Unique Value Proposition Converts a Sales Proposal to a Business Proposal

A Profitable Sales Proposal Has an Excellent Executive Summary

After a lead has been nurtured to sales-ready status, the right steps are taken by the sales team to move it through the funnel.  They begin proposal discussions early, but only present their proposal when they are positioned to win politically, technically and financially.  Otherwise, they’ll join a pool of sameness and compete on price instead of leveraging the business advantages to be gained from their solution.

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By John Bernardi

Field Marketing Boosts Sales Success From Lead Generation Thru Account Management

Field Marketing Boosts Sales Rep Productivity

Successful sales professionals consistently close profitable deals and manage a healthy sales funnel while being skillful at key account marketing, customer experience management and high-profile networking.  High business acumen enables them to facilitate peer-to-peer relationships and provide market intelligence to the leadership team.  Companies that provide this class of environment are able to attract and retain top sales reps who want to be the best that they can be.

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By John Bernardi

Unique Value Propositions Raise Brands And Proposals To The Next Level

Unique Value Propositions Raise Brands & Proposals To The Next Level

Strong UVPs Guide Buyers Away From Commoditizing Your Business

 

An elevator pitch is your situational sound bite response to someone who asks "what do you do?" Your goal is for them to invite you to discuss what you can do for them.

Without tag lines, puffery or jargon, a Brand UVP introduces a non-price related common ground early in the lead nurturing process. When an important lead becomes "sales-ready", it's time to create the right Proposal UVP.

A strong UVP that is etched into the core of your business will impact everything from back office to front office.

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By John Bernardi

"Always Be Adding Value" Vs. "Always Be Closing"

"Always Be Adding Value" Beats "Always Be Closing" As The Mantra Of Top Sellers

I Prefer To Buy From Someone Who Genuinely Wants To Add Value

Most sales people say that their goal is to add value, but for those whose "always be closing" actions speak louder, I doubt their sincerity.  For example, during early stage meetings if they begin their presentation before really understanding my needs and what I want to accomplish, I sense a transactional sales rep. My antenna are now up.  If they use price discounting as a closing tactic, they might not realize that their discount might pale in comparison to the overall benefit that I would derive from a value based solution. Also, if they don't stay in touch when I don't have an opportunity in their sales funnel I probably won't retain mind share about them and consider someone else next time a buying situation arises.

I get turned off when I feel that someone is always closing me to the next step in their sales process.  This outdated sales technique, taught by their sales managers, is not an authentic trait. Instead, I'd prefer to be persuaded to the next logical step in understanding how they relate value to what they've learned about me and my company.

Today's buyers are not only smarter due to self-service research but also when it comes to spotting self-serving sales tactics.  By the time these buyers have contacted your sales rep, they probably know more about your company and its industry than the rep does.

In summary, recruit and teach sales reps to "always be adding value".  Only when they reach this point will they have earned the right to ask for the order. This will earn you repeat business and referrals.

By John Bernardi

Marketing Automation Will Help You Get To The Next Level

Marketing Automation Enables Consistent Best Practices

You know what you'd like to do but manual efforts are totally inefficient, so you've chosen not to leverage marketing principles for business advantage.  It's time for you to figure a way to change that inertia so you can make your company the best that it can be.  Otherwise, your company will need to follow a more challenging path in order to reach the next level.  Don't overlook the basics.

Wouldn't it be great if you could automate the mundane processes for customer and partner retention?  How about recruiting new ones?  If you could survey at different steps in the cycle, wouldn't you better understand how you're doing?  How many opportunities slip away due to weak processes for lead generation and nurturing?

MA enables you to deliver the right content to the right audience at the right time with a singular purpose in mind. This trumps broad brush email blasts and social network posts that are of no interest to 80% of their recipients, most of whom will unsubscribe after receiving a few of these uninteresting messages.

MA enables content marketing to be the theme for campaigns or surgically injected as 1to1 next logical steps such as surveys, or efforts to create, nurture or convert leads.  Use your CRM database to segment a persona defined target audience or filter your CRM system for the right demographics, psychographics, behavioral traits and firmographics.  Email and social networks can work together as your messaging media.

You don't need to be a large company to afford the benefits of marketing automation.  There are CRM and MA tools that fit within the budget of any size company.  If you first take the time to create the processes that are right for your business, you can then search for the right tools to make them happen.

By John Bernardi

Interrupt Marketing: A Provocative B2B Methodology That Makes A Compelling First Impression

Field Marketing Specialists Earn Their Stripes By Nurturing Leads To Sales Ready Status

I recently presented marketing assisted selling as an effective way to optimize the ROI from a B2B company's sales assets. Interrupt marketing, a component of marketing assisted selling, is a necessary, but challenging lead generation methodology.  It requires discrete, knowledge-based persistence.  It meshes with a prospect's buying cycle and can initiate your selling cycle.  It is best implemented as part of the field marketing process - not by field sales reps.

Begin a campaign by "approaching" a well defined targeted suspect list. Use sequentially scripted 1to1 "approach" emails that are generated through the CRM system based on campaign criteria and timed according to workflow rules - let's say every three-to-five work days. The goal is to gain permission from contacts who want to receive timely and concise information about your campaign subject.  A bonus occurs if they become an early stage lead ready for nurturing.  For those suspects who don't reply by the third email, the field marketing specialist will make a scripted telephone call after reviewing LinkedIn and other sources and updating the CRM record.  The goal is for them to opt-in or opt-out and for you to move on accordingly.

Email marketing tools provide a more aesthetically pleasing [compared to CRM generated emails] means for staying in touch with those who opt-in.  They offer the versatility to embed surveys and manage event marketing campaigns.

Through sign up forms on websites, social networks and email signatures, new subscribers may specify their areas of interest for receiving timely, concise information.  Use the field marketing process to approach these new subscribers and to correctly categorize them in the CRM system for future campaigns.

Marketing-Assisted-Selling For B2B Companies

Apply Marketing Assisted Selling To Boost Your Sales Process To The Next Level

To me, a B2B sales professional is a high value company asset who leads and executes a tailored selling process while also being an adept marketer and customer experience expert.  Their primary accountability includes:

1. Closing profitable sales opportunities
2. Managing a healthy sales funnel enables continuous goal attainment
3. Creating golden spike sales opportunities
4. Converting customers to clients
5. Facilitating company-to-company and peer-to-peer relationships
6. Feedback to company leaders contributes to effective decision making

Marketing Assisted Selling Enables Optimal ROI From Your Sales Assets

1. Help customers determine if they have a problem worth solving.
2. Success stories about challenges, solutions and results are a wonderful resource for situations where risk reduction is more important than price reduction.
3. Pricing tools show the value of each trade-off during negotiations.
4. Complementary vendors who have relationships with people that can benefit from your company's solutions are a great lead source.  These relationships enable "whole product" solutions.
5. Self-service content and assessments for each stage of the buying process must be intuitive for general awareness and more in-depth for educated buyers.
6. The field marketing (FM) process is involved in each stage of the buying cycle:

• Awareness Stage: approach suspects to gain permission to send relevant, timely and expected information.  For each account that appears in the CRM database, FM reps search for additional contacts where cross-selling makes sense.  FM reps schedule sales interviews for sales reps and are a consistent backup when sales reps are unavailable.

• Pre-Purchase Stage: Nurture early stage leads. FM reps assign sales ready leads and work with sales reps to ensure that leads are reviewed and acted upon in a timely manner.  FM Associates stay in touch by distributing relevant articles, company information and videos and conducting theme webinars.
• Purchase Stage: FM reps assist in presentations, proposals, site visits, etc.
• Post-Purchase Stage: Sales reps and FM reps co-author programs to retain, cross-sell and up-sell second-tier customers (STCs) and develop STCs into key accounts. A welcome package for new customers teaches them how to do business with your company and creates a positive first impression.