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Find ideas to align your marketing and sales enablement to grow your revenue.
Why Your Sales and Marketing Teams Need an Outomes Framework
As we have previously written, Buyers Don’t Buy Products, They Buy Outcomes. I see a perfect example of this as I look out my window into my driveway. I bought a car to get to the places I need to get to support the outcomes that I need: Enjoying our home in the...
Now Is Not the Time To Shut Down Your Growth Engine
Now, more than ever, we need to keep our growth engines running. Sales must maintain activity levels. Marketing must keep the digital lights on. This is not the time to slow down or stop. This past week I've talked with many leaders that are facing hard choices. I've...
How to Conduct An Effective Virtual Meeting
4.7 million people work from home in the United States [source]. The need for collaboration and meeting with co-workers does not go away when people transition to working from home, so it is no surprise that products like Zoom Meeting have realized huge growth. The...
What I’ve Learned About Working From Home a Home Office
Last week I was reminiscing about my first home-office job with my former boss, Cary Butler. Back in 1997 when I accepted a position as a district manager for Toshiba, the first step was to set up a home office. I remember when the UPS driver rang my doorbell to...
Prospect More Effectively with Sales Sequences
Originally published at the Revenue Growth Engine One touch simply doesn’t cut it in today’s world. Salesforce.com research found that it takes 6-8 touches with a prospect to get an appointment. Sirius Decisions found that it takes 8 to 12 attempts to reach a decision...
Five Critical Sales and Marketing Processes For Driving Revenue Growth
Ask any management consultant and they will tell you that processes are the key to an efficient business. We find processes in departments throughout a business like finance, H.R., service, production, and fulfillment. Why is it that when it comes to revenue growth,...
Why Great Companies Need To Grow Revenue
Yesterday morning at Dallas Love Field, I crossed paths with a guy I know who leads a sales team for a $10 million company. Over breakfast at Cantina Laredo (love this place!) I shared my concept behind the Revenue Growth Engine. We talked about his team and their...
Why We Like Working With EOS/Traction Companies
Over the past few months, I’ve had the privilege of leading many management teams through Revenue Growth Workshops to make a plan to drive organic revenue growth. My favorite companies to work with are ones that use Gino Wickman’s EOS (Entrepreneur’s Operating System)...
Five Keys To More Effective Sales Prospecting Results
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Buyer’s Don’t Buy Products, They Buy Outcomes
What you sell and what your clients buy may be two very different things. We think we sell products and services. What our clients really buy is outcomes. Theodore Levitt, the father of modern marketing put it brilliantly: “People don’t buy drill bits, they buy...
How To Make Your Message Appetizing in a Bland Market
Having grown up in Canada, I love maple syrup. I remember Saturday mornings at the sugar farm. Each spring right as the snow was beginning to melt we’d head out into a grove of maple trees. Each tree had a spigot with a small bucket attached. Sweet sap would drip into...
What Would Happen If You Told Your Prospects What Types Of Clients You Want To Serve?
This week I’ve been creating the website content for the new suite of services our team here at Convergo will roll out this summer (can’t wait to launch this!) It's got me thinking about what our ideal prospect looks like. We all have ideal prospects. These are the...
Why You Probably Need a Marketing Automation System
With today’s decision makers and influencers scouring the web for information during the buying process, digital marketing has become an undeniably important partner in revenue generation. While I will always be the first to affirm that salespeople create, build, and...
Sales Leaders and Company Owners: The Sad Costs of Not Investing In Marketing
Recently, I was talking with one of my business partners here at Convergo. He’d talked with a business owner about moving from a tactical to a strategic approach with their marketing. In principal it sounded good. However, when presented with a relatively modest...
Sales Prospecting With a Positive Attitude
Consistent prospecting is essential for sales success. Without a steady stream of prospects, the funnel dries up. Then you end up taking desperation deals and flipping your base. Effective prospecting requires a positive attitude. The challenge is that if there is one...
What Would You Do If 100 Prospects and Customers Were Lined Up Outside Your Business Right Now?
Imagine if you had 100 people lined up outside your business right now. What would you do? Certainly, you’d send someone out to greet them. You’d ask how you could help. You’d get the prospects involved in sales situations. You’d do your best to answer customer...
The Importance of Looking Trustworthy
“People will accept the advice of insight sellers only to the extent that they trust them.” - Mike Schultz & John Doerr, Insight Selling Trust is a critical component to sales success. In their buyer research, the authors of Insight Selling learned what we know...
How Much Money Will Ineffective Sales Prospecting Cost You This Year?
Stephen Covey says that highly effective people put the “big rocks in first” because if you don’t do the important things first, they get crowded out by the smaller things. The biggest rock for any sales professional is prospecting. It’s the #1 driver of success and...
How 30 Years of the World Wide Web Has Improved the Sales Profession
Today is the 30th anniversary of the world wide web! Nothing has changed the sales profession more than this technology. As I reflect back over my 26 years in sales, allow me to offer some observations on how the internet has changed sales for good. 1. From Brochures...
Sales Discipline Equals Financial Freedom
“Although discipline demands control and asceticism, it actually results in freedom.” - Jocko Willink Jocko provides helpful insight for sales professionals and leaders in the final chapter of Extreme Ownership : Discipline Equals Freedom. If you want the freedom of...
Consistent Execution: The Secret To Revenue Growth
“Execution is the single greatest market differentiator. Great companies and successful individuals execute better than the competition.” - Brian P. Moran, The 12 Week Year If you want to be successful in growing a company as a business owner, or growing a territory...
Flipping MIF Is Easy. Net-New Is Hard.
In the office technology industry I serve, we talk about Machines-in-Field (MIF). Every 3-5 years the leases on these machines expire or the machine wears out. Sales reps “flip the MIF” when they upgrade customers to new equipment. MIF-flipping plays a critical role....
Don’t Give Up Too Soon On Your New Initiatives (i.e. Managed Services)
"All the storytelling we do requires frequency. You’ll try something new, issue a statement, explore a new market… and when it doesn’t work right away, the instinct is to walk away and try something else. But frequency teaches us that there is a very real dip--a gap...
Geometric Growth By Mining the Gold From Your Client Base
Every (smart) business and sales professional wants to sell more to their current clients. In my favorite marketing book, Getting Everything You Can From All You've Got, Jay Abraham shares the geometric principle of business growth. He says there are only three ways...
Why Navy Suits and Colorful Socks Work: Building a Personal or Company Brand
Both sales professionals and companies have brands. In our world of overwhelming options and distractions, a brand becomes shorthand to communicate things like: You’re in the right place You can trust me In his book, This Is Marketing, Seth Godin says that as...
What’s In Your Net-New Business Playbook?
How consistent is your sales team at bringing in net-new business? Without a consistent stream of opportunities entering the top of the funnel, the end-of-month results will be disappointing. Instead of net-new, the revenue will be primarily be from flipping the MIF....
Fill the Sales Funnel: Capitalizing on Sales and Marketing Trends
There are only two types of prospects: those who are looking for your products and services, and those who aren’t. If you want to grow sales, you’ll need to find ways to connect with both groups: Prospects who are actively looking for solutions to their problems need...
Building an Effective Sales Culture
As the manager of a sales team what is the biggest thing you can do to drive success? The answer may be to build a culture of success. Why? You can only be physically present with the members of your team for a small amount of time. The culture you create is...
What is a Prospecting Sequence?
You need net-new business to hit your number. Net-new business requires appointments. When sales reps fail to consistently schedule appointments it shows up at the end of the month. What does it take to get appointments? Could there be a way that is more effective,...
Why the Inside Sales Model Makes Sense For The Office Technology Industry
Every dealership wants to grow net-new business. However, using field sales reps as the sole source of prospecting leads to inconsistent results. That’s why most technology companies outside the office equipment industry have inside sales teams with Sales Development...
How To Recruit Great Players To Your Sales Team
As a VP of Sales or Sales Manager, the number one driver of your success is recruiting a great sales team. If you don’t have great players, you’re going to struggle. A sales team is similar to a college football team. If the team recruits great players they are set up...
Getting More At-Bats: The New Way To More Buyer’s Short Lists
Today as the Arkansas Razorbacks get ready to play in the College World Series there is one thing I know for sure: the more at bats they get, the higher chance they will get on base and score runs. Whether you are a business owner, sales manager, or sales rep, you...
Selling Technology That Requires Change? Two Overlooked Essentials You Need To Consider
What do you sell? Every business owner, sales rep, and marketing professional needs to ask this question on a regular basis. The answer to this question is typically different than the actual products, services, or solutions you sell. Essentially, you don’t sell a...
Be Wary of Misleading Stats on Email Marketing
At a recent industry trade show, I saw some ridiculous statistics about the effectiveness of email marketing. Yes, email can be highly effective. However, done the wrong way, it can be destructive. How do you take advantage of email to get results without the risks?...
The New Way to Win More Deals: Sales and Marketing as Co-Creators of Value
Why do sales people win? Until recently, the primary points of differentiation for companies have been based on two factors: We provide great products We back them up with great service While that may be true, the challenge is that these provide little differentiation...
Credibility: Building Your Critical Sales Success Factor
Do you want net-new business? Your buyers must see you and your company as credible. When asked what behaviors a seller could exhibit that would increase the likelihood of meeting or buying, more than 1/3 of the responses were related to credibility as presented in...
Does Your Dealership Resonate With Buyers?
As competitive dealer principals, sales leaders, and sales reps, we all want to win. But in our highly commoditized industry it can be hard for buyers to differentiate between products that seem to have the same features and dealerships that all promise to deliver...
Why Your Website and Sales Collateral Fall Flat
Are you frustrated that you're not getting more from your website? After all, everyone keeps quoting the stats that 94% of B2B buyers begin their journey online. And, if you hang out with me for more than 10 minutes, you'll be reminded of the Corporate Executive...
Will Content Marketing Be Around in 20 Years?
Hang around with me for any amount of time and you’ll hear about Buyer 2.0 and how buyers are on average 71% of the way through their buying process before contacting a vendor or sales rep. Why? Because when we have questions the fastest and most unbiased way to get...
Why Search Engine Placement is Important For Your Business–And How To Get Top Rankings
Current research shows that 93% of B2B technology buyers look to Google as their first source of information. Given that reality, business owners that want to succeed need to consider their Search Engine Optimization (SEO) strategy. The good news is that Search Engine...
What Younger Customers Want From a Service Provider
The older I get, the faster time slips by. Sometimes I wake up and realize things have changed. That’s how I felt when I read that the average age of a network administrator is 36 years old. Let that sink in for a minute. That means over half of the network...
What Service Departments Can Learn From Taxis and Uber
On my way to and from the airport to speak to a group of CDA service managers in Austin, TX, I was forced to take a regular taxi since Uber and Lyft are not allowed in Austin for some reason. After several years of not having to endure taxis, I began to see the taxi...
The Average Age of a Network Administrator is 36-What This Means For Your Copier Dealership
In doing research for a presentation I’m doing for a Copier Dealer Association's service manager’s meeting, I discovered a statistic that should make all of us pay attention: 36 is the average age of a network administrator according to a recent New York Times...
Three Ways Businesses Can Convert More Website Traffic To Sales Leads
In a similar way that sales reps drive appointments, businesses work hard to drive traffic to their websites in the hopes of converting visitors to potential sales leads. With effective Search Engine Optimization strategies, backed up by consistent blogging and social...
Six Reasons Your Business Needs an Annual Marketing Calendar
Do you have an annual marketing calendar for your business? Successful marketing programs have a calendar. This document begins with your business and marketing goals. It includes a full calendar of events, promotions, and product launches. It also lays out a monthly...
Five Critical Components of an Effective Blog
Smart businesses blog regularly on their websites to enhance their search engine placement, fuel their social media strategy and position themselves as subject matter experts. Sadly, many businesses miss key aspects in their blogs, sabotaging their effectiveness. Last...
Why Should a Successful Business Care About Blogging?
Yesterday a successful business owner asked me an honest question: "Why should I care about blogging?" Traditional sales tactics are working well for him. The business is growing and sales reps are crushing quotas with tried-and-true prospecting techniques. "Is it...
How To Use LinkedIn to Drive Sales Conversations
Originally published by Darrell Amy on LinkedIn Pulse. Since the dawn of time sales people have possessed one critical skill: they are able to drive conversations. As we step into the bold new world of social selling, nothing changes. Until you start a conversation...
Why You Need More Than Great Customer Service To Win Deals
Originally published by Darrell Amy on LinkedIn Pulse. As I talk to businesses around the world I keep hearing frustration that there isn’t more customer loyalty. While our equipment and solutions get more sophisticated, the actual purchase gets more commoditized....
Confessions of a Gen-X Decision Maker
This is a picture of the Tandy TRS-80, the first computer that showed up on a rolling cart in my elementary school when I was in fourth grade. This started a journey for me that led to buying a laptop in my first year as a sales person so I could use Act. The...