Now, you mentioned PowerPoint before, do you have top tips on how to make sure to get PowerPoint working to have lots of people sit up and paying attention?
Audiences attention is always waited to the top of slides not the bottom says Andy Bounds, UK's leading pitching expert. So people always remember the first thing they see not the last and so on. Now, think what that will mean if you were designing a PowerPoint slide, that would mean you would want your main points to be where the audience is most lightly to remember it, in other words at the top.
Do you see how people but you see how people communicate is they normally start off a little bit bland with an introduction and build up to the main points at the bottom and the audience isnt listening anymore. So a simple quick win for you, have a look at all the points youve got on a slide, put the main points at the top; the second most important one second and so on.
The interesting thing when you do this is, if you look at the bottom points very often you actually just cross it out because you realize its not that important at all, right.
When people use PowerPoint, almost invariably they use PowerPoint as a speech prompt, in other words it reminds them what theyre going to say, says Andy Bounds, UK's leading pitching expert. Now unfortunately, if you think about it, if its prompting you the speaker, who else is it prompting? The audience. So not only do they know probably what youre about to say, but because people put too many words on slides, they know exactly what youre going to say.
So, if you want to be really good at delivering with PowerPoint, always know what your next slide is going to be and introduce it before it comes up. So that way the audience isnt reading ahead and a simple add-on to this as well is never, but never give copies of your slides out before you speak, because people will always read them, and on top of that, what they will also do is a simple bit of mental arithmetic.
At the end of a PowerPoint presentation, the last slide almost without exception is always headed out with the word summary, Andy says. But the word summary, but the word summary actually gets people to listen less and not more, and if you dont believe me, sit at the back of a seminar and watch what happens to the room when the speaker says the word summary, everybody gets up, they stop listening.
The reason being of course, summary by definition is a repetition of what's gone on before, so in effect what youre saying is, Im about to repeat myself. The other thing of course happens with audience is, audiences always know what theyre about to do the minute you stop speaking. So when you say the word summary, two thoughts go through their mind: number one, great, I can go to the toilet; and number two, the only thing stopping me is him repeating himself.
Okay, here comes another point. Whenever people talk about themselves, particularly in a sales pitch, but in any presentation really, very often they have a heading like, About us. The trouble with About us is in the audience Im sitting there thinking, I dont really care about you, so why are you telling it to me? Its much better to use a phrase that is of benefit to the audience when youve got a title of a presentation like that.
One of the worst headings you can put on a slide are the two words About Us, think about it, Andy says. If youre watching a presentation about my company and I have the words About Us on the top, youll probably think, "I dont even care about you," in other words Ive not given you any reasons to listen. A much better thing to do instead is to put a title on that, which is of benefit to you.
So instead of about us if I headed it up why were uniquely placed to help you or how we can take your business forward Ill then go on to talk about my business, but at least that way you know why you should listen because Im bringing something which will help you in some way rather than ranting on about myself, all right.
I guess if you cast your mind back to the worst PowerPoint slides youve seen by anybody they will have lots of words on them, says Andy Bounds. The most terrible slides will always have lots of words, full sentences, you read ahead of the speaker, you wanted the speaker to hurry up. They say the male brain can only focus on one thing at once, so if youre a guy watching somebody talk and watching the slides at the same time you cant do both, you want the speaker to shut up.
So that can be a real challenge with slides being too wordy and you know sayings like, A picture speaks a thousand words, or be short and sweet, however you like to think about it you want the minimum possible number of words on a slide and I would suggest that aside from the title set yourself a very low limit like say six, eight words and think I am not having anymore than that on this slide.
I felt some of the worlds largest companies increase their sales winning multi-million pound deals and so on, says Andy Bounds, UK's leading pitching expert. One of the things I find really interesting is the skills that I share with them to help them win sales or identical to the skills recruiters need to get the best people.
Andy Bounds, UK's leading pitching expert gives an example: I remember last year when we were selling our house there was someone who came to have a look around who really liked it and they were first time buyers, they had the money, it was perfect.
The trouble was of course they were brilliant candidates not just for us but for everybody else who were selling their house, and unfortunately we lost the sale, they went to buy someone elses house instead. It reminded me of what its like in the recruitment market - youve got a job and think its great like I thought my house was great and you have this brilliant candidate who comes like a first time buyer, but unfortunately they dont always buy from us they dont always join our company.
Now, this is one of the biggest problems recruiters deal with and if you could just sort this out and be able to attract the best candidates and not lose them elsewhere, well that would be worth so much for the company, and of course the recruiters would look better because theyre actually getting the best people for the job. Well, its really a simple way to solve that, which I want to share with you now.
Okay, so if Im sitting in front of a company thats going to offer me my dream job, but I want to make sure I get the killer deal, have you got any tips you can give me to know how to pull it together, how to negotiate?
If you think of any investment that anybody ever makes, they always want to get a bigger return than the money they put in, says Andy Bounds, UK's leading pitching expert. If you think of anybody in any walk of life, if they invest money in anything they always want a bigger return than theyve invested. So you put a ₤100 in the bank, you want a ₤105 back. If you invest a ₤100 million in shares, you want a $105 million back. Its very similar with the employers.
If theyre going to invest x pounds in you, they need x pounds plus something else back or why should they employ you? So if you want to go for a killer deal, the first steps of that is to think and discuss about the value youre going to bring to that company.
So, you say things like, you know, what would success look like here, if I was to come along to do a great job, to tickle your boxes, what would that look like for this business, and the guy youre speaking to, the interviewer will then tell you, well, it was like this, this, this. Then you say Because Im new to this business, could you give me some flavour about how valuable that would be, just so I can see how valuable you perceive the job to be.
Now of course well theyll then say, if you will you can do this, this and this then thats going to be sizeable value to us. So straightaway youre in a good bargaining position because in a fact theyve said its worth ₤105,000 to us if this job goes well. So its much easier to say, Well, if you just pay me a 100 you get a 5% return on investment.
Thats one of the biggest questions I get asked actually, says Andy Bounds, UK's leading pitching expert. Give me some quick wins to stop making all these mistakes I seem to be making with communication, and here are some very simple ones.
Most business people when they make a presentation they never have the word you in the presentation anywhere, youre talking to the audience, you want the audience to engage with it, so youve got to address the audience, so the word you has got to be there. Have a look at a recent presentation youve given and circle the word you - particularly on the first two or three slides, the first two or three paragraphs, if its not, you havent given the audience a reason to listen to you.
So thats the first thing. The second thing is when people talk about features and benefits, again lets bring the word you in, I would suggest, its not to benefit unless it has the word you in it. So sometimes people would say, Oh! Benefits of working with us is our fantastic customer service. Well, thats not a benefit because its a feature, its saying this is how you are, you have customer service.
If I want to make it much more beneficial, I need to say, our customer service levels are very high which means you and then I go into the ramifications of that. When people make presentations, very often what they do is they speak chronologically, so they often start off with the date of formation of their company because thats the start point in history, and then whirl their way through to a persuasive argument until they say in the end, so we can save you millions pounds.
Now, when you think about it from the customers point of view, the most interesting thing at all is the million pounds theyre going to save, the fact that you were founded in 1922 is not really that interesting. Now, we all know that you only get one chance to make your first impression, so if I was to say to you, do you want to tell me how old your company is or that you can save me a million pounds, I mean where are you going to start to engage my interest to start with.
A much better start to a sales presentation would be, Thanks for seeing us today, weve had a look at the figures youve sent us, weve done some analyses and we can quite clearly categorically state we know that we can save you a million pounds. What were going to do in the next half hour is tell you how we can do that.
Andy Bounds, UK's leading pitching expert gives an example: The other day I went to a networking function and I said to this guy, What do you do? and he said, Well, Im an accountant, and I couldnt really think of any response to that other than Oh! Ah, yeah, and thats the trouble, when you go to networking event, if ever you speak to someone thats what they do, very often they tell you what their profession is, Im an accountant. I work in real estate. Im a personal trainer.
. The trouble is, what happens is, when you hear a profession, people always play word association in their minds. So if I say to you the word accountant youll have a preconceived idea of what an accountant is. I work in real estate. Im a personal trainer. So straightaway you pigeonhole me as one of all the others and it doesnt make you want to ask anymore about me. Instead, a much better way to do it is for you to introduce yourself by telling me how you help your clients.
So, if you say for instance, instead of, Im an accountant, you say, I help businesses pay less tax than they ever thought possible, I cant help but say, How do you do that? Or if you say, instead of, I work in real estate, you say, I help people have the house of their dreams, again I cant help but say, How do you do that? Or instead of, Im a personal trainer something along the lines of I make people look attractive to the opposite sex.
It doesnt matter what it is, it just needs to be something that makes me say, Oh! Thats interesting, tell me more, and suddenly because most peoples elevator pitches includes I am a, and then they say their profession it doesnt encourage the conversation about you that you want.
So, simple three things to remember when youre doing an elevator pitch, number one say the word I, number two: Say a verb like help, show, save, something like that and thirdly tell the other person what your clients are left with after you've worked with them so less tax in the case of the accountant. So I help companies pay less tax than they thought possible is much better than, Im an accountant.
When customers buy from you, theres two things theyre interested in, says Andy Bounds, UK's leading pitching expert. Firstly, they want to know that theyre going to be helped in some way whatever it is and number two, they want proof that youre the best person to help. So, when you go for a sale, the first thing to do is to find out where they want help. So lets say youve got a big leak in your house then the area you want help is you want the leak stopping, all right?
So when the plumber come around and talks to you, as long as they prove to you they can get rid of the leak youll be happy to give them the business. Well its the same when you go and speak to a potential customer. Lets say youre somebody who sells mobile phones or something like that. You find out what the company wants to achieve, which cheaper communication and number two you need to prove that your mobile phones will give them that. That guy will go through it again.
Two things: Firstly, how is the other person judged and then secondly, how can I twist what I say so it helps them in their area, Andy says. The world is full of people who are frustrated because they cant get their message across, but the great news is theres actually only two things you need to master to get anybody to do what you want. Firstly, you need to know how they're judged and secondly you need to be able to amend what youre going to say to hit your answer to number one.
We asked Andy Bounds, UK's leading pitching expert for his top tips on how to persuade people to buy. Have you got any tips on how can people make themselves really interesting?
The way to make yourself really interesting to anybody on any subject is to ask yourself two questions, says Andy Bounds. The first question is: The person who Im speaking to, how are they judged at work? So a salesman is judged on the number of sales that he or she makes. A financial accountant might be judged on the bottom line profits or whatever. So step one: Think how theyre judged. The reason you do that is because people always default to doing well in the area theyre judged.
So step one: Think how the other person is judged and step two: You then think what you want to talk about and think, "How does what I talk about help the other person in the area theyre judged?" So, if youre talking to a salesperson, how does your content give them something that can increase their sales in some way? So say you're an IT trainer, if you go to IT then you work more efficiently. If you work more efficiently you've got more time, if you got more time you can make more sales.
I completely agree its great for those of us outside the US who don't understand really what each party is about and may base opinions of who we may support based on previous/present actions of governments/presidents
The most important thing when blogging, says Shel Israel, is don't be boring, this is the biggest challenge most people have. When youre blogging you need to be giving something to your reader that compels them, engages them but also shows a little bit of yourself so that they look at your words and say I like him, hes interesting, gee I wish Id been in that room at that time
Also he says its important to tell stories, dont sit there and give a list of corporate pearls that were designed in conference rooms but tell a story about what its really like in your company where you work. Tell me a story about how you tried, maybe tried and failed and are now trying again to accomplish something in your job. Show me some human struggle.
He says stories work because I believe that everyday people live remarkable lives and if they heard of blogs about remarkable everyday things then people will get engaged and engagement is really one of the compelling things in blogs.
yBC expert Rand Fishkin says its really important to keep up to date. Its an enormous amount of time. I would say that between an hour and three hours of everyday and that sometimes includes weekends is spent keeping up to date with the latest material, reading other peoples blogs, watching the forums, and listening to podcasts and videos and all that kind of stuff. So its an incredible amount of information thats coming out literally everyday.
The reason why everything is constantly changing in all parts of life is because you've got alot of very intelligent people competiting and constantly tweaking the way things are done, so to stay on top of the game you've got to be paying alot of attention.
David Scott says any organisation, doesnt matter what kind of organisation, large companies, small companies, non profits, independent people,politicians, doctors and lawyers even can create content that people want to consume and thats really, really different from the old ways that we marketed and sold our products, which was we created messages and we created tag lines and we shouted from the mountain tops buy my product believe my ideas, or in politics terms VOTE FOR ME!
But he also recognises that this is changing, and fast, and thats a really, really different thing than creating content online that people want to consume and then that content creates an organisation that people want to do business with. Its really different, the new rules are really different to the old way we did it.
Clayton Shields says theres so often Ive seen sales people who are very talented individuals but they want to, I dont know if its their egos, they want to do all the talking. Well youre not learning from your customer when youre doing all the talking.
I guess the same sort of thing needs to be applied to political leaders, the need to be really talented talker, but they need to be able to listen and learn about the needs of the people.
Stefan Tornquist says I live in New York City where just about every bar and restaurant has a MySpace page or is my friend on FaceBook and that has, that certainly has an upside while being fairly low demand on the organisation, you know its a fairly simple way of connecting with your customers (or in politics voters), as long as they say yes, keeping them up to date.
He also says you dont want to over use that, you certainly dont want to abuse that relationship but if you engage with people in a light, informative, publicly funny way that can be quite compelling.
When McCain says he wants to "win" Iraq, I have a question. Win what? Win a couple trillion dollars worth of debt over a war McCain, Cheney and Bush lied us into? Win a debt our grand children will still be paying to China? What do we win? The idea to go to Iraq was one of the dumbest ideas in history. Period. Iraq will more than likely end up killing our economy for DECADES. So, give me a break about "winning." We lost. And McCain was the head cheerleader sending us into economic doom.
Both obama and McCain represent the status quo. The Federal Reserve needs abolished. It is the cause of inflation, national debt, and war. Chuck Baldwin is the only one who will stop this.
A lot of people who havent yet ready your stuff or seen you on any of our shows or whatever say that this kind of thing just costs too much money. You know you need big budgets; you need expert help all the time. What do you say to them?
The things that we have been talking about you can do for free, says David Meerman Scott. Its free to post a video on YouTube. You can create a blog with virtually no money with the best blogging software services are only $100.00 or so a year. However I will admit that these ideas take time. Its time consuming to create a blog, to create a good video, to interview your potential buyer persona to understand what their market problems are so you can make your content much more compelling.
Bryan Eisenberg thinks the one thing that anybody should do after they watch something that they see interesting is to see if they can find out more about the person who said it and you know type in the person who you heard speak name into Google and see what comes up and you know spend a little while exploring because you know it may not be the first thing, may not be the second thing but all of a sudden you may find a goldmine of more important nuggets. So Google!
You have talked about buying personas and you have talked about it with reference to websites. Given that we have got the piece about what a buying persona is, can you explain how the language of buying persona is important when you are selling to someone?
David Meerman Scott: Buyer personas from the sales perspective are really important because if you can understand what motivates a person to be interested in your product or service and what their problems are - you can create a better product and service and then approach it from the perspective where you are not just rattling off whats great about what you do. Because what they care about is a solution to a problem and understanding buyer personas will help you to be a better salesperson
I think there are three different focuses of websites and all three need to work together says David Meerman Scott, bestselling author of The New Rules of Marketing & PR. But I think the most important element is the content and those three elements of a website are the content, the design and the technology that underlies it. I think all three things are important, but ultimately the best websites are developed with content as the starting point.
If I came to you for advice on how I could do more business on my site, what are the first kinds of things you are going to look at in terms of problem areas, you know what do you normally look for?
what I normally look at for websites are is this site written in a way thats compelling to your buyers and generally that comes down to the navigation, says David Meerman Scott, bestselling author of The New Rules of Marketing & PR. The navigation of a great site should be organised either around the market problems that people have that you can solve or perhaps navigation around buyer personas or the different types of people that are likely to visit your site.
So lets say for my business again I want to do an online PR campaign about some specific news or a specific thing coming out. What are the core steps that I take in order to get that done?
Most organisations when they generate information about themselves do it in an egotistical product centric way, says David Meerman Scott. Like for example technology businesses are notorious for this. They talk about their flexible scalable solutions for improving business process which is a bunch of nonsense nobody cares about. The best way to reach people is to understand what their problems are and create something that helps address the problems they have.
A lot of mainstream PR people have advised people that we know against online PR. Whats the biggest problem you see with traditional ideas of public relations?
The biggest problem I see that traditional public relations people have is that they mistake media relations with public relations, says David Meerman Scott, bestselling author of The New Rules of Marketing & PR. So public relations is simply how an organisation deals with its public which is very different than media relations which is how an organisation deals with mainstream media, magazines, radio, television, newspapers and analysts.
So if I am tempted to keep going back to my ego or we have got people on the team who are tempted to keep doing that. Is there a way that we can keep that in check?
Most companies when they set out to create an online marketing initiative are way too egotistical, says David Meerman Scott, bestselling author of The New Rules of Marketing & PR. Most organisations write exclusively about their products, their services and their websites are organised around what those do. I have got news for you, no one cares about your products and services. What they care about are their own problems and they care about how you can help them to solve problems.
Typically, what would a digital marketing campaign for a small business look like and what are the main elements that you would say you need to focus on?
David Meerman Scott, bestselling author of The New Rules of Marketing & PR. If I were advising small business people, a small business person I would say the first thing and the most important thing before you even try to create any kind of content at all is to step back and understand who are your buyer personas, I call them buyer personas. Who are the people that you are trying to reach and I want to know who they are in detail.
To be successful with online marketing you have to think absolutely differently than you ever thought in an offline world, says David Meerman Scott, bestselling author of The New Rules of Marketing & PR. If you learned marketing on the job or you learned through school you learned about things like the four Ps and you learned that you had to buy access through advertising and you had to beg the media to write about you. Those things arent effective online.
Well these days people go first online when they have a problems they need solved or when they are researching a product or a service, says David Meerman Scott. And if not first, they are going online maybe second or third in their process of research. When you used to buy a car ten years ago you might go and visit some lots and you might ask your friends. These days if you dont go first online you certainly spend a lot of time online before you make your final decision for example.
So marketing online allows you to reach people directly as opposed to reaching people through somebody else as your gate keeper, says David Meerman Scott, bestselling author of The New Rules of Marketing & PR. So its a really liberating way of communicating. It allows us to communicate in ways that we never really could before because we had to rely on the media as being our mouth piece. Now we can do all sorts of things that allow us to get our story directly into the market place.
David Meerman Scott, bestselling author of The New Rules of Marketing & PR, says the first thing and its so fundamental, before you even create a product what you need to do is become tuned in to your marketplace. By tuned in I mean you have to truly understand what problems your company, your organisation or you as an individual can solve, how you solve them and who are the specific people youre solving those problems for.
A fundamental thing that people do is they talk about their products, says David Meerman Scott, bestselling author of The New Rules of Marketing & PR. Its this ego centric approach that people care about your products. They dont, nobody gives a crap about your products, what they care about is they care about their own problems and they care about finding answers their own problems.
The rules of persuasion have changed. We talked with David Meerman Scott, bestselling author of The New Rules of Marketing & PR, about how people need to talk about themselves if they want to get the right kind of attention. To start off, we asked him about his concept of Buyer Personas?
So for example with this hotel there might be 5 different buyer personas, says David Meerman Scott, bestselling author of The New Rules of Marketing & PR. There might be the independent business travellers to the tourist who wants tho bring his family to stay in the hotel. So you can see if you were creating marketing and content that it would be really different to focus on each different buyer persona.
Lori Richardson, President of Score More Sales, says: any of these Web 2.0 companies that are aligning with the giants are good examples because these are companies that are smart enough to know that they cant get everything developed as people who have already developed and so theyre working together to add and enhance to their offering. So I think any of those companies that you are reading about in the news that are aligning with partners like that are really good examples.
Lori Richardson, President of Score More Sales says: Heres an example of a company who paired up with another company for great success. Theres a company and they make board games. Now board games were totally new to the founders and they didnt really know how to market them. As it turned out they missed the 'season' to market the board games. But the alliance they formed was with a well known coffee company. Now the store had never sold board games before but it worked out great - a win-win.
Lori Richardson, President of Score More Sales says: Absolutely in a larger company you would have an alliance partnership group strategy and in a smaller company you would have a like strategy it will just be a little simpler and the focus will be on developing those relationships and then tracking the success of them. I really advocate measuring performance you know tracking how many touches youre making with these companies and individuals and then also the results.
Its easier to build business through alliance partners than the alternative. Calling strangers or contacting strangers, meeting strangers at events. This is definitely a way to do business says Lori Richardson, President of Score More Sales, but the great thing about alliances is that these people know you and theyll recommend you and people will accept a recommendation from someone they respect and once you tell me its someone that you respect I suddenly respect them too.
Once you have this list put together the challenge is that you have regular contact with these people and depending on the types of relationships and you sales cycle will depend on the frequency, says Lori Richardson. I keep track of my alliance partners monthly, and for a time I used to send out postcards every month to 75 alliance partners because a) Im expressing that I want to know more about them and b) Im talking about new things I have going on.
One of the easiest ways to increase revenues in your business is to develop a plan to work with alliance partners says Lori Richardson, President of Score More Sales. When I talk about alliance partners I mean people who know you, people who trust you and who understand what it is you do. These people become feet on the street for your business - theyre not your payroll but theyre people who believe so much in what you do that theyll make new connections for you.
She also says that youve got to make time to keep in contact with these people and maintain your relationships, and thats where social networking can work really well.
Heres what really works in social networking says Lori Richardson, President of Score More Sales, be focused on what your goals are. Dont just sign up for any network, there are thousands of them Im sure, there are definitely hundreds, and whats really interesting is that Im seeing my in person networking start to gain this online connection.
Online social networking is evolving rapidly and so some of the tools I use are LinkedIn for example and people can send you a request to be introduced to you, says Lori Richardson, President of Score More Sales. I think its really important to deal with that request when you get it so look up the person. If you dont know who they are you can decline them and thats the great thing about many of these tools. If you just put it off and you dont do anything it just shows lack of follow-up.
A really great way to follow up, says Lori Richardson, President of Score More Sales, is Ive contacted you by voicemail, most people are not answering their phones, I think we all agree to that. So Im going to leave a brief concise message about the purpose of my call. Im going to be very upbeat and Im going to let them know that Ill be calling them back however heres my number in case its convenient for you please give me a call.
Lori Richardson, President of Score More Sales says: Ive gotten your contact information from someone, most of my business is through referral so I would have received your contact information and I would say that the purpose of my call is to let you know what some of the people in your industry are doing in sales effectiveness for example and so I have a couple of points that I want to speak to you about and I will get back to you when its more convenient.
There are so many different tools out there says Lori Richardson, President of Score More Sales. I use a tool as simple as constant contact for email management. There are more sophisticated programs now that connect too your website so that when someone clicks through you can find out exactly what page theyre on of your website. It is really amazing how some of the tools are evolving to give you real time information on what your customers are doing and really what they want to know.
Sales technology is evolving says Lori Richardson, President of Score More Sales, there were some really amazing tools that I saw and really there are just a whole lot of tools at this point and I dont think we have all the answers yet. I think its how those tools come together and its how we work them with process and methodology within our businesses that will really affect change.
When you want to grow your business one of the best ways to do this is develop strategic alliances says Lori Richardson, President of Score More Sales. Think bigger - partner with other companies and individuals that you can work with to offer bigger and better solutions to a wider audience. You can start simply by putting a list together - if you could partner with anyone, then who would it be? Even if it is unlikely.
Lots of people lose time on poorly qualified prospects, and you can't get the time back, says Lori Richardson, President of Score More Sales, so its critical you invest time upfront in record time by asking key powerful questions to see if you have the solutions to help to solve their business problems. By doing so, you find out if you can really help them increase revenue.
A lot of people who have different levels of Prospecting Reluctance says Lori Richardson, President of Score More Sales. Ive noticed eight different types over the last 25 years, so its no wonder you might be having a difficult time following up when so many different things can happen - you can probably see the different types in people you know.
Think about what is preventing you from making calls - track and measure as you go, and measure your performance!
Searching for top tips on how to persuade people to buy, we connected with business expert Lori Richardson, President of Score More Sales. We started by asking what sales tips she had for the recession:
When times are good, many business owners are not as concerned about prospecting, when in fact, this is a critical time to keep prospecting, says Lori Richardson, President of Score More Sales. You need to be doing this all of the time - this is part of your business that runs all the time. Today you can produce as sales plan that includes prospecting and networking. Make sure you put it in writing, and that you evaluate as you go along and move forward.
What constitutes a good post on a blog says Clayton Shold, Co-founder, Salesopedia, has got to be interest. Try and take a very casual writing style, spell check works quite well for me, Im not the best speller in the world but what would a sales person be interested in looking at, or reading? The article I think has got to be relatively short. And I also hate going back to a blog and finding there hasnt been an entry for 28 days.
One of the things, says Clayton Shold, Co-founder, Salesopedia, that goes hand in hand with internet is the adoption of technology to make ones life easier. Recently I came across a tool called Time Bridge and what they do is they provide a linkfor your calendars, regardless if youre on the same server. You dont want to wait to contact an individual to set up an appointment. Through Time Bridge you can go out there and set up, up to five different possible meeting times.
One of the golden pieces of advice that I can leave with anyone is to take a really hard look at what your sales mindset is, says Clayton Shold, Co-founder, Salesopedia. If you go out there everyday realising that you are doing a good job, you are providing a valued service and you believe that, you will succeed theres no doubt in my mind about that and that even goes back to saying a list of daily affirmations or whatever to sort of get your head in gear.
An example from Penny of random connections is Weve got a member whos a fashion designer on Ecademy and hes a good networker, he got a random connection from somebody in Japan, contacted him. He said actually Im coming out to Japan in a few months, lets connect when I come out there. So he did, as a result of it this member is now helping him to run fashion shows out in Japan. That was a random connection that he could have ignored completely, but he decided to pick up on it.
Best advice is stop thinking that sales are sales, says Clayton Shold, Co-founder, Salesopedia, start thinking of it as service. When we do an appropriate sale, we are providing a service and customers think theres sales OR service but really theyre one and the same. If you make a sale and you dont provide adequate servicing after the sale, you may as well have resold that product straight away. make sure its an appropriate sale and then look at it from a servicing perspective.
One is the impact of the internet on sales today, and secondly demographics, says Clayton Shold, Co-founder, Salesopedia. The internet has become a marvel for accessing information and its, if a consumer today is going out to buy a new car, as an example, you cant bet that theyve gone and theyve done a lot of research on the internet before theyve even stepped on that dealerships lot and we cant underestimate that internet presence and that company has to have a credible internet presence.
Clayton Shold, Co-founder, Salesopedia says: I was in a conference talking with one of the top sales people in Company X for 3 years running. I asked him what his secret was, why he was so successful, and he says he really doesn't have any secrets. He guessed what it was that everybody he came in contact with he viewed as an opportunity to do business with and it was an interesting perspective that. He viewed everyone as a potential and if it wasnt with them it might be with somebody they know.
I agree that is a really interesting perspective and its true, everything and everyone has potential, its just what you chose to do about it that determines the outcome.
Some common pitfalls that you see are almost, I guess reverse of what we said, Clayton Shold, Co-founder, Salesopedia reveals. Thats the sales person coming in, knowing too much, wanting to continue to push product and push features without really understanding whether there is any desire in that individual or interest in the product. Secondly, sales people, for whatever reason, have a negative stereotype and at times they'll go in almost with a lack of confidence and that doesnt breed trust.
The third thing that sales people need to really understand and get right is their listening skills. Ive seen sales people who are very talented individuals but they want to do all the talking. Well youre not learning from your customer when youre doing all the talking. Youve got to have those well prepared open questions to be able to understand that individual's situation well enough that youll know if your product can meet a need or not.
As a sales person one of the things that we often think is if we talk with big, long words and sound very important that well, our customers will appreciate that. In fact its the reverse. They want to be communicated with in a style that they understand and if we can take complex concepts and make it so they do understand it, theres a much bigger chance that theyre going to do business with us, its easier to establish trust and they know what were talking about.
The second thing is really, and again it comes down to a philosophy around sales, is if are you out there to sell anything to anyone and maybe you do want to sell everything to everyone but the way you go about it. I dont view myself as being a sales person from the fact of selling anything to everyone, I look at the fact of being an advocate for that individual and that Im helping them make an informed purchasing decision.
We asked Clayton Shold, Co-founder, Salesopedia, for his top tips on how to persuade people to buy. First of all, what kind of mindset does one need to start with?
Mindset is so important in that all of the content of studies of psychologists that have studied it have looked at it and said, we are what we think. If we think, if we wake up in the morning with an attitude or a mindset that says Im going to be successful today and its going to be the best day ever, it will be our best day ever. If we get up in the morning and say gee Im really tired, I just dont think I can be productive today and thats what your day is going to be like.
ty
makeiteasyable 1 month ago
Good review. It was so profound in just 3 minutes.
felpaluche 3 months ago
[Comment from Facebook id: 571970910]
Obama - the shining beacon of Hope
womannie 3 years ago
[Comment from Facebook id: 571970910]
You re having the last word
womannie 3 years ago
[Comment from Facebook id: 695527802]
This is a really cool video.
businesstvmark 3 years ago
Now, you mentioned PowerPoint before, do you have top tips on how to make sure to get PowerPoint working to have lots of people sit up and paying attention?
businessexpertsdan 3 years ago
Audiences attention is always waited to the top of slides not the bottom says Andy Bounds, UK's leading pitching expert. So people always remember the first thing they see not the last and so on. Now, think what that will mean if you were designing a PowerPoint slide, that would mean you would want your main points to be where the audience is most lightly to remember it, in other words at the top.
yourBusinessChannel 3 years ago
Do you see how people but you see how people communicate is they normally start off a little bit bland with an introduction and build up to the main points at the bottom and the audience isnt listening anymore. So a simple quick win for you, have a look at all the points youve got on a slide, put the main points at the top; the second most important one second and so on.
yourBusinessChannel 3 years ago
The interesting thing when you do this is, if you look at the bottom points very often you actually just cross it out because you realize its not that important at all, right.
yourBusinessChannel 3 years ago
When people use PowerPoint, almost invariably they use PowerPoint as a speech prompt, in other words it reminds them what theyre going to say, says Andy Bounds, UK's leading pitching expert. Now unfortunately, if you think about it, if its prompting you the speaker, who else is it prompting? The audience. So not only do they know probably what youre about to say, but because people put too many words on slides, they know exactly what youre going to say.
yourBusinessChannel 3 years ago
So, if you want to be really good at delivering with PowerPoint, always know what your next slide is going to be and introduce it before it comes up. So that way the audience isnt reading ahead and a simple add-on to this as well is never, but never give copies of your slides out before you speak, because people will always read them, and on top of that, what they will also do is a simple bit of mental arithmetic.
yourBusinessChannel 3 years ago
If you have 24 slides and you spend 10 minutes on the first one, theyre thinking, Thats 240 more minutes Ive got to listen to this.
yourBusinessChannel 3 years ago
At the end of a PowerPoint presentation, the last slide almost without exception is always headed out with the word summary, Andy says. But the word summary, but the word summary actually gets people to listen less and not more, and if you dont believe me, sit at the back of a seminar and watch what happens to the room when the speaker says the word summary, everybody gets up, they stop listening.
yourBusinessChannel 3 years ago
The reason being of course, summary by definition is a repetition of what's gone on before, so in effect what youre saying is, Im about to repeat myself. The other thing of course happens with audience is, audiences always know what theyre about to do the minute you stop speaking. So when you say the word summary, two thoughts go through their mind: number one, great, I can go to the toilet; and number two, the only thing stopping me is him repeating himself.
yourBusinessChannel 3 years ago
Okay, here comes another point. Whenever people talk about themselves, particularly in a sales pitch, but in any presentation really, very often they have a heading like, About us. The trouble with About us is in the audience Im sitting there thinking, I dont really care about you, so why are you telling it to me? Its much better to use a phrase that is of benefit to the audience when youve got a title of a presentation like that.
yourBusinessChannel 3 years ago
One of the worst headings you can put on a slide are the two words About Us, think about it, Andy says. If youre watching a presentation about my company and I have the words About Us on the top, youll probably think, "I dont even care about you," in other words Ive not given you any reasons to listen. A much better thing to do instead is to put a title on that, which is of benefit to you.
yourBusinessChannel 3 years ago
So instead of about us if I headed it up why were uniquely placed to help you or how we can take your business forward Ill then go on to talk about my business, but at least that way you know why you should listen because Im bringing something which will help you in some way rather than ranting on about myself, all right.
yourBusinessChannel 3 years ago
I guess if you cast your mind back to the worst PowerPoint slides youve seen by anybody they will have lots of words on them, says Andy Bounds. The most terrible slides will always have lots of words, full sentences, you read ahead of the speaker, you wanted the speaker to hurry up. They say the male brain can only focus on one thing at once, so if youre a guy watching somebody talk and watching the slides at the same time you cant do both, you want the speaker to shut up.
yourBusinessChannel 3 years ago
So that can be a real challenge with slides being too wordy and you know sayings like, A picture speaks a thousand words, or be short and sweet, however you like to think about it you want the minimum possible number of words on a slide and I would suggest that aside from the title set yourself a very low limit like say six, eight words and think I am not having anymore than that on this slide.
yourBusinessChannel 3 years ago
Youre an expert and you work to help people get more sales whats the comparison you are making between recruitment and selling?
businessexpertsdan 3 years ago
I felt some of the worlds largest companies increase their sales winning multi-million pound deals and so on, says Andy Bounds, UK's leading pitching expert. One of the things I find really interesting is the skills that I share with them to help them win sales or identical to the skills recruiters need to get the best people.
yourBusinessChannel 3 years ago
So its a sellers market?
businessexpertsdan 3 years ago
Andy Bounds, UK's leading pitching expert gives an example: I remember last year when we were selling our house there was someone who came to have a look around who really liked it and they were first time buyers, they had the money, it was perfect.
yourBusinessChannel 3 years ago
The trouble was of course they were brilliant candidates not just for us but for everybody else who were selling their house, and unfortunately we lost the sale, they went to buy someone elses house instead. It reminded me of what its like in the recruitment market - youve got a job and think its great like I thought my house was great and you have this brilliant candidate who comes like a first time buyer, but unfortunately they dont always buy from us they dont always join our company.
yourBusinessChannel 3 years ago
Now, this is one of the biggest problems recruiters deal with and if you could just sort this out and be able to attract the best candidates and not lose them elsewhere, well that would be worth so much for the company, and of course the recruiters would look better because theyre actually getting the best people for the job. Well, its really a simple way to solve that, which I want to share with you now.
yourBusinessChannel 3 years ago
Okay, so if Im sitting in front of a company thats going to offer me my dream job, but I want to make sure I get the killer deal, have you got any tips you can give me to know how to pull it together, how to negotiate?
businessexpertsdan 3 years ago
If you think of any investment that anybody ever makes, they always want to get a bigger return than the money they put in, says Andy Bounds, UK's leading pitching expert. If you think of anybody in any walk of life, if they invest money in anything they always want a bigger return than theyve invested. So you put a ₤100 in the bank, you want a ₤105 back. If you invest a ₤100 million in shares, you want a $105 million back. Its very similar with the employers.
yourBusinessChannel 3 years ago
If theyre going to invest x pounds in you, they need x pounds plus something else back or why should they employ you? So if you want to go for a killer deal, the first steps of that is to think and discuss about the value youre going to bring to that company.
yourBusinessChannel 3 years ago
So, you say things like, you know, what would success look like here, if I was to come along to do a great job, to tickle your boxes, what would that look like for this business, and the guy youre speaking to, the interviewer will then tell you, well, it was like this, this, this. Then you say Because Im new to this business, could you give me some flavour about how valuable that would be, just so I can see how valuable you perceive the job to be.
yourBusinessChannel 3 years ago
Now of course well theyll then say, if you will you can do this, this and this then thats going to be sizeable value to us. So straightaway youre in a good bargaining position because in a fact theyve said its worth ₤105,000 to us if this job goes well. So its much easier to say, Well, if you just pay me a 100 you get a 5% return on investment.
yourBusinessChannel 3 years ago
A lot of people get it wrong when it comes to communications can you give us some examples of where they mess up?
businessexpertsdan 3 years ago
Thats one of the biggest questions I get asked actually, says Andy Bounds, UK's leading pitching expert. Give me some quick wins to stop making all these mistakes I seem to be making with communication, and here are some very simple ones.
yourBusinessChannel 3 years ago
Most business people when they make a presentation they never have the word you in the presentation anywhere, youre talking to the audience, you want the audience to engage with it, so youve got to address the audience, so the word you has got to be there. Have a look at a recent presentation youve given and circle the word you - particularly on the first two or three slides, the first two or three paragraphs, if its not, you havent given the audience a reason to listen to you.
yourBusinessChannel 3 years ago
So thats the first thing. The second thing is when people talk about features and benefits, again lets bring the word you in, I would suggest, its not to benefit unless it has the word you in it. So sometimes people would say, Oh! Benefits of working with us is our fantastic customer service. Well, thats not a benefit because its a feature, its saying this is how you are, you have customer service.
yourBusinessChannel 3 years ago
If I want to make it much more beneficial, I need to say, our customer service levels are very high which means you and then I go into the ramifications of that. When people make presentations, very often what they do is they speak chronologically, so they often start off with the date of formation of their company because thats the start point in history, and then whirl their way through to a persuasive argument until they say in the end, so we can save you millions pounds.
yourBusinessChannel 3 years ago
Now, when you think about it from the customers point of view, the most interesting thing at all is the million pounds theyre going to save, the fact that you were founded in 1922 is not really that interesting. Now, we all know that you only get one chance to make your first impression, so if I was to say to you, do you want to tell me how old your company is or that you can save me a million pounds, I mean where are you going to start to engage my interest to start with.
yourBusinessChannel 3 years ago
A much better start to a sales presentation would be, Thanks for seeing us today, weve had a look at the figures youve sent us, weve done some analyses and we can quite clearly categorically state we know that we can save you a million pounds. What were going to do in the next half hour is tell you how we can do that.
yourBusinessChannel 3 years ago
Lots of business books and sales experts around the world talk about how to build a really good elevator pitch. Do you have any secrets to share?
businessexpertsdan 3 years ago
Andy Bounds, UK's leading pitching expert gives an example: The other day I went to a networking function and I said to this guy, What do you do? and he said, Well, Im an accountant, and I couldnt really think of any response to that other than Oh! Ah, yeah, and thats the trouble, when you go to networking event, if ever you speak to someone thats what they do, very often they tell you what their profession is, Im an accountant. I work in real estate. Im a personal trainer.
yourBusinessChannel 3 years ago
. The trouble is, what happens is, when you hear a profession, people always play word association in their minds. So if I say to you the word accountant youll have a preconceived idea of what an accountant is. I work in real estate. Im a personal trainer. So straightaway you pigeonhole me as one of all the others and it doesnt make you want to ask anymore about me. Instead, a much better way to do it is for you to introduce yourself by telling me how you help your clients.
yourBusinessChannel 3 years ago
So, if you say for instance, instead of, Im an accountant, you say, I help businesses pay less tax than they ever thought possible, I cant help but say, How do you do that? Or if you say, instead of, I work in real estate, you say, I help people have the house of their dreams, again I cant help but say, How do you do that? Or instead of, Im a personal trainer something along the lines of I make people look attractive to the opposite sex.
yourBusinessChannel 3 years ago
It doesnt matter what it is, it just needs to be something that makes me say, Oh! Thats interesting, tell me more, and suddenly because most peoples elevator pitches includes I am a, and then they say their profession it doesnt encourage the conversation about you that you want.
yourBusinessChannel 3 years ago
So, simple three things to remember when youre doing an elevator pitch, number one say the word I, number two: Say a verb like help, show, save, something like that and thirdly tell the other person what your clients are left with after you've worked with them so less tax in the case of the accountant. So I help companies pay less tax than they thought possible is much better than, Im an accountant.
yourBusinessChannel 3 years ago
You've always talked about improving, how one can help customers better than the other guys can. Is there any sort of universal wisdom into that?
businessexpertsdan 3 years ago
When customers buy from you, theres two things theyre interested in, says Andy Bounds, UK's leading pitching expert. Firstly, they want to know that theyre going to be helped in some way whatever it is and number two, they want proof that youre the best person to help. So, when you go for a sale, the first thing to do is to find out where they want help. So lets say youve got a big leak in your house then the area you want help is you want the leak stopping, all right?
yourBusinessChannel 3 years ago
So when the plumber come around and talks to you, as long as they prove to you they can get rid of the leak youll be happy to give them the business. Well its the same when you go and speak to a potential customer. Lets say youre somebody who sells mobile phones or something like that. You find out what the company wants to achieve, which cheaper communication and number two you need to prove that your mobile phones will give them that. That guy will go through it again.
yourBusinessChannel 3 years ago
What are the two things again?
businessexpertsdan 3 years ago
Two things: Firstly, how is the other person judged and then secondly, how can I twist what I say so it helps them in their area, Andy says. The world is full of people who are frustrated because they cant get their message across, but the great news is theres actually only two things you need to master to get anybody to do what you want. Firstly, you need to know how they're judged and secondly you need to be able to amend what youre going to say to hit your answer to number one.
yourBusinessChannel 3 years ago
We asked Andy Bounds, UK's leading pitching expert for his top tips on how to persuade people to buy. Have you got any tips on how can people make themselves really interesting?
businessexpertsdan 3 years ago
The way to make yourself really interesting to anybody on any subject is to ask yourself two questions, says Andy Bounds. The first question is: The person who Im speaking to, how are they judged at work? So a salesman is judged on the number of sales that he or she makes. A financial accountant might be judged on the bottom line profits or whatever. So step one: Think how theyre judged. The reason you do that is because people always default to doing well in the area theyre judged.
yourBusinessChannel 3 years ago
So step one: Think how the other person is judged and step two: You then think what you want to talk about and think, "How does what I talk about help the other person in the area theyre judged?" So, if youre talking to a salesperson, how does your content give them something that can increase their sales in some way? So say you're an IT trainer, if you go to IT then you work more efficiently. If you work more efficiently you've got more time, if you got more time you can make more sales.
yourBusinessChannel 3 years ago
Confidence in most cases is at 80% of being successful at whatever you are trying to do and not being afraid to fail and try again
businesstvAmanda 3 years ago
Thanks for the background information about Derrick Hayes i hadn't heard of him before and i will certainly be looking more into his bio etc
businesstvAmanda 3 years ago
I completely agree its great for those of us outside the US who don't understand really what each party is about and may base opinions of who we may support based on previous/present actions of governments/presidents
businesstvAmanda 3 years ago
The most important thing when blogging, says Shel Israel, is don't be boring, this is the biggest challenge most people have. When youre blogging you need to be giving something to your reader that compels them, engages them but also shows a little bit of yourself so that they look at your words and say I like him, hes interesting, gee I wish Id been in that room at that time
businesstvkelsi 3 years ago
Also he says its important to tell stories, dont sit there and give a list of corporate pearls that were designed in conference rooms but tell a story about what its really like in your company where you work. Tell me a story about how you tried, maybe tried and failed and are now trying again to accomplish something in your job. Show me some human struggle.
businesstvkelsi 3 years ago
He says stories work because I believe that everyday people live remarkable lives and if they heard of blogs about remarkable everyday things then people will get engaged and engagement is really one of the compelling things in blogs.
businesstvkelsi 3 years ago
Wow thats incredible, I think yBC expert Andy Bounds has some great tips about presenting.
businesstvkelsi 3 years ago
Sometimes you just need to be natural and that will make you more appealing to the audience.
businesstvkelsi 3 years ago
I agree with that, its really important to stand out from your competitors and market and this is when product differentiation comes in to play.
businesstvkelsi 3 years ago
yBC expert Rand Fishkin says its really important to keep up to date. Its an enormous amount of time. I would say that between an hour and three hours of everyday and that sometimes includes weekends is spent keeping up to date with the latest material, reading other peoples blogs, watching the forums, and listening to podcasts and videos and all that kind of stuff. So its an incredible amount of information thats coming out literally everyday.
businesstvkelsi 3 years ago
The reason why everything is constantly changing in all parts of life is because you've got alot of very intelligent people competiting and constantly tweaking the way things are done, so to stay on top of the game you've got to be paying alot of attention.
businesstvkelsi 3 years ago
Also people in general are becoming way more sophisticated with their understanding and use of new technologies, especially the internet.
businesstvkelsi 3 years ago
David Scott says any organisation, doesnt matter what kind of organisation, large companies, small companies, non profits, independent people,politicians, doctors and lawyers even can create content that people want to consume and thats really, really different from the old ways that we marketed and sold our products, which was we created messages and we created tag lines and we shouted from the mountain tops buy my product believe my ideas, or in politics terms VOTE FOR ME!
businesstvkelsi 3 years ago
But he also recognises that this is changing, and fast, and thats a really, really different thing than creating content online that people want to consume and then that content creates an organisation that people want to do business with. Its really different, the new rules are really different to the old way we did it.
businesstvkelsi 3 years ago
Clayton Shields says theres so often Ive seen sales people who are very talented individuals but they want to, I dont know if its their egos, they want to do all the talking. Well youre not learning from your customer when youre doing all the talking.
businesstvkelsi 3 years ago
I guess the same sort of thing needs to be applied to political leaders, the need to be really talented talker, but they need to be able to listen and learn about the needs of the people.
businesstvkelsi 3 years ago
Stefan Tornquist says I live in New York City where just about every bar and restaurant has a MySpace page or is my friend on FaceBook and that has, that certainly has an upside while being fairly low demand on the organisation, you know its a fairly simple way of connecting with your customers (or in politics voters), as long as they say yes, keeping them up to date.
businesstvkelsi 3 years ago
He also says you dont want to over use that, you certainly dont want to abuse that relationship but if you engage with people in a light, informative, publicly funny way that can be quite compelling.
businesstvkelsi 3 years ago
When McCain says he wants to "win" Iraq, I have a question. Win what? Win a couple trillion dollars worth of debt over a war McCain, Cheney and Bush lied us into? Win a debt our grand children will still be paying to China? What do we win? The idea to go to Iraq was one of the dumbest ideas in history. Period. Iraq will more than likely end up killing our economy for DECADES. So, give me a break about "winning." We lost. And McCain was the head cheerleader sending us into economic doom.
polijunky 3 years ago
thanks...nice and fair! in an edible chunk.
rickya2 3 years ago
Both obama and McCain represent the status quo. The Federal Reserve needs abolished. It is the cause of inflation, national debt, and war. Chuck Baldwin is the only one who will stop this.
batgirl791 3 years ago
Also blogs need to be living and breathing. They need to be maintained to keep interest in them
justicegrigson 3 years ago
A lot of people who havent yet ready your stuff or seen you on any of our shows or whatever say that this kind of thing just costs too much money. You know you need big budgets; you need expert help all the time. What do you say to them?
businessexpertsdan 3 years ago
The things that we have been talking about you can do for free, says David Meerman Scott. Its free to post a video on YouTube. You can create a blog with virtually no money with the best blogging software services are only $100.00 or so a year. However I will admit that these ideas take time. Its time consuming to create a blog, to create a good video, to interview your potential buyer persona to understand what their market problems are so you can make your content much more compelling.
businessexpertsdan 3 years ago
Bryan Eisenberg thinks the one thing that anybody should do after they watch something that they see interesting is to see if they can find out more about the person who said it and you know type in the person who you heard speak name into Google and see what comes up and you know spend a little while exploring because you know it may not be the first thing, may not be the second thing but all of a sudden you may find a goldmine of more important nuggets. So Google!
businesstvkelsi 3 years ago
You have talked about buying personas and you have talked about it with reference to websites. Given that we have got the piece about what a buying persona is, can you explain how the language of buying persona is important when you are selling to someone?
businessexpertsdan 3 years ago
David Meerman Scott: Buyer personas from the sales perspective are really important because if you can understand what motivates a person to be interested in your product or service and what their problems are - you can create a better product and service and then approach it from the perspective where you are not just rattling off whats great about what you do. Because what they care about is a solution to a problem and understanding buyer personas will help you to be a better salesperson
businessexpertsdan 3 years ago
businessexpertsdan, you appear to be having a conversation with your evil twin brother.
justicegrigson 3 years ago
there's method to the madness!
businessexpertsdan 3 years ago
Of course, websites are very fashion driven. Does one need to be worried about looking current and up with the play there?
businessexpertsdan 3 years ago
I think there are three different focuses of websites and all three need to work together says David Meerman Scott, bestselling author of The New Rules of Marketing & PR. But I think the most important element is the content and those three elements of a website are the content, the design and the technology that underlies it. I think all three things are important, but ultimately the best websites are developed with content as the starting point.
businessexpertsdan 3 years ago
If I came to you for advice on how I could do more business on my site, what are the first kinds of things you are going to look at in terms of problem areas, you know what do you normally look for?
businessexpertsdan 3 years ago
what I normally look at for websites are is this site written in a way thats compelling to your buyers and generally that comes down to the navigation, says David Meerman Scott, bestselling author of The New Rules of Marketing & PR. The navigation of a great site should be organised either around the market problems that people have that you can solve or perhaps navigation around buyer personas or the different types of people that are likely to visit your site.
businessexpertsdan 3 years ago
So lets say for my business again I want to do an online PR campaign about some specific news or a specific thing coming out. What are the core steps that I take in order to get that done?
businessexpertsdan 3 years ago
Most organisations when they generate information about themselves do it in an egotistical product centric way, says David Meerman Scott. Like for example technology businesses are notorious for this. They talk about their flexible scalable solutions for improving business process which is a bunch of nonsense nobody cares about. The best way to reach people is to understand what their problems are and create something that helps address the problems they have.
businessexpertsdan 3 years ago
A lot of mainstream PR people have advised people that we know against online PR. Whats the biggest problem you see with traditional ideas of public relations?
businessexpertsdan 3 years ago
The biggest problem I see that traditional public relations people have is that they mistake media relations with public relations, says David Meerman Scott, bestselling author of The New Rules of Marketing & PR. So public relations is simply how an organisation deals with its public which is very different than media relations which is how an organisation deals with mainstream media, magazines, radio, television, newspapers and analysts.
businessexpertsdan 3 years ago
The biggest pb with traditional PR is that it uses traditional mediums which are falling out of favour.
justicegrigson 3 years ago
So if I am tempted to keep going back to my ego or we have got people on the team who are tempted to keep doing that. Is there a way that we can keep that in check?
businessexpertsdan 3 years ago
What are the things during this process that people often are tempted to get wrong. So in other words what do you have to pay close attention to?
businessexpertsdan 3 years ago
Most companies when they set out to create an online marketing initiative are way too egotistical, says David Meerman Scott, bestselling author of The New Rules of Marketing & PR. Most organisations write exclusively about their products, their services and their websites are organised around what those do. I have got news for you, no one cares about your products and services. What they care about are their own problems and they care about how you can help them to solve problems.
businessexpertsdan 3 years ago
Typically, what would a digital marketing campaign for a small business look like and what are the main elements that you would say you need to focus on?
businessexpertsdan 3 years ago
David Meerman Scott, bestselling author of The New Rules of Marketing & PR. If I were advising small business people, a small business person I would say the first thing and the most important thing before you even try to create any kind of content at all is to step back and understand who are your buyer personas, I call them buyer personas. Who are the people that you are trying to reach and I want to know who they are in detail.
businessexpertsdan 3 years ago
The person in charge of marketing for a big or even small company. How do they need to or to what extent do they need to change their thinking?
businessexpertsdan 3 years ago
To be successful with online marketing you have to think absolutely differently than you ever thought in an offline world, says David Meerman Scott, bestselling author of The New Rules of Marketing & PR. If you learned marketing on the job or you learned through school you learned about things like the four Ps and you learned that you had to buy access through advertising and you had to beg the media to write about you. Those things arent effective online.
businessexpertsdan 3 years ago
If things go well, what kind of response can I expect from end users or consumers that I am looking to have conversations with?
businessexpertsdan 3 years ago
Well these days people go first online when they have a problems they need solved or when they are researching a product or a service, says David Meerman Scott. And if not first, they are going online maybe second or third in their process of research. When you used to buy a car ten years ago you might go and visit some lots and you might ask your friends. These days if you dont go first online you certainly spend a lot of time online before you make your final decision for example.
businessexpertsdan 3 years ago
So what are the specific advantages that online marketing can offer me say as a business client of yours for example?
businessexpertsdan 3 years ago
So marketing online allows you to reach people directly as opposed to reaching people through somebody else as your gate keeper, says David Meerman Scott, bestselling author of The New Rules of Marketing & PR. So its a really liberating way of communicating. It allows us to communicate in ways that we never really could before because we had to rely on the media as being our mouth piece. Now we can do all sorts of things that allow us to get our story directly into the market place.
businessexpertsdan 3 years ago
How can companies tune into their marketplace more easily?
businessexpertsdan 3 years ago
David Meerman Scott, bestselling author of The New Rules of Marketing & PR, says the first thing and its so fundamental, before you even create a product what you need to do is become tuned in to your marketplace. By tuned in I mean you have to truly understand what problems your company, your organisation or you as an individual can solve, how you solve them and who are the specific people youre solving those problems for.
businessexpertsdan 3 years ago
What is one of the most basic mistakes made with marketing materials?
businessexpertsdan 3 years ago
A fundamental thing that people do is they talk about their products, says David Meerman Scott, bestselling author of The New Rules of Marketing & PR. Its this ego centric approach that people care about your products. They dont, nobody gives a crap about your products, what they care about is they care about their own problems and they care about finding answers their own problems.
businessexpertsdan 3 years ago
The rules of persuasion have changed. We talked with David Meerman Scott, bestselling author of The New Rules of Marketing & PR, about how people need to talk about themselves if they want to get the right kind of attention. To start off, we asked him about his concept of Buyer Personas?
businessexpertsdan 3 years ago
So for example with this hotel there might be 5 different buyer personas, says David Meerman Scott, bestselling author of The New Rules of Marketing & PR. There might be the independent business travellers to the tourist who wants tho bring his family to stay in the hotel. So you can see if you were creating marketing and content that it would be really different to focus on each different buyer persona.
businessexpertsdan 3 years ago
Do you have other examples?
businessexpertsdan 3 years ago
Lori Richardson, President of Score More Sales, says: any of these Web 2.0 companies that are aligning with the giants are good examples because these are companies that are smart enough to know that they cant get everything developed as people who have already developed and so theyre working together to add and enhance to their offering. So I think any of those companies that you are reading about in the news that are aligning with partners like that are really good examples.
businessexpertsdan 3 years ago
How do Alliance Partners help people to succeed?
businessexpertsdan 3 years ago
Lori Richardson, President of Score More Sales says: Heres an example of a company who paired up with another company for great success. Theres a company and they make board games. Now board games were totally new to the founders and they didnt really know how to market them. As it turned out they missed the 'season' to market the board games. But the alliance they formed was with a well known coffee company. Now the store had never sold board games before but it worked out great - a win-win.
businessexpertsdan 3 years ago
Why is measuring performance so important to the process?
businessexpertsdan 3 years ago
Lori Richardson, President of Score More Sales says: Absolutely in a larger company you would have an alliance partnership group strategy and in a smaller company you would have a like strategy it will just be a little simpler and the focus will be on developing those relationships and then tracking the success of them. I really advocate measuring performance you know tracking how many touches youre making with these companies and individuals and then also the results.
businessexpertsdan 3 years ago
Why is having an alliance partner effective?
businessexpertsdan 3 years ago
Its easier to build business through alliance partners than the alternative. Calling strangers or contacting strangers, meeting strangers at events. This is definitely a way to do business says Lori Richardson, President of Score More Sales, but the great thing about alliances is that these people know you and theyll recommend you and people will accept a recommendation from someone they respect and once you tell me its someone that you respect I suddenly respect them too.
businessexpertsdan 3 years ago
How do you get an alliance partner?
businessexpertsdan 3 years ago
Once you have this list put together the challenge is that you have regular contact with these people and depending on the types of relationships and you sales cycle will depend on the frequency, says Lori Richardson. I keep track of my alliance partners monthly, and for a time I used to send out postcards every month to 75 alliance partners because a) Im expressing that I want to know more about them and b) Im talking about new things I have going on.
businessexpertsdan 3 years ago
You recommend building alliances. Can you explain?
businessexpertsdan 3 years ago
One of the easiest ways to increase revenues in your business is to develop a plan to work with alliance partners says Lori Richardson, President of Score More Sales. When I talk about alliance partners I mean people who know you, people who trust you and who understand what it is you do. These people become feet on the street for your business - theyre not your payroll but theyre people who believe so much in what you do that theyll make new connections for you.
businessexpertsdan 3 years ago
She also says that youve got to make time to keep in contact with these people and maintain your relationships, and thats where social networking can work really well.
businesstvkelsi 3 years ago
Do you have any top tips on social networking?
businessexpertsdan 3 years ago
Heres what really works in social networking says Lori Richardson, President of Score More Sales, be focused on what your goals are. Dont just sign up for any network, there are thousands of them Im sure, there are definitely hundreds, and whats really interesting is that Im seeing my in person networking start to gain this online connection.
businessexpertsdan 3 years ago
Why is social networking so important today?
businessexpertsdan 3 years ago
Online social networking is evolving rapidly and so some of the tools I use are LinkedIn for example and people can send you a request to be introduced to you, says Lori Richardson, President of Score More Sales. I think its really important to deal with that request when you get it so look up the person. If you dont know who they are you can decline them and thats the great thing about many of these tools. If you just put it off and you dont do anything it just shows lack of follow-up.
businessexpertsdan 3 years ago
What ware the best ways to follow up?
businessexpertsdan 3 years ago
A really great way to follow up, says Lori Richardson, President of Score More Sales, is Ive contacted you by voicemail, most people are not answering their phones, I think we all agree to that. So Im going to leave a brief concise message about the purpose of my call. Im going to be very upbeat and Im going to let them know that Ill be calling them back however heres my number in case its convenient for you please give me a call.
businessexpertsdan 3 years ago
You strongly advocate following up on sales. Whats your top advice?
businessexpertsdan 3 years ago
Lori Richardson, President of Score More Sales says: Ive gotten your contact information from someone, most of my business is through referral so I would have received your contact information and I would say that the purpose of my call is to let you know what some of the people in your industry are doing in sales effectiveness for example and so I have a couple of points that I want to speak to you about and I will get back to you when its more convenient.
businessexpertsdan 3 years ago
So what new tools are available to businesses today?
businessexpertsdan 3 years ago
There are so many different tools out there says Lori Richardson, President of Score More Sales. I use a tool as simple as constant contact for email management. There are more sophisticated programs now that connect too your website so that when someone clicks through you can find out exactly what page theyre on of your website. It is really amazing how some of the tools are evolving to give you real time information on what your customers are doing and really what they want to know.
businessexpertsdan 3 years ago
How has technology changed and how will it impact on sales effectiveness?
businessexpertsdan 3 years ago
Sales technology is evolving says Lori Richardson, President of Score More Sales, there were some really amazing tools that I saw and really there are just a whole lot of tools at this point and I dont think we have all the answers yet. I think its how those tools come together and its how we work them with process and methodology within our businesses that will really affect change.
businessexpertsdan 3 years ago
How can business people create strategic alliances for revenue increases?
businessexpertsdan 3 years ago
When you want to grow your business one of the best ways to do this is develop strategic alliances says Lori Richardson, President of Score More Sales. Think bigger - partner with other companies and individuals that you can work with to offer bigger and better solutions to a wider audience. You can start simply by putting a list together - if you could partner with anyone, then who would it be? Even if it is unlikely.
businessexpertsdan 3 years ago
How can you make sure that you spend time qualifying prospects?
businessexpertsdan 3 years ago
Lots of people lose time on poorly qualified prospects, and you can't get the time back, says Lori Richardson, President of Score More Sales, so its critical you invest time upfront in record time by asking key powerful questions to see if you have the solutions to help to solve their business problems. By doing so, you find out if you can really help them increase revenue.
businessexpertsdan 3 years ago
How can people work to overcome prospecting reluctance?
businessexpertsdan 3 years ago
A lot of people who have different levels of Prospecting Reluctance says Lori Richardson, President of Score More Sales. Ive noticed eight different types over the last 25 years, so its no wonder you might be having a difficult time following up when so many different things can happen - you can probably see the different types in people you know.
Think about what is preventing you from making calls - track and measure as you go, and measure your performance!
businessexpertsdan 3 years ago
Searching for top tips on how to persuade people to buy, we connected with business expert Lori Richardson, President of Score More Sales. We started by asking what sales tips she had for the recession:
businessexpertsdan 3 years ago
When times are good, many business owners are not as concerned about prospecting, when in fact, this is a critical time to keep prospecting, says Lori Richardson, President of Score More Sales. You need to be doing this all of the time - this is part of your business that runs all the time. Today you can produce as sales plan that includes prospecting and networking. Make sure you put it in writing, and that you evaluate as you go along and move forward.
businessexpertsdan 3 years ago
What makes a good blog?
businessexpertsdan 3 years ago
What constitutes a good post on a blog says Clayton Shold, Co-founder, Salesopedia, has got to be interest. Try and take a very casual writing style, spell check works quite well for me, Im not the best speller in the world but what would a sales person be interested in looking at, or reading? The article I think has got to be relatively short. And I also hate going back to a blog and finding there hasnt been an entry for 28 days.
businessexpertsdan 3 years ago
We spoke about trends earlier, have you any further thoughts?
businessexpertsdan 3 years ago
One of the things, says Clayton Shold, Co-founder, Salesopedia, that goes hand in hand with internet is the adoption of technology to make ones life easier. Recently I came across a tool called Time Bridge and what they do is they provide a linkfor your calendars, regardless if youre on the same server. You dont want to wait to contact an individual to set up an appointment. Through Time Bridge you can go out there and set up, up to five different possible meeting times.
businessexpertsdan 3 years ago
If you were going to give away one truly golden piece of advice what would it be?
businessexpertsdan 3 years ago
One of the golden pieces of advice that I can leave with anyone is to take a really hard look at what your sales mindset is, says Clayton Shold, Co-founder, Salesopedia. If you go out there everyday realising that you are doing a good job, you are providing a valued service and you believe that, you will succeed theres no doubt in my mind about that and that even goes back to saying a list of daily affirmations or whatever to sort of get your head in gear.
businessexpertsdan 3 years ago
Also you should seize random connections. Penny Powers, co founder of Ecademy says, random connections can really become something.
businesstvkelsi 3 years ago
An example from Penny of random connections is Weve got a member whos a fashion designer on Ecademy and hes a good networker, he got a random connection from somebody in Japan, contacted him. He said actually Im coming out to Japan in a few months, lets connect when I come out there. So he did, as a result of it this member is now helping him to run fashion shows out in Japan. That was a random connection that he could have ignored completely, but he decided to pick up on it.
businesstvkelsi 3 years ago
Do you have a top piece of advice for viewers?
businessexpertsdan 3 years ago
Best advice is stop thinking that sales are sales, says Clayton Shold, Co-founder, Salesopedia, start thinking of it as service. When we do an appropriate sale, we are providing a service and customers think theres sales OR service but really theyre one and the same. If you make a sale and you dont provide adequate servicing after the sale, you may as well have resold that product straight away. make sure its an appropriate sale and then look at it from a servicing perspective.
businessexpertsdan 3 years ago
What are the current trends?
businessexpertsdan 3 years ago
One is the impact of the internet on sales today, and secondly demographics, says Clayton Shold, Co-founder, Salesopedia. The internet has become a marvel for accessing information and its, if a consumer today is going out to buy a new car, as an example, you cant bet that theyve gone and theyve done a lot of research on the internet before theyve even stepped on that dealerships lot and we cant underestimate that internet presence and that company has to have a credible internet presence.
businessexpertsdan 3 years ago
What are the secrets of a top sales person?
businessexpertsdan 3 years ago
Clayton Shold, Co-founder, Salesopedia says: I was in a conference talking with one of the top sales people in Company X for 3 years running. I asked him what his secret was, why he was so successful, and he says he really doesn't have any secrets. He guessed what it was that everybody he came in contact with he viewed as an opportunity to do business with and it was an interesting perspective that. He viewed everyone as a potential and if it wasnt with them it might be with somebody they know.
businessexpertsdan 3 years ago
I agree that is a really interesting perspective and its true, everything and everyone has potential, its just what you chose to do about it that determines the outcome.
businesstvkelsi 3 years ago
What mistakes are commonly made?
businessexpertsdan 3 years ago
Some common pitfalls that you see are almost, I guess reverse of what we said, Clayton Shold, Co-founder, Salesopedia reveals. Thats the sales person coming in, knowing too much, wanting to continue to push product and push features without really understanding whether there is any desire in that individual or interest in the product. Secondly, sales people, for whatever reason, have a negative stereotype and at times they'll go in almost with a lack of confidence and that doesnt breed trust.
businessexpertsdan 3 years ago
And what about skills that sales people must master to succeed?
businessexpertsdan 3 years ago
The third thing that sales people need to really understand and get right is their listening skills. Ive seen sales people who are very talented individuals but they want to do all the talking. Well youre not learning from your customer when youre doing all the talking. Youve got to have those well prepared open questions to be able to understand that individual's situation well enough that youll know if your product can meet a need or not.
businessexpertsdan 3 years ago
Can you give us an example?
businessexpertsdan 3 years ago
As a sales person one of the things that we often think is if we talk with big, long words and sound very important that well, our customers will appreciate that. In fact its the reverse. They want to be communicated with in a style that they understand and if we can take complex concepts and make it so they do understand it, theres a much bigger chance that theyre going to do business with us, its easier to establish trust and they know what were talking about.
businessexpertsdan 3 years ago
So its really about helping develop an informed decision?
businessexpertsdan 3 years ago
The second thing is really, and again it comes down to a philosophy around sales, is if are you out there to sell anything to anyone and maybe you do want to sell everything to everyone but the way you go about it. I dont view myself as being a sales person from the fact of selling anything to everyone, I look at the fact of being an advocate for that individual and that Im helping them make an informed purchasing decision.
businessexpertsdan 3 years ago
We asked Clayton Shold, Co-founder, Salesopedia, for his top tips on how to persuade people to buy. First of all, what kind of mindset does one need to start with?
businessexpertsdan 3 years ago
Mindset is so important in that all of the content of studies of psychologists that have studied it have looked at it and said, we are what we think. If we think, if we wake up in the morning with an attitude or a mindset that says Im going to be successful today and its going to be the best day ever, it will be our best day ever. If we get up in the morning and say gee Im really tired, I just dont think I can be productive today and thats what your day is going to be like.
businessexpertsdan 3 years ago
Affirmations can help in every part of life, not only business. If you think you're doing well, you will do well. Its all in your head.
businesstvkelsi 3 years ago