February 14: Kathie Nelson says Stop turning over rocks for customers.

February 11th, 2013

Susan Finch interviews Kathie Nelson, Founder and CEO of Connectworks. Kathie is a serial entrepreneur and born powerhouse in business growth, is a four time author, highly sought after speaker, top tier business strategist, and coach.

Her cut to the chase deliverables have produced her own award winning sales, and national acclaim. In addition to her contributions to emerging companies, many non-profits and corporations have been the beneficiaries of her visionary leadership style resulting in substantial, measurable growth.

Once told she would never walk again, she defied the odds and overcame the obstacles that promised her life long limitations. Refusing to accept being told what she couldn’t do, she found her way to walk again and has never stopped. Kathie brings that same determination to all of her savvy business strategies.

Crediting this life changing experience as her catalyst, she soon developed the business formulas and strategies that persistently equal success for thousands of individuals and organizations nationally.

With concise and visionary accomplishment, her speaking prowess, signature products, and services far surpass the current market metrics. Get what every busy professional seeks: more money, more easily through business growth, marketing, networking, and sales.

Some of the show highlights and topics include:

There are two perspectives

1. Lack of confidence in their ability to sell or whatever they interpret what the word "sales" means to them. These people usually have a disconnection to the language that sales professionals describe as the sales process.

2. Clear understanding of what the customer needs so that the sales conversation is about serving and discovery. This group is usually comfortable and connected to the language that sales professionals describe as the sales process.

Small business owners frequently hear what they consider vague and non-relatable concepts, "lead management, sales lead management, ROI, lead nurturing, sales funnel management, lead generation." These same people have not been exposed to that professional language, yet they are out there trying to accomplish these goals. If they were confident in what makes them different, this would not get in their way. It seems to be part of the stigma they associate with the term, "Sales Professional." You're going to have a difficult time selling anything if you can't become confident in your ability to sell your products or services.

Three key pieces to gathering the information ahead of time:

Keeping your finger on the pulse of trends that will affect your prospects or customers.
Conducting focus groups
Creating strategic partner alliances serving the same audience, as well as other sales professionals serving same audience

She asks them, "What's on your radar for 2013?" "What are obstacles that are possibly going to keep you or your customers from reaching their goals."

Susan Finch acknowledged these can be scary to ask the questions that you may not like the answer. But asking these questions make you empathetic, knowledgeable, credible. You will discover the correct market entry points, at what moment are they more receptive to hiring, launching, purchasing a service.

Kathie Nelson: realizing that if you have a sales manager over your shoulder telling you that you have to produce. "I can't slow down to do discovery because I have to get the quota up." If you don't take the time for discovery, you are constantly turning over rocks, "Are you my customer?" "Are you my customer?"

Do you want to increase your sales quickly? Then commit to investing in the time, slow down - evaluate who my best customers were and what were they really going through. In general, do they have challenges? This process helps her empathize and serve them better. Once she did this and got clear on the experience of my customer, my sales doubled. This was through strategic partnerships.

"For every minute spent in planning saves 9 in execution."

Book recommendation for sales professionals:

Dave Crenshaw's book, "The Myth of Multitasking." His overall message: Multi-tasking serves no one.

If you are in sales and don't want to be seen as a sales person, you are sabotaging your success. Whatever stigma you have associated with the sales profession is old news. You can be an honorable, caring, successful SALES professional, and proud of the product or service you represent, happy with the success you are adding to your customers' businesses.

Kathie's two books, "I Want What She's Got!" and the "Busy People Guide to Getting Unstuck" are helpful reads that will have you laughing and crying and inspired.

busy-peoples-guide-to-getting-unstuck-cover1

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June 7: Judy Mod, Co-Founder and President of the Principle of Social Gastronomy

June 7th, 2012

SLMA Radio host Jim Obermayer will ask Judy Mod why she co-founded the Social Executive Council. We want to know about their charter, their goals, and how someone becomes a member. In other words, “What’s in it for an Executive.”

Judy Mod co-founded and is the president of the Social Executive Council, the premiere global group of senior executives who are collaborating on becoming cross-functional, enterprise-wide buyer-centric organizations. She is also a Principal of Social Gastronomy, is an executive who is helping organizations transform from solution-centric to buyer-centric in their approach to their markets, their customers, and the operationalization within their companies. Her specialties include Collaborative Buying, Buyer-Centric Marketing, Behavioral Target Marketing, Network Selling, and Customer Adoption.

Judy’s career spans over 28 years in B2B delivering top line revenue in a diversity of industries (chemical/petrochemical/O&G, process/manufacturing, environmental, microelectronics, high technology) and in various roles (global sales, business development, marketing, strategic alliances/channels/partnerships, consulting). A recognized early adopter of innovation, she has the ability to merge the needs of organizations with the innovative solutions in the marketplace.

Judy is regular speaker and blogger on social market leadership, buyer-centric organizations and the social enterprise. Previously, she served as president of the Southeast US / Latin America chapter of the Association of Strategic Alliance Professionals and on the boards of Global EXEC Women, Women in Technology and It’s The Journey, a 501 © 3 serving the breast cancer community. A graduate of Cleveland State University with a bachelor’s degree in Chemical Engineering, Judy also holds an MBA from the University of Dallas. For more information on Judy, you can check out her LinkedIn profile at www.linkedin.com/in/judymod, follow her on Twitter at http://twitter.com/JudyMod or contact her directly at jmod@socialgastronomy.com.

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Posted in Research, SEO and Social Media | 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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Posted in Research, Branding | Comments |

July 15 Show: Tony Jaros - SiriusDecisions

July 12th, 2011

TONY JAROS Senior Vice President of Research, SiriusDecisions

Tony is a sales and marketing thought leader with nearly 20 years of experience; he has led the overall research function at SiriusDecisions since the company’s founding in 2001. His b-to-b expertise spans a wide range of disciplines, including field marketing/demand creation strategies, tactics, metrics and organizational structures; general marketing strategy; marketing communications; and inside sales/teleprospecting. As a consulting principal, Tony has advised a number of organizations including Cognos, Symantec, CSC, Gartner, MasterCard and Factiva.

Prior to SiriusDecisions, Tony worked as a consultant and project manager with Norwalk, CT-based Peppers and Rogers Group (PRG), the world’s leading relationship marketing boutique consulting firm. His work included the creation of business-to-business and business-to-consumer customer value models and needs frameworks, the reorganization of a major airline’s sales and marketing organizations around its customers, the overhaul of a online retailer’s Web strategy, the development of a comprehensive customer touchmap for an automobile manufacturer, and the creation of hands-on, customer-centric sales and marketing training programs and field materials. His client roster included 1-800-Flowers.com, Rockwell Automation/Entek, British Airways, Volvo, Jaguar, Moore Corporation, Ford’s Premier Automotive Group and GE Capital.

Tony also was responsible for the day-to-day project operations of Stamford, CT-based Simba Information’s consulting services group, which counseled such clients as Microsoft, Miller Freeman, RH Donnelley, Ameritech, and Simon and Schuster. While at Simba, he also served as a managing editor and senior analyst in the organization’s New Media and Marketing Group.

Tony received an MBA with concentrations in marketing and management from New York University, and a bachelor of science in journalism from Northwestern University.

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