.  It’s not only huge, it provides a perspective that is vastly better, broader and more innovative than even the best sales manager/mentor.

I won’t claim to have just presented a bullet-proof rationale for firing all the sales managers, BUT… I am convinced that well-designed, properly used techno tools CAN indeed be applied to ensure effective discipline, accountability and mentorship.  Tell me again the three key tasks of a sales manager.

What do you think?  Am I on to something here?

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By Todd Youngblood | Posted in Best Practices | Tagged , , , , | Comments (4)