ClearEdge Marketing: Innovative Marketing Solutions

Make the Most of Big Endings & New Starts
Marketing Tips for Ending 2009 Well & Starting 2010 Right

Tuesday, November 24th, 2009 | Leslie Vickrey

Remember when the end of the year was a s-l-o-w time for the staffing and professional services industry? No? Good for you. That means you have been making the very most of end-of-year transitions to finish well and prepare for a new year of opportunities. As you begin that effort, your friends at ClearEdge Marketing have a few end-of-year tips to help you prime your 2010 marketing and sales game.

Five Pre-2010 Marketing Musts

1. Clean Your Prospect List. From Jill Ruiz, ClearEdge Senior Project Manager.
A good or mediocre prospect list is a weakness for any business today. Strengthen your database by ensuring it is a vetted and targeted list of prospective clients that are well worth marketing to. The time you save your sales staff on pursuing poor leads is extremely valuable. The money you save by ensuring marketing programs aren’t pushed out to the wrong contacts is precious. And the more time you focus on strong, qualified leads, the greater your chances are of winning new business. Here are three ways to ensure your prospect list remains lean and effective throughout 2010:

• Purge and update. Get rid of all outdated, inaccurate addresses. Involve your sales team in the clean-up and make it an ongoing effort that is part of your sales process throughout the year.

• Build it out. Grow your list by adding qualified leads from conferences you’ve attended, events you’ve hosted and other networking events and opportunities. Rented lists can also be a good way to enhance your current prospect list.

• Maintain, maintain, maintain. Schedule list clean-up days consistently and in advance to ensure useless addresses are weeded out. Once you’ve implemented multiple list-building tactics, regularly evaluate those investments and their return to determine whether eliminations are required.

2. Leverage Social Media. From Lia Pinto, ClearEdge Social Media Coordinator.
According to Forrester Research, 73% of Internet users worldwide have at least one social media account. Your clients, your candidates and the people you want as clients and candidates are networking, learning and socializing through social media channels in greater numbers. 2010 is not the year to fall behind in the continuous communication evolution. What do you do to keep pace with the social media movement?

• Appoint a person or build a social networking committee. Once you’ve decided to build a social media presence, hold someone accountable. Start with those in your organization who are already familiar with and frequenting social media sites. Identify internal team members who can help contribute content, keep up with networks on a regular basis and watch for information being shared about your business and industry across social networks. And remember-by listening to your clients and peers you will learn how to engage/relate with them.

• Set reasonable, strategic goals. Start slowly and strategically by defining your audience and determining which social media tools and sites your business can leverage with ongoing success. Create a presence on networks where your audience “hangs out.” For example: Are they reading blogs? Do they keep up with Twitter? Do they share content on Digg? Are they viewing videos on YouTube? Are they on Facebook or LinkedIn? ROI for social media should also be different; it depends on what type of interaction you’re looking for and can be different with each organization, industry or social network. Additionally, ROI should not just be monetary, it should be measured “socially” as well.

• Be realistic. When it comes to social media, don’t spread your business too thin. It’s better to become the master of one or two social media sites than to sporadically and half-heartedly post content in five or six places and hope for results. Besides being realistic, also be transparent. Organizations present in social networks need to be truthful and attentive by responding to questions and comments and learning from suggestions and criticism.

3. Review Sales Processes for 2010. From Kathy Dooley, ClearEdge Marketing Director.
Forward-thinking organizations are preparing for the upswing of the market by optimizing their sales processes. Here’s what you can do:

• Examine sales capabilities. Are your sales team and selling approach aligned with how customers buy? Does your staff have the knowledge and tools needed to differentiate you from the competition? Look for gaps in skills and knowledge and find ways to rectify talent and knowledge issues. The beginning of the year is a crucial sales period and you need to have the best team, right from the start.

• Bring process discipline to your sales organization. If the sales process is not clearly mapped out for sales teams, define and map it now. It’s critical to competitive survival today to have a high-performing sales team that management can monitor and support. Without defined sales processes, it’s almost impossible to know how effectively teams are networking and selling.

4. Polish Your Web Site. From Krzysztof Pabian, ClearEdge Creative Director-Multimedia.
To make certain your number one marketing tool is inviting and can deliver bottom-line business results, you don’t need to break the bank. The following small investments in your Web site are worth every penny because they drive traffic and help bring business to you:

• Check the content. A careful sweep will ensure that your business’ messages are strong, clear, appealing and up-to-date. When’s the last time you posted a press release or event? Have you integrated your social media presence into your site? When kept current, your Web site shows visitors what a relevant and credible force your business is. A simple test: What year is your copyright line? We actually see sites with 2006!

• Check your design. Does your site load quickly? Look good on any browser (don’t forget to test Safari and mobile applications!)? If not, visitors could be leaving as soon as they see it. Now’s the time to ensure your site design echoes your brand and company character, and doesn’t get in the way of the site’s functionality.

• Put yourself at the top of the list. Search engine optimization (SEO) will help you achieve strong Internet accessibility. If you haven’t invested in SEO, now is the time. It means the difference between showing up on page one of a Google search, and showing up on page four. Quick fixes: Add title tags to every page and be sure to include meta tag descriptions! Oh, and is your URL registered on sites such as Google and Bing?

5. Get “Creative.” From Jessica Castaneda, ClearEdge Marketing Director.
In our daily dealings with professional services and staffing firms, the ClearEdge team often hears clients say “Once we’re in front of clients, we always win the business. The tricky part is getting in front of them.” What are some of the best ideas for getting in front of prospects for the New Year?

• Use the power and accessibility of the Web. Webinars are an increasingly popular means of sharing expertise and thought leadership in a non-salesy, easily accessible manner. Prospects that may not be open to face-to-face meetings, may be willing to listen in on an informative Webinar as they eat their lunch. As long as the material is relevant and timely and you market your event appropriately, you are sure to gain the audience you seek. For additional credibility, consider teaming up with an association that caters to your target market. Associations are always on the lookout for educational content for their constituency. They may be willing to co-host such events and market them to their membership.

• Form networking groups. Unlike social media sites, networking groups enable you to build long-term relationships with clients and prospects using face-to-face interactions. Building an intimate networking group that enables peers-such as CIOs or CEOs-to share ideas, best practices and lessons learned will position you as an industry insider and trusted partner.

• Prepare to launch a Target Account Program (TAP). A TAP allows your business to rapidly increase awareness and create new business opportunities by honing in on a targeted group of well-researched prospective clients. Properly implemented, a TAP will enable you to increase sales activity and-most importantly-set new appointments!

“Out with the old and in with the new.” You often hear this as the New Year approaches. At ClearEdge Marketing, we say “In with the programs and processes that work,”-be they new best practices or old ones-and out with those that haven’t shown a proper return! The real key to success is taking time to prepare your marketing and sales strategy, and that time is now. Welcome to 2010, the prelude. Be sure and make the most of it.

Leslie Vickrey
President & Founder
ClearEdge Marketing

Posted in Business & Marketing Strategy, Sales Best Practices, Social Networking | 1 Comment »

Why Sales Process Optimization is Mandatory for Long-Term Success

Friday, September 11th, 2009 | Kathy Dooley

If slow sales are keeping you up at night, it’s time to re-think your process.

As the economy slowly begins to turn around, companies are gearing up for growth. Forward-thinking organizations have prepared by instituting client-focused sales processes that integrate best practices and real-time Web 2.0 technologies to accelerate new sales. Has your company done the same?

The migration from a traditional, seller-focused sales approach to a more client-centric, consultative process is nothing new. What’s missing for many organizations is a disciplined, measurable and consistent sales process that leverages best practices and social media to drive results.

Reality check: Is your process truly a process?
As I work with clients across the nation, I am repeatedly surprised by the number of companies—both small and large—that lack a defined and documented sales process. Although many clients claim to have a process in place, it often consists of procedure sheets and flow charts, or is completely outdated. The lack of a systematic, measurable and well-managed sales process results in disparate methodologies, inconsistent messaging and unpredictable performance across the company. It’s a costly, slow and ineffective way to develop business.

On the other hand, a systematic sales process streamlines, enhances and standardizes business development activities that drive revenue growth. It is aligned with the client’s buying cycle, focuses on the client’s needs and goals, and integrates best practices, technology and tools throughout. Most importantly, a well-crafted process arms your sales team with the knowledge, resources and leading-edge practices needed to capture and grow sales.

Process optimization takes time, discipline and management commitment
Implementing a new or revamped sales process doesn’t happen overnight. It requires thoughtful planning, collaboration and analysis. It begins with an examination of current selling capabilities:

Is your selling approach aligned with how your customers buy?
Does your sales team have the knowledge and tools to prove your unique value to the customer and clearly differentiate you from the competition?
What are the best practices within each sales team?
Do you have baseline metrics (e.g. average sales cycle duration) that allow you to gauge the effectiveness of the process?

Once you’ve done your homework, the real work begins. The best approach for bringing process discipline to your sales organization is to:

Determine if you develop the process internally, purchase and customize an off-the-shelf sales process, or develop your own with the assistance of a sales process expert
Identify an executive sponsor to support and drive the efforts to affect companywide change
Create a cross-company advisory team to provide input and ensure process validity
Build buy-in from the entire sales team by eliciting best practices, tools and techniques
Conduct a comprehensive, objective assessment of how your customers buy so that your process aligns with the way they prefer to be sold to
Incorporate Web 2.0 tools to simplify research, lead generation and relationship building
Establish measurements and key performance indicators to determine what’s working
Routinely evaluate the process and make adjustments so it stays relevant

Integration of Web 2.0 tools and techniques is a must
Gone are the days when cold calling and pounding the pavement were the sales tools of choice. Today’s savvy buyers have raised the bar. They have no desire to speak with you unless you’re able to see the business through their eyes and understand what is important to them. So how do you gain that knowledge?

Strategic sales organizations are using market intelligence and leveraging personal and professional networks to replace high-volume prospecting activities with high-value prospecting activities. They’ve done this by integrating a variety of Web 2.0 tools and techniques—InsideView, Google Alerts, RSS Feeds, Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Spoke, Jigsaw and netprospects, to name a few—into their sales processes. These tools enable them to:

Narrow their prospects to high potential clients that meet their demographics
Determine the right person at the right level to contact
Gain market intelligence that helps pre-qualify prospects and conduct sales calls that speak directly to the customer’s challenges or goals
Leverage personal connections to turn cold calls into warm calls
Identify compelling events that trigger business opportunities

You can’t manage what you don’t measure
The biggest challenge with adopting a new sales process is getting everyone to follow it. Sales management must continuously reinforce the process, hold salespeople accountable, and monitor and measure performance against benchmarks to ensure the process is working.
In order to provide this oversight, there must be an automated means for capturing, managing and sharing vital customer information.

On-boarding: The oft-overlooked step
Another mistake I’ve seen clients repeatedly make is not integrating the new sales process into their sales onboarding process. Reviewing the sales process and practicing critical sales skills with new employees not only accelerates their assimilation into the organization — it jump starts their success.

A high-value endeavor
At its core, sales process optimization is about developing and institutionalizing a methodology that aligns sales strategies with company business objectives and customer needs. When this process is managed, monitored and continuously improved, your organization will reap measurable results, including increased revenue, decreased sales costs and sustained competitive advantage.

So tell me, what is your company doing to optimize its sales process? Do you have any best practices worth sharing?

Kathy Dooley
Marketing Director
ClearEdge Marketing

Posted in Sales Best Practices | No Comments »

It’s All About the List: List Development Strategies that Enhance Your Marketing Campaign (Part 3 of 3)

Monday, August 31st, 2009 | Jill Ruiz

You’ve followed part one of this blog and spent the time and allocated the resources to conduct an internal audit of your database. You’ve evaluated and implemented the multiple tactics in part two of this blog to grow your prospect list. Now what? The last, and arguably most important step to an effective prospect list is to maintain, maintain, maintain!

Step 3: Maintain, maintain, maintain!

Regular maintenance of your list cannot be stressed enough. This ensures your database is always fresh and accurate and steadily growing. There are two critical steps to maintaining your list:

1. Regularly scheduled clean-up—As I stated in part one of this blog, regularly scheduled list clean-up should become a part of your sales process. Develop internal processes that work for you, such as an annual sales team “spring cleaning” day, and bi-annual “update your profile” e-mails. Document the process that fits so you can use it going forward. Schedule the next list clean-up day(s) and “update your profile” e-mails ahead of time to ensure they do not fall through the cracks.

2. Tactical Evaluation—Once you’ve implemented multiple list building tactics, they need to be evaluated in order to determine any that are ineffective. Do this at least bi-annually and annually. You can schedule the tactical evaluation to coincide with your clean-up day(s) and “update your profile” e-mail blasts. Evaluate the investment and return (quality prospects added to your list) to determine if any tactics need to be eliminated and dollars need to be reallocated. Use the first evaluation as a benchmark going forward. Again, document these processes and schedule the evaluation days ahead of time.

The key is to develop and document processes that work for your company. Make it a part of your culture. It will take some time and effort, but with an accurate database, you will see higher ROI and business growth.

Do you have additional information for people looking to implement a list development strategy? What best practices work for your company when cleaning, building and maintaining your list?

Jill Ruiz
Senior Project Manager
ClearEdge Marketing

Posted in Sales Best Practices | No Comments »

It’s All About the List: List Development Strategies That Enhance Your Marketing Campaign (Part 2 of 3)

Thursday, August 20th, 2009 | Jill Ruiz

In part one of this blog, I discussed how to conduct an internal audit and clean the list you already have by engaging your sales team in “spring cleaning” and sending “update your profile” e-mails. Once that process is in place, you are ready to find new prospects for your list.

Step 2: Find new prospects—build your list!
The key to building a solid, accurate list is by utilizing a multi-channel approach to diversify your list growth tactics and reach as many prospects as possible. The most frequently used tactics, which I will explain in detail below include, but are not limited to, online registration, gathering qualified leads at conferences/events, referrals and co-registration, research firms and purchasing/renting. Choose at least three tactics to implement.

Conferences and other events
Conferences and tradeshows are favored ways for companies to grow their prospect lists, since you are able to interact with and evaluate prospects who express interest in your services. This is an effective way to zero in on your target, but make sure the sales team follows up with all prospects in a timely manner via a phone call. If they aren’t able to follow up by phone, as a back-up only, send an e-mail thanking the prospect and offer an incentive for them to register on your Web site.

Don’t stop at conferences. Participating in local events and associations, networking lunches, sponsoring Webinars, even online discussion forums and newsgroups—almost anything can (and should) become a list-building opportunity.

Use your Web site—online registration
Developing an online registration (opt-in) form is perhaps the easiest, most cost-effective way to build a prospect list. Make sure all of your marketing efforts direct prospects to this online form, including your advertising, direct mail campaigns, e-mail signatures and social media efforts (including your corporate Facebook page, LinkedIn accounts and Twitter tweets).

The most effective registration forms collect only the necessary information. This form should not take the place of an introduction sales call. It’s an opportunity to gather the critical contact information for your sales team to follow up and start the sales process. The best way to get prospects is to give an incentive to register with your company. Offer relevant thought leadership pieces such as industry surveys, business articles, newsletter case studies or even conference and event notifications. Remember, a lot of people get annoyed when requested to register—so, be sure to make the content they are registering for of relevance and value.

Referrals and co-registration
Referrals are a useful and easy way to gather prospects. It’s simple to add ‘Refer a Friend’ links to eNewsletters or a call-out to a direct mail campaign, but make sure you offer an incentive that is relevant and will attract your target.

You can also team with companies or organizations to offer co-registration. Co-registration is when one company, on its own opt-in form, offers their subscribers an option to opt-in to another company. For example, you subscribe to an eNewsletter on a Webpage, and in the process, you are invited to subscribe to one or several other eNewsletters of the same general interest. You and your partners jointly grow each other’s lists. Look for sites similar to your own by searching for them in search engines and directories. If they have an eNewsletter similar to your own that doesn’t necessarily compete, opt-in to see what types of communications they send. If you find the information will be of interest to your target, the company is a good candidate. If they don’t have an eNewsletter, you may be able to arrange a deal where they would offer free subscriptions to your eNewsletter from their site in exchange for a link from your site to theirs. Just be aware that co-registration requires close monitoring, to ensure poor performing sources are identified and removed.

To rent, or not to rent? Using outside list rental and research firms
Buyer beware! In my experience, companies who rely too heavily on rented or purchased lists are often disappointed in the results as well as the cost. There are also subscription-based companies, but those can be costly as well. Used (smartly) as just one part of a larger overall list development strategy, rented or purchased lists can enhance your internal prospect list even further.

Using companies like Hoovers and Harte-Hanks or subscription-based companies like ZoomInfo can sometimes be ineffective if your prospect list is highly targeted (typically, the more criteria you have for your target, the smaller the list will be); which is often the case in selling a niche service versus something broader. However, it doesn’t hurt to look into it. Just make sure to ask critical questions such as how they update their information (opt-in, members update, phone calls, outside databases/partnership, etc.)? How frequently that information is updated? What are their opt-in permission levels? What information is included in the list name, company, address, phone, e-mail (e-mails are usually an additional charge)? How frequently do you get to use the list (is it one-time purchase or multiple uses)? What is their policy for returned addresses (in other words, if x% are bad contacts, how many will they replace)? Finally, ask for a sample name or two from a company where you know the contacts you are requesting. This tactic will help with a quick “spot” check on quality.

On a separate note, if you are using e-mail as part of an online campaign, most list companies will send the communication for you, and will not reveal the address unless the prospect opens or replies to your e-mail. Therefore, it is important to inquire about the list companies’ process and reporting. A good practice would be to sign up to the list firm’s eNewsletter to see firsthand what kind of information they send, how frequently and what kind of contact information they are looking for.

Some list companies will also offer a telemarketing service as a follow-up to your communications. If your sales team does not have the capacity to follow up with every prospect after a communication has gone out, outsourcing the telemarketing service may be worth the extra cost.

Another, often more effective tactic is renting lists from associations or trade publications in your industry. You have a greater chance of reaching your specific target audience through these vehicles. Do your research to determine which associations and trade publications you should approach by downloading or requesting a media kit and find out if they offer list rental services. More often than not, they do!

What is your advice or personal experiences with building your company’s list? Do you have tactics that work? What do you think other people should know about before buying a list?

In part 3 of It’s All About the List: List Development Strategies That Enhance Your Marketing Campaign, I will discuss the importance of and how to maintain your list. Please click here to continue to part 3 of this blog.

Jill Ruiz
Senior Project Manager
ClearEdge Marketing

Posted in Sales Best Practices | 1 Comment »

It’s All About the List: List Development Strategies that Enhance Your Marketing Campaign (Part 1 of 3)

Wednesday, August 12th, 2009 | Jill Ruiz

To maximize ROI and grow your business effectively, you need to have a solid, accurate database. Having a solid prospect list is the backbone of any company’s sales strategy and a critical component to continually achieve desired ROI in your marketing campaigns, Keep-in-Touch (KIT) Programs or Target Account Programs (TAP). Take the time to build and maintain your database. If you don’t, you are simply wasting time and money.

In the first of a three-part blog, I will address steps you can take to achieve the most effective prospect list:

Step 1: Conduct an internal audit—clean your current list!
Step 2: Find new prospects—build your list!
Step 3: Maintain, maintain, maintain!

Step 1: Conduct an internal audit—clean your current list!
Most companies have a prospect list already. But so many people move jobs within a given year that, lists become outdated, inaccurate and are therefore fairly useless. The very first step in developing a solid, effective prospect list is to clean up the one you already have (and if the list you have is a stack of business cards sitting on each sales person’s desk or in their LinkedIn networks, start building and documenting your list now, now, now!). It’s important to regularly validate the information in your prospect list—after all it’s the lifeblood of your sales efforts (which is why it is so surprising how many companies don’t invest in nurturing and building it!).

With that said, your sales team should be involved in and accountable for the quality of this list (although marketing and inside sales can support with research as appropriate, it’s the sales team who owns the relationship). An effective way to engage your sales team in an internal audit is to dedicate a day (or two) of your team’s time to call and e-mail everyone in their database. Turn this into a “spring cleaning” activity with incentives such as catered lunch, casual dress and/or a contest to see who can update their lists the fastest and most accurately (tracking the returned communications, either e-mails or printed pieces, against the sales person as they come in). And who knows, maybe client meetings will occur just by reaching out to update contact information!

In addition to your sales team spring cleaning, you might want to send clients and prospects periodic “update your profile” e-mails, note cards or customer surveys. Offer them incentives for replying, such as discounts on services or an attractive raffle prize. If you feel none of these efforts are right for your company, you may need to invest in outside help to clean up your list. Most telemarketing companies offer this service, but the fees can be steep and you lose the “insider’s knowledge” your sales team has of each client and prospect. Not to mention you lose an opportunity to reach out to those prospects you may not have approached in a while.

List clean-up is not a one-time solution. It’s ongoing and should become part of your sales process—an annual or bi-annual activity that not only ensures your list is always accurate it ensures the right prospects are on the list. Think about it. When you buy a list, one of the first questions you ask the list company is how often do you update the list. Why should it be any different for your actual list?

What is your advice or personal experience with cleaning the list your company already has? Do you have an internal process in place? Is that process regularly put into action? Do you think it’s successful? If so, why? If not, why not?

In part 2 of It’s All About the List: List Development Strategies that Enhance Your Marketing Campaign, I will discuss various ways to find new prospects and build your list. Please click here to continue to part 2 of this blog.

Jill Ruiz
Senior Project Manager
ClearEdge Marketing

Posted in Sales Best Practices | No Comments »

On Your Mark…Get Set…Lay the Groundwork for Future Sales

Thursday, July 16th, 2009 | Jennifer Higgins

So, I was talking with a friend who works in sales (selling technology professional services to the C-Level) about how things are going. I asked him the question, “Are clients buying?” Of course his answer was not the resounding “Yes, they’re signing contracts left and right,” that we are all hoping for. But, it wasn’t a solid “no” either. What he’s finding, and I found interesting, is that clients are now talking more than they were a few months ago about what they will be doing in the near future. They’re agreeing to meetings and demos, and brainstorming solutions that will take their company to the next level.

Now we all know that those conversations are great, but what we all need is the signed contract. But given the fact that conversations are happening, companies are beginning to see the light at the end of the tunnel, things are loosening up even a slight bit-we can all count on the fact that those signatures are going to start hitting the paper soon.

In the meantime, there are several things that we can do to stay in front of clients so when the time comes that the proverbial coffers for technology investments are opened back up, we’re all ready. Here are some tips my friend shared with me, along with articles on each topic:

1. Create Valuable Reasons to Connect. Identify your top prospects and research material that might be useful to their company. Maybe you’ll find an article about an industry trend that relates to their business, perhaps you’ve seen some statistics pertinent to their industry, or it’s possible that you can share a best practice that might be helpful to them either from your own business practice or a non-competing client. Try inviting your client or prospect to a business-related function as your guest. The more face time, the better. As an example, Steve Ballmer recently presented at a Chicagoland Chamber event. Great opportunity to invite (and pay) for a client to join you at an event. Identifying ways to connect with prospects at low or no-cost is an art mastered by nonprofits that have much to share about how to deepen relationships by maximizing existing communications. Come up with a value-added reason to reach out and keep your company name in front of the prospect.

2. Build Trust. It’s no surprise that the level of trust in companies across the U.S. is at a record low. And since people tend to do business with companies they know and trust, now is your time to make sure that your company is viewed as trustworthy in the eyes of your clients. Simple things like calling when you say you’ll call, providing information that you say you’re going to provide by the time you said you’d provide it, sharing success stories, all of these actions add up to trust in you and an increased likelihood of being selected when the time comes to sign on the dotted line.

3. Recognize and Appreciate Your Customers’ Situation. Obviously in a sales role, it’s important to touch base with clients and prospects. What’s important right now, though, is to meet them where they are in terms of the status of their business. Be empathetic to their current situation. If they are unable to buy today, listen to their concerns, probe them about how they’re overcoming challenges and ask about areas unrelated to what your company has to offer. From your customers’ perspective, demonstrating true concern for their company will go a long way when they reemerge and are ready to make purchasing decisions. Just because companies are hit with hard times doesn’t mean an end to business opportunities.

4. Make the Most of the Buffalo. Make the most out of every marketing effort possible. It’s not a big surprise that most companies want to achieve big marketing gains with little marketing spend. So, once you identify a message or an article or a case study that is relevant for a group of prospects, be sure to e-mail the link, post it on your Web site, include it in a newsletter-use it wherever feasibly possible to increase your connection with clients and prospects in a way that is beneficial to them. Also, be sure to leverage the tools you already have in place and maximize your own marketing opportunities.

5. Be Patient. It’s extremely hard to be patient, especially today when the typical sales cycle is being dramatically extended. However, patience is a strong virtue in negotiation, and without it, you typically can kiss a sale goodbye! Patience shows a customer that you care about their success, not just your deal. Whatever strategies you implement for increasing sales and setting the state for future success, be sure that you practice your patience.

We’re all in this together. We invite you to share some of your tips and stories of sales survival.

Jennifer Higgins
Senior Writer
ClearEdge Marketing

Posted in Sales Best Practices | No Comments »

Scored that Sales Meeting? Prepare to Give the Perfect Pitch.

Monday, June 29th, 2009 | Leslie Vickrey

So you conquered your cold call, terrifically TAPped and scored a sales meeting. Now you just need to nail your presentation and leave a lasting impression. The best way to do this? Be prepared. This may seem like Business 101, but going back to basics always pays off.

Over the years I’ve heard horror stories from clients about sales presentations and client meetings. Almost every story boils down to one thing: not being prepared. Below are some preparation tips that will help ensure your sales meeting yields the positive results you’re after.

Pre-meeting Prep

Define goals. Before the meeting, you must understand what the specific audience members’ needs and expectations are, as well as spell out your own specific purpose. With clear goals, it’s easier to ensure everyone’s needs are met. Even consider asking your prospect questions prior to the meeting-to help frame the conversation, set expectations and ensure they’re getting the most out of the meeting.

Create an agenda. You wouldn’t go on vacation without your luggage, so why would you go to a meeting-the meeting you set up-without a plan? An agenda is a “meeting map” that lets everyone know where the discussion will go and that you’re taking your prospect’s time seriously.

Know your audience. Take some time to research the basics of the company you’re meeting with, as well as who you’ll actually be speaking to. What are their names? Titles? Roles? If you understand where they fit into the company’s decision-making process, you can tailor your presentation to meet their needs and answer their questions. It’s also a good idea to be aware of any predispositions or prior knowledge they may have about your company and product, as well as the jargon they use (like, what does “scrum” or “agile” mean, if relevant to them).

Prepare with purpose. If you’re creating an actual presentation to help guide the meeting, make sure the content is purposeful, thoughtful and customized to cover all of your audience’s needs. Avoid filling your PowerPoint with slides about your company-remember, it’s not all about you, it’s about the prospect. Don’t waste their time by making them sit through irrelevant material. Break down your content and allocated time with the prospect-if you have an hour to learn as much about them as possible, try and only spend the first 5-10 minutes informing them about you to gain credibility and get them to open up about their needs.

The design of your presentation is also important. Your template should be up to date, with logos and graphics that are attention-grabbing and interesting. Dates, services, client lists, case studies, etc. need to be current. Try to avoid content-heavy slides and/or talking directly to the slides (i.e. reading verbatim what’s on the slide!).

Work with a partner if necessary. Does someone else at your firm have more expertise than you on a certain aspect of your product or service? Partner with that person for your meeting. Make sure each of you contribute valuable information.

Practice. Poor presentation skills are one of the most common pitfalls with sales presentations. The best sales teams rehearse regularly and are rigorous about presenting in top form. New, less experienced sales staff should be trained to present.

Confirm. The day before your meeting, send an e-mail to all audience members that confirms the logistics and includes the meeting agenda. Be careful to word the message in a way that doesn’t make it easy for them to cancel. For example, end with “I look forward to speaking with you tomorrow” versus “Let me know if we’re still on.”

During the Meeting

Know your content. A colleague of mine (I won’t name names) once gave a knowledgeable, seamless presentation to a client by phone. Impressive. Unbeknownst to me and fellow audience members, she gave that presentation while walking through an airport parking lot searching for her car. Very impressive. While I don’t recommend trying this for yourself, I do recommend owning your content-knowing it inside and out. No reading slides word-for-word the entire time.

Outline next steps. Make it clear for everyone at the end of the meeting what will happen next. There should be a form of action that allows you to reach out to audience members again. Let them know you’ll e-mail a sample case study or article about a specific topic or question covered during your conversation. Invite them to an event. Send a proposal if there’s an opportunity. Or, schedule a follow-up meeting. Always take into consideration what’s next.

After the Meeting

Follow through. Whatever action you tell the audience you’ll take, take it. The meeting is your chance to make a great impression, and prove that your firm is prepared, organized—best-suited to meet your audience’s needs. Following through on your promises proves you’re trustworthy, and gives them a preview of the road ahead should they choose to work with you.

Leslie Vickrey
President & Founder
ClearEdge Marketing

Posted in Sales Best Practices | 1 Comment »

Selling: It’s Not All About You.

Tuesday, May 26th, 2009 | Kathy Dooley

Aligning Your Sales Process and Value Messages to Your Clients’ Buying Behaviors.

Successfully selling your services and solutions in a dynamic and highly competitive marketplace requires a solid understanding of your customers’ needs — and a sales process and messaging strategy that clearly demonstrate your ability to meet those needs.

Unfortunately, many companies continue to rely on out-of-date sales processes and sales materials that tout features and benefits of their offerings but have little relevance to the client’s challenges or goals. A key to an effective sales methodology is the incorporation of customer-relevant messaging focused on how your solutions solve the buyer’s pain or increase their gain. In failing to incorporate and reinforce their value proposition through targeted messaging at every stage in the buying cycle, these firms are missing out on revenue-generating opportunities.

Here’s what savvy companies are doing to ensure they are providing the right message at the right time during the sales process:

1. They take the time to truly understand their customers’ buying cycle and the selling activities that take place within it. Then they ask salespeople what they are trying to accomplish at each step. This helps to determine what kind of messaging is needed at each stage in the sales cycle.

2. They create impactful value statements and customer-orientated communications focused on buyer needs, challenges or goals.

3. They embed this messaging in their sales process and all marketing materials, and provide the sales team with tools specific to each stage in the buying cycle.

4. They train and re-train their sales team on how to deliver the right content based on the current selling situation. Instead of focusing the conversation on their company and its services, they first determine the customer context, and then map out how to respond to these situations.

5. They make sure all necessary content is available in a single, central repository.

Where does your organization stand?
Here’s a checklist that allows you to quickly evaluate whether your sales messaging strategy is on target and effectively supports your sales process:

 Have you assessed and enhanced your company’s sales messaging within the past 12 months?

 Is it current, streamlined and aligned with challenges facing your buyers?

 Is it supported with built-in proof points, testimonials and case study summaries that objectively convey your value?

 Is it integrated into your selling process and sales cycle?

 Have your sales professionals embraced the messaging and are they conveying it consistently and appropriately to their clients and prospects?

 Does your sales team have access to, and use, the appropriate sales collateral at the right stage of the buying cycle?

If you don’t know the answers to these questions, it’s time to find out. And if you don’t like the answers you are getting, it’s time to make a change!

Create a game plan
The first step in a sales messaging optimization strategy is to ensure your sales cycle is aligned with the decision makers’ buying cycle. Once you’ve identified how key steps in your sales cycle (e.g. prospecting, qualifying, presenting, closing and penetrating) align with your buyers’ cycle, you need to:

• Develop impactful messages tailored to the specific needs and buying preferences of customers at each stage in the cycle. Provide “messaging roadmaps” for the most pressing business objectives facing your target buyers. Build content that conveys your understanding of their objective and communicates how your firm has helped other clients meet similar objectives through your solutions. Validate your capabilities and value with proof points and mini client success stories.

• Involve members of the sales team in drafting the messaging to ensure it is timely, on target and will be used. Consider creating templates that allow for some customization based on different customers and segments.

• Integrate these value statements into your sales process, sales training program, Web site content and marketing materials.

• Train your sales team how to effectively convey your value proposition and message to the right person at the right time.

• Create one central online repository for all sales and marketing materials. Salespeople should only have to go to one place to find everything they need to help identify, develop and close deals.

• Inspect what you expect: Have ongoing dialogs or role plays with all sales team members to ensure your messaging is being appropriately and consistently communicated.

Continuously evaluate and improve your messaging
Just as the goals and challenges of decision makers continuously shift in response to changing business objectives, so should your sales strategy and messaging. Stay closely attuned to the trends in your marketplace and the buying patterns of your clients. Periodically evaluate and adjust your sales process and sales messaging to ensure you’re able to capture the attention and business of target buyers.

Kathy Dooley
Marketing Director
ClearEdge Marketing

Posted in Sales Best Practices | No Comments »

A Holiday Message from Marketing: Three Simple Tips to Help You Close out the Year

Wednesday, December 10th, 2008 | Sarah Schunk

Charles Dickens’ “A Christmas Carol” offers many timeless lessons, including one of my favorites: a day in your pajamas can be one of the best and worst days of your life. Many business leaders this year must be feeling caught between two very different Christmas outlooks Dickens wrote about: 1) Ebenezer Scrooge’s ba-humbug philosophy and 2) the down-and-out Cratchit family’s united and cheerful defiance of gloomy realities.

Marketing can be a sentimental business unit—look at me beginning this blog by referencing a classic holiday tearjerker. But sentiment has its place, sometimes in sales, frequently in customer appreciation and retention and often in brand image. With that in mind, we at ClearEdge are going to get caught up in the silver bells, mistletoe and Tiny Tim-like joys of the season and share three simple marketing tips to help you cheerfully close out the year.

Send Glad Tidings
Even if you don’t feel like making merry, take time to wish your customers, prospects, partners, suppliers and employees well this holiday season. In downtimes, business and personal networks are worth their weight in golden jingle bells so make an effort to make contact before the end of the year.

If your budget cannot include a holiday mailing, e-greetings are acceptable and personal calls are even better. It gives you a chance to check in with important resources, underscore the importance of key relationships and, perhaps, gather some valuable market information.

Make a List, Check It Twice
Build and vet your first quarter prospect list now! 2009 is going to be a tremendously competitive year, and you need to have your sales strategy in place long before that apple starts to fall in New York City.

Take several hours this December to work with your sales teams, analyze the existing pipeline and build strong prospect lists you can begin working from at the first of January 2009.

Put a Penny in the Old Man’s Hat
Corporate giving programs have swelled in popularity and generosity in recent years. If your organization has made a commitment to a charitable organization, see if it’s possible to continue or even boost those contributions this holiday season.

Client and employee retention are powerfully influenced by a company’s culture and image. Continuing your good efforts despite difficult times speaks volumes to the values most important to your organization.

We at ClearEdge wish you a safe and joyful holiday season. May your merry days be many and the ba-humbugs be few and far between!

Sarah Schunk
Senior Writer
ClearEdge Marketing

Posted in Sales Best Practices | Comments Off

Building a Prospect List: Where Do You Start?

Wednesday, January 2nd, 2008 | Jessica Castaneda

Your prospect list should be the foundation of your sales strategy. It should be the very first thing your sales team does to prepare for any type of sales or marketing activity – be it cold calling or a full-on target account program. A strategically developed and validated prospect list is the most important element to any successful sales program. Yet it is often the most neglected part of the sales process.

The best prospect lists are made, not bought.
By this I don’t mean you cannot start with a purchased list. Hoovers, Dun & Bradstreet or even appropriate publications and associations are great channels to gather potential sales targets. But you cannot stop there. These lists are fantastic until about 60 seconds after you purchase them. Without a good degree of validation from sales teams – meaning actively reaching out to each contact and verifying that they are still at the company and their contact information is still correct, they get stale very quickly. Once you have the right information in your system, you can use it as part of a Keep-in-Touch (KIT) Program or Target Account Program (TAP).

Know your target.
The best way to identify the right target for your company is to know what you are looking for. Take a look at your current clients. Who are your best clients right now? Who are your ideal clients, those you wish you were doing business with? Are your best clients also your ideal clients? If not, why not? Questions like these will help you narrow down the type of prospects you would like to go after. It will also help you segment prospects into categories – “A list” are those prospects who fit your “ideal” criteria, “B list” may be prospects who would be good to have in your client base, but not as ideal as the “A list”, and so on. Moving clients from the “B list” to the “A list” are important too. Once you know who you want and their priority for your firm, your sales team has a much clearer plan of attack and can more productively spend their time getting the right business.

Know your list.
Once you have a base list of prospects, your team should make sure that list is up-to-date and accurate. Nothing says “uninterested in my business” like a campaign targeted to the CIO who left 10 months prior. I remember a firm who developed a high-end, multi-week direct mail campaign to CIOs. The campaign theme was on target, the message compelling and the giveaways were interesting. Management asked the sales team for its “top tier” prospects to be included in the program. All was set and the campaign launched. Then, nothing. What happened? Come to find out when management “took a closer look” at the prospect lists their sales team swore by, they realized over 50% of the e-mails were incorrect, resulting in only half of the campaign reaching targeted prospects. Not to mention that many of the targets were no longer with those organizations. It’s no wonder the campaign ROI was low. It starts with knowing your list, knowing your targets.

Grow and nurture your list.
Your prospect list should be a growing part of your business. As you interact with targets on your list, they will move up and down in priority as their needs and interests change. Some “B list” folks may move up to the “A list” and conversely some “A list” targets may be demoted to a “B list” prospect. But, regardless of where on the list your targets fall, they should never be ignored. The point of prioritizing your prospect list is to identify who gets your most immediate and fervent attention – not who gets attention, period. Keeping constant communication with your list is the only way to keep it current. Communication vehicles such as Keep-In-Touch (KIT) Programs or Target Account Programs (TAP) are great ways to do just that.

Adding to your list.
The best way to grow your prospect list is what we call the “homegrown” approach. This isn’t an earth-shattering revelation. Basically, you add people with whom you’ve come in contact and had a chance to interact and evaluate. It may be someone from a conference, networking lunch or little league. It could be online leads, such as those from LinkedIn or Facebook.

Don’t forget your current accounts.
If you haven’t captured 100% of your current clients’ business then they should be on your prospect list. Different departments, sister divisions, the list goes on. Use your loyal clients within these businesses to help you spread the word. Penetration programs targeting specific companies are a great way to give you an edge over outside competition. In any sales program, never forget to include your current clients and penetration leads.

Quality over quantity.
Wouldn’t you rather invest time and resources into 100 solid prospects who will get you the type of business that will move your company forward than in 1,000 prospects who may end up wasting your time and resources?

A little due diligence, some solid prioritizing and a program of constant communication can help you develop relationships with leads that will pay off well into the future.

Document list activity.
One last step, crucial to the success of your prospect list, is documenting your activity in a Contact Management System (CMS). While it can be a hassle to keep up, the CMS helps you manage your prospects and keep track of who you called or reached out to, and when. Depending on the CMS your company uses, you can even track the success of your marketing campaigns. It also helps with metrics, so you know personally how much activity you require to meet your goals. When your prospect list is managed properly, at campaign time you can more easily pull your list of contacts and know you’ll see a greater return. And isn’t that the reason for your list in the first place?

Jessica Castaneda
Marketing Director
ClearEdge Marketing

Posted in Business & Marketing Strategy, Sales Best Practices | No Comments »