Today's shows have tips, industry reveals, humor and actionable items you can do starting today! Don't miss Guy Weistmantel with Patrick Morrissey on Predictable Revenue Radio. Susan Finch hosts her friend, voice/dialect coach, Susan E. Finch talking about how your voice can KILL a sale just after hello and what you can do to change it. Jay Baer and Paul Petersen are next on CRM Radio. Matt Heinz welcomes David Nilssen CEO of Guidant Financial. Finally ready to get to video marketing? John Carter and John Asher go over the 5 things you MUST do before you start. Finally, Bryan Bennett joins host, David Lynch on WVUMCToday to talk about The Professional Leadership Difference.

Remember all of our shows can be heard on iTunes, Stitcher Radio, Google Play, Bluburry and Spotify

The trend toward "Where's Waldo?" websites that hide company contact information has spilled over into email signatures. Let's take a poll: Who still uses email? Ahhhh, many hands go up. It's not going anywhere. Although more professionals, especially younger ones, skip the entire phone number element altogether, "Best, Cameron" isn't enough and that's not a signature.

About four years ago I was having lunch with my mentor and Sales Lead Management Association Board member Michael Alexander. We were discussing some common traits I was experiencing with several of my clients when Michael said, “You have to understand Jim, these entrepreneurs believe that if there were four more just like them in the company they wouldn’t need anyone else."

 You have permission from the Sales Lead Management Association and the Cartoonist, Stu Heinecke to copy and distribute these cartoons as is with attribution!

Send this link to a deserving marketer!  God knows we need humor in this job>

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Cartoons by Stu Heinecke author of How to Get a Meeting with Anyone, Heinecke explains how you can use your own creative Contact Campaigns to get those critical conversations. 

Available from Amazon. #1 Best Seller in Direct Marketing

This blog is supported by the generous sponsorship of ClickPoint Software, OMI - Outward Media, VanillaSoft and Goldmine CRM Software

You have permission from the Sales Lead Management Association and the Cartoonist, Stu Heinecke to copy and distribute this cartoon as is with attribution!

As a recent interview on SLMA Radio with Robin Saitz from Brainshark points out life for salespeople is more complicated and marketing can help as content creation and delivery can make a difference.    Robin says content delivery is all about sales enablement and both subjects are deeply involved and contributing to measurable revenue.    It's time the sales managers invite marketing into their office.  

Cartoon by Stu Heinecke author of How to Get a Meeting with Anyone, Heinecke explains how you can use your own creative Contact Campaigns to get those critical conversations.   Available from Amazon. #1 Best Seller in Direct Marketing

  This blog is supported by the generous sponsorship of  OMI - Outward Media, VanillaSoft and Goldmine CRM Software

  This cartoon is one of many that appear in Stu Heinecke'snew book, "How to Get a Meeting with Anyone."

Changing the way we think is marketing's number one challenge as the tumultuous field of marketing roars into 2016 with the pace of new marketing tools accelerating exponentially.  For instance see

Let's face it, sales reps always feel their sales leads are inferior. When asked what they most desire it is a qualified sales lead.    See definition of a qualified sales lead here from VorsightBP.   QuotaFactory has another opinion on developing qualified leads here in its article: 3 Sales Development Tips to Generate Qualified Leads.   

Why it Matters:

"The fact is, plain and simple, qualified sales leads always, always increases revenue, if you can get the salespeople to follow-up."

Sales Lead Management Association

Every company should have a marketing plan, something other than an entrepreneurs hunch.  And yet so few companies actually produce a yearly marketing plan with Goals, Objectives, Strategies and Tactics.  

Why its Important: 

"Companies without a marketing plan are at a disadvantage as they never know where they are going, the cause of the outcome or when they arrived."

Sales Lead Management Association

In How to Get a Meeting with Anyone, Heinecke explains how you can use your own creative Contact Campaigns to get those critical conversations. He divulges methods he’s developed after years of experience and from studying the secrets of others who’ve had similar breakthrough results—results that other marketers considered impossible, with response rates as high as 100 percent.

Through real-life success stories, Heinecke lays out 20 categories of Contact Campaigns that anyone can research and execute. Tactics range from running a contact letter as a full-page ad in The Wall Street Journal to unorthodox uses of the phone, social media, email, and snail mail to using personalized cartoons to make connections. He also packs in plenty of tips on how to determine your targets, develop pitches, and gain allies in your contact’s circle of influence.

Available from Amazon.    #1 Best Seller in Direct Marketing

Stu has been the SLMA's Humor Relations Contributor five years.

This blog is supported by the generous sponsorship of ClickPoint Software, OMI - Outward Media, VanillaSoft and Goldmine CRM Software

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2014 Winner: Lisa Arthur, Teradata

Of the enduing skits and comedy routines by Abbott and Costello Who's on First continues to amuse. And yet in many ways the misunderstanding, confusion and frustration is not unlike sales and marketing's discussions about sales lead follow-up or lack of it and the results which plague the bottom line of most companies.  For instance:  

COSTELLO:  I’d like to talk about sales lead follow-up by salespeople.

ABBOTT:  Good subject; terrible times.  It’s less than 10%.

COSTELLO:  But I understand that 45% of all the leads are buyers.
 
ABBOTT:  That’s right; 45% will eventually buy something.  
 
COSTELLO:  You said follow-up is only 10%.
 
ABBOTT:  Yes that’s right, follow-up averages 10%, but 45% of all leads are buyers.   

COSTELLO:  So what happens to the other 35% who want to buy? 
 
ABBOTT:  It’s more than 35%, because unless the salespeople talk to 100% of the sales lead inquirers, they won’t know who the 45% are.  So they’ll only talk to 5% who are buyers, which are half of the 10% they followed-up.

Adam Honig, CEO and Founder of Spiro Technologies shares with SLMA host Jim Obermayer how an app for iPhone and Android users powers a humorous personal sales assistance program to motivate sales reps and help them with their everyday work.  Click and your'll hear: 

• How salespeople respond to humor and produce more. 
• Why the reps won't miss follow-up activities.
• How the application on their phone will prioritize activities and help them sell more. 
• How 3500 jokes and 7 different personalities within the application helps salespeople smile and dial. 

 "A sales representatives day is filled with tight schedules, tension, pressure to perform, calls, call-backs, new lead follow-up, old lead follow-up, an aggravating sales manager, customer complaints, emails, presentations and oh yes an occasional appointment  and stupid stuff the corporate office layers in just for fun.  All of this makes it difficult to keep track of the most important part: new business activities.

  This blog is supported by the generous sponsorship of ClickPoint Software, VanillaSoft and Goldmine CRM Software

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