February 21: Be a Natural and You Can’t Help But Succeed in Sales

February 18th, 2013

Join SLMA Director, Susan Finch as she sits in for Jim Obermayer this week. She welcomes Jeff Fischer, PhD of Core Career Coaching. He's been featured on Ted Talks, has been invited around the world to bring out the best in sales people. Jeff has a way of helping you achieve confidence while getting you wound up for more success than you have ever asked for. Spend a positive hour, learn some tips and start your short list of attainable goals and new behaviors to knock your sales sheet out of the ballpark! They are going to talk about the conflict between the numbers you are expected to generate and the quality relationships to build your base of loyal and "forever" clients. You can't just tell them what is safe and what they think they want to hear. You are doing them a disservice.

Join them for this lively conversation.

"Your biggest risk is that I’ll tell you what you want to hear instead of what I really think because you control my compensation.”

Jeff once told this to an interviewer with a straight face, but it turned out to be true.

A little about Jeff Fischer:

But not anymore! There was a time when I had arranged all of my management books in my New York office at eye level so that people sitting across from me could see that I had read all the right stuff. That office is gone now, I’ve thrown away the books, and I no longer live in New York.

The Desire to Look Good

The desire to look good carried me through four advanced degree programs and drove my career for many years. It fed 100-hour weeks on Wall Street and fueled a global consulting career serving some of the greatest companies in the world. I lived at furious pace (I filled a new passport with stamps in one year), climbed many ladders, and had the opportunity to get to know some truly amazing leaders.

I’m extremely proud of some of the work I’ve done. It’s just not what I envisioned for myself. Growing up I did things like volunteer at a nature center, work in a commercial boatyard, and even as an EMT. I didn’t want to sit in an office. But about two years before college, I started giving up the things I liked to do for activities that I believed would look good on a college application.

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Posted in Sales Skills Training, Branding | Comments |

February 7: Brand vs. Branding Do you have a “dead” brand?

February 7th, 2013

Host Jim Obermayer interviews brand expert Russ Cornelius in advance of his hosting of a panel discussion on branding February 20th at the Southern California BMA meeting. Jim and Russ will discuss:

The financial value that cultivating a strong brand brings to an organization
Best practices for sustaining your brand, and measuring its effectiveness

Branding is the process, the ways an organization uses to externally communicate their brand. A pretty logo. Nice collateral. A great slogan. These are not your brand. They are symbols of your brand. Your brand is the culture of the organization -- your clear evidence of distinction. As a company, you must internalize it or lose pace with your competitors. Unless your employees deliver upon its promise, your brand can go dead in the water, or worse.

About RUSS CORNELIUS, Certified Brand Strategist

Mr. Cornelius is President and CEO of Brand Savants, Inc. In 2002, Russ launched Marketing Savants, a full-service marketing agency, and steadfastly stayed with the commitment to work only with clients who understood the importance of the strategic planning process as well as the role brand development plays in a successful marketing program. Realizing that brand development and the subsequent branding processes require companies to look inward as well as outward, and that the brand development process is a company-wide initiative, and not just a marketing initiative, Russ launched BrandSavants. This is when he designed EnculturationTM, an internal brand initiative program.

Russ, one of just twenty-two Certified Brand Strategists in the country, helps companies define their vision, navigate a course to vision-achievement and domination of their markets by helping them to define their brand, differentiating themselves from their competitors and leading their employees to understand, accept and live the organization’s brand.

Russ Cornelius has been an active SoCal BMA member since 2011. He received his Bachelor of Science degree in Psychology from the University of Nebraska at Omaha.

Brand Savants, Inc. 619.296.6662 San Diego, CA 92106 Latitude/Longitude: 32.727°/-117.227°

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Posted in Branding | Comments |

Women in Business: Your party image - stop embarrassing yourself.

December 4th, 2012

Susan Finch, Director of Online Services for the SLMA, has embarked on a new once a month series of Women in Business. The second guest is image consultant, Kay Hunter.

Kay is a corporate trainer and personal image consultant. Kay works with a vast array of people and companies. She has worked with students, pageant contestants, doctors, business executives, entrepreneurs and mothers. Many companies have asked her to speak to their staff in groups, or to provide one-on-one consulting.

Prior to launching her company, Kay worked as a Senior Human Resources Executive for 18 years. She understands the challenges of dressing for business and how it can directly affect the bottom line of a company and a person's personal success. She has the expertise to put people at ease, while dealing with sensitive situations, and ultimately motivating people to be their best.

The show will cover some delicate; but elephant-size important topics of our personal brand while attending corporate events such as holiday parties, trade-shows, networking events and business meetings where food and alcohol are served.

Kay Hunter will cover some great tips of dressing for the body you are in NOW, not leading with "the twins," how to be a desirable party guest with hopes of another invitation, and remembering that all behavior is very public thanks to social media's "over sharing" tendencies.

What impression are you leaving with others as far as your personal brand and your company's image? You may not be as charming as you think?

Are you a conversation hog? Do you monopolize the host of an event seizing as a sales opportunity? Those events are NOT the place for selling, it's the place for relationship building to allow you to have the opportunity to present your widgets in the near future.

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Posted in Branding, Networking, Women and Business | Comments |

Sept 13: Expert talk about the STUPID mistakes bloggers make!

September 11th, 2012

SLMA Host Jim Obermayer Interviews Dan McDade president of PointClear and Susan Finch of SusanFinch.com. McDade publishes ViewPoint, The Truth About Lead Generation which was just named One of Top 50 Blogs by Top Sales World. Susan Finch, the director web services for the SLMA, has created over 100 blogs for her clients. Learn what works and what doesn’t. Hear what Dan McDade has to say about what he has done to create an award winning blog. Hear from Susan Finch who recounts the stupidest, and sometimes costliest mistakes new bloggers make.

About Dan McDade

Dan McDade founded PointClear in 1997 with the mission to be the first and best company providing prospect development services to business-to-business 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 2011.

Dan is a board member and immediate past-chairman 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 also serves on the TAG board. The Sales Lead Management Association named Dan one of the 50 most influential people in sales lead management in 2009, 2010 and 2011. In addition he was named a 2012 Top Sales Expert and one of the Top 50 Sales & Marketing Influencers for 2012 by Top Sales World. Dan is also the author of ViewPoint | The Truth About Lead Generation, a blog exploring issues related to B2B sales, marketing and lead generation.

About PointClear

PointClear is the prospect development company. Founded in 1997, the Atlanta-based company helps B2B companies drive revenue. PointClear closes the gap between marketing and sales—nurturing leads, engaging contacts and developing prospects until they're ready to close.

PointClear’s prospect development services include market development, lead development and opportunity development, encompassing the following functions: lead generation, qualification, and nurturing; event support; and data segmentation and management. The company stands out because of its strategic approach to planning; the quality of its people; and a multi-touch, multi-media, multi-cycle prospecting process.

This unique combination gives clients such as Quincy Compressor, CenterBeam, South Star Entergy Services, Intermec, Bomgar, Microsoft, Optum Insight, Joulex and D&B more predictable forecasts and significantly higher revenue results.

About Susan Finch

Susan prides herself on keeping the ego out of client blogging and web devel0pment. She believes in giving her clients all access to their files, with warnings of course of how to NOT break it. She has been in Marketing and Public Relations since 1984 and began devel0ping websites in 1996 with her first client, the City of Anaheim. Over the past several years she has a spent a lot of her time training clients on how to take charge of their sites, become disciplined in adding good content regularly, and helping them avoid simple, yet sometimes catastrophic mistakes.

Her background in public relations has helped her advise clients as to what they should share, and how they should respond to unexpected headlines that involve their companies. Laguna Woods Village (formerly Leisure World) in Laguna Woods, CA taught her about the importance of training clients and spokespeople to respond to the media and express their views in a positive and diplomatic way.

Susan has been a director for the SLMA since 2008. She is also the founder and CEO of Binky Patrol, Inc. - an all volunteer non-profit that makes blankets and gives them away to children and teens in need of comfort.

Connect with her: susanfinch.com | LinkedIn | @susanfinchweb

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Posted in Public Relations, Current and Past Shows, Marketing & Media, Branding | Comments |

Nov. 10 Show: Wayne Marks, President Hansa GCR

November 3rd, 2011

Wayne Marks joined Hansa|GCR as President in January of 2008. He brings over 30 years of research and consulting experience to clients in multiple industries, including technology, financial services, industrial sectors, healthcare, retail and packaged goods.

Mr. Marks is a nationally known expert on customer experience and brand management. He has worked with Fortune 500 clients to implement branded customer experiences, deliver the brand promise, research customer needs, develop new products and segmentations, implement new business strategies, and generate customer loyalty. He is a frequent speaker on customer and brand loyalty, the impact of emotions on customer behavior.

Topic for this week's show is: Recent Research of Measuring Branding

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