Networking

How to Increase Engagement and Avoid Online Meeting Failure

On-line meetings are crucial; done well the meetings increase sales, bring focus to marketing and company initiatives and save everyone time and money. Done poorly and everyone leaves the meeting wondering why they were there. During this program Jeff Smith, vice president at ClearSlide helps us over-come on-line meeting failures. The host is Jim Obermayer.Jeff Schmidt, SVP of World Wide Sales and Services at ClearSlideJeff oversees all aspects of Sales and Client Services. He has more than 20 years of technology leadership experience building sales teams and driving revenue growth. Jeff’s experience prior to ClearSlide includes prominent SaaS companies including WebEx, HighTail, PivotLink, and CoreMetrics in roles as Enterprise GM, Chief Revenue Officer, and head of global sales and services. He earned a BA in Speech Communications, Sales and Marketing from California State University, Northridge.

Why B2BMarketing.net is Expanding into North America

Why B2BMarketing.net Expands into North America
UK Based B2B Marketing is a huge free and paid membership organization (1 Million world-wide, 250,000 in the United States) that has opened offices and hired an editorial staff to support their expanding efforts in B2B Marketing in North America. In this interview with b2b veteran Bill Furlong, the new general manager in the US, we explore the new conferences and editorial direction for the US membership. The host is Jim Obermayer
 

How will Microsoft's purchase of LinkedIn affect users?

This topic was inspired by a post Randy Milanovic wrote on his blog. 26 Billion Reasons You May Consider Linking Out He says, "It’s not hard to envision a scenario in which LinkedIn users have to sign in via Live. Here’s hoping it’s the other way around." Well, Greg Cooper, as a leading LinkedIn coach in the UK is quite interested in discussing these possibilities. It will affect many users and possibly the entire platform we've come to rely on as a true business social network. Join them and host, Susan Finch.
 
After recording this show, we have to rename it:
HEY MICROSOFT! Don't screw up LinkedIn! The first half we discussed what LinkedIn has been doing right and our concerns about Microsoft purchasing the platform. The second half is a wishlist directed at Microsoft - what would we want them to do or NOT do as they "improve" their purchase?

Why leadership campaigns are important to nominees and those nominating

With the announcement of the 40 Most Inspiring Leaders in Sales Lead Management, Jim Obermayer and Susan Finch discuss the not so obvious reasons campaigns like this are important. It's not just about building your contact lists, email lists and gaining members. It goes way deeper than that.They will cover the evolution of such recognition campaigns within the history of the SLMA and other organizations. Points to include the value to the nominees, their companies but also to those who are nominating people. Join them for this, tweet your questions and comments before, during and after this episode. ------------------This episode is generously sponsored by The Vanella GroupThe Vanella Group, Inc. is the only firm that delivers telebased lead generation programs exclusively for enterprise technology providers. They achieve results 5 times higher than industry standards for outbound lead generation based on the research published by implementing their unique Telesales 2.0 methodology. We are an award winning leader in this space and get results like no other firms.The Vanella Group supports firms from Fortune 500 companies to startups.To learn more, visit BuildPipeline.com or call 888-335-0340and by ValidarWhether you're producing a seminar series, user's conference, lunch and learn, or exhibiting at a tradeshow, Validar has a solution. From capturing leads at tradeshows to managing onsite registration, tracking session attendance, gathering feedback, and providing sponsors lead retrieval we have a full suite of solutions for you. Since 2005 Validar has been turning Corporate Events and Trade Shows into Better Business. Call 888 784 2929 or visit us at www.validar.com

Contact Marketing: When you absolutely MUST get through to someone.

Stu Heinecke is the author of "How To Get A Meeting with Anyone" (BenBella Books, 2-2016) and host of this week's show. His book is a compilation of "Contact Marketing" techniques, as he calls them, designed to help sales reps break through to their toughest-to-reach, VIP prospects. In his book, and in this series of interviews, he asks top sales thought leaders, "When you absolutely must get through to someone of great importance, how do you do it?"Linda Richardson is the author of "Changing the Sales Conversation" and Founder and Executive Chairwoman of Richardson, a global sales training business. As a recognized leader in the industry, she has won the coveted Stevie Award for Lifetime Achievement in Sales Excellence for 2006 and in 2007 she was identified by Training Industry, Inc. as one of the “Top 20 Most Influential Training Professionals.” Linda is credited with the movement to Consultative Selling, which is the cornerstone of Richardson’s methodology. Other innovations Linda has spearheaded in the sales training industry are: development of a comprehensive, integrated curriculum dedicated exclusively to sales, commitment to customization vs. generic training, and development of an interactive coaching-type training methodology. Her innovation in eLearning earned Richardson the Best Soft Skills Award from Elearning! magazine and Product of the Year for Richardson SkillGauge™ diagnostics from Customer Interaction Solutions magazine. Linda is the author of ten books on selling and sales management, including her most recent works, Perfect Selling, The Sales Success Handbook — 20 Lessons to Open and Close Sales Now, Sales Coaching — Making the Great Leap from Sales Manager to Sales Coach, and Stop Telling, Start Selling. She teaches sales and management courses at the Wharton Graduate School of the University of Pennsylvania and the Wharton Executive Development Center. She is a frequent speaker at industry and client conferences. Linda began her career as an educator and educational psychologist and transitioned to the corporate world where she developed a passion for sales effectiveness. Prior to founding Richardson, Linda was a teacher, a manager at a global consulting firm, and an officer at a major financial institution. She has been published extensively in industry and training journals and has been featured in numerous publications, including The Wall Street Journal, Forbes, Nation’s Business, Selling Power, Success, and The Conference Board magazine.

Linda currently serves on the Mayor’s Council for the Arts for the City of Philadelphia, is a Director of the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, and a Director of the American Poetry Review. She served on the United States Small Business Administration President’s Council from 1991 to 1993.

MSP Radio Special Edition for Our Veterans - Thank you for serving.

On Veterans' Day in America, we are publishing a program aired last week hosted by Nate Teplow for MSP Radio one of our SLMA radio special programs. We think is worth repeating to SLMA Radio listeners.Veteran’s Day is this week, and people across the nation are taking the time to honor and remember our veterans and all they do for our country. The military teaches our veterans a unique set of skills, both technical and interpersonal, and for this reason, many veterans often find jobs in IT when they return home from service.On this week’s episode of MSPradio, we chat with Hire Heroes USA, a non-profit organization that helps veterans find jobs after returning home from service. Kelly Dempsey, Director of Communications and Corporate Relations, and Brian Stann, CEO, will tell us a little about the organization and the valuable skill set that our veterans possess as a result of serving our country. Tune in now to this special, Veteran’s Day episode of MSPradio.

Why storytelling is the best way to connect with clients.

Host Jim Obermayer heard the MobiTen people, Leon Yeh and Lynda Corliss at a presentation during the Sales 2.0 conference hosted by Selling Power in Las Vegas in September. Their mobile application, Venta for the iPad, offers field salespeople intriguing technology, that helps sales people connect differently with clients, using something MobiTen calls Story Selling.
 

 
 
Leon Yeh is CEO and founder of MobiTen, a mobile technology firm focused on creating progressive tools for sales and marketing teams. A  20 year veteran of enterprise web development for firms like Northrup Grumman and Toyota, he is passionate about the user experience. MobiTen's core mission is to create mobile applications that ignite customer engagement. As CEO, Leon is committed to his vision of using mobile technology to bring brand stories to life. Leon has a Master's Degree in Software Engineering from the University of Southern California.
 
 
Lynda Corliss, Co-Founder and COO of MobiTen, has a background in IT Procurement, process optimization and Operations. With expertise spanning more than 20 years in IT procurement, licensing and contracts and later as the leader of Indirect Procurement for a large Biotech company. She specializes in creating win-win agreements for technology and services as well as creating programs that promote sound operating structures for Corporations such as Biotronik, ADP, Mentor Graphics, and Lockheed Missile and Space have worked with Lynda.
 
About MobiTen
 
MobiTen, Inc. , (Mobi for mobile and Ten for the Chinese word “tian”, meaning heaven or cloud) founded in 2011 in Portland, OR, is a-mobile technology company, focused on enterprise solutions for sales and marketing organizations.  MobiTen’s founders are mobile enterprise software experts Leon Yeh and Lynda Corliss. The firm adapts existing digital content and common file formats to craft highly portable, graphically dramatic, simple-to-use and update, interactive presentations for iPads.  This approach enables marketers to configure product and service specifications, pricing, and other supporting data so this information is continuously up to date and available to the entire sales organization for use in a wide range of customer contact situations. MobiTen’s newest product, Venta, is developing a reputation as “the sales team’s new best friend “
 

Arm wrestling and how our history of relationships follows us forward

Laura McGuire - CEO/Founder of Vinea Group and Founder of Saligent talks about how your history - going back as far as you may remember definitely affects where you are today. She started out as a competitive swimmer, one of seven children, Army brat and so much more. She was always faced competition, change and challenges with vigor!She cites her friend MacMcintosh and their mutual "life's too short" test. No nonsense - life is too short. Bring your integrity, your willingness to learn, change and adapt and you will succeed. Laura has been named to the 50 Most Influential in Sales Lead Management for several years and has topped the list more than once. She has also been named to the 20 Women to Watch in Sales Lead Management for a few years.Hear her joy, her passion as she talks about the journey. THAT'S an entrepreneur.0:30 - Introductions2:00 - Arm wrestling - really!4:43 - Given the run around by venture capitalist and determined she needed to shake it up, "Let's decide this with arm wrestling." Speaks volumes as to who she is, but at the core she is the same: she adapts, she is strong, self-starter, develop relationships when you move and carry them forward - this is what she has done with her upbringing as an "army brat."5:50 - Consistently on the list of the 50 Most Influential in Sales Lead Management (http://50mostinfluential) and 20 women to Watch in Sales Lead Management (http://20women2watch.com)6:38 - Worries and projects must pass the "Life is too short test" - she and her friend, MacMcIntosh agree on this. 7:30 - What is considered success? "The people we've come to grow and love." She's still in contact with the people from her original account at NEC 25 years ago. "THAT is the most gratifying thing." That is success. You've maintained a rapport through the years and continue to support each other.8:46 - How long did it take to get the confidence that you didn't have to work for someone else again? When did you know you could make it and continue to bring these relationships forward?10:00 "You don't know what you don't know when you start out - but thank God for that." She's a natural risk taker, but not knowing she may not make it was a huge help. S11:00 Rabbit hole story about Jeff Zigler and her first cinderblock building location - wide-eyed, but not as much as the door-to-door sales telecom people that came to their door. Laura and her crew 3 of them - tech savvy, unbeknownst to the sales visitors. By the time they left, they had an appointment at the telecom HQ facility in Kansas City and sold them!12:45 Laura admits, "SUCH A RUSH to be an entrepreneur!"13:01 Most fun when invited to speak because of entrepreneurial experiences to incorporate successes and failures. It tells the true story.14:06 Susan's story: As she went into labor with her first child, she decided that she was never going back to a traditional office and would make it on her own. Her first client was her recent employer - he supported her dream 100% and helped her get more clients because he believed in her.15:00 Laurie's story of "One Client" before there were the terms: marketing automation, sales lead management. We used a lot more words to describe what we were all doing.16:45 By the time she opened Vineya Group, she was able to do it with only company funds and no other investors or loans.19:30 Ronnie Bincer common friend. He's a force on Google+ and Hangouts, even though he started out in SEO - he saw the connection and the value of combining video, great content, and relationships as the key to continue to build credibility, reputation and sales.19:45 LinkedIn becoming more of a content resource.20:00 - Laura is adding to the toolbox with Google+. SAAS tools, Cloud tool, social media platform - they rarely are what they started out as 2 years later. She sees where this is going. T21:00 It about matching a client's value proposition to a known need."We finally puts words around their problems."Ronnie, like Susan is a nationally prominent in understanding Google+ and Hangouts.started out in SEO22:00 Video SEO is critical to reach.Susan says "It's huge in building authority - relationship building."Laura says, "Do your due diligence about every tool in the arsenal."For a while, we were all in the HubSpot frenzy - inbound digital, fanning your digital feathers - have them come to you - but there is so much coming at us at such a pace.23:15 "Please don't make me learn something new today! Give me a day off!" This is part of the fatigue coupled with the huge excitement.Prospect engagement and converstion - fill in the top of the funnel - based on THEIR NEEDS and what's relevant to THEM. We understand the tools, good-old fashioned email marketing digital retargeting.24:25  Laura McGuire says, "Folks, you need to get better understand the power of Google+. I can get the fatigue, but there has been a phenomenon of adoption. There has been more growth in Google+ - despite naysayers - than any other social platform in that amount of time - even Facebook.Because of YouTube and Hangouts - not instead of - but it will eclipse tools that we thought were 'whiz-bangy' as recent as a year ago."25:15 - Shifting the hub of your communication. Where are you the most effective when you only have a limited amount of time. That's where you need to be. Laura agrees.25:45 No one can be the expert at everything, but as a leader and decision maker, you need to quickly understand how things need to be plugged in and applied to the people you are serving.26:15 enterprise marketing automation in mid-to late 90's - duked it out. Learned a lot.Laura and her companies kept their eye on the concept of cloud before the term came up. Like other scrappy regional agencies, they set up their cloud labor the first day when Citrix set up their cloud server about 25 years ago. They ended up with a large number of patents, some of which were earliest and most cited patents in crowd sourcing and cloud labor space.27:35 Cannot remove that human element, the relationship - you have to use voice to voice and face to face to truly develop true relationships.We will be investing a lot of our time and treasure, it will definitely change the face of labor in the next 5-10 years. Vineya is constantly looking at cost containment and profitability measures - crowd sourcing. It's rocking the content marketing world!Vineagroup.com

Why It's Time for Women to Lead in America

Susan Finch interviewed Vicki Donlan. Vicki is a Business & Health Coach, Speaker and Author of HER TURN: Why It's Time for Women to Lead in America .Some of the highlights of the show included:What a lot of women don't realize is that MEN with daughters are the biggest supporters of women becoming successful. They want to know that anything is possible for their daughters. Women don't remember to connect the dots. Men look at every opportunity to connect and grow their business relationships. Women spend more time separating personal from business. Why?As a young girl, Vicki's father would take her to work with him. He would introduce her to many important people. But instead of saying, "Vicki, you need to meet so and so.." he would say to the person, "You need to meet my daughter, Vicki." His support came through in every subtle thing he did to expose her to the business world. She grew up knowing she was important and could do anything. Are you giving that gift to young women, teens and your daughters?Women are natural nurturers and relationship builders, then why is it that men are the ones who rarely speak negatively about each other - especially in business? Women need to be SUPPORTIVE of other women and bring them up with them through their successes, build them up when other succeed, talk about them as if you are a proud parent or friend.She challenged women especially to do four things:Become less judgemental. This includes judgemental about women's looks, career choices -anything they do.Support women every time you can! When one succeeds we all win.Participate and support women's groups. We get through the obstacles faster when we meet and discuss as s group. There is a different level of collaboration, discussion and support when it is just women with women. Nothing wrong with being in co-ed groups, but don't forget to set aside time to just be with other professional women.Be a mentor. We are all mentors and all mentees. Reach out early and often and we have an opportunity.  This applies to ALL ages!About Vicki DonlanAs an entrepreneur, she was founder and publisher of Women’s Business, a 25,000 controlled-circulation newspaper devoted to women in business in the Massachusetts, New Hampshire and Rhode Island region, founded in 1998, and sold to the Boston Herald in 2004, remaining as publisher through 2007.Her first book HER TURN Why It’s Time for Women To Lead in America was published in September 2007. She is a regular guest discussing women in business on New England Cable News’ Business Day and a well-known speaker.As a business coach and health coach, and, most important, as a woman, she understands the pressure that is put on women in our culture to take care of others and still be perfect in all ways as a woman, mother, wife, businesswoman, entrepreneur, volunteer, and community activist.Connect with Vicki Donlan:BLOG http://www.vickidonlan.com/Womens-Business-Blog/ Follow me on Twitter: @vickidonlan Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/vickidonlan LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/vickidonlan 

Why don’t women take credit for their accomplishments?

Jill Rowley continues to be a force in the sales lead management industry. A pioneer in the space, Jill has become an expert and global companies (Rally Software, DocuSign, ArcSight) turn to her for guidance and knowledge.In working closely with Jill, she continues to show herself as more than just a sales rep, but a trusted advisor in the area of sales lead management and the new world of buyer driven marketing and sales.SLMA Director, Susan Finch will be having a conversation with Jill talking about what keeps women from taking credit for their own accomplishments. What separates women who are comfortable standing up for themselves, their skills and accomplishments; versus those who quietly let credit be given away, usually to a same-level man or supervisor man or woman?Jill's achievements in the field of sales lead management:SLMA Woman to Watch in 2011 winnerAwarded Eloquan on the Year for 2011 - Eloquan of the year is given to an Eloqua employee who meets criteria including: passion, knowledgeable about the technology, mentor, and active in the community.Jill encompasses all of this and more.Professional Boards:Focus Expert SLMA Contributing MemberTop Sales Rep at EloquaMember of The Marketing Automation Institute Member of MOCCA