March 7 - How do you determine the ROI of a Lead Generation campaign?

March 4th, 2013

Our guest this week is Jenny Vance, co-founder of LeadJen. JennyVance co-founded Indianapolis-based LeadJen in 2004 leveraging her experience and success with outbound marketing campaigns, inside sales and lead generation. Under her leadership, LeadJen has developed into a multi-million dollar company serving more than 200 clients ranging from start-ups to Fortune 100 companies.

Jenny is president elect of the state chapter of Entrepreneurs Organization, having served as the Indiana Chapter learning chair. She also is active in the National Association of Women Business Owners. Jenny is the founder of the Indianapolis chapter of AA-ISP, the American Association of Inside Sales Professionals. She has also bee listed as one of the 50 Most Influential in Sales Lead Management 2010, 2011 and 2012. She was also among the 20 Women to Watch in Sales Lead Management in 2011 and 2012.

Jim Obermayer will be talking to her about the factors that can alter the result of a lead generation campaign, as well as answering the question of, "How long should a campaign go before you see results?" among other topics and scenarios. Join them for this informative, enlightening discussion.

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Posted in Lead Generation | Comments |

February 28: Mastering Three-Ups and One-Down

February 26th, 2013

Increasing Revenue, Productivity, Customer Satisfaction, and Decreasing Cost

Host James Obermayer interviews International C-suite Turnaround Mercenary Robert S. Murray Robert S. Murray author of "It's Already Inside", and former Vodaphone C-suite executive

Leading change is the hardest thing that a leader and executive has to do. Mostly because they are locked into left-brain thinking: spreadsheets, facts, figures, the demands of shareholders and the board. What leaders often miss is the right-brain response by the stakeholders — their emotions. In order to engage the hearts and minds of those that the change is impacting, leaders must communicate from a place of understanding for what is going through everyone's mind, then change leadership becomes easy. What follows is a simplified roll-out, wider adoption, and traction on implementation.

He is Author of the highly acclaimed book on life and leadership, It’s Already Inside. http://www.SoCalBMA.org/e-Shop. The book is getting notable praise from every level of leadership - from those just starting out in leadership roles to seasoned CEO's. It's a book that connects the left-brain world of business to the right-brain focus of employees and customers, and how today's leaders can nurture that.

About Robert S. Murray

ROBERT S. MURRAY is a passionate storyteller and leadership mentor, bringing more than twenty years of Senior Executive Business experience with Fortune 100 and small start-up organizations in Marketing, Sales, Operations, Business Development, and General Management in over 20 countries. As Chief Customer Operations Officer for Vodafone, Bob headed-up the complete consumer and business customer service organization serving over 9.2 million customers generating over $1.6 Billion in revenue. He lead the company to achieving the highest customer satisfaction rating, highest customer to FTE ratio, lowest “Bad Debt” and lowest customer churn rating in all of the 61 Vodafone operating and partner countries as well as the third lowest cost to serve. Bob developed and executed on Operational Efficiency Program that reduced OpEx by 20% while improving service levels, customer satisfaction and employee satisfaction.

Along the way, Bob has been the recipient of two New York Festival Awards and one Summit Award (Portland, Oregon) for Marketing Innovation Excellence. His current daily tasks include his role as Chairman of The GrowthPoint Group, a collection of the finest business minds to be found; Advisory Board Member for ElementFour, an innovative company that has developed technology to produce pure drinking water out of atmospheric air; Board Director for Russell Breweries, a Canadian Craft Beer producer; Associate Professor at the Sauder School of Business and the BCIT School of Business; Executive Advisor and Strategic Facilitator to many companies; and an international Keynote Speaker on leadership and business.

Robert S. Murray received his diploma in Marketing Management from British Columbia Institute of Technology; studied Sales Management at The University of British Columbia; Executive Finance at Queens University; and Advanced Services Marketing at Babson College. He currently resides in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.

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Posted in CRM and Related, Sales Strategist, Sales Skills Training | Comments |

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 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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Posted in Research, Sales Skills Training, Sales Lead Management, Women and Business | 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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January 31: Silo-ization: How It Destroys Sales & Marketing Departments

January 29th, 2013

Host James Obermayer interviews Mark Alarik of Sales Overlays on a subject we have all experienced but seldom solved: The Silos between sales and marketing. Mark and an Associate Daniel Kreutzer have written on this subject and created a soon to be broadcast webinar on the stupidity of managers that allow the existence of silos between sales and marketing.

G. Mark Alarik is co-founder and president of Sales Overlays, a sales and marketing agency that has served Fortune 500 and smaller companies since 1975. Their primary business is developing problem solving marketing campaigns that fill the sales funnel with quality leads and grow the value of the customer base. Mark is also a published author in many trade magazines.

You can contact Mark at 847-942-7140 to learn how to over-come silo-zation in your organization.

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Posted in Sales Strategist, Sales Skills Training | Comments |

January 24: Sales Funnel Mistakes that affect growth!

January 17th, 2013

Join host, Jim Obermayer as he talks to Al Davidson about the four biggest mistakes people make in managing their sales funnel.

Many sales people are familiar with the concept of the "sales funnel," with the idea that every sale starts with a large pool of prospects, which are eventually narrowed down by the various steps of the sales process (qualification, presentations, proposals, etc.) leading to a much smaller number of customers who actually decide to buy and close the deal.

A big part of success in managing sales leads is developing a better way to understand and manage your company's sales funnel. Here are a few of the biggest mistakes that small business leaders tend to make in managing their sales funnels – and ideas on how you can get better results.

About Al Davidson:

Al Davidson is the President and owner of Strategic Sales & Marketing (SSM), which he founded in 1989. Under Al's direction SSM has designed and implemented new business development plans and programs for thousands of B2B companies nationwide. Since their inception SSM's calling center has completed over 50 million new business sales presentations to high level decision makers and generated over 7 million sales leads. As a result, SSM has developed major account development expertise in the high technology, manufacturing and business service sectors. In addition Al Davidson has 25 years experience in business-to-business (B2B) direct marketing, new business development consulting, sales force management, lead management, sales training, and B2B web marketing. SSM also powers the Connecticut Technology Council's Lead Generation Resource Center (LGRC). The mission of the LGRC is to provide advisory services to CTC members in the following areas; identifying new business opportunities; searching out and qualifying customer prospects and business partners; design, production and implementation of marketing programs and strategies.

A bit about Strategic Sales & Marketing, Inc.

Strategic Sales and Marketing (SSM) is a lead generation company specializing in B2B lead generation, appointment setting and managing sales leads for major accounts in multiple industry sectors. Founded in 1989 by Al Davidson, Strategic Sales and Marketing is widely recognized as one of the “leading lights” of the lead generation industry.

Highlights of their lead generation programs include:

Completed over 50 million new business sales presentations for our clients.
Al Davidson, founder and president, has been nominated by the Sales Lead Management Association as one of the 50 Most Influential leaders in the industry.
Generated over 7 million sales leads for our clients.
Created millions of dollars in new revenue for our clients.

Strategic Sales and Marketing clients range from small local businesses to Fortune 100 companies.

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Posted in Funnel Marketing | Comments |

January 17: Is self-employment for you? Mistakes to avoid.

January 14th, 2013

Ruth Stevens of eMarketing Strategy interviewed by Susan Finch.

Ruth P. Stevens's expertise in customer acquisition and retention derives from a decade and a half of hands-on marketing for both large enterprises and start-up companies. Just prior to beginning her consulting practice, she served as chief marketing officer at an Internet company in New York City. Before that, she had broad responsibilities for direct marketing at three corporate giants – IBM, Ziff-Davis and Time Warner.

She has been listed as one of the 50 Most Influential in Sales Lead Management in 2011, one of the 20 Women to Watch in Sales Lead Management in 2012 and 2011. Since going independent in the late 90's, Ruth has had a lot of experience with people who are on the fence with the decision of whether venturing out on their own is for them, or are they better staying with or seeking a firm to work for.

She will also help alert you as to the common mistakes people make when making this change without thinking it through all the way. This mistakes can make the difference between success and failure.

SLMA Director of Online Marketing, Susan Finch brings some of the more practical advice in this decision such as seeking the advice of your tax advisor or CPA, speaking to others in the same type of business as you are considering starting. She has been independent since 2001 and doesn't look back at her decision with any regrets. She also recognizes it isn't for everyone.

The show is informative and may bring up some points you'll find helpful if you are considering this leap.

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Posted in Current and Past Shows, Women and Business | Comments |

January 10: Why you need interactive proposals and cost for doing it!

January 7th, 2013

SLMA host Jim Obermayer interveiws Isaac Pellerin of TinderBox. Isaac will discuss why proposal creation is easier than ever before, why it should be software as a service and the cost involved in starting up and using proposal software.

Isaac Pellerin is the Revenue Marketer at TinderBox, a Software as a Service that makes it easy to create, manage, and track interactive proposals. He loves a good story and enjoys working to enhance the way companies engage with their prospects and customers. He believes that marketing and sales are at their best when they have shared goals and metrics.

About TinderBox: TinderBox is an Indianapolis based software-as-a-service that helps you get to yes faster with a smarter, simpler, and more efficient proposal and marketing communications process—one that builds lasting business partnerships. Founded in 2009, TinderBox has become the choice for sales and marketing organizations such as Angie's List, Gannett, and Accenture Life Sciences to create compelling proposals that get to "yes".

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Posted in Inquiry Management, Current and Past Shows, Lead Nurturing, Lead Scoring | 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.

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