May 16: Why Right Brain Marketers need Left Brain Metrics or the creative won’t matter.

May 13th, 2013

Host Jim Obermayer interviews Jeanne Hopkins CMO of SmartBear on this volatile topic. In this fast paced interview, they discuss why creative right brained marketers must become more analytical and left brained in their approach to marketing metrics and measuring the ROI for their programs. Jeanne says marketers have to leave the arts and crafts mentality and realize that marketing has to produce measurable sales or creativity is next to useless.

About Jeanne Hopkins

Hopkins comes to SmartBear from HubSpot, a marketing software leader and pioneer in inbound marketing, where she was vice president of marketing. Her marketing leadership helped HubSpot become the second-fastest growing software company in the Inc. 500 by generating 45,000 new leads each month. Hopkins previously was CMO of MEC Labs, owner of MarketingSherpa, MarketingExperiments, and InTouch, and senior director, marketing programs & communications, for Symmetricon, a leader in precision time and frequency technologies.

Hopkins, a firm believer in the top-of-the-funnel lead-generation capabilities of inbound marketing, is coauthor of the book Go Mobile, a step-by-step introductory look at starting mobile marketing efforts that has been the #1 best-selling mobile marketing book on Amazon.com. She is also one of the top 10 Sales Lead Management professionals for 2011.

Posted in Lead Generation, Marketing Automation, Marketing & Media | Comments |

May 9: Why buying lists is the biggest email marketing no-no

May 6th, 2013

Join host, Jim Obermayer as he and Ellie tackle one of her pet peeves. This is a topic she's passionate about - purchasing email marketing lists. Just don't do it.

About Ellie Miram:

Being a marketing manager in an organization that generates more than 80,000 leads per month is a significant job for anyone, but Ellie Mirman, who leads the marketing for the medium-sized business market at HubSpot, makes it look easy. From creating remarkable content to educate leads and customers alike to innovative workflows that nurture leads through the funnel, Ellie is a master at both the art and the science of sales lead management, and has developed many of the best practices we leverage organization-wide here at HubSpot.

Ellie launched the email marketing program at HubSpot, growing it into the largest lead generation channel in the company, and also started the HubSpot webinar series, pioneered new customer research and feedback channels, and collaborates with the product, sales, and marketing teams on a daily basis to attract, convert, close and delight visitors, leads, and eventually customers.

Ellie is a thought leader in inbound marketing and an expert in funnel management. Of her expertise, HubSpot Marketing Director Kipp Bodnar notes, “Ellie is the ideal marketer. Her decisions are rooted in data and made in conjunction with her sales director to ensure fluid transitions of leads between marketing and sales. Her marketing is revenue-focused: instead of points for lead scoring purposes she assigns projected revenue values to each lead and leverages these values in her lead management rules.”

Ellie Miram has been named one of the 20 Women to Watch in Sales Lead Management for 2013.

Posted in Email & Direct Mail | Comments |

Anderson Crosby of Relecom, Inc. talks about reporting tools

April 30th, 2013

SLMA Radio interviews Anderson Crosby president of Relecom, Inc. Host James Obermayer asks Anderson why he developed a reporting tool when so many are available within CRM and Marketing Automation programs. Who uses the tool more, advertisers, agencies or publishers? How easy is to use? What is the cost? What is the benefit of the benefit when using Relecom reporting?

More about Anderson Crosby, CEO, Relecom, Inc.:

With over 18 years of experience working with Fortune 500 marketing teams, Anderson has developed and managed direct and digital marketing strategies and programs.

Anderson is a recognized expert in Digital Marketing Metrics and an active speaker at trade show events on topics ranging from Digital Marketing Best Practices to Digital Marketing Metrics. His work has been featured in BrandWeek and Communications World, and his work has also won various industry awards including the DMA International ECHO Award, MarCom Creative Award, and the Web Marketing Association’s Website Award.

About Relecom:

Relecom provides digital marketing measurement services to advertisers, agencies, and publishers. Their online reporting system provides an independent, real-time view of your marketing activities throughout a variety of digital channels. Actionable information is provided to you in up to daily reports, allowing you to spend your marketing dollars wisely.

Overview video

Anderson has spoken at a variety of local and national events: • San Diego AMA- Metrics Matter: Moving Beyond the Click-Through Rate (May 2010) • Orange County AMA • Frost & Sullivan Marketing World Events • Los Angeles Direct Marketing Association • University of California Irvine • California Poly • Digital Media Center

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Posted in Marketing Automation, Channel Marketing, Lead Scoring | Comments |

April 25: Juliana Lukasik Director CEO of @largefilms on Mentoring

April 24th, 2013

Sparking debate and fostering the next generation of professional women through advocacy, mentorship and business moxie is what Juliana Lukasik can bring to your next conference. You’ll want her unique perspective as a expert in high-profile, international product launches and a leader for the cause of promoting women in media. We wanted to hear more from her on the topic of mentoring and relate it to the sales and marketing industries.

When SLMA Radio cohost, Susan Finch first heard Juliana speak, it was on a panel honoring the 20 Women of Influence in Oregon. It was sponsored by the Portland Business Journal. Mentoring professionals, especially women, is Juliana's passion.

The Sales Lead Management Association is always talking about lead nurturing, lead management and sales skills training. It is our responsibility to dedicate as little as 3% of our time to mentoring professionals and students to help them become the leaders we want to face in sales, as peers. How else will they learn best practices if not from those who go before them? Tune in to hear Juliana and Susan speak about the importance of mentoring in all industries.

A bit about Juliana Lukasik:

Juliana has been in the film business for over 20 years. She is in the minority three percent of women commercial directors. She graduated from Oregon State University with a Bachelors of Arts in Broadcast Communications. In 1999, she purchased Signature Films and changed the name to @Large Films. In addition to day-to-day management of the company and business development, Juliana has produced and directed projects that have won Emmy, Addy and Telly awards. As a child, Juliana was told by her father that there wasn't anything she couldn't do. She believed this to her core. She is also the President of the CEIC (Central Eastside Industrial Council). Along with her love of advertising, Juliana is currently in pre-production on a project about one of her favorite subjects, pet adoption.

Follow her: @julianalukasik View her LinkedIn profile.

Listen Now:

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Posted in Sales Skills Training, Sales Lead Management, Lead Nurturing, Women and Business, Mentoring | Comments |

April 18: 5 Myths about Social Media and your online reputation.

April 12th, 2013

Why worry about your online reputation?

Host Jim Obermayer interviews Barry Lieberman, On-Line Reputation Expert. We will ask Barry about the 5 Myths about Social Media and your online reputation. Should anyone really care about odd-balls making stupid comments about you or your company on line; or are they stupid comments? How can you learn about your on-line reputation? Is it too costly today to create customer advocates? How do I maintain a reasonable customer support reputation online and afford to stay in business?

Barry Lieberman – Interim CMO & CEO, Marketing & Customer Support Leader & Advisor

Senior executive with over 30 years’ experience enabling organizations to see a real return on their investments in marketing and sales. Lieberman is focused on improving an organization’s customer facing operations’ effectiveness, infrastructure & processes. His goal is to empower companies to enjoy the rewards of a consistent, integrated approach to marketing & customer support.

His specialties include:

High technology, financial services, insurance, business services, and wellness products. Internet and online marketing, online reputation assessment and restoration, customer experience/support infrastructure effectiveness and enhancement, social media marketing, electronic and postal mail marketing, telephone marketing, database marketing.www.linkedin.com/in/barrylieberman .

About Advantage Plus Marketing Group The goal of Advantage Plus Marketing Group is to empower companies to increase their value to the marketplace and investors while enjoying the rewards of a consistent, integrated approach to marketing, customer support and sales. Since 1992 Advantage Plus Marketing Group has implemented over 1800 programs for organizations ranging in size from multinational corporations to personal selling organizations. APMG creates programs that bridge the gap between marketing and sales and truly convert marketing programs to sales revenue by using the integration of new marketing tools with time-proven processes and techniques that enable sales channels to respond effectively.

Listen Now:

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Posted in SEO and Social Media | Comments |

April 11: Christine Crandell - Adventures of a Serial CMO

April 8th, 2013

Susan Finch interviews Christine Crandell, President of New Business Strategies.

During their discussion Christine covered the differences between leading Boomers vs. Millennials and the group fringing on both ends.

They also hashed over the regular confusion businesses have over hiring a consultant versus hiring a contractor. Many times clients try to stretch one into the role of the other without fully understanding the differences.

Further in the interview, Christine and Susan examined Management by Objectives (MBO) and targeted contributions; they need to be measurable. It's not acceptable to talk nothing but of concepts, and goals. There needs to be concrete evidence of success, failure or progress. There needs to be accountability, as well. Are you the one who put together the plan? Are you the one responsible for the results or at least reporting on them?

The topic of reinvention and morphing was also part of the show. Women have a tendency to morph more into roles rather than honing their idea business persona that matches who they truly are at all times. Part of that is due to fear, part of it is due to the fact they've never spent the time to define themselves and core values.

Join us for this show on Thursday at 5pm to listen to it.

About Christine Crandell: Christine Crandell is a 25-year B2B expert in market strategy, driving demand, and building successful, profitable organizations. Her work with CEOs and Boards is focused on helping them understand how to optimize their strategy and align their organizations to accelerate revenue. As President of New Business Strategies, she leads the international strategy consulting firm and has advised over 100 client CEOs and Board of Directors in North America, Europe and Australia in areas including M&A, market category creation, company strategy, and go-to-market planning. She also advises sales and marketing teams on how to structural and culturally align with buyers to dramatically improve performance.

It is from her direct experience as a serial CMO that the Seller’s Compass™ Methodology was born. CMOs are faced with new expectations to optimize prospect and customer engagement, improve ROI, and drive significant portion of revenue pipelines through new social technologies. Through first-hand experience in experimenting with new market engagement models, Christine discovered the power of aligning outward to buyers and the buyers’ journey. Over a five year period, she refined the Seller’s Compass methodology into a program that can be implemented by companies of all sizes, across all industries.

Read her full bio here >

Listen Now:

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Posted in Sales Strategist, Sales Skills Training, Women and Business, Leadership | Comments |

April 4: Software that delivers the most data wins

April 2nd, 2013

SLMA CEO Jim Obermayer says that software programs that explain the most data, and are verified by the most evidence, are better than those that do not. He'll discuss how CRM properly applied, along with marketing automation, gives the most data on marketing performance and gives more evidence than any other combination of software. In essence, those with the most data will win. But, he says, "You have to manage the sales lead system to win."

During this program Obermayer contends that those with the most marketing toys win. But tools without leadership are just tools in the hands of fools.

About Obermayer

Obermayer is an author (four books) and a speaker on subjects of sales lead management, sales enablement and marketing ROI. He is the founder and of the world-wide 6200 member Sales Lead Management Association, which also has a Linkedin Group of 2987 members. The SLMA is the sponsor of the yearly Sales Lead Management Week, the annual contest for the 50 Most Influential People in Sales Lead Management, and the nomination and naming of the 20 Women to Watch in Sales Lead Management. The SLMA also hosts the weekly c-level interview program; SLMA Radio. Obermayer is the Vice President of Business Development at Vitech Corporation.

Listen Now:

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Posted in CRM and Related, Sales Strategist, Current and Past Shows, Sales Lead Management | Comments |

March 28: Why Sales Forces are Moving Inside – Kevin Thornton – VanillaSoft

March 25th, 2013

Host Jim Obermayer will interview Kevin Thornton, EVP of VanillaSoft and discuss the trend (some would say tsunami) of sales departments that are moving from outside to inside positions. Thornton will debate differences in productivity, sales activities and how to measure ROI when going from outside to inside salespeople. He will tackle how to manage, motivate and control these new sales superstars. Using VOIP for the mobile workforce and the software that is more than simple CRM, Thornton will tackle how to help them manage their goals and workday.

About Kevin Thornton

As Executive Vice President, Sales & Marketing for VanillaSoft, Kevin Thornton is responsible for accelerating customer and revenue growth and overseeing all new customer engagement and acquisition strategies.

Prior to joining VanillaSoft, Kevin served as Senior Vice President Sales & Marketing, Americas at Corel Corporation where he was responsible for all regional sales, marketing, alliances, and business development activities. Prior to Corel, Kevin served as Senior Vice President Sales for Sage Software’s Small Business Division.

About VanillaSoft

Founded in 2005, VanillaSoft provides its global client base with award-winning, cloud-based Lead Management Software for telesales and appointment setting. VanillaSoft customers benefit from increased productivity by deploying an award-winning, Best-In-Class feature set that includes next-best-lead routing, auto-dialing, on-board intelligent messaging, integrated e-mail, real-time lead distribution, live dashboard and digital call recording.

Typical users realize a productivity increase of 30 to 100% over traditional CRM, creating an easy to justify ROI.

Listen Now:

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Posted in CRM and Related, ROI | Comments |

March 21: Smackdown McDade vs. Obermayer Do Salespeople Need More Leads?

March 16th, 2013

McDade contends that salespeople need fewer leads. Obermayer contends that without sufficient leads companies die. In this classic battle of opinions, McDade of PointClear pushes the edge in arguing that salespeople can get by on fewer leads that are qualified. Obermayer CEO of the SLMA says that is a pipe dream and a recipe for disaster. Maybe they are both right, or one is very wrong. Listen and find out.

In THIS corner: Dan McDade

McDade founded PointClear in 1997 with the mission to be the first and best company providing prospect development services to B2B companies with complex sales processes. He has been instrumental in developing the innovative strategies that drive revenue for PointClear clients nationwide.

In addition to serving as president and CEO of PointClear, Dan is the author of The Truth About Leads, an insightful book that sheds light on the little-known secrets that help focus B2B lead-generation efforts, align sales and marketing organizations and drive revenue. The book was published in January 2011.

Prior to starting PointClear, Dan served as president of UST, The Business Marketing Group, a high-tech B2B marketing services firm. The company, serving leading technology companies including Sun Microsystems, Texas Instruments, Oracle and SAP, grew over 500% during his tenure. From 1989 to 1991, Dan was an independent consultant providing direct marketing, telemarketing and new business development consulting services. Clients included Sears, Exxon, Rodale Press, R.J. Reynolds, and The Ritz-Carlton. Dan also served as vice president of marketing with Jackson & Perkins in Medford, Ore.

Dan is chairman of the board of the Technology Association of Georgia (TAG) Education Collaborative, an organization promoting STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) education in Georgia’s middle and high schools. He is a member of TAG, and also serves on the boards of TechAmerica Southeast (formerly AEA); the Business & Technology Alliance, a TAG society; and TAG Marketing. The Sales Lead Management Association named Dan one of the 50 most influential people in sales lead management in 2009, 2010, 2011 and 2012. Dan is also the author of ViewPoint | The Truth About Lead Generation, a blog exploring issues related to B2B sales, marketing and lead generation. Dan speaks regularly at industry events, both on and offline and writes for publications such as BtoB Magazine, Chief Marketer, Target Marketing Magazine, Sales and Marketing Management Magazine and MarketingProfs.

And in THIS corner: James W. Obermayer

Obermayer is an author (four books) and speaker on subjects of sales lead management, sales enablement and marketing ROI. He is the founder and of the world-wide 6200 member Sales Lead Management Association, which also has a Linkedin Group of 2973 members. The SLMA is the sponsor of the yearly Sales Lead Management Week, the annual contest for the 50 Most Influential People in Sales Lead Management, and the nomination and naming of the 20 Women to Watch in Sales Lead Management. The SLMA also hosts the weekly c-level interview program; SLMA Radio.

James Obermayer is the principal of Sales Leakage Consulting, Inc., an Orange County, CA., marketing and sales interim management consulting firm. His career has been equally divided between sales and marketing positions. He has also been Vice President of Sales and Marketing for a B2B direct marketing agency. He has served as VP, Worldwide Sales at an enterprise software company, an internet services company, Senior Vice President for two industry-leading inquiry management firms and Vice President of Marketing for a medical device manufacturer. In addition, he has written more than 95 articles on sales and marketing management. He is a frequent speaker for corporations and also national and regional conferences.

Listen Now:

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Posted in Lead Generation, Current and Past Shows, Lead Nurturing, Lead Scoring | Comments |

March 14: Be in the Right Place at the Right Time with Prospects

March 11th, 2013

Susan Finch will interview The Vanella Group, Inc. CEO & Founder, Mari Anne Vanella about topics including “Filling in the White Space Between Conversations.” How can you recognize opportunities for a low touch dialog that is effective without pushing for a meeting or conversation the prospect isn’t ready for.

Mari Anne Vanella has over 25 years of sales and business management experience. Mari Anne’s firm, The Vanella Group, Inc. has served the B2B technology community with teleservices-based lead generation services for 13 years. Her clients list includes Hitachi, SAP, and many others. Mari Anne is an accomplished speaker, author, and thought leader in the sales and marketing domain. Her blog, Insights into Cold Calling, features content for today’s enterprise sales teams and has thousands of readers. She has spoken at Dreamforce both in 2011 and 2012, recently was featured in the 2013 WBO Sales Bootcamp as a speaker, and does a lot of work to further educate and modernize the approach companies take to long term pipeline development. Her book “42 Rules to Cold Calling Executives” has been a bestseller on Amazon for several years.

Mari Anne has been named to the 20 Women to Watch in Sales Lead Management 2011, 2012 and has been nominated in 2013 - winners yet to be announced.

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