Technology Working for You?

Social Marketing Specialest for VML, Kyle Hoedl, gave a fabulous presentation to my class at KU yesterday on how to build your personal brand with social media. I was glowing about his presentation to my husband over dinner which led to a conversation about his day. His company now uses a contact management system, Salesforce.com. It's a fabulous tool and one we agreed would have made us millions when we were starting our sales careers. He was reviewing the sales pipeline with one of his sales people. A particular client had been in her pipeline for over a year and nothing has happened. As Rob questioned her about the account, it became obvious she knew nothing about the account other than it was a referral from someone. She didn't even know if the account would have any ROI to be worth her time. She really didn't even know what business they were in. What? I challenged him that in 10 minutes with a Google search, I could give all the details of the account. We agreed so many sales people don't engage in understanding the client until that first sales call when they say "tell me about your business." With just simple research ahead of that first call, you can demonstrate you genuinely care about the client's business, you're not wasting their time by asking stupid questions and you're ready to be a problem-solver for them. With so much information readily available to you, there's simply no excuse to not put technology to use for you. Ten minutes of research will make you money! Are you using social media for your sales efforts? Send me an email and let me know; I'm working on a research project!

Business Schools Are Failing Business

A friend of mine, Julie Edge, has just accepted a position with Washington University. Wash U is establishing an outpost in Kansas City for their MBA program. http://news.wustl.edu/news/Pages/20037.aspx Julie is on the ground floor working to pull in resources and buy-in from the community. As I reviewed my own MBA experience at Rockhurst University and looked at KU's program, I see a glaring ommission. No where in my program did I learn anything about specifically about sales. My focus was management since I knew I wanted to run my own station one day. Curriculum included everything from accounting to operations to marketing. Sales is a function of marketing, but little attention was given to the topic. How many MBAers out there do you suppose are responsible for sales within their organization? I would venture to guesss it is an extremely high number either in a management role or in an actual day-to-day sales person role. Why aren't our business school teaching the topic? I teach a course in sales at the University of Kansas but in the journalism school. Our budding journalists are smart enough to know sales drive both the news and advertising business. I often get b-schoolers who venture over to Stauffer-Flint for a 5 month sales training course I offer. Sales is a process. It isn't about being "good with people" or putting up a fabulous Web site you hope potential customers discover. It's about understanding a client's needs and how your product helps them to achieve their goals. The concept and process is simple, but it is a process! Please feel free to pass this along to all you know!

Sales People Drive Your Business

Most of you who follow this blog are sales people. I caution you: I'm about to rant about the lack of respect for what you do every day gets recognized within your company! It's easy for me to forget since most of the people who hire me as a sales consulatant understand the critical role sales people play within their organization. I was fascintated to meet with a new client who has been asked to drive sales within her organization in her spare time. She's an accountant and her boss is a CFO. She's has been given a marketing plan complete with a SWOT analysis; she's also been given revenue goals. Now "Mary" is phenomenal with clients; she simply knows her financial business inside and out and understand the onepercenters principle of always doing what's right for the client. She describes herself as the "implementer." She has absolutely NO motivation for cold calling and generating new clients. Her work day is full at this moment. We all know she might be able to tighten her time management skills to save 20 minutes in her day. Will that be enough to generate new business? Do you see anything wrong with this picture? Sales is a skill set and a process. It isn't something you can do in your "spare" time. Successful people who follow the steps close maybe 20 percent of their business. How can you ask someone who hasn't been trained in the sales process and has NO motivation to be trained in the sales process to generate revenue? It simply doesn't make sense!