2 great tips for freeing up a bunch of your time – from the in-box and out-box side of your desk. First tip is from the out-box side on how to decide whether to respond to an RFP or not. It’s tricky to tell if it’s a real RFP because they can just take SOOO much time. What’s worse, coming in second or not having it awarded? The second tip has really freed up my day to tackle my to-do list instead of read and respond to trivial stuff.
How To Avoid Deals Where No Vendor Wins – Really enjoyed this post from Geoffrey. In discussions with other sales reps in various industries, there seems to be an uptick in RFPs being issued but two items stand out – * RFP decisions are pushed out out out. The company wants the RFP response back in 2 weeks but the decision drags drags drags. Hence the timeliness of Geoffrey’s post * RFPs in purgatory. In addition to new RFPs being issued, old ones are getting dusted off and sent out again. When you ask, “Why” the answer boils down to, “We’re getting ready JUST IN CASE…” Always a challege for a small company responding to an RFP from a F500 company when there’s no real good understanding (or belief) in whether the RFP’s really real or not.
Improve Your Connect Rates – Absolutely spot on commentary. Emails are so easy and cheap to send that readers are bombarded by them. Therefore, they don’t read them or at best, scan thru them. I’ve even set up my BB to only accept emails from people who are already in my address book as all other emails get saved on my PC. Guess how many of them are read on my PC?
Jim’s critical point – call & leave a message pointing out the details in your email. I’ve had a much higher connect rate when I both call (leave a message) and send an email. And as he says, “Persistence is key.”
Ever hit the “send” button on your email too quickly and then wished you could pull it back? And if you try Outlook’s “Recall Message…” all it really does is highlight to the recipient that you made a mistake.
Here’s a perfect example of not proofing before you email. And this was a cold call email blast to me from someone I don’t know. Think I’ll be responding to this email with anything but “unsubscribe?”
There were a bunch of quick and valuable reminders and tips on the web this week on improving your sales process.
Making You Suprisingly Unforgettable To Your Customers – Loved this post – in these days of too many competitors and too many choices offered to our prospects, here’s some great tips make yourself unforgettable. How many of you think of Nat & Natalie Cole when you hear the word, “Unforgettable” like I do?
Three Tiny Changes That Drive Success – Nice reminders to help get you out of a sales rut. Don’t forget Dale Carnegie’s, “21 Days to Making it a Habit” as you try these changes. Assuming you don’t do them already!
Quiz: How To Bypass a Gatekeeper – Real good quiz on bypassing the Gatekeeper when you just can’t get in. Interesting decision by Geoffrey on which department you should call into to ask for the transfer. Other ways:
- try Jigsaw for direct dial # of executive
- try Inquisix for a referral to the executive by someone they know.
Geoffrey’s idea is manipulative but sometimes you just have to try it. But only after you can’t get an Inquisix referral or JigSaw is not coughing up the direct dial numbe
“You can’t have a better tomorrow if you’re thinking about yesterday.” — Charles Kettering
Quote of the Week – Great quote that should strike a chord in any sales rep, manager or business owner bemoaning their poor 2009 sales attainment. Sales people are usually very good at moving on whether the last month was a win or a dud but for anyone needing a reminder, read and internalize this quote. Now go get them!
Since many Inquisix members are also entrepreneurs and business owners (like us), perhaps you’ll find these articles as interesting as we do. The first article caused a big commotion and discussion amongst the Boston startup crowd. Isn’t that what good articles do?
Why Waltham Doesn’t Matter – Finding early stage funding is always challenging for startups and the chances of getting a, “No thanks” are close to 99%. So when a noted Boston Globe business columnist calls the VCs on the carpet, everyone in our community takes notice. I was at a TechCocktail networking event last week and the VCs I spoke to all had lots of comments and head shaking. One was upset that they weren’t mentioned with the “good guys” in Boston. So if Scott was looking to stir the pot, he accomplished it in spades!
Hey, Boston-area VCs, angels: Loosen up and connect with startups – To continue the commentary from Scott on Waltham VCs and lack of Series A fundings, one of the Angels that rec’d kudos from Scott is offering his suggestions. It’s one all Inquisix members believe in – the referral. “If you can’t/won’t do the deal then referral them to someone you think will.”
The blog articles I read this week worth commenting on and sharing:
111 Successful Plays That Led Salesforce.com from an Idea to $1 Billion in 10 Years – The company (and the man) that made the hosted-elsewhere software applications (whether you call it SaaS, Cloud Computing, ASP, etc) a non-issue with big business. Before <a href=”http://salesforce.com”>salesforce.com</a> there were too many concerns about security, up-time, bandwidth and more. After Salesforce.com paved the way, look how many sites are now in the clouds, including Google Mail, Quicken & TurboTax along with photo sharing and desktop hard-disk backups. You can put your customer data, every email, financial data and tax data all online and not think twice about it. Thanks to Marc and Salesforce.com
Have you met your competitor yet? Maybe you should. – Great article about the reasons why you should meet your competitor. Back when I was at Sybase, we were taught to hate our version of the Evil Empire, Oracle. Well, we all know how that battle turned out and many of my Sybase colleagues ended up working at Oracle. They didn’t suddenly become evil although we were both more careful about sharing war stories. Similarily, I’ve always been impressed at the end of hockey games when both teams line up and shake each other’s hands. Geoffrey’s reasons for meeting your competitor:
1) Learn more about how they sell
2) Use that knowledge to build credibility with your customer
3) Never know when you’ll be looking for a new job
For those of you in the US & Canada, enjoy the long weekend!
I had an amazing Blog Talk Radio with Jon Hansen of PI Window on Business last week. We spoke over our allotted time, almost an hour, on the emergence of reputation networks such as Inquisix. With it being so easy to make connections on the web and trade recommendations, how can people who don’t know you really trust what they read about you?
Topics we discussed included:
Value of References
Giving vs Getting
Political Patronage and References
Verifying References
Integrity of Referral/Reference Process
Does Social Media Help or Hurt
Extending Your Reference Base with Integrity
Emergence of Reputation Networks with Social/Business Networking
If BTR podcast doesn’t show above, please go to Jon’s site to listen to it.
On a side note, talking with Jon was one of the easiest and most enjoyable online discussions I’ve had. Jon prepared me for the call by sending me some topics to think about prior to our interview. He was calm when we had a few technical difficulties to iron out before we went on the air. And his engaging demeanor and conversation made the conversation lively, interesting and valuable. I was certainly surprised to learn later that Jon’s only been a BTR host for a short time. Jon has written a book, “Your Show Will Go Live in 5 Seconds” about his experiences as a Blog Talk Radio Host. If you’re thinking of becoming a BTR host or are thinking of your personal branding via Social Media, you owe it to yourself to read this book. An excerpt is available at no charge at Jon’s site. Not surprising, his book reads as breezy and well as listening to him online.
Nigel Edelshain of Sales 2.0 was interviewed on yourBusinessChannel recently and he discussed what salespeople need to do today to win more business. Nigel’s call to action is to “…get together and share their rolodexes….to win business and keep their jobs.” He suggests starting online with LinkedIn, AllyForce, SalesConx or Inquisix.
The author’s rant is that too many people have moved their relationship online at the expense of face-to-face time. And that too many people share the dreaded TMI (Too Much Information) on Facebook – information they’d never share in public but feel compelled to share on-line.
I had a FB friend pondering online if they should have another child. TMI!
Another about their trip to the dentist. Another TMI!
Still, given the explosive growth of Facebook, Twitter and (to a lesser extent!) Inquisix, I think that people have just started learning how to communicate properly online. However, if we’re still struggling with in-person conversations and understanding email messages, then Miss Manners and her colleagues have a lot of work to do!
As many of you know, I’m a big fan of Joanne Black and her book, “No More Cold Calling™” because so much of what she writes is the foundation on what Inquisix is built upon. When Dave and I were first sharing the referral exchange idea that became Inquisix, we were introduced to Joanne by Philippe Lavie, sales trainer from Chicago. Joanne and I talked a few times and then agreed to meet at the first Sales 2.0 conference in San Francisco. I had a chance to pick up Joanne’s book and read it before meeting her in Chicago. I felt like I was in college again because when I was done reading her book, it was filled with my yellow highlighting. I’ve now met Joanne a few times while I’m in San Francisco and her advice on building a better Inquisix has proven invaluable.
Joanne has now extended her website’s offerings to include a blog, Facebook page and Twitter account. It’s now even easier to get her good advice.
