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How to waste your effort in a CRM database
Having a lot of data in your CRM system can give you a false sense of security. Unfortunately, on every day that goes by, some contact records are going out of date. The only way to maintain the data is to use it. Any record that hasn't been touched in a month ought to be…
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Our customers take steps in a journey, not a slippery slide down a funnel
We’ve been using a very unfortunate metaphor for years: the sales funnel. Supposedly, leads are dropped into the top and slide out the bottom as customers. Yuck. Actually, we are guiding contacts on a journey, and we need to think about the next step they have to take because we can’t take it for them.…
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Second step in loyalty: connect to a shared interest
Most businesses plung into a loyalty program with their most frequent or biggest customers. Although it's not a mistake, there are pitfalls in this approach. We may discover that our biggest customer is only accidentally our customer–a big cause for concern on many levels. Before we invest in in a loyalty program, we check our…
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First step in loyalty: be loyal to yourself
I was in Zabar's again a couple of weeks ago. There's really no good reason for me ever to go back. Their food makes me fat. I actually dislike their bagels and coffee! I usually have to go out of my way to be there when it's open. There's nothing important nearby. And yet every…
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These days, networking IS sales… agree?
At a recent workshop, Doug Bain of Growtheorem, a consultancy in sales management, stated that as far as he could see, getting in front of a prospect at a big company requires either (1) a personal introduction from someone the prospect already trusts, or (2) a major initiative in industry-leading content: articles in major publications,…
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Get ahead of the curve in serving your customers
One of the most important reasons to gather information about our customers is to plan the future of our company. Our competitive edge is the ability to use that information to better satisfy and anticipate customer needs. Searchblog: Living Systems and the Information First Company, 2014-Oct-11 by John Battelle Put another way, NewCos are "information…
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How to educate our customers for their own success
We can either educate our customers to succeed in their business or to succeed in our business. Why would we educate them to succeed in our business?? Well, that's what we do when we try to get them to excel at using our products and services. Instead, our products and services are only a means…
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Coach your sales team to share content for more efficient selling
David Meerman Scott has a good slideshare explaining why we have to shift to using content to generate leads in the era of permission marketing. Since we can no longer interrupt people, we have to either develop or own content or constantly be on the lookout for good content to share with our prospects and…
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Using email introductions to help people
To become a leader in our industry, we have to become known for providing valuable introductions. Unfortunately, it also means establishing new habits and skills. Michael Simmons has some very helpful tips. Inc.com: Stop Doing This One Thing in Email Introductions to Busy People, 2014-Oct-8 by Michael Simmons [Not] giving your contacts enough context on…
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Using blogging to think for more than ten years
Although I've been blogging for over 10 years (exactly 10 years on the Typepad platform), I've never figured out how to get much traffic. Traffic for the things I care about, that is. Yet my commitment hasn't wavered. Blogging works for me. I like seeing my thoughts recorded here. Now I'm trying to get in…
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