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.

Listen Now:

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Posted in CRM and Related, Sales Skills Training, Lead Nurturing, Networking, Women and Business, Remote Relationships | Comments |

January 3: Include positive reviews as part of your networking strategy

January 2nd, 2013

SLMA Founder and CEO, Jim Obermayer visits with SLMA Online Marketing Director, Susan Finch about the effects of positive reviews and referrals in a very public format. Did you have a recent positive experience with a hosting company? How about a sales rep who left you feeling better about their product? Tell everyone about them. Seek them out on LinkedIn, Yelp, GooglePlaces, etc. and tell everyone the difference they made on your day. It does't have to be huge, but the payback will snowball into a lovely snow village.

Personalize your recommendations, referrals, requests to connect. Add a bit of personality, which adds credibility for them and for you. People are more likely to connect with someone who takes the time to personalize a request or recommendation.

They will also be talking about nominations for the 20 Women to Watch in Sales Lead Management for 2013, the SLMA College of the Fellows. Join them to get some great resolution ideas. Resolutions are always about giving something up, but adding a new positive behavior.

Listen Now:

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Posted in SEO and Social Media, Current and Past Shows, Networking | 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.

Listen Now:

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

July 19: Hank Blank, Networking Guru talks about REAL Networking

July 16th, 2012

Hank Blank is one of those people that when you read his writing, you are drawn into to an interesting, sincere, and affable man. You WANT to know him, call him a colleague, mentor, and friend. But he doesn't take those classifications lightly. He's a true networker and teaches about networking through articles, speaking engagements and training sessions. He's not a guest to miss!

http://www.hankblank.com

Join us as we talk to Hank about all aspects of networking and the difference between "likes" and developing true relationships in business.

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