Scaling for sales growth – tough or what?

In a conversation earlier in the week with an industry sales veteran we got onto the topic of scaling sales. A topic we could have chatted about enjoyably all day quite easily. When we had concluded our conversation we noted that there are many aspects to scaling sales that we will all have come across in one form or another over the years: 

1. Hiring sales people
2. Entering new markets
3. Developing partnerships, channels and alternative routes to market
4. Strengthening account management skills
5. Improving the sales process considering minor adaptations of sales behaviour & how it will affect buyer behaviour
6. Proactive sales planning and sales system adoption
7. Aligning sales and marketing
8. Ensuring executives know their role in the sales cycles
9. Building sales teams to sell to key accounts
10. Knowing when to walk away 

These ten points count no doubt but they make the scaling topic very complex, seeing the wood from the trees can be tough. There are lots of lines of dependency to be aware of both internally and externally. Ultimately to scale sales your organisations and senior management team need to be sales led.  This is the only way to achieve 25%, 30%, 50% growth rates. 

“As a sales manager said to me recently, scaling sales is complex, I need help to simplify the approach to ensure we are sales led and consistent with our mission. Our sales cycles our complex, we need to sell value while at the same time ensuring we keep things simple for the buyers. If we don’t keep things simple for buyers and for our sales team we will swim in a sea of mediocrity”.

This conversation got me thinking of the engine of a five cylinder car, each cylinder aligns with each other so the car can gets you from a to b. If we assume A is where we are and B is where we want to get to – be that 25% sales growth year on year or 50% growth - then we need to make sales the engine of our business – that brings us back to being sales led again. The sales engine will have a number of cylinders: called leads, meetings, sales cycles, sales order and repeat orders or alternatively suspects, prospects, opportunities, customers and repeat customers, it doesn’t really matter what the cylinders are called, what matters is the activity in each cylinder and how effective the activity is. If the focus is activity first which gets you so far, effectiveness of activity is the key to scaling sales or am I missing something?

Accelerate sales growth, sales actvity, sales effectiveness

 

How Misreading the Buying Decision Could Cost You the Sale

Key lessons from Neil Rackham’s ‘Major Account Sales Strategy’

‘Major Account Sales Strategy’ by Neil Rackham’s is a bible for the savvy sales professional. It is as relevant today as when it was first published in 1989. So, we dusted it off and pulled out its key points.

The key message of this ground-breaking book is that many sales are lost because salespeople misread the stage of the buying decision. For example, they try to sell a solution before the buyer’s needs have been recognized, or dig around to identify needs when they should be addressing the specific supplier selection criteria set by the buyer. Perhaps most serious of all they fail to unearth buyer concerns that could stall the sale.

Now, like me you know that no two buying decisions are the

same and that buying models can be an over-simplistic

representation of reality of how complex business decisions are made. However, Rackham's provides food for though in terms of how the key success factors for the salesperson varies depending on the stage of the buying decision. So, let us look at the 5 key stages:

Buying Phase 1: RECOGNITION OF NEEDS:

If there is no need there is no sale, that is obvious. So, the first stage in the buying process is the recognition of needs. That is also the starting point for most sales meetings, or at least it should be.

In the recognition of needs phase the ideal strategy for the salesperson is to uncover dissatisfaction and develop it until it reaches a critical mass. That means the salesperson should hold back on product discussions and presentations, focusing instead on identifying needs, probing dissatisfaction and creating tension for change.

Successful salespeople ask a lot more and better questions during sales calls than their less successful colleagues. The latter tend to do most of the talking and become involved in product discussions very early in the sale and give presentations as a means of generating customer interest.

Buying Phase 2: EVALUATION OF OPTIONS:

Once the buyer has recognized the need the next step is to evaluate options, that is solutions and suppliers. At this stage the sales person must ascertain if the decision making criteria have been defined and indeed are correct.

The salesperson’s objective for this phase of the buying process is to identify, address and shape the criteria that will be employed in selecting a supplier. It is also important to identify alternatives solutions to the buyer’s problem, or alternative uses for the same budget - these can be as important as any competiting vendor.

Rackham points out that most salespeople do not ask customers about their specific decision making criteria. Without this information they are shooting in the dark. After all there is no point emphasizing criteria that are not important to the buyer.

The salesperson may attempt to redefine, or diminish the importance of buying criteria that do not favour his/her company. Although these criteria will be both hard and soft, the savvy salesperson will attempt to quantify and ‘objectify’ both.

Of course, the line between evaluating options and recognizing needs can be a fine one, with the salesperson often attempting to influence the buying criteria by revisiting needs. For example, the customer says ‘we want a training programme’. But the salesperson in an attempt to prove his/her value may ask 'What is the problem that the company is trying to solve?'' 'What are the issues that give rise to the need for training?' and so on.

However, if a buyer may wans training and that is that. It is a transaction and there is little room for consultation and little buyer patience for recognition of needs questions on the part of the salesperson. In that situation the salesperson may be best served to focus attention on the buyer’s criteria for selecting a training provider.

Buying Phase 3: THE RESOLUTION OF CONCERNS:

While the salesperson may feel that he, or she is in pole position, getting the buyer across the line can often prove troublesome. Beneath the surface the buyer may be wrestling with fundamental, yet often hidden, concerns, sensitivities or risks that have the potential to scupper the sale. This crucial phase of the buying process is what Rachman calls 'the resolution of concerns'.

Let us take an example: the salesperson’s proposal, presentation and price beats the competition, but somebody on the buying group raises a concern about the company’s track record and credibility - afterall the company is relatively new. The question is asked ‘why don’t we just stick with the supplier we know?’ Nothing is said to the sales person and the safe route is taken by the buying group.

Perhaps the salesperson had been sensitive to the issue during the sales process, but side steped it in the hope that it would go away. After all, bringing it up in the discussion might only give it credence. This can be a fatal flaw however as sensitivity to risk is likely to increase, rather than diminish as the buying decision approaches. Ferriting out any lingering concerns on the part of the buyer is essential and can require almost a sixth sence on the part of the sales person.

Buying Phase 4: DECISION

The buyer’s needs are clear, the options have been explored and any niggling concerns addressed. So, logically the buying decision follows. Just as a good house sits on a strong foundation, the success of the saleperson depends on how well the recognition of needs, evaluation of options and resolution of concerns stages has been managed.

Like me Rackham does not believe in the 'slam dunk' sales close, pointing out that applying pressure to close before any unresolved issues have been addressed is generally a disaster. So too with negotiating too early. Until the buyer has moved from identification of needs to the evaluation of options and then resolved of concerns the salesperson's job is not complete.

Buying Phase 5: IMPLEMENTATION

A continuous theme of Rackham’s book is that just as the salesperson things his/her job is done, another vital phase of the sales process is just about to begin and that includes implementation.

In particular the area of implementation is often overlooked, as the salesperson moves on to close the next deal. This is in spite of the importance of giving the customer extra attention during the early stages of implementation and the requirement to continually build the relationship and prove the value.

The mindset required is Rackham suggests that of account development, as opposed to account maintenance. What counts with most customers is what are you done for them today and what can you do for them tomorrow. In this respect it is also important to document the good news ensuring that the customer has an accurate measure of what has been achieved.

'The 2nd Bounce of the Ball' - Tips from Leading Venture Capitalist Rohan Cohen

As managers what can we learn from one of the foremost figures in the venture capital world? Well, as it turns out a lot as Rohan Cohen's 'The 2nd Bounce of the Ball' proves.

Introduction

Ronald Cohen, pioneer venture capitalist, knows better than almost anybody else how to pick winners. He founded Apax Partners, which manages assets of $20 billion and has advised governments world-wide on the role of venture capital and fostering global enterprises.

Ronald has recently published ‘The Second Bounce of The Ball’ and in so doin

g reveals many of the secrets of his success – secrets that are relevant to every ambitious manager.

Many are called, but few are chosen

Cohen’s investment successes are no accident. He estimates that his company invests in just 2% of those early stage investment companies that it considers.

The decision as to which company to invest in requires hundreds of hours of due diligence, with 50 business plans being reviewed for every venture backed.

Question: Would your company fall into the 2% that are chosen for investment by Cohen?

The odds may be stacked against you

Even applying great care to selecting high potential companies, Cohen knows the odds of success are just 20%. Improving those odds is a constant focus, with his company becoming actively involved in supporting the mangers in those companies in which it has invested.

Interestingly enough, he puts the overall chances of an entrepreneur achieving something outstanding at about 0.4%.

Question: Will your company be in the small minority that can achieve something outstanding?

Cohen adds that buy outs give a more consistent overall return than earlystage investments.

How do you know if you are on to a winner?

Cohen’s view is that you can seldom do too much due diligence, yet he recognises that even those ideas that research identifies as winners are not guaranteed success.

Indeed, he suggest that you can never be more than 60-70% sure of success regardless of however much analysis is done and points to the importance of going to the market and getting reaction so as to really understand the chances of success.

Question: How much rigor do you apply to making key decisions in your business?

Not surprisingly Cohen is into business plans, yet he balances the need for clarity of direction with the need to allow for realignment, flexibility and ability to improvise as the company progresses.

Question: How agile is your business in response to changing market circumstances?

Calibrating risk and return: correctly defining which market you are in, how large it is, size etc - these are, according to Cohen, the fundamentals.

Key questions to ask

Here are some of the key questions Cohen applies to the selection of winning companies:

• How fast will it grow?

• How realistic and reliable are its projected revenue?

• How clear are the targets? How big is the vision?

• How realistic and controllable are the costs (development, marketing, sales, etc.)?

• What is the extent of competition?

• How protected are its margins?

• What is the commitment and skill in respect of sales and marketing?

• Are there barriers to competition/switching that protect its sales?

• How much is the CEO going to let go (to others)?

Question: Have you asked these questions of your managers?

The next bounce of the ball

Cohen is constantly looking at industry cycles to determine where and when to invest. In particular, in mature industries he is looking for ‘the next bounce of the ball’ – emerging markets that has the potential for rapid growth. This isn’t easy however, calling for a real understanding of the market and the ability to recognise trends and the cycles.

Question: Where is the next bounce of the ball going to be in your industry? Are you positioned to take advantage of it?

It will take longer than you expect

Cohen has regrets. The first is that the European Venture Capital Industry did not develop like its counterpart in the US. As a result many of Europe’s rising stars don’t have the capital intensity required for global success.

Technology creates a high level of uncertainty Cohen observes, not least because products take time to develop. All too often there is insufficient capital to ensure success.

His advice is to raise enough capital – at stage one raise enough money to get to stage 3, at stage 2 raise enough to get to stage 4. In particular first round finance, he suggests, must be sufficient to achieve lift off and requires the investment to take you to at least year 2.

Question: Do you have the resources of scale?

Being practical he suggests that it should be enough to get to the point of profitability, but points out that that is secondary to getting to the point of scaling the opportunity.

Investing means gambling on the people

Key to the success of any company is the management team. Here is what Cohen looks out for in winning companies:

• An inspiring but realistic vision – the business will grow to match size of vision.

• The CEO – he / she has to be able to delegate and let go, to be realistic, as well as visionary and to avoid his/her ego getting in the way of judging reality.

• The present skills level of the management team (sectoral expertise, technical and creative skills), or ability to attract good people

• The management team has to have meshed together, with the time the team has been together being really important

Question: How do you and your team rate on these scores?

‘Is Your Marketing Profitable?’

A review of ‘Marketing Payback’ by Robert Shaw and David Merrick for busy Sales Managers.

Is your marketing profitable? A straight-forward question, you might think. But, then again maybe not - perhaps it takes 552 pages written by an eminent professor to illuminate the payback from marketing.

Marketing is 'Untouchable' & 'Slippery'

The authors Robert Shaw and David Merrick tell us that such words as; ‘unaccountable’, ‘untouchable’, ‘expensive’ and ‘slippery’ are commonly used to describe marketing. This grim reality is certain to upset any marketing professional.

Measuring the effectiveness of marketing has been on the agenda for some time. However, when Phillip Kotler - a name known to almost every student of marketing for over quarter of a century - puts his endorsement on the cover of a book about marketing's payback you know the idea is about to become mainstream.

Can Marketing be Trusted with Money?

The authors get quickly to the route of the issue of marketing and its impact, asking questions such as:

• Can marketing be trusted with money?

• Is there a direct link between marketing and business results?

• How should you evaluate your marketing?

These questions are relevant to every business in today’s crowded marketplace.

A New Era of Metrics, Planning, etc.

But what are the answers? For the authors the answer is more science, discipline and rigour across all aspects of marketing, including; brands, promotions and pricing. It also requires more; plans, budgets, metrics and ratios, as well as more evaluation, diagnosis, research and reporting.

In recognition of the increasing movement in this direction, the authors point to the increasingly tangible criteria adopted by the Institute of Advertising Practitioners.

Not content to celebrate creativity and design, attention has turned to measuring campaigns based on additional sales generated (directly and not indirectly).

That is a movement in the right direction, I hear you say, with the authors eager to emphasise that marketing must be measured in terms of the net revenues, or profits generated from its activities.

A Review of the Book

This is a book that everybody in marketing, and many more besides, should read. It contains nothing startling, but a return to the basics of good management.

In this respect, I am happy to overlook any weaknesses in its approach, other than just to list some of them:

• The book adopts a generic approach, as opposed to tailoring its prescriptions to B2B, or B2C in turn. The latter enables organisations to more carefully target marketing and ensure it is sales led.

• It makes the serious mistake, so often made by marketing, of claiming sales (or personal selling) for itself and then allocating it to a lowly position on the marketing spectrum. That it puts personal selling as part of the marketing mix under promotion. Marketing has to be inextricable linked to sales and sales effectiveness.

• There is a strategic dimension to marketing effectiveness – specifically in terms of the choice of markets or segments and the value proposition for the customer. However these are not addressed by the authors.

‘Marketing Payback’ by Robert Shaw and David Merrick, FT, 2005

‘SPIN® Selling’ - A Classic that is worth reading again and again

Looking for a book that will help you increase your conversion ratios? Then read SPIN selling. Here are the seven key points I took from this must read sales methodology.

1. Too many sales people are happy with meetings that result in another meeting. But wait a second, the real question must be asked – ‘has the meeting resulted in an advance in the sales cycle?’

You need to know the difference between what Rackham defines as an ‘advance’ and a ‘continuation’ - it will affect your closure rate.

2. In high value sales forget the welcoming attitude to objections, focus on objection prevention and the symptoms behind objections. Too many objections means you are feature and advantage selling and not selling benefits. If you are of the school of thought that objections are great you must read this book.

3. Professionally trained sales people are always looking to uncover and develop explicit needs, while also being conscious of implicit needs. However, the key factor, as the authors point out, is a compelling reason to act. That is the real challenge for the sales pro.

4. You better believe it, lots of selling happens when you are not in the room. That means your sponsor is left to sell on your behalf! But, just how willing, or able is he, or she, to push your solution. You can’t expect him her to remember the eight key features of your solution. However you need to ensure they are able to communicate the impact of your solution on their business. Think about it.

5. Learn how to ask; situation, problem, implication and needs pay-off questions. The skills to develop implication questions will impact your sales closure rate. So ask how important your solutions benefits will be to your prospects business. Ask what affect changing x,y,z will have on the business.

6. This book supports what I have believed for years - there is no great distinction between open ended and closed questions in high value sales. However the questions you ask must demonstrate you understand the prospects business.

Remember don’t spend too long ask situational questions, or gathering all kinds of facts on the Client’s business. Instead ask implication and needs questions (in SPIN® language) in order to get to what really matters in building awareness of the need for your solution.

7. Please, please gain commitment in your sales calls. Propose sensible and realistic commitments to advance the sale. But before you do, ensure you have addressed your prospects key concerns. You must check for concerns, summarize the value of your solution and be sure the value is specific to the prospect.

Conclusion

'Spin Selling' was first published in 1988, but its ideas and concepts are ageless.

There is a huge amount more you could take from this book. If you really want to develop your sales effectiveness you need to read (and if you have read it before, re-read) this book.

‘SPIN Selling', Neil Rackham, Mc Grath Hill, 1988.

‘Close Like The Pros’ - How 'Interactive Selling' Increases Success

Because you are short on time, we have pulled together a short summary of the main points of 'Close Like The Pros' - a must read for all B2B sales professionals.

Forget about Closing:

I generally don’t pick up, much less read books with ‘closing’ in the title, however this book - 'Close Like the Pros' is different. In fact it turns the ABC (always be closing) mantra on its head calling instead for a new approach called ‘interactive selling’. But that is just one of the reasons why it is a must r

ead for all sales professionals.

Recognise the Problem?

The book opens with a scenario familiar to us all.

1. You have met the buyer, made a good presentation and feel good about the prospects of a deal.

2. The buyer asks you to prepare proposal straight-away.

3. So, back at the office you labour to create a carefully worded document and dispatch it to the customer.

4. A few days later you call to see how your proposal was received, only to meet vague answers, such as ‘oh, we have

not got around to looking at it yet’, or ‘we will come back to you later’.

5. Worse still, you call repeatedly but cannot get the buyer at their desk.

You have done your selling. Now the buying is taking place and you are excluded. The result is what Steve Marks calls ‘sales limbo’.

Getting to the Root of the Problem:

What is the problem? The author suggest ‘You wer

e too focused on selling to ensure that the buyer was buying’. That means there was not enough interaction to enable you to really help the buyer decide what he/she needed, or to tell you earlier you were wasting your time.

Marks observes that ‘sales people get way out in front of their prospects, without checking the rear view mirror to see if the prospect is still following and how closely.’

Premature Elaboration:

One of the dangers of this is what he calls ‘premature elaboration’ where the salesperson is drawn into presenting a solution before he, or she has been afforded the opportunity to find out exactly what the customer needs.

Of course, Marks makes it clear that this not just the fault of the salesperson, with busy buyers often being reluctant to spend time explaining what is required.

The Committment of Time:

Marks points out that selling in the B2B realm requires lots of time and commitment on the part of the seller, but if that is not in some way matched by the buyer, the results are, at best, going to be uncertain.

Inevitably, selling is going to take a lot of the salesperson’s time - the question, according to Marks, is whether that time is going to be wasted, or not. That is are you g

oing to spend that time up front interacting with the buyer, or in chasing him for a decision afterwards?

Hold-off on that Proposal!

Of course, the latter is much less effective, with the author

pointing out the obvious - ‘the calls you make after handing over the proposal don’t have the same impact as those you make before’.

So, hold off on doing that proposal until you really have had a chance to build a rapport with the prospect, to understand their needs, to discuss solutions and so on. In this way you are in effect getting the customer to write his/her own proposal as you go along.

In Summary

In this book Steve Marx tells us what we all instinctively know, but can sometimes overlook – no complex or high value deal is closed in one, or two sales calls. More to the point he reminds us that ‘hands off selling’ does not work. More than ever time spent understanding the needs of the customer and jointly arriving at solutions is essential to sales success.

In an era of lengthening sales cycles and more complex buying decisions, ‘Close Like The Pros’ is an essential read.

‘Close Like The Pros’ Steve Mark, Career Press, 2007

The perils and rewards of an ‘anytime anywhere approach to business development’

The era of choosiness is over with companies casting their nets wider in terms of business development and trawling new and existing markets for whatever business is available. Businesses that once turned their nose up at particular kinds of work have had a fundamental change of heart and are prepared to take whatever is going. But for some this is working out better than others.

The ‘anytime anywhere’ approach to business development:

Lost revenues, lost customers and slowing sales have resulted in a less

discriminate approach to business development. The shotgun has replaced the rifle, as companies target what would previously have been considered smaller, lower margin and less glamorous projects, or customers. Indeed, just like a Hoover (that is the brand of vacuum cleaner) sales teams are looking to suck up whatever opportunities are available.

The traditional boundaries between markets and segments have been leaped by suppliers in search of whatever business might be available. In an ‘anytime anywhere approach to

business development’, they are knocking on new doors and entering new markets, or segments.

Is the age of the specialist over?

In the boom years companies were afforded the opportunity to focus on the business that was most

attractive to their business. In a buoyant market they were able to focus and specialize, cherry picking customers that best suited their business. For many these trends have been reversed with companies backtracking from specialist to generalist, boutique to supermarket and nice to mass market supplier.

In many cases the commercial

imperative is simply too great and casting the business development net

wider is not a matter of choice, but there clearly are downsides. The ‘anytime anywhere’ approach often requires that companies move out of their sales and delivery comfort zone. It may also mean diverting from a tried and trusted business formula to one that is risky and less unfamiliar. It may also require a move away from the company’s core competence, or those areas in which they had unique and specialized skills, processes, knowledge and tools. This can have long term consequences for the company in terms of competitive advantage, marketplace reputation and investor appeal.

The reality is that good times or bad, some

business is just not right for your company and its bottom line. Perh

aps it entails lower margins, excessive travel, more intensive support, too much learning, or too much risk. It may also have consequences in terms of longer sales cycles and higher sales costs, or an impact on conversion rates, staff motivation and so on.

Let us return to the hoover, or vacuum cleaner analogy. Plug it in and eventually the bag gets full, but if you are picking up the wrong stuff then perhaps the hose will get stuffed and the filter will become clogged. The same can happen with indiscriminate business development efforts.

For years the advice was focus, is that now ‘old hat’?

After years of advising companies to specialize, we are slow to let go of that advice even if the economic conditions might immediately suggest that diversification into new markets and segments is required. That is because

what we call the ‘anytime anywhere approach’ to business development with its stretch into new markets, segments, new products and services can present challenges. Let us take an example:

‘We will go anywhere anytime’ said the sales director of an early stage technology company clearly under pressure to meet sales numbers. At the time we were putting the finishing touches to a sales campaign aimed at major North American hardware

vendors and until that point I had felt quite enthusiastic about the plans. At the mention of ‘anytime anywhere’ I immediately felt uneasy, it smacked of desperation and that is an ingredient that I know often impedes clear thinking.

All of a sudden the sophistication and accuracy of the target list and the sales strategy was drawn into question. If the company’s proposition appealed to everyone everywhere then too many principles of high value selling were being compromised. As it turns out the campaign had limited success so the manager availability to travel anywhere anytime did not get called on too much.

You can be average at a lot of things, but only exceptional at a few:

You can be average at a lot of things, but only exceptional at a few, and if you are lucky world beating at one. The challenge is to find what that particular niche, or talent is and to focus on, nurture and develop it. For companies, as well as individuals that discovery can require quite

a bit of experimentation along the way.

Another client of ours arrived at

strategic cross roads in terms of its target customers and projects for the second time in two years. After an intensive phase of project delivery, the consultants were both exhausted and frustrated. They were faced with the reality that much of the work they had been winning was neither profitable, nor enjoyable. It was once-off in terms of revenue and rightly, or wrongly was perceived by clients to be of a lower value. Bottom line it was not the stuff of which our clients could grow a sustainable business.

This was not the first time the company had arrived at this realization in its 3 year history, having last year closed a subsidiary business upon which it had previously placed high hopes. Would the third redirection of its focus pay-off? The reality for the managers was that it represented one last calculated gamble.

On the positive side the consultants believed they had found their niche, having invested significantly in developing specialized skills and knowledge in a particular field that they considered to be on the rise. They were undaunted in their determination to specialize in an industry of generalists and had committed their time and money to developing specialized knowledge, processes and skills in this new area.

Now almost every strategy book I have ever read would suggest that our client’s ability to strategise was fundamentally flawed. To get it wrong once, is misfortunate, but twice surely that is careless? Well, perhaps it is not, as clearly the sweet spot eludes many companies and is as much stumbled upon as discovered.

To Hover, or Not To Hover - Some Final Considerations:

There is no question that a trained athlete can compete in a variety of different events, the 600 meters, triathlon and perhaps even in the pool. However, almost every athlete has his, or her sweet spot – an event that suits them best, offers the greatest chance of success and the greatest enjoyment. The more the athlete focuses on the sweet spot, the greater their relative advantage in will be. Similarly, while most musicians can play several instruments, each has a favorite and that is probably the one for which he/she is most skilled.

So as you shape your target list for next quarter’s sales campaign and perhaps in the process reshape your companies market strategy, proceed with care. Remember the danger of trying to be everything to everybody, or seeing the whole world as your market. Even if next quarter takes you away from your sweet spot, don’t loose sight of where and how your company’s long term success will be built.

Faraway hills are always greener and that is another reason for caution in respect of adjusting your focus in terms of business development. It can be tempting to move out to new markets, or segments when the going gets tough. However, there is a danger that if you make that you will make a decision to refocus before you have adjusted your sales process and indeed the overall sophistication of your sales approach, as well as your proposition, to reflect the changed conditions for your present target market.

Want To Become A World-Beating Blogger? Blogging Heroes Reveal Their Secrets.

If like me you are keen to maximize the potential of blogging to build your profile and attract new customers to you business, then you will be interested in the advice that the world’s leading bloggers have to offer.

Blogging Heroes written by Michael Banks, is a collection of interviews with 30 of the world’s most widely read bloggers. Each page is full of encouragement and advice, but because you are short on time I have summarized some of the key points below.

Why blog? The reasons the best bloggers suggest are to find your voice, develop your thoughts and build your expertise. Most blogging heroes started blogging not for money, but because they had something useful to say and a great desire to say it.

The main advice offered is to be authentic and different. You have to be enthusiastic so pick an area you are passionate it will come across through your wri

ting and is essential to engaging readers. Picking a topic that gets you excited is also essential if you are going to keep the initiative going.

If you are going to write a lot then you must read a lot. So set up some R.S.S. feeds to some carefully chosen blogs. Most blogging heroes read between 40 and 200s feeds per day. Follow other people’s blogs quoting them where you use any of their thoughts and putting comments on their posts. Writers are starved of comments so if you comment regularly and add value you can ask for a link to your blog in return.

How to get started? Well the advice is to jump straight in. That is the best way to find your style, to refine your message and so on. Start with a reasonably high volume of posts. Blogging does not have to be perfect, in fact if you strive for perfection you may never get it going properly. So, think of blogging as a work in progress.

Give yourself time to find your voice, and to perfect your style. While differences vary as regards how correct the language, grammar and spelling should be, the blogging heroes do agree on one thing – the need for quality in terms of the content, or information provided. However, it is much different to writing for a magazine, or book, a blog is more of a conversation with the reader.

Most heroes are less concerned with search engine optimisation than you might expect, pointing to good content is the number one key success factor in getting readers for your post. However, they highlight basics such as tags, headings, deeper linking within posts and readable post names as important.

Pretty much all of the bloggers suggest that great content beats search engine optimization and frown on gimmickry. In this way they suggest that blogging is the perfect meritocracy. The advice is to blog for readers, not to get readers. Then when you hit on the right topic your site will go viral.

Write consistently, some of the heros blogged for 40 mins per day, others write all day every day. However, ensuring fresh content every time the visitor visits is important – with most blogging platforms allowing posts to be written in groups and then time delayed for release.

Quality content is the best way to build readers. It sounds a little like ‘write it and they will come’ message, but no matter what way you look at it good content is key. So, don’t just write about what you want to sell, write about what you know and what is useful for other people to read. We are also advised to remember the importance of a good heading, sometimes it is often all that the readers will see before deciding to click on the feed.

Great posts plant a seed in the mind of the reader. Encourage people to comment – ask people to suggest topics – thank people for their comments and always reply. Several blogging heroes suggest that anonymous posts and comments is the source of the web, so make sure to use your identity. And a word of caution about welcoming comments, don’t take anything that might be said personally.

A blog is not just a blog, it is a community, a forum, a online shop front, etc. It does not have to look like a blog and is not just limited to opinion. A blog is a content vehicle, capable of handing your delivering your message faster and in a less formal manner to a wider audience.

The blogging heroes point to the importance of finding the right topic (sometimes this is a matter of experimentation) and of creating original work. The source of inspiration is the dozens of feeds that bloggers read from other blogs and webpages.

Finally don’t exclusively rely on text, always use images and don’t be afraid to experiment with audio and video, etc.

Click here to buy Blogging Heroes

How To Protect Your Customers From Your Hungry Competitors

After a decade of buoyant demand, organizations are facing a battle on two fronts – to protect and grow.  That is to protect existing customer revenues from being poached by competitors, while seeking out any new business that exists in the marketplace.  

Your Competitors Are Circling Your Customers:

Clearly the challenge of finding new customers in a declining market is greater, but so too are the temptations for existing customers to stray.  

Salespeople are increasingly wandering into new territories in search of whatever business is to be found.  In fact one buyer told us recently that he was now receiving up to  6 or 7 sales calls each day and the majority of these were from suppliers that had never previously contacted his company.

So it is no wonder that Sales Managers are complaining about new competitors circulating around their hard won customers, luring them with discounted prices.  For buyers facing mounting cost pressure, the temptation can be too great to resist.   

How to Protect Your Customers:

Here are 8 strategies that sales managers are employing to protect their customers from increased competition:

1. Stop managing key accounts, develop them instead.  

The reality is that your relationship with a customer cannot remain static, in spite of changes in personnel, budgets, competition, business priorities, and so on. That means each customer account is either moving forwards, of backwards.  

You have to keep moving those accounts that are important along - proactively nurturing and growing them.  Too often the term harvesting is used in respect of existing accounts, however the hunter mindset is required to maintain and grow existing business.   This requires a minset change - one that recognises that the sales job is not over when the order is won.  

This is the ideal time to renew and reinvigorate your account management (we much prefer the term account development) going back to basics to focus on internal and client side reviews, key account plans, relationship building, etc.  

2. Understand and reflect changing buying priorities.  

Your customer's business and its priorities are radically different to what they were 6, 10, or 12 months ago.  Their focus is likely to be more short term, that is pressing problem and a short term payback.  Customers also likely to be looking to adopt a leaner, more flexible and more innovative approach to all aspects of their business.  It is important that the way your company does business reflects these changes.

3. Help your customer through the downturn.  Almost universally customers are facing tighter budgets, pressure on costs and demands for increased efficiency.  As a supplier, how can your services and solutions aid the customer in these areas?  For example, with your system now installed on a customer site you are likely to have a much deeper understanding of the extent of user adoption, the impact on related business processes, underutilised system functionality, etc.  Use this information to show the customer how to squeeze further efficiencies and costs.  

4. Communicate the value.  Your customer is rightly asking ‘what have you done for me lately’, thus reminding what you are doing is key.  

Has the customer achieved the expected benefits of your services, or solutions?  Does the customer even know the answer to this question?  Well, herein lies great potential to strengthen and protect your relationship with your customer. 

It is vitally important to measure the impact of your solution on the customer's business.  The supplier that finds that a customer is only getting 80% of the anticipated benefits and knows how that figure can be improved has still got a lot of extra value to add.  

This is true of almost any supplier – there opportunities to add value that are often overlooked. These may include; showing the customer how to generate a different type of reporting from the system, providing advanced training to users, holding periodic project management meetings, sharing insights from other customers, or research regarding market, or technology trends, etc.  

5. Innovate continuously.  It is often said that familiarly breads contempt, or at least complacency, and that is something that you want to avoid with your customers.  Because your competitors are likely to be approaching your customers promising something different, so it is important that you also continuously innovate and differentiate in terms of what you are providing.  

6. Don't Settle for Just Being A Supplier

In respect of those customers that are strategically important to your business, you must work to deepen the relationship and move along the continuum from supplier to strategic partner.  Now if you are simply supplying low margin products, or services in a transaction-like manner, this is not relevant.  However, if your objective is to develop a long term profitable and secure relationship, then developing two way inter dependence and cooperation will be your goal.  That will require a greater levels of mutual communication, interaction, understanding and trust..

7. Make switching more difficult – that means seeking to make your customer more dependent on you, or to tie the customer to your solution by means of your terms, the propriety nature of the technology employed, the level of integration of your solution with the customer's other systems, or processes, or simply great service and strong relationships.

8.  Be proactive.  Plan ahead with your key accounts, for example pre-empt price renegotiations, changes in the customers strategy, or personnel, etc.  Too often suppliers are taken off guard by changes in a customer's business, or requirements.

Aviva Re-branding Shows Just How Out of Touch Financial Services Marketing Can Be

As a major global player in the insurance industry, Aviva is completing the last stages of its rebranding that will merge 40 different international trading names under one single brand.  

Certainly, the rational for a global brand makes sense, but the company’s star studded advertisements demonstrate that marketing in the financial services sectors is simply out of touch.

Aviva argues that its rebranding will distance the company from other financial institutions discredited by the financial crisis.  However, big budget advertisements and rebranding initiatives will not lift consumer confidence in the face of events at Northern Rock, Royal Bank of Scotland and HBOS.

Confronted with a challenge, corporate marketing at AVIVA has reached for the old reliable - rebranding and high-gloss advertising.  The only problem is that they don’t work anymore.    Typical of the backlash one irate consumer pointed out ‘while taxpayer-funded government bail-outs are saving banks and insurance companies, Norwich Union is flooding the airwaves with their new big spend TV ads.  It is very wrong.’

Meanwhile, the company boasts that it has negotiated great bargains on its change of name advertising campaign (created by agency AMV BBDO) and media spend, including celebrity endorsements from big names such as Bruce Willis, Elle MacPhearson and Ringo Star.  Yet, the total cost put at £80 million did raise heckles at the company’s recent A.G.M.

Get ready for more fancy rebranding campaigns.  Marketing Week points out that other financial institutions are likely to change their name:

• Santander is set to rebrand Abbey, Alliance & Leicester and Bradford & Bingley.
  
• Axa will axe Sun Life
  
• Cornhill Insurance will be absorbed into Allianz.
  
• The names of Direct Line, Churchill and Privilege may ultimate change to as they are sold off by RBS.