Success Stories Create Emotional Attachment to Your Brand

Don't Let Selling Interfere With The Sale - Instead, Tell Me A Story

A portfolio of compelling success stories proves that your company is in the customer results business and that you're not just a vendor of products and services.

With each one narrowcasted for a target audience, and without sounding like an infomercial, a Success Story inspires people to act. Each story demonstrates how you've tackled challenges similar to theirs with solutions that produced desired results.  As a retention tool, success stories remind customers of what you did for them.

Brand your company as an array of customer stories that can be narrated by your employees and by external people who draw their own conclusions, insert themselves into your story, and retell it in their own words.

Top tier BizD professionals are natural "Story Sellers".  The middle tier, who fear the risk of tackling new customer challenges, will learn what your company has done for its customers and feel less threatened when looking for new customer problems to solve.

If you don't tell your stories, you are wasting an opportunity to differentiate your company.

If you don't have compelling stories to tell, you probably compete on features, price and delivery, which shouldn't give you a high degree of confidence in your business.

Stories should be available in hard copy and online to provide more details that support the narrative. Online versions should include keywords that enable self-service discovery by those looking for solutions.

Email marketing campaigns can direct a story to the appropriate audience if your CRM system or mail list includes the right account and profile information.

Sharing Blog Posts With Social Networks Optimizes Readership

I always share my blog posts with my social networks, but I was curious as to how social sharing impacted blog readership.  So, I did a test with two recent blog posts by not sharing them with my social networks.

As it turns out, open rates were 5 times higher for posts that I shared with my social networks [LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook].

This confirms my hypothesis and I will continue to "social share" my blog posts.

Quality Reviews Retain Customers and Earn Referrals

Quality Reviews Prove Your Commitment To Total Client Satisfaction

Don't fear what you might learn about your company. It will set the stage for growth.

After important projects or sales, a quality review debriefing between you and your client verifies that desired results were achieved and discovers gaps requiring resolution. It recognizes those that contributed valiantly.  It reveals your company's weaknesses that need to be addressed along with strengths that can be leveraged en route to being selected for the next opportunity. It gives the client confidence to refer you to others who have a similar challenge.

Business Relationships

There Will Always Be Someone Who Wants To Eat Your Lunch

The only way to create and then strengthen interpersonal business relationships is to help each contact achieve goals, minimize risk, enjoy what they're doing, eliminate pain, etc.

All the personal stuff is fluff [golf, football tickets, lunch, etc.] that will make a difference only if job #1 is accomplished.

First, get to know their company and industry before attempting to gain personal credibility with them. 

Then, make sure they know if you have a strong business relationship with others that they admire in their own organization.  It lessens their risk in partnering with you because they don't have to be the first.

Continually add value just to maintain your relationship because someone else that they've discovered on their own in this new world of self-service marketing has come along without your knowing it.

Lead Generation Through Online Press Releases

PR Generated Leads Rank Second To Referrals In Terms Of Close Rate

Online press releases fuel self-service searches for information about products and services that will lead people to your company before you know an opportunity exists.

Commit to Online PR if you want people to find all things newsworthy about your business.  They will read it, act upon it and share it.

A Lesson On How To Kill Your Brand

Is Your Company Doing What It's Known For?

Not too long ago HP was branded as a technical innovation leader - not by itself, but by its customers.  Its tailored products were expertly aimed at a well-defined target market [not all things to all users]. Prior to 1990 I always marveled at the strong affinity that  customers had with the HP brand.  I learned this from my experience competing directly with HP while working for Texas Instruments and Tektronix.  HP customers were passionate about HP and willing to engage in verbal battles defending HP.  I remember how HP's RPN scientific calculator language created vociferous arguments between HP customers and TI's customers who preferred TI's AOS calculator language.  HP's engineering workstation was the market leader.  HP minicomputers owned the manufacturing automation marketplace. HP OpenView was the leader in IT systems management.

HP always competed on value, never on price.  It's prices were always higher, but perceived value was too. The new HP tries to blend the old HP with its acquisitions - Digital Equipment, Compaq, and others.  Now HP competes on price and tries to sell to everyone.  I don't think HP has that passionate brand appeal of days prior to the 90's.

I'm disappointed to be greeted with a commodityish home page when I visit www.hp.com.  I'm sure Mr. Hewlett and Mr. Packard would feel the same way I feel.

Closers Earn Face Time

Here's Another Way That Top Closers Earn Face Time

Yes, being referred by a trusted lead source and managing a quality customer portfolio are tried and true weapons for finding new prospects and quickly and efficiently converting them to close-mode sales opportunities. But online tools can also be a formidable weapon in your business development arsenal if used wisely.

Social networks, email marketing and other online tools are great BizD resources for preliminary research, staying in touch and featuring your best ideas to get yourself noticed - but don't allow them to trap you into thinking that they are closing tools.

Recruit them to be your point guard who sets up the plays so that you can score easy buckets at trade shows, sales interviews, etc.

Just like the skilled marketing person who blends eye catching layout with content, let your online efforts capture attention and help you earn the right to present content in person after which the prospect says, "I'm glad I made time for that".

Why do my LinkedIn connections only appear when they have new connections?  I'd like to read more posts from them.