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Personal Branding Online - Using content to generate business

Personal Branding Online
Using content to generate business

Jeremy Miller

Personal branding is a pretty big buzz word these days. Google the phrase and you get over 16 million hits. Now take your search a step further and Google yourself. What comes up? Not much? Now you see why everyone is into personal branding.

Your customers are curious. They want to know about the people they work with every day. Too often they don't find much. Maybe a quote here or there, a MySpace page or maybe the stats from a marathon you ran ten years ago. Either way, they aren't finding the information they want. This is a real missed opportunity. Feed their curiosity.

I can already hear your protests as you read this. "It's too much work." "I don't have time." "I am not Internet savvy." Bah! Those are just excuses. It's not that hard. My 85 year old grandmother is a rockstar on the Internet. If she can upload a YouTube video, then you can too.

So again, feed their curiosity. What is so neat about the Web is you have so many options: blogging, social networking, publishing articles, podcasting, and vidcasting. The list can keep going and going. It really comes down to your creativity and drive.

Start with what you already know. Every professional has expertise. Whether it's the products you sell, or the people you coach. You know something of value for other people. More importantly, you know something of value for your customers. This expertise is the corner stone to your personal brand. By creating content and sharing your expertise online you will develop a personal brand. It's that simple. The more content you produce the more people will see you. This is how you increase your brand awareness. The more valuable your content, the more credible you will be. This is how you improve your influence.

Producing valuable content can be a daunting task, but start with these three basic steps:

Step 1: Create online profiles

Who are you anyways? What is your area of expertise? Why should I be paying attention to you? What I am really asking of you is to define your unique selling proposition. It's time to package yourself, and describe your area of expertise.

You don't have to struggle and reinvent the wheel to create your online profile. Simply start with the social networking sites. I particularly like LinkedIn, because it is business focused. It allows you to profile your expertise with simple wizards. From a personal branding perspective make sure your messaging is tight. Every time you create an online profile it should be consistent, and it should clearly articulate your unique selling proposition. This is not about publishing an online resume, but presenting yourself as a subject matter expert.

Step 2: Answer Questions

Once you have a well defined profile and brand position, it's time to produce content. You have a lot of options here. You can blog. You can podcast. You can write articles. You can answer questions.

I recommend starting with answering questions. This is an easy way to produce content, and will allow you to test your ideas quickly. Check out LinkedIn's Answers section. This is where people are posting questions and answers, very much like a sophisticated newsgroup. It's a great way to share your knowledge, and get immediate feedback.

Once you have mastered Q&A, move on to more sophisticated forms of content. I use articles as one of my primary content vehicles. I distribute my articles through email newsletters, as well as submit them for publication to a number of online and print magazines. Typically an article takes me eight hours to brainstorm, write and proof. It is a time commitment, but I have learned to enjoy the process.

If writing is not your thing, look to video (vidcasting) or audio (podcasting). With all of the tools out there it's very easy to create interactive content. Check out the business podcasts on iTunes. You will see some extraordinary content, and I'm sure you will get ideas of what you can do too. Also look at YouTube. You can create your own channel, and produce videos in your home. Lots of people are doing it, and it doesn't require a lot of technology to produce highly engaging and interesting videos. Use your creativity, and explore the technology that best fits your unique abilities.

Step 3: Give people a reason to call

You have created a profile, and you are producing content on a monthly basis. Now what? Building a personal brand is great, but you need to get paid for your efforts.

You may not get hard cash for your content, but at the very least it should generate leads. When people stumble upon your content and it speaks to them, they will want more. Show them where to go. Include a bi-line in your articles, include a link with your videos, or tell people how they can reach you in your podcasts. Every link back to you is an opportunity for leads to find you.

Business owners and executives often link back to their companies. This is an important technique to evangelize their businesses and their positions. For employees or individuals, they may not want to give their leads away. If that's the case create a personal website. Buy your name as a website domain, and create a landing page that reinforces your unique selling proposition. Your site can offer a collection of your content, as well as give opportunities to request information and make purchases online.

Nothing comes easily

Personal branding is not something that just happens. It takes time and effort. Think of it like dieting and exercise. You have to make it an ingrained habit and part of your lifestyle. If you are not willing to make this level of commitment, well then it's not even worth attempting.

Branding is a process of regular commitment and engagement. When you see a corporate website that hasn't been updated in ten years what is your impression of the company? Not good. Don't make the same mistake with your brand. If you build it – build it well. If you do, they will come.

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Jeremy Miller is a Partner with LEAPJob, a sales and marketing recruiting firm in Toronto, Canada. LEAPJob recruits sales and marketing professionals and sales leaders for many of Canada's most recognized companies. For more information on LEAPJob please visit http://www.LEAPJob.com.

Business Planning in a Volatile Market: TV Interview with Jeremy Miller

2008 has been a year of great volatility. With rapid swings in the dollar, gas prices and commodity prices it has been very challenging for business owners to keep. These swings hit businesses' bottom line. For importers and exporters the dollar has been a major issue. For companies in the food industry the rise in commodity prices like corn and flour have hurt them. For transportation companies it has been gas.

Jeremy Miller of LEAPJob, a sales and marketing recruitment firm, speaks on TV about how business owners can adapt to this volatility:

Obama on Sales: Take a page from Barack Obama's playbook

Obama on Sales
Take a page from Barack Obama's playbook

By Jeremy Miller

Barack Obama called his staff, "the best political campaign, I think, in the history of the United States" in his Presidential victory speech. What an understatement. His campaign rewrote the rules on how to win an election. Not only was the American population voting for him, but so was the world. He took the power of his personal brand with the reach of the Internet to influence the entire globe in his bid for the White House. I am sure political strategists will be studying Barack Obama's campaign for years to come, but we too as sales professionals and marketers can learn from his playbook.

There are three key points we can take away from Obama's campaign in a business-to-business context: clear and consistent positioning, experiential marketing on the Web, and converting traffic.

Clear and Consistent Positioning

Change. The word "change" anchored Obama's campaign from the beginning. It was his brand, and his position in the hearts and minds of voters. This brand position was not accidental. He wasn't labeled as a maverick or a change agent by the pundits. He chose change. The word "change" was emblazoned on signs, on billboards and even on his speaking podium like a Presidential Seal. From day one he connected the word "change" to his name – to his brand.

Change was a great theme for Obama. With George W. Bush's popularity at record lows, the American public was crying out for it. It even appealed to Hillary Clinton and John McCain. Both tried to associate themselves with the word too, but it backfired. Obama owned it. It was his brand. Their use of the word simply reinforced Obama as a person of change, and made them look unoriginal and unauthentic by copying Obama.

Positioning is one of the most important aspects in sales. How are you different from the competition? Customers have choice, and you have to be very clear with what makes you unique. Notice "change" is not a unique selling proposition. It is just a position. It is clear, and it is adaptable. The word "change" means different things to different people, but they can all connect it back to Obama. The same is true in a B-to-B setting. You have to choose a position that is distinctive, and that can be adapted in multiple different settings.

At LEAPJob our word is "leap" – ok that was probably really obvious. But the word is important to us. "Leap" builds on the metaphor of journey. A career is a journey. For example people can be moving forward in their career, they can be on the wrong path or they can be stuck. We constantly use journey metaphors to describe the progression of our careers. LEAPJob uses the word "leap," because we are not only helping people to move forward – we are helping them to leap forward.

Experiential Marketing on the Web

Obama's Internet campaign will go down in history. Many pundits claim it was here that Obama really won this election. He expanded the electoral map by engaging young people who traditionally do not vote. He engaged them with the tools they are so comfortable with like YouTube, MySpace, Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn. Obama's campaign posted over 1,165 videos on YouTube! That is a staggering volume of media, and the public gobbled it up. In the final weeks of the election, Obama's YouTube page was the most visited page on the site.

The volume of content or the use of the Internet did not win the election. Rather the Internet allowed the world to experience Barack Obama, his brand, his values and what he could offer as President. Voters could experience Obama in an unbiased light, and participate in communities discussing his Presidency and what it means. This is the power of the Internet.

Look at how the Internet had the opposite effect for Governor Sarah Palin. Her big gaff interview with Katie Couric would have quickly been forgotten in previous elections. A few people would have seen it live, and then the pundits would have talked about it for a few days. Soon everyone would be bored and move on. But with YouTube, Palin's interview was replayed over-and-over-and-over again. Then Tina Fey, of Saturday Night Live, parodied the interview, which was hilarious, and both videos became viral. Palin's brand equity plummeted, as voters witnessed her inexperience. They didn't have to be told that she was inexperienced by the pundits, they saw it for themselves.

How does your company manage your customers' online experience? The Internet is where your customers form an opinion about your organization. This is where they decide if they are going to call or not, and even if they are going to buy or not. Tools like YouTube are amazing in a sales context, because it allows your customers to experience who you are and what your company stands for before they call. When customers have a positive experience online, the sales process is much easier because they have gone through much of the pre-purchasing activities on their own.

Converting Traffic

The Obama campaign took their Internet strategy a step further by asking for donations. Nearly three million individuals donated to Obama's campaign, and over half of those donations were under $200. The sheer number of people participating and donating to Obama's campaign gave him a lot of power. He outspent McCain in advertising and ground support in multiples in the key battleground states.

From a sales perspective though, he had millions of voters make a small psychological commitment to him. Each donation was a commitment. Put yourself into the donor's shoes. If you gave Obama's campaign money wouldn't you vote for him no matter what? Wouldn't you go out of your way to get your friends, family and colleagues to vote for him too? You made a commitment to him, no matter how small it was. A small financial commitment was enough to mentally and emotionally hook a person into the campaign.

Small commitments are very powerful sales strategies. Tom Hopkins, author of How to Master the Art of Selling, calls this the trial close. On your Website you can go a step further. Check out Salesforce.com. On virtually every page they are asking visitors to sign-up for a free trial. That small commitment gives Salesforce.com the opportunity to engage with their customers and to start the sales process. Every B-to-B website has a conversion point. It's the point where the customer needs a sales person to help fulfill the buying process. What is your conversion point in your sales process? How can you get your customers to make a small commitment to start the sales process?

The Proof is in the Results

Against all the odds, Barack Obama is the President-Elect of the United States of America. How about that? He leveraged a clearly defined brand, online experiences and many opportunities to engage voters in his campaign. He allowed not only Americans, but the world to feel as though they helped him get into the White House.

You can guarantee the next Presidential election will only build on the tactics employed by the Obama campaign, but so too will businesses. Obama's campaign used a set of tools and methodologies that are highly transferrable to business. He won by engaging people online. His message was clear, and he allowed people to experience him and his values online. You and I will likely not be the next President of the United States, but we sure can learn from Obama's marketing strategies.

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Jeremy Miller is a Partner with LEAPJob, a sales recruiting firm in Toronto, Canada. LEAPJob recruits sales professionals and sales leaders for many of Canada's most recognized companies. Their clients range from the Top 50 Employers to smaller organizations building their first sales force. For more information on LEAPJob please visit http://www.LEAPJob.com.

Sales Layoffs Unlikely in This Recession: TV Interview with Jeremy Miller

73% of sales people say we are headed for recession. In October, LEAPJob survey sales professionals on the impact of the market meltdown on their sales. The results were disturbing: 50% of sales people said their customers are deferring major purchase decisions; 40% said they have to use deep discounts to win business; and a third said their sales funnels are in decline. Sales people feel the economy sinking in their customers' behavior.

That being said, don't expect layoffs. The unemployment rate is still at a 30 year low. Companies today run very lean, and don't have a lot of people to let go. You won't see companies downsizing in order to manage their costs. The supply of good quality sales people is just too low.

View Jeremy Miller's interview on TV to discuss the survey results:

Is Outside Sales an Endangered Species?

By Jeremy Miller

Our world is changing. Global warming is causing polar bears and killer whales numbers to decline. Human sprawl is knocking out major sections of natural habitat, which impact species like the gorillas and pandas. And now rising fuel prices and the growth of the Internet are killing off outside sales professionals.

Who would have thought we could ever see the end of the outside sales professional? They have been helping companies grow for over 100 years. They have introduced products, educated markets and grown companies through their efforts. They have been the driving reason for some of our greatest companies like IBM, Xerox and American Express. Many of our most successful business leaders started their careers in sales. Today outside sales professionals are in jeopardy.

Google has had a profound impact on sales. In just a few short years Google has taken control away from the sales professionals and given it to the customers. In a few keystrokes a customer can identify all of their buying options. They can read product reviews, get competitive pricing, find vendors and choose the best option without ever speaking to a sales person.

Google has replaced much of the front-end work sales people do. Customers aren't waiting for a sales person to cold call them. When they have a business challenge they go to Google to find the answer. When they want to compare their options and see which companies offer the best value, again they go to Google. Try this on yourself. When you buy your next car will you A, head to a dealership and ask a sales person what they have for you, or B, search Google and build your own shortlist. If you are like most, you will know exactly which car you want to buy long before you speak to a sales person.

The second major influencer for the extinction of outside sales professionals is the rising price of fuel. In less than two years gas prices have soared by more than 30%. The annual cost of a sales person who drives an average of 500 kilometers per week has increased by $9,620 per year. This may not seem like much, but imagine you had 100 sales reps on the road. That is close to a million dollar increase in the sales force's budget! Imagine if you directed that investment to more productive marketing efforts? Imagine you put that money into Internet marketing programs? Would you be better off? Most likely.

At a $1.40 a liter even sales professionals are monitoring their driving habits. In June 2008, LEAPJob, a Toronto-based sales recruiting firm, polled sales professionals on the impact of rising fuel costs on their driving habits. Over 50% said they have reduced the number of trips they are taking. This is a remarkable thing for a sales person to do, because it is their job to visit customers. If they are making fewer trips then they are seeing fewer customers. This will directly impact how they sell. They will have to be much more strategic in their sales efforts if they hope to hit quota.

The outside sales professional is being squeezed at both ends. Customers are circumventing the sales process by getting information on their own, and the cost to travel is forcing sales people to think twice about trekking across the city. Sales forces must become much more strategic about how they engage, support and sell to their customers.

Sales forces need to master the same web tools their customers have embraced. The obvious statement for any company is "be where your customers are." If the first place a customer looks for products and services is Google, well you better be in their search results if you want a shot at selling to them. If a customer's first impression of your company is your website, well it better be remarkable. The reliance on an outside sales force is a clear sign that a company's sales and marketing efforts are too dependent on very expensive sales resources. The increasing costs of an outside sales force means companies have to focus these expensive resources to where they will have the most impact such as product demonstrations, negotiations and strategic account management. Conducting business as usual is suicide.

It is safe to say that the cost of gas isn't going to suddenly fall, and that innovation on the Internet is going to suddenly stop. The forces killing off outside sales professionals are here to stay. Companies have a choice. They can embrace their new realities, or they can become conservationists and try to save another endangered species.

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LEAPJob is a sales recruiting firm based in Toronto, Canada. LEAPJob recruits sales professionals and sales leaders for many of Canada's most recognized companies. Their clients range from the Top 50 Employers to smaller organizations building their first sales force. For more information visit www.LEAPJob.com.

Sales People Find the Silver Lining in the Market Meltdown

Sales people find the silver lining in the market meltdown

73.1% of sales professionals say we are headed for recession. Sales people are a clear indicator of the health and prospects of companies selling business-to-business services. There are fewer customers to sell products and services too, and their existing customers are deferring purchase decisions.

On Monday, October 6, 2008, LEAPJob surveyed sales professionals on how the market turmoil is impacting their sales. The results were very revealing for the health of North American businesses:

50.2% of respondents said their customers are deferring buying decisions.
30.1% of respondents felt revenue will decline in the next 6 months, while only 25.6% felt they could grow revenue.
33% of respondents do not expect to achieve their sales quota in the next 6 months, and 32.2% of respondents see the size of their sales funnel declining.
38.2% of respondents will have to discount their products and services to win sales.

"Sales people are a resilient group. Even though times look bleak they see a silver lining in all of this chaos," said Jeremy Miller, a Partner with LEAPJob. The survey asked respondents to offer suggestions on how their company should combat a recession. Miller goes on to say one respondent wrote just one word, "Diversify." Diversification is a clear strategy for many sales people as they try to find industries and services where there are revenue opportunities. Respondents reported Healthcare (64.3%), Pharmaceutical (59.6%) and Information Technology (41%) are industries that will perform well in the next 12 months.

Creativity is a major theme for sales people to combat a recession, and here lies the silver lining. "Find more creative ways to cross-sell to existing customers, and look for talent that becomes available from other firms," wrote a respondent. In hot economic times people are selling as much as they can, and as efficiently as they can to maximize revenues. In slow economic times sales people have to look closer at their customers, and identify new and creative ways to contribute value. One comment suggested, "In order to be more competitive and not reduce prices, my recommendation is to explore additional value-added services. They cost you very little, but they are highly beneficial for your customers."

The fears of a recession are real. Even though sales people are buckling down and working harder, they are changing their personal habits. 55.7% of respondents will defer major purchase decisions for the time being. With such volatility in the market everyone is trying to mitigate their risks.

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Facebook in Business: TV Interview with Jeremy Miller

Social networking is no longer for the teens and tweens. Business people are jumping on board too. Why? Because it is fun. It's like bringing the schoolyard back into adult life. You can connect with friends, colleagues and family in real time.

Jeremy Miller of LEAPJob, a Toronto based sales recruiting firm, speaks on TV about how businesses can embrace social networking. Jeremy discusses how people have embraced the technology because it is fun, but they still must be cautious about what they post. When you post on the internet, you are posting on the public domain.

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Resumes That Sell - Writing resumes that hiring managers will read

Resumes That Sell
Writing resumes that hiring managers will read

By Jeremy Miller

Writing a quality resume is difficult. Essentially you are boiling down your professional experiences into a one to two page document. To help bring clarity to the process remember a resume is just a marketing document.

Write your resume for a targeted audience. What type of sales job are you looking for? A software sales resume is different from a sales manager resume. Why? Each role requires very different skills and experiences. Write your resume first to reflect the hiring motivations of your ideal job. Then tweak the resume for each job you apply for.

Chronological or Functional Resume Format?

We are asked frequently if people should write a chronological or functional resume. A functional resume simply describes what you do and your key attributes, while a chronological resume describes each step in your career.

Sales resumes should be chronological. More specifically they should be reverse chronological. Your current job goes first and your first job out of school (university or college) goes last.

Under each career heading try to write three to four bullets that describe your core responsibilities, and one to two bullets for your big achievements.

What doesn't need to be on a sales resume?

There is a lot of superfulous information that doesn't need to be on your resume. If you are trying to control the length of your resume throw out items like: experience with software applications, hobbies and irrelevant training courses. Remember this is a marketing document. Only keep the information that is relevant to your buyer: the hiring manager.

Also, you don't need to include your high school under education. Everyone went to high school. It's a given.

Choose a standard resume format

You don't have to reinvent the wheel for your resume. Microsoft Word offers great templates for resumes. Use a basic resume template with a simple design that is easy to read. That will reduce the hassles you face in creating a resume.

The key elements of a sales resume include:

Contact information
Objective
Experience (reverse chronological)
Education

That is basically all you need.

Ultimately the pen doesn't sell

A resume is a required document to find a job, but it is only a starting point. Think about it. Brochures don't win sales – sales people do. The same is true for resumes. You must hone your interviewing skills to win your dream job.

Sales managers are busy people. They don't have time to interview everyone who applies for their jobs. Take the time to write a great resume. You don't want to have one of those resumes that are rejected, because it didn't look good enough.

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Win Every Interview - Tips on how to present yourself in a sales interview

Win Every Interview
Tips on how to present yourself in a sales interview

By Jeremy Miller

Sales interviews are not interviews. They're sales calls. The first rule of interviewing for sales jobs is don't go to interview – go to sell.

Here's the good news. You already know how to sell. As a sales professional, you have all the skills. Questioning techniques, developing rapport and closing abilities are all second nature. Use the sales skills you use every day in your interviews. They are the skills an employer is buying. Show them how good you are.

Prepare for the interview

Do your homework. Before going to your interview you should be able to answer:

What does the company sell?
What is the company's value proposition? What sets it apart?
Why do their customer's buy from them?
How does your experiences and talents make you an ideal candidate for the role?

Interviewers like to ask, "What do you know about us?" They are looking for you to regurgitate their elevator pitch. You want to be able to rattle it off smoothly and demonstrate you are well prepared for the interview.

More importantly doing your homework allows you to deal with the unexpected. You never know where an interview will go. The better prepared you are, the easier it will be.

Tell your story

Prepare for the obvious questions. For each of your sales jobs you should be able to answer:

Ideal customer profile
The value proposition
Average size deal
Average sales cycle
The target buyer
Quota and quota attainment

Be confident in what you have done, and describe your experiences with authority. Take the time to rehearse your sales stories so that they come out succinct and accurate.

Suit it up

Ok, this should be obvious, but suit it up. Man or woman, dress to impress.

You may not wear a suit day-to-day, but interviews are a bit different. The first three minutes are the most critical in the interview. This is where the interviewer is developing their opinion of you. A suit is an easy technique to manage first impressions.

Don't forget to close

Whatever you do, don't forget to close. This is the most critical aspect of any sales interview.

As the interview comes to a close be sure to ask, "What are the next steps?" You can use a pre-close like, "I am very interested in this role. What is your assessment of me so far?" Then when the interviewer finishes ask for next steps.

Handling Objections

Some interviewers like to see how sales people dance. They will purposefully create awkward or difficult situations to see how the interviewee handles himself.

Don't get caught in these traps. If you feel the interviewer move into an argumentative conversation or begin to ask really difficult questions, just role with the punches. Don't let yourself lose your cool or get flustered.

The best way to diffuse a difficult question is to reverse it. If the interviewer asks a challenging question, reverse the question by asking the interviewer why it is important to them. Try to ask some pointed questions before simply blurting out the answer. You may discover that there is a hidden meaning or agenda behind the question.

Send a Thank You note

Don't under estimate the power of a Thank You note. Send one after every interview.

It doesn't have to be long winded or detailed. Express your appreciation for the interview, and reinforce your close for next steps. That is all you need.

A Thank You note will clearly separate you from the competition. It's amazing how many people forget to send them. Take the time to send a follow up note, and you will be that much closer to winning the job.

Sell, Sell, Sell

Treat each interview as if it were a very important sales opportunity. Use the same amount of time, preparation and follow through that you would use to win the big deals.

*****

Surviving a Recession: TV Interview with Jeremy Miller

We are facing a bear market. As the North American economy slips into recession, companies need to step up and stay focused if they hope to survive. Too often companies turtle up and try to protect themselves. That's the wrong strategy. Be bold. Stand out. Let your customers know you are there to serve them, and be the first call when they are ready to buy.

Jeremy Miller of LEAPJob speaks on TV about how companies can survive a recession. View the TV interview:

Falling On Deaf Ears - Conversations help your customers cut through the hype

By Jeremy Miller

"Blah, blah, blah, ROI. Blah, blah, blah, solution. Blah, blah, blah, leading edge. Blah, blah, blah, results." This is what your customers hear every day. The same old overhyped crap.

Every day people are inundated with marketing messages. Turn on the TV; do a search on the Internet; read a newspaper; watch a movie; drive down the highway. Everywhere you turn there is someone trying to catch your attention and get your money. It's rather annoying actually.

People have developed a simple defense mechanism to manage all of these marketing requests: tune out. That's right. Think for a moment. Do you actually watch TV commercials? Do you read the Google ads when you do a search? Do you try to strike up a conversation with a sales person who just cold called you? Probably not. No one has the time or the mental capacity to give their attention to all of these countless requests.

The same old marketing tactics are losing their impact. The moment someone realizes your goal is to persuade, motivate or sell them something, they become far less willing to believe whatever you have to say. They tune you out. So how do we avoid this inevitable freeze out? The answer is to stop pitching, and have a meaningful conversation with your customers.

Conversations are not new. People have been having them since time began. That is how we learn about each other, how we share ideas, and how we build relationships. People enjoy having conversations, but for companies conversations are scary. Marketing messages are clean, straightforward and one directional. Conversations on the other hand are messy. They require participation, involvement and sharing opinions.

If we boil it all down, companies avoid open conversations, because they don't want to offend anyone. They invest oodles of money carefully crafting messages that speak equally to everyone. The problem with a conversation is you have to share opinions, and sometimes your customers will disagree with you.

Disagreements are good. Consider your close friends and family. You have conversations, debates and arguments with them. Some are fun, and some are frustrating. But they don't jeopardize your relationships – they strengthen them. Getting to know these people at a deeper level and understanding what makes them tick brings you closer. It lets you know where you stand with them, and how you can effectively work with them in your life. That is the real power of conversations.

Let your customers know where you stand. Have a conversation with them. Now this does not mean that you throw caution to the wind and reveal your corporate strategy and competitive intelligence. Rather it means shaping your point of view, and discussing mutual areas of interest with your customers.

Dove, the soap and beauty product company, has done a masterful job engaging their market in a conversation with their "Campaign for Real Beauty." They took a stand. They said women come in all ages, shapes and sizes, and they are beautiful. What a powerful message! Their message was absolutely contrarian in their market. Up until then beauty products were always portrayed by tall, skinny models. Dove took a stance, and it paid off.

Let me put it simply. In one paragraph I referenced the Dove campaign. I expect you can already picture some of their ads in your mind. You can picture the images of women that come in all shapes and ages. You also have an opinion. You either love the campaign, or you are not a fan. Either way it has left its mark on you. My basic reference to the campaign jogged your memory, and if we sit down I bet we could have a real conversation on the ideas of "real beauty." Dove has broken through the clutter, and left its mark on you.

Now try Googling the "Campaign for Real Beauty." I brought up over 43 million hits. I didn't even check how many hits came up in the blogosphere. Dove's contrarian opinion got people talking. The conversation has gone far beyond the advertising and PR campaigns that launched the idea, and now it has legs.

That's the power of conversation. By getting your customers talking, and engaging them as people, you make your messages sticky. Your customers don't have to tune you out to defend themselves against persuasive messages, because they are participating in the conversation. They are asking questions. You are sharing opinions. They know where you stand. All the while you are building trust and rapport with your customers by speaking to them as individuals.

Conversations start with an opinion. We all have them. What does your company stand for? What knowledge or expertise do you have that could be meaningful to your market? What do you want to talk about? Pick some topics that are engaging and relevant with your customers, and strike up a conversation with them. See what happens. I bet you will find your customers responsive and interested.

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Selling in a Slow Economy - TV Interview with Jeremy Miller

Entrepreneurs know a recession is coming long before the pundits start talking about it. They feel it in their wallets. They see it in the sales funnels. They see it in their customers' behavior.

A recession does not have to be crippling. It is a time of innovation and growth. While your competitors are struggling use this as an opportunity to make real inroads with your customers. By improving your sales, marketing and customer experiences you can emerge from this recession as the market leader.

Jeremy Miller of LEAPJob speaks on TV about how companies can stand out in a slowing economy. View the TV interview:

Googlizing Sales: The Web is changing the way we sell

Google has changed sales. Why? Access to information. Think about it. When did you get highspeed internet in your home? 2001? 2002? Prior to highspeed the internet was a powerful tool, but it wasn't fully embraced at all levels of our society. A site like YouTube could not have existed pre-highspeed. Could you imagine downloading a YouTube video clip on dial-up? With this new found speed, consumers and businesses have flocked to the Web as their primary source of information – regardless of the topic.

Access to information has had a profound impact on selling. The most obvious change has been on prospecting. Sure you can still cold call, but guess what your customers are doing? Their Googling to find products and services they want to buy. Mr. Customer is not waiting by his phone hoping you will call. He is on Google looking for an answer to his challenge. He will peck away at sites until one catches his eye. And if all the stars align he will call that company and request more information. If you had made a cold call at the exact same time he was searching for an answer you would probably get the lead, but chances are you didn't. Wouldn't it be much nicer to have the corporate website he found, and decided to call?

Having a website is only a minimum requirement. What is more important is being in the path of your customer's searches. The car companies are very astute in this arena. Not only do they have incredible websites for consumers to evaluate their cars, they also have a whole industry talking about them. You can read car reviews on Edmunds, watch videos on YouTube, read road tests on Car & Driver and read thousands of owner comments in the blogosphere. If you Google “BMW 5” you will find a plethora of information on the BMW 5-series in seconds. Most people buying cars today know exactly what they want and where they will buy it long before they ever speak to a sales person.

When a customer does find your website and is motivated to call, they are already extremely well educated. This means the window of opportunity to influence the buying decision is very short. You have to be on your A game when you're dealing with an internet lead. Why? Quite often the customer knows as much or more about the product as you do. When the customer does make the call they have an agenda. They have specific questions. They are looking for a buying experience that matches their online experience. Anything less and they will find another solution online – it's just that easy for them.

The internet is changing sales at an alarming pace. Google has been in use since 2000. Facebook was launched in 2004, and YouTube launched in mid-2005. Look how quickly these sites have permeated our internet usage and become tools in our day-to-day shopping habits. As sales people we need to adapt quickly to how the Web is influencing our customers' buying decisions.

Does your company have an internet strategy for attracting, engaging and converting searchers into leads? If not, get working on it. This should be a top priority in every company. The companies with the best web experience and the most internet chatter will fair best. In my organization, LEAPJob, we attract two new customers per week simply from our website. We haven't cold called for new business since 2005. This is money at your doorstep. Embrace it.

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Succession in Family Business: TV Interview with Jeremy Miller

Over 75% of family business leaders will retire in the next 15 years. Succession is critical for the growth and development of family business. Jeremy Miller, a Partner with LEAPJob, discusses his experiences in his family business and how to prepare for succession. View the TV interview:

Gas Prices Spike | Sales People Take Action

Gas prices are soaring! They have gone up 20% since January 2008 and 30% since June 2007. The rapid rise at the pumps is directly impacting sales people and their wallets.

In June 2008, LEAPJob polled 700 sales people on the impact of rising fuel prices. The results have been striking. Companies' car expense plans are out of date, and sales people are responding. We have seen a grassroots change as sales people have reduced their driving habits to deal with rising fuel prices. And based on the respondents' feedback, companies aren't even aware of it.

Companies have failed to keep up with the times. Over 65% of respondents said their companies have not updated their driving expense plans since 2006. This is amazing. The average price of gas in Toronto in June 2006 was 94 cents, and in just two years it has spiked to 131 cents per liter. A sales person driving 500 kilometers per week is now paying an additional $185 per week or $9,620 per year. A car allowance of $500 to $600 per month is light. It doesn't even cover the cost of gas!

Sales people have responded. Over half of the respondents have reduced the number of trips they are taking. This is a remarkable thing for a sales person to do, because it is their job to visit customers. If they are making fewer trips then they are seeing fewer customers. This will directly impact how they sell. By reducing their activity levels, sales people will have to be far more strategic in their selling activities if they want to achieve their quota.

What blew me away in this survey is companies still say, "It's business as usual." 70% of companies have not adjusted their expectations for how much sales people drive. Are they aware that half their sales reps are reducing their driving habits? Are they aware how their outdated expense plans are impacting their sales people? Companies really need to step up, and respond to the spiking fuel prices.

Gas prices are top of mind for sales people, and employers will see this when they try to recruit new sales talent. 78% of respondents said the driving expense plan is an important part of their total compensation. Sales professionals are negotiating better expense plans when they accept a job. They want to make sure the plan is fair, and they won't be paying out of pocket for an outdated plan.

I can only hope that gas prices stabilize, but the signs suggest they will continue to rise. If we continue on this trend traditional sales models are going to change. At some point it is going to be too costly to maintain an outside sales force. In 2 years we have seen a 30% spike in driving costs. If it doubles again, do you think sales people will still be on the road?

Highlights from the LEAPJob Gas Survey:

53.5% of respondents are reducing the number of trips or sales calls they will make, while another 20% are waiting to see if their employer will improve the expense plan to account for higher fuel prices.
61% of respondents said the price of fuel will have a direct impact on their next vehicle purchase.
Companies' expense plans are out of date. 65% of companies have not adjusted their driving expense plans in the past two years. 23.5% of companies have adjusted their per kilometer allowance, 4.6% of companies have adjusted their monthly car allowances, and 6.8% of companies have adjusted both.
Most sales people are waiting for their employers to respond to rising fuel costs. Only 28% of respondents are negotiating higher expense plans with their employers. 47.9% said they are not looking for a new job even though their expense plans were obsolete. That being said, nearly 25% said they will look for a new job over this issue, and 27.5% are on the fence.
78% of respondents said the driving expense plan is an important part of their total compensation. Expect new recruits to be negotiating higher expense plans.

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Gas Prices Hurt Sales People: TV Interview with Jeremy Miller

Since January 2008 gas prices have increased 20%. LEAPJob polled sales people to find out how rising fuel prices are impacting their careers.

Some interesting findings included:

65% of companies have not increased their driving expense plans since 2006
Over 50% of sales people are reducing the amount of trips they are taking
78% of sales people consider the driving expense plan an important part of their total compensation

View Jeremy's latest TV interview to hear the results.

Nobody Buys a Leader; They Buy Servants

Does your marketing literature proclaim that your company is a market leader? Does it say something like, "we are the leading producer of …" or something similar? If so, you're not alone. Proclaiming your market position seems to be the first lesson of marketing 101. Guess what? No one cares. Customers care if your solutions will solve their problem. If it can't, then all of these self-serving proclamations are not worth the paper they are printed on.

It's easy to proclaim that you are a market leader. Why? It feels good. It is reassuring and reaffirming to describe yourself as the best. If you believe you're the best, then theoretically other people should too. But take a moment and think about the last major purchase you made for your company or for yourself. Was the product's market position the first thing you considered in your buying criteria? Probably not.

We don't buy leaders. We buy servants. The accounting firm auditing your books is not a leader. They are servants. The CRM software you use to track your activities is not a leader. It's a servant. The car you drive on sales calls is not a leader. It's a servant. I can keep going, but I am sure you get my point. We buy when we have a need. The happier we are with our purchases is a reflection of how well the product served us and how enjoyable the buying experience was.

It's important to change the focus on selling to serving. Sales is inherently a form of leadership. You are selling a customer on what to do. You are persuading, demonstrating and motivating a buying decision in your favor. You are trying to lead your customers to you. It's time to stop navel gazing. These are me-centric notions. When you are selling it's all about you. Shouldn't it be all about your customers?

Try this on for size. Call yourself a servant. Your job is to serve your customers. Your job is to help them solve problems. When you reframe your position to a Servant Sales Person a whole world of opportunities opens up. It becomes easier to qualify your prospects, and weight which ones you can help most effectively first. It is easier to allocate your limited time and resources to the areas you can have the most impact. Becoming a servant makes you a better sales person.

We have all experienced great Servant Sales People. Think of those times that you have really enjoyed the purchasing experience. Common descriptors of these events are: the sales person found just what I was looking for; he understood me; it was fun. The sales person and the buyer were in sync. The sales person anticipated his customer's needs, and was able to proactively come up with solutions. Anyone who has bought suits, whether male or female, knows how beneficial a great sales person can be. They tell you when the clothes look terrible on you, and they find you ones that make you look great. This attitude and attention to your customer's needs can be brought to almost every product or service you sell.

Being a Servant Sales Person is not a menial task. The term servant is misleading, because it creates connotations of domination and obedience. This is definitely not the case in sales. If you want to hit quota you have to be proactive. You have to anticipate your customer's needs early, and be prepared to come up with resolutions quickly. To serve in sales is to anticipate, act and make your customer's buying experience enjoyable and painless.

It's easy to get caught up in a leadership mindset. It's where your ego wants you to be. I know my ego screams when I tell it I am a servant. It wants to win. It wants me to lead. But my customers want me to serve them. Being a servant is a very powerful position. The most influential person in the kingdom is the King's head servant. Why? Because the King relies on him. The head servant isn't persuading the King; he is helping him. If the King goes off in the wrong direction the servant will tell him. He may say, “You can cut off my head, but I think you are making a mistake.” This commitment to the King's success is where the servant's authority and trust comes from. This is the role you want with your customers too.

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Job Seekers Have Choice: TV Interview with Jeremy Miller

Even though North America has been slipping into recession, job seekers have choice. The unemployment rate is at a 33 year low. There are more jobs than people to go around.

Jeremy Miller speaks on TV about how the job market is changing. How it will be easier for job seekers to find great career opportunities. And how it will be harder and harder for employers to attract top talent.

A's Hire A's, B's Hire C's: Not everyone is cut out to hire a Star

Donald Rumsfeld nailed it when he said, "A's hire A's, B's hire C's." Hiring the best people is not a new idea. It is actually quite common. Especially since people like Jim Collins, author of Good to Great, proclaimed that good to great companies got the right people on the bus before they became great. The problem is not everyone deserves to hire A's. Hiring A's is a privilege. It comes with having a great brand, great products and great culture. This is the environment that attracts star sales people, because they can apply their skills to a company that will reward them accordingly.

That being said, if a company's brand sucks, products suck or culture sucks, why would a star sales person ever work there? Life's too short! These weak companies may be able to get the reps in the door, but good luck holding onto them. This job market is just way too hot and getting hotter still.

Twenty years ago companies with less than ideal selling conditions could still get good quality sales people. Why? Sales people needed jobs just like everyone else. Today is a different story. The unemployment rate is at a 33 year low, and continues to decline. This hot job market is giving job seekers choice.

Today, at LEAPJob, we don't see sales people that are chronically unemployed. Sure there may be a layoff every now and then, but any extra sales people that hit the job market are gobbled right back up in short order. The typical job seekers that we are working with are receiving multiple job offers. Companies want them, and they are willing to pay for their talents.

What is remarkable is the media tells us North America is in a recession. Jim Flaherty, the Federal Finance Minister, claimed that Ontario is becoming a "have-not province." If that's the case, the job numbers are showing a clear separation from previous recessions. In 1989 and 2001, companies shed their workforces in droves. The unemployment rates skyrocketed, and many sales people had to compromise their career choices in order to stay employed. Today sales people are gainfully employed even though the economy is stagnating. A slowdown in the economy is not providing more supply in the job market.

'B companies' are having a much harder time attracting A sales people. Let's not even consider the C and D companies. They don't stand a chance! This job market in a recession is difficult for employers, but let's consider how hard it will be once we move into a growth economy. If you don't have a compelling reason for sales people to join your company now – good luck.

To hire an A, you have to behave like an A. That means becoming your customers' first choice when they need a product or service you provide. This is by no means easy. Creating a first call advantage requires clear focus and commitment from all levels of the organization. The products must fit clear market needs. The brand must be engaging and fit the expectations of your customers. The sales people must promote all these values, and let customers know you have the best choice. And while you are doing this, you have to outperform the competition who is trying to knock you off your throne.

You may not get it right on day one, but that is ok. It is the commitment to get it right that counts. That commitment combined with passion and focus is what great sales people need to be successful. It is a lot of fun, and very rewarding to sell for an organization that puts these elements together. Why? Because the customers take notice, and the sales cycle moves smoothly. Sales people don't have to fight an uphill battle trying to convince people to buy a product that sucks for a company that sucks. They get to sell a product and a company they believe in. Even if the product has its faults, the commitment of the organization to get it right makes everything else ok.

Moving aggressively to have a winning product and brand is a minimum requirement for the new economy. Consider the demographics for a moment. By 2011 the first of the Baby Boomers will turn 65. By 2031 the bulk of the Boomers will have left the market, and there is no way to replace their contribution to the workforce. No matter what way you look at it, staffing is a major challenge for the next two decades. Only the best of the best are going to be able to attract and hire top sales people.

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Next Generation Leaders: A TV Interview with Jeremy Miller

In 2012 the first of the Baby Boomers begin to retire. By 2030 we could lose a third of the North American workforce. The way we hire, organize and attract talent are all about to change.

Jeremy Miller speaks on TV about how employers must begin working today to prepare their next generation leaders.

Everyone Makes President's Club: The motto of a great Sales Manager

Great sales managers take it personally. "Nobody is left behind. Everybody makes President's Club." This is their motto. Sure these phrases can be bantered around in meetings and interviews, but truly great managers live it, breathe it and believe in it. Their core values drive them to make each and every one of their reps successful, and to have their team stand out in the organization. Their values push them to be successful managers.

President's Club is the sales force's celebration of their achievements. These are the reps and managers with outstanding performances, and who exceeded their yearly targets. The rewards are often lavish. Many Club destinations include Hawaii, Cancun or even Beijing. The trips are filled with incredible activities, networking with other sales performers, and special training from inspirational speakers. These trips are memorable. It is a real accomplishment for a sales rep to achieve President's Club.

Reaching President's Club is daunting, as it should be. Typically sales reps have to achieve 125% of their annual quota to qualify, and in most organizations a well-tuned compensation system will only send 20% of the sales force to Club. "All my reps go to Club" is a stretch goal to say the least. A great manager may only send 40% of their team, which is one hell of an accomplishment. The important part here is the manager's commitment, passion and expertise to constantly inspire their team to shoot for the goal.

Where does this commitment come from? It's deeply ingrained in people, and resides in special sales people and managers. Many consultants and HR professionals claim that top sales people don't make great managers. I absolutely disagree. This view is too simplistic and flies in the face of decades of sales culture and history. The trick is finding those few people with the core values that believe, "Every member of my team will reach Club."

It is more than just one core value that makes a great sales manager. If that were the case it would be very easy to spot them early on in their career. Rather it is a combination of values coupled with refined skills that make up a great manager.

#1, They get the right people on the bus

Jim Collins wrote in his seminal book Good To Great, good-to-great leaders "first got the right people on the bus, the wrong people off the bus, and the right people in the right seats." The same is true for top sales managers. They know that not everyone has what it takes to achieve Club – so they get the people who will. Recruiting is a key skill for managers who focus on sending all their reps to Club. They invest the time to constantly upgrade the talent pool on their team. Obviously, the poor performers are managed off of the team. But the more challenging task is replacing the stars. As their top reps are promoted on to bigger and better things, the manager seizes the opportunity to find another diamond in the rough: a person with the potential to exceed quota.

Recruiting on its own is not the core value. The truly great managers have an ability to attract people "better than themselves." It takes a person very secure in himself to hire A's. The natural tendency for most people is to hire in their own image. This is not a sure-fire way to build a team with the talent to reach President's Club. Rather great managers hire for the needs of the team, the customer and the territory. They hire A's, and then work year-over-year to raise the bar to improve the definition of an A.

#2, They get in the muck

Great sales managers don't coach from the sidelines. They are in it with their reps. They are helping their reps identify the ripe prospects. They are making joint sales calls. They are all over their reps.

Selling requires interaction and participation with your customers. If the manager simply focuses on the metrics and the theory, the customer is lost in the analysis. By getting into the field with their reps, great managers are able to lead by example, transfer their expertise and coach to the situation. It is a very powerful learning environment.

To get into the muck day-after-day requires boundless energy. Again, this is a mark of a great manager. Not only do they do their own job, but they participate and support each member of their team. It is amazing to watch a top manager in action, because he looks like the Energizer Bunny. He just keeps going, and going, and going!

#3, They groom for futures

Holding onto an employee for life is unrealistic. Highly talented sales people are constantly pushing themselves to bigger and better things. Trying to hold onto a sales person in order to achieve the team's goals is a travesty. Great sales managers capitalize on the time they have with their reps, and let them go when the time is right.

You will hear the pride from a great sales manager when they claim two more of their reps were promoted. This is a great accomplishment for the manager. They helped their reps hit Club, they helped them grow personally and professionally, and now it is time for them to graduate. The manager did their job.

Great managers are educators, mentors and motivators. It takes time, talent, skills and commitment for a sales person to exceed their quota. It is a long road, even when you break it out over twelve months. The manager uses this time to focus the reps on their goals, works with them individually to build skills and provides them a carrot – or a stick – to stay on track. It takes an ever-present manager to see the needs of her reps, and to give them the support they need to be successful. It also takes a secure manager to let top reps move on, even if it hurts the short-term team goals.

Putting it all together

Each trait on its own is not enough to achieve greatness. It is a combination of personal values, talents and skills that make up a great manager. But when they all come together it is a joy to see. You see it not only in the team's loyalty and commitment to their manager, but in their performance. Year-after-year the manager's team outperforms.

The most important job in any sales force is the frontline sales managers. These are the people hiring the reps, developing their skills and grooming the talent for the future. If each of your managers lives by the motto, "All of my reps go to Club," you will have one hell of a sales organization.

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Competing for Talent: A TV interview with Jeremy Miller

It's a hot job market out there. people have choice. Lots of it.

Jeremy Miller of LEAPJob, a Toronto-based sales recruiting firm, discusses how employers must compete in this hot job market. It's no longer about putting butts in seats. Employers have to step up and deliver purpose and excitement to jobs.

Givers Gain: Creating conversations to engage your prospects

3% of your market is buying right now. These are companies issuing RFPs, bringing you in for demos and requesting quotes. If you aren't talking to these companies, you can guarantee they are talking with your competition. They have a need, and they will buy to satisfy it. You can spend all day looking for these companies in a buying state, which is the typical sales process, or you can catch their attention sooner. By changing the way you engage your prospects, you can be the "first call" when your prospects begin to shop.

Sales people spend their days searching for companies that are buying right now. These are the prospects with the highest potential of closing quickly, but they are also the most competitive opportunities. Considering how small your market of active buyers might be, prospecting for companies in this 3% state can be daunting. If you are targeting a list of 1,000 companies that fit an ideal prospect profile, then only 30 are buying at any given time. If you aren't in the right place at the right time you won't get the sale. No wonder cold calling is such a demoralizing process. It's all about getting lucky, but there is a better way.

97% of your market is not buying today. They may have made a purchase recently, their attention could be elsewhere or they are happy with the status quo. It is also possible that they will never be interested in your services. A third of your market will probably never work with you based on price, fit, service offering or some other reason. So that leaves 67% of your market that aren't buying today, but eventually they will be. Here lies the real gold.

Traditional sales and marketing tactics are not effective to engage a non-buying audience. The audience isn't buying, and they aren't listening either. People are bombarded with marketing messages daily, and to deal with this information overload they tune out anything that isn't relevant right now. So the real question is how does your company engage a non-engaged audience?

Givers gain. When you are engaging the top of your funnel a different kind of conversation is required. It's not about marketing – it's about giving value to your market when they aren't in need of your services. There are lots of ways you can engage your market in a non-selling fashion. Look to the big topics in the media such as the environment, childhood obesity and our aging population to get ideas. These are topics that companies can have a significant voice in.

Food for Tots (FFT), a contract catering service based in Toronto, created a conversation based on their core strengths. They provide healthy and delicious meals for childcare centers, nursery schools and preschool programs. They recognized they had much more to offer their market than just catering services. They are experts in feeding children, and have a wealth of knowledge they can share with their customers, prospects and parents. To share their expertise they created Healthylicious, a movement to provide children healthy and delicious meals.

Brian Crew, General Manager of FFT, likens the program to the Intel Inside campaign, "Healthylicious allows us to talk directly to parents. These are our customers' customers. Parents are looking for ways to feed their kids healthy and delicious foods, and we can share ideas they can bring into their homes. At the same time, they get to know the company who is behind feeding their children during the day."

Heathylicious is more than a marketing program. It is a tool for sales people. Crew explains, "The sales reps like it, because it gives them something to talk about other than catering services. It is a fun and catchy idea, and people can really get involved in the conversation." The Healthylicious conversations sales people are having with prospects and parents are not about selling features and benefits. They are about the children and their needs. It's non-threatening, and more importantly it is engaging.

Food for Tots recognized they needed more than typical sales and marketing programs to engage their market. They drilled down to their core values, and the words "healthy" and "delicious" came up time-and-time again. By focusing on elements that they are passionate about, they were able to bring that passion out in new ways to their market. The end result is they are providing content and education for free. The benefit for FFT is name recognition and a desire for parents to put their kids into childcare centers that have Healthylicious meals.

Creating conversations at the top of the funnel, like Healthylicious, is a fairly major undertaking. It draws on the creativity and efforts of people across the organization, but the sales force is instrumental in its success. As sales people we know what customers are talking about, and we can spearhead ideas to engage them. The program is sold internally by getting the whole organization involved to live the brand, but the hard ROI is in the leads. When your market is fully engaged in a conversation you achieve a lofty position: the "first call" when your prospects are ready to buy.

The first call is the best place to be in a buying process. You don't have to convince your prospects why they should consider buying your service. You get to help them frame the problem, and why your solution is the answer. If you play your cards right, you can even block the major competitive forces. Why? Because the customer has been paying attention to your organization and what it has to offer for far longer than the sales cycle. You don't have to educate them on the business or why it is a great organization. That's already done. Now you can focus on helping the customer solve a problem.

In our Googlized world, the competitive forces for our products and services are astronomical. Customers can decide whom they buy from and when. If they don't like a vendor, they can look online for alternatives. In order to compete companies have to engage their market long before their customers are ready to buy. When you give value to your market you will move beyond the 3% of companies shopping right now to the 67% of companies that will be soon.

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Googlizing Sales: A TV interview with Jeremy Miller

Sales as we know it has changed. Why? Google. Customers have access to more information then ever before. They are able to identify their needs, options and vendors without ever talking with a sales person.

Jeremy Miller, a Partner with LEAPJob, discusses how the Internet is changing the game of sales:

Personal Branding Sells: Leverage yourself for more income and more sales

It is far easier to sell a branded product. When you are the underdog, you have to compete that much harder to win against a strong brand. The typical sales tactics are to discount and to pile on value-add services. Either way, the cost of the sale is higher for an unbranded product. The same is true for people. Sales people that are well known in their industry with a strong reputation and referral network are a force to be reckoned with. Why? They have a brand.

Personal branding is a must for any professional sales person. Without one, you severely reduce the long-term value of your career. It won't matter if you have been in sales for two, ten or thirty years. Without a brand, the value you bring to business is largely based on how hard you work and what you produced in the last sixty days.

Sales people have a real competitive advantage in personal branding. One, we are trained how to position and package our solutions to best fit the needs of a market. Two, we are experts in presenting the core values of our products and services to get people excited about them. And three, we are promoters. We build awareness for our products and services, and help our clients choose our solutions. Essentially, we sell.

Use your sales toolkit to build your brand. The first step is to package yourself. Try your brand on for size. Say to yourself, "I am not just a sales person for a company. I am [insert statement here]." Did you pause to define yourself? Does your definition excite you? Do you stand out? If you are not happy with your answers then it is time to go to the drawing board. Michael Goldhaber wrote in Wired Magazine, "If there is nothing very special about your work, no matter how hard you apply yourself, you won't get noticed and that increasingly means you won't get paid as much, either."

Packaging yourself is the most difficult part of personal branding. Why? Because you have to say, "No." You can’t be all things to all people, which means you are going to have to make choices and some of them will be hard. Go back to the core questions. What do you want to be known for? What is unique about you? What value do you bring to your customers? Use these questions to stimulate ideas and come up with a brand statement that describes who you are and how you will contribute value in business. When you can define your value proposition you can also define how you will get paid.

Once you know how you create value, you can move onto the fun stuff: promotion. Getting known is the reason to brand yourself. Wouldn't you love your prospects to call you, because they heard you were great? That sure beats cold calling. Since personal branding plays on your strengths, use your natural talents to promote yourself. If you are a great networker – network. If you are a great writer – write. If you are a great presenter – get speaking gigs.

Marketers like Seth Godin and Guy Kawasaki have propelled their brands to great heights through their blogs. They have combined their writing skills with the ease of publishing a blog to build huge audiences. Beyond blogs, the web is full of great promotion tools. You can take your networking skills to LinkedIn or Facebook. You could even take your presentation skills and create a podcast or series of YouTube clips. If you aren't into the internet, get belly-to-belly with your audience. Attend networking events and other social events to let people know you are out there. It is really exciting to think of all of the options you have to promote your brand.

It doesn’t matter which promotion tool you use, as long as it is consistent. The value of promotion is through repeat exposures. When your prospects see your name over-and-over again you begin to gain top of mind awareness. That means when they are ready to shop for a product or service that you represent, you will be their first call. A sales rep with first call advantage is very powerful.

Personal branding is not a one shot deal. You will continue to refine and evolve your brand over time. Yet if you take the time to build your brand conscientiously it will be a powerful asset in your career. It will draw customers to you, making prospecting easier. It will draw employers to you, making job searches easier. It will draw internal advocates to you, helping you get the big promotions. The ultimate benefit of personal branding is income. When your career begins to move more freely you will have that many more opportunities to earn a substantial income.

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Relationship Selling is Overrated

Relationships are overrated. Yep, I am drawing a line in the sand, and challenging the hardened belief that a sales person's most valuable asset is his Rolodex. It's not.

Every year I get a birthday card from my accountant. Sure it's a nice touch, but it doesn't make me a more loyal customer. Golf games, lunches, jovial conversations are all great tools to make friends. It is fun to get to know someone. It is nice to get beyond the suit and tie, and find out what makes a person tick. But it doesn't speed up the sales process.

In our Sales 2.0 world, customers have choice. They are able to buy products and services that fit their needs. The power of the personal relationship can be overshadowed by the power of Google. If there is any doubt in a service provider, they can be replaced quickly. The relationship may delay the inevitable, but unless you have the best answer for your customers they will move on.

What can a sales person do to fight these competitive forces? Leverage their brand. Brand is a powerful concept, but is often a misunderstood term. It is not a logo or a name; it is how your market defines you. It is how your prospects and customers describe you. As sales people we are brand ambassadors. We help advocate and educate customers on how our products and services solve problems. If you can't clearly articulate the value of your service, that's a problem.

Too often sales people are caught selling on price and other superficial benefits, because they don't understand why their customers are buying. Asking and understanding why your customers buy is critical. When you understand how and why your customers derive value from your services, then you can further refine and tailor your selling activities to build on their needs.

Let me give you an example. In the past year, LEAPJob changed CRM software providers. We transitioned from a comprehensive tool that was used in multiple industries to one specific to ours. It was a painful switch. Not only did we have to deal with the high costs of implementation, data conversion and countless planning meetings, but we were leaving a vendor that we had developed personal ties to. We really liked them. That said – we needed a tool with very specific functionality that they could not deliver. We chose a new vendor that specialized in our industry, understood our business and provided us products and services that fit us.

The sales people from our new vendor were very focused. They asked us specific questions of how we ran our business, the types of customers we had, how we wanted to use the tools and what was compelling us to change vendors. The time they spent up front understanding us provided them the insight to present a focused solution that we were excited to buy. It allowed them to develop a compelling answer that allowed us to move away from a vendor that we had a relationship with, to one that solved our business challenges.

Sales people should always be studying their customers. Try a little exercise. Make a list of your top 15 customers and ask:

1. How did they find me?
2. Why did they choose our solution?
3. What problems or events motivated them to shop for a new vendor?
4. Why do they stay our customers?

Try to identify trends, and see if you can use this information to improve your selling activities. You can then take the list a step further. Rank your customers based on commissions – who have you made the most money from? Then rank these customers based on relationships – who do you enjoy working with the most? Often you find there is no correlation between relationships and profitability. This allows you to re-ask the above questions, and make sure you are being pragmatic about your answers.

You can build new and lasting customer relationships based on how they gain value from you. I am a firm believer that the more you know about your customers, the more effective a sales person you will be. By gaining the insight of why a customer is buying your products, you can tailor your selling efforts to fit their expectations. It's your ace in the hole. The customer will choose a vendor that fits their expectations, and they will be extremely loyal to the service providers that deliver on it consistently.

*****

Sales 2.0: Are you ready for the revolution?

Stand aside Solution Selling – Sales 2.0 is revolutionizing sales! Since the mid-80's solution selling has been the mantra to redefine business-to-business sales. It was a seismic shift from objection handling and always-be-closing tactics to a process of developing meaningful, win-win customer relationships. Solution selling offered a methodology for sales people to move beyond pushy tactics to consultative strategies.

That being said, solution selling is showing its age. The web has changed the game. We have access to more information than ever before, and we take it for granted. It's amazing how quickly we have adopted the power of the internet. Look back to pre-2000 – highspeed internet was virtually unheard of. A site like YouTube could not exist without broadband. With this power comes high expectations. Users are intolerant of poorly designed web sites, and have high standards for how they want to interact with a company online.

The sales and marketing tactics of the 80's and 90's are quickly becoming irrelevant. Why? Access to information allows customers to make well-educated buying decisions. Quite often the buyer is better informed than the sales person. With the power of Google, they can get as many proof statements as they require. This is not an article about why you should have a web site. Rather it is a bigger question of what everyone else is saying about your industry, your company and your services. This chatter is a road map for customers to find and evaluate your business. By using tools designed for Web 2.0 you can develop a customer experience that builds rapport, and allows them to engage your sales person when the time is right.

As customers have more control over the buying process their expectations of how they want to work with a vendor is elevated too. This is the crux of a Sales 2.0 approach. Solution selling is a methodology to help a sales person understand their customers and present their product or service in a consultative manner. Sales 2.0 goes a step further. It is an organizational methodology that tailors sales and marketing to fit the customers buying behaviours. Rather than putting the sales person as the center point of a sales process, it suggests that the sales person is an integral part of a larger customer buying process.

If Sales 2.0 is about connecting and engaging to the customers buying behaviours, then we must take a macro view of the sales process. To be successful you have to be very clear about your target market and brand position:

1. Who are your customers, and why do they buy from you?
2. How do your customers go to market and shop for solutions?
3. What triggers them to shop?
4. What are their options?

Obviously these questions cannot be answered by the front-line sales people. It is a broader organizational question that must be tackled at each and every customer touch point.

Just as companies are using web-tools to make more informed purchasing decisions, Sales 2.0 companies are using these same tools to engage their market. At every touch point web-tools can be used to increase your reach, stickiness, efficiency and customer experience. When put together they make sales people far more efficient and effective: they can sell more stuff. A buyer that has found your organization on Google is often a far better prospect than a company you just cold called. When someone engages you from your web site they have already initiated a relationship with your firm, formed an opinion and are receptive to entering into a sales dialogue. You face none of the buyer resistance that comes with cold calling.

Web-tools are easiest to connect to awareness campaigns, but that is only the tip of the iceberg. By understanding your customers' buying behaviours you can gain a great deal of efficiencies throughout your sales process. For example, companies are employing tools like WebEx, and other online conferencing tools, to enable the sales force to conduct product demonstrations virtually. This benefits both the sales person and the customer. The customer gains immediate gratification by seeing how this product works and allows them to get educated on its benefits quickly. From a sales perspective it is huge too. The sales process is dramatically reduced, because you don't have the delays and costs incurred by travel to book a face-to-face meeting.

There truly is no obstacle for a company to improve their sales process. From awareness campaigns to customer service – everything can be made more efficient and effective with modern web-tools. But, and this is a big BUT, you have to have a clear sales process that serves the customer buying experience. You cannot automate a system that does not exist, and you don't want to create a system unless you know it works. So getting into Sales 2.0 is not for the faint of heart. It takes a real commitment to understanding your customers, and to developing sales processes and tools that meet the needs of your customers' buying habits.

Sales 2.0 is not just another buzzword. You are going to hear a lot more about it. Every company is going to face the changing needs of their market. The early adopters of Sales 2.0 will be handsomely rewarded. If you are able to embrace your customers and develop an organization tuned to their needs, you can build a powerful sales engine that outstrips the solution selling approach. Sales 2.0 is the new mantra for business-to-business selling.

*****

When to Quit: Knowing the signs it's time to quit

Sales people change jobs. It's a given. We can look back nostalgically at our parents and grandparents, and think of a simpler time – a time when people worked for the same company for life. That world is gone. Today sales people change jobs every three to four years, and more often than not they are changing companies with each new job.

This is an interesting dynamic for sales people, and presents a real challenge for career management. When employees had the opportunity to work at a company for life, there was a well-defined career path. Now sales people have to plan and think through how each job will impact their career. We live in a world of choice, and this is wonderful freedom for people with a plan. For everyone else moving from one job to the next, each job can be a gamble. Will you move forward? Will you stay in the same place? Where will you be in five years? Either you can direct your career, or you will be at the mercy of employers and the job market.

Understanding the drivers that motivate change is critical. It helps you to understand how to manage each job and connect them together into a career. Since we are talking about sales careers, let's relate our jobs to a sales concept: 'the itch cycle'. One of my earliest lessons as a sales person was to identify the buying itch cycles my customers went through. This is the timeframe a customer goes through in between each purchase of your product or service. For example companies tend to replace their CRM software systems every three to four years, and they replace their ERP systems every five to seven years. Most sales people are trained to look for these itch cycles, but it's also interesting to note that sales people have internal itch cycles too.

Sales people tend to change jobs every three to four years. This is not a rule. Some people stay in a role for many, many years. For example in the insurance industry the longer a person builds their account base, the more money they will make. In this situation, the book of business is too valuable to give up to change careers. Yet in software, professional services or other transactional sales jobs, people are more apt to change. This change is important, because it forces the sales person to learn more and move to a higher income.

Let's look at this four year career itch cycle in more detail. As a sales person enters a new job, he knows the first year is a 'build' year. It's a time of immense learning and development. You have to learn the product, the industry, the value proposition and the stories that move a customer to action. Not only do you have to learn, but you have to build a funnel. That takes time too. Typically it takes nine months to build a full sales funnel. This make the first year costly. Depending on the value of an average sale and the length of sales cycle, the first year may only deliver 50% to 75% of the total potential income and revenues. There is a lot of inertia and complex tasks to overcome.

The second year is when a sales job is really fun. Your hard efforts pay off, and you get paid. In year two you fully understand how to sell your product, you have a full funnel and you can see the results of your efforts. The harder you work, the more money you make. This is a great year for a sales person. It feels good to pitch your product, and know that the customer is really buying into what you are selling them. That being said, year two is the climax of the job.

Years three and four are the dénouement – the story is coming to an end. Exceeding quota is a given. Not only do your efforts deliver sales, but you also benefit from the inertia generated in years one and two. Now customers are referring great prospects, your funnel is chocked full and you can pick and choose the accounts that will deliver you a quota busting year. So why are you starting to feel bored? Shouldn't these years be the most fun?

Success breeds complacency. When a top performer reaches his goals, he starts to look for the next challenge. For many people, their first inclination is to shake themselves out, put their priorities back in order and work a little harder. That may work for a little while, but the feeling that there is a better job out there eventually creeps back in. Everyone reacts to this boredom a little differently. Some people clash with management, others look for new distractions and some people find excitement outside of work. Whatever your derailer, be sure to know the signs and symptoms that signal it's time for change.

When people approach me in their job search I ask, "What is motivating this change?" The goal of this question is to understand what will be a positive step forward, and to help the sales person select the right job. What intrigues me though, is the similarity of people's responses. I hear motivators like money, no where else to go in the company, the industry is consolidating or there is a conflict with the boss. If you look at these reasons more closely, you can see the boredom and complacency trap is rearing its head. The sales person knows the job is coming to an end, and uses these drivers as ways to articulate why it is time to change.

There is nothing wrong with these motivators. They are all very valid. The key though is to look beyond the here and now, and consider four years out. You know that you are going to be looking for a new job in the next four years, so the questions to ask yourself when looking at the next job are, "Where will this job put me in four years? And what skills, competencies and experiences will it give me for the next job?"

You can no longer expect to work for the same company for life. Not even IBM or GE can make that promise to its employees. Career management must be owned by the individual. What do you want to be when you grow up? Ok, maybe you are grown up, so what do you want to have achieved ten years out? If you can define what your life is like in ten years and what you will accomplish, then you can look at how the next two to three jobs will get you there. It is a matter of connecting the dots, and continually using jobs to deliver experiences, expertise and income to satisfy your long term career ambitions. Don't just change jobs for change sake. Take the time to plan how each of your jobs fit into your larger career. This is the best route for you to achieve your long term goals.

*****

3 Times Quota: Choosing your prospects for quota-busting sales

Jim and Nicole each earned over $300,000 last year – more than three times the next highest paid sales person in their company. On a team of twelve reps, Jim and Nicole are stars. They have landed the most prestigious accounts, and gained access to prospects that no one else could reach. You can imagine that there is more than a little jealousy towards their success.

The rumors of their success run rampant: they have the best territories, they get the best leads, they were given the key accounts, they are the President's favorites. As much as the rumors occur, they are all false. On paper Jim and Nicole are the same as everyone else. They received the same training. They have similar industry backgrounds and sales expertise with the team. They had to find all of their own customers. They receive the same leads. They do not get special treatment. Jim and Nicole stand out, because they are great prospectors.

Lead generation is a constant discussion in any sales organization. Let's face it; even movies are made on the subject. Who hasn't seen the classic Glenn Gary, Glenn Ross scene when Alec Baldwin ripped into the sales team stating, "These are the new leads. These are the Glenn Gary leads. And to you they're gold – and you don't get them! Why? Because to give them to you is just throwing them away. They're for closers."

Jim and Nicole's organization is not Glenn Gary, Glenn Ross, they actually provide the sales team leads – lot's of them. The firm buys cleansed lists every year, and the accounts are equally distributed among the team. In addition the firm has a targeted awareness program that generates regular call-in traffic. In every region, the sales people are presented with warm leads to chase and close. The sales people spend 60% of their time prospecting these leads with a goal to close one account per month.

Jim and Nicole are the exception. They do not accept leads generated by the company. They find them distracting. The two reps have taken a much longer view of their territories, and have narrowed down their prospects to 300 or so companies they would love to work with. These are the prospects they have been contacting consistently over the past five years. Jim and Nicole discovered early on that they could chase every lead in their funnel and still never earn $100,000. They were spending an inordinate amount of time closing small deals. By changing their prospecting focus, they chose to only hunt the big deals. Three large deals a year would allow them to exceed their quotas.

Prospecting is a real grind when you are just looking for someone who is ready to buy right now. In this situation, it is simply a matter of luck to be at the right place at the right time. Yet if you knew that by calling on a key account for two years would deliver 50% of your quota next year, wouldn't you invest the time and effort to land that account? Of course you would! Now, if you figured out all of the companies that could deliver such big numbers and only called on them, what would happen to your sales performance? Probably the same thing as Jim and Nicole: three times the earnings of everyone else.

Chasing the big game requires a strategy, a well cultivated database and consistency. Before making your first call, take a step back and look at your territory. You can't simply pick up the phone book, or open up your CRM, and start calling every company on your prospecting list. You need to understand what makes an ideal prospect.

Don't stop there. Continue by clearly articulating how your product or service delivers value; why one of your big prospects would buy your company's services; what events or situations would motivate them to shop for a solution; and how they shop and evaluate for similar solutions. You would hope your sales manager or the company would do this for you, but quite often they too don't know. Take the step and be proactive. Don't wait for sales management to catch up with you.

Once you have the criteria for where you can land the big deals, a list of ideal prospects, and why you have the right solution – it is now time to prospect. In this modern sales world, no sales person should attempt such a targeted prospecting effort without the support of a CRM database. Whether you are using Salesforce.com, ACT! or some other equivalent product, it is a "must have" sales tool. A CRM database will allow you to profile each of your prospects, and then track and direct your activities as you build a relationship. You will track each conversation, profile every contact in the organization, identify circles of influence and map out an account management strategy. By leveraging the power of your CRM database you can record and intelligently attack each of your customers until they are ready to buy.

Chasing the big game is not for everyone. It requires consistency and fortitude. Large purchases do not just happen because you called once. It requires a long term sales effort that proactively builds relationships throughout the account, and develops rapport to the point you will be the first call when the prospect is ready to buy. If you are calling on the same company repeatedly over two, three or even four years you have to make every interaction count. Every time you engage the prospect, focus on building credibility and delivering value. Manipulative sales tactics never work.

What Jim and Nicole do is not rocket science. They carefully select their accounts, attack them intelligently and work consistently to bring them onboard. Too often sales people and their managers get focused on the here and now, and the end result is a never ending complaint of "where are the leads?" Unfortunately the desire for an immediate sale causes many sales people to work tactically rather than strategically. By taking a step back to choose your big game, you can focus all of your efforts on acquiring quota-busting customers.

*****

Sales Force Retention is a Myth

Sales People Don't Cold Call

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Cheesy Prospecting Lines: Manipulation is not a cold calling strategy

Have you ever seen a guy trying to get a date with a cheesy pickup line? You watch the whole scene unfold. He walks up to the girl with nervous confidence, and taps her on the shoulder. She turns with both interest and curiosity. Then the words come out of his mouth, "There's something wrong with my cell phone ... It doesn't have your number in it." And that brief moment of curiosity changes to disinterest and a cold shoulder.

Cheesy pickup tactics don't work in the dating world, and they don't work in sales either. So why do recognized sales trainers like Jeffrey Gitomer, author of The Sales Bible, teach sales people lame cold calling techniques? Gitomer claims you will get 100% of your calls returned if, "You call them up on the phone. Leave half a message, pretend like you have been cut off and hang up." He goes on to give the call script, "Hello this is Jeffrey. 704-333-eleven-twelve. I was speaking with a couple of your biggest competitors yesterday. They were talking about you, and they said ... and you hang up." Supposedly the prospect will be so curious to hear the rest of your message that he will call back.

Gitomer even recognizes that his approach is not professional and claims exuberantly "But it's fun!" It may be fun, but do you really want to deal with the prospect who calls back? As soon as they figure out you've tricked them, they are never going to do business with you. The relationship is dead before it even gets off the ground. This has got to be one of the worst cold calling techniques I have ever heard. You might as well call up the prospect with a corny pickup line – it will have the same result.

For short term gain, you may be tempted to use one of these cheesy prospecting strategies to gain access to a buyer. You can manipulate your way past the gate keepers, and even get yourself in front of the decision maker. But now what? If you are selling anything that requires more than one call, you have just started off the relationship on the wrong foot. Now you have to spend every subsequent call trying to rebuild trust with a defensive buyer.

I don't expect to make a sale on the first call. I have two goals in a prospecting call. The first is to let the prospect know I am out there and the services we provide. The second is to set an expectation of what it is like to work with our firm. It takes time to initiate the relationship, develop rapport and build a value proposition.

Sales is a demonstration. The prospective buyer notices every behavior and interaction, and uses it as a litmus test for your company's culture, values, quality of service and competitive advantage. When a sales person uses a manipulative cold calling technique the prospect feels, "If this is how they train the sales people, imagine how bad their service is! I have to get away from this person."

I use a straight up prospecting approach. When I make a call, I tell the prospect right away why I am calling. For example, "Hi, my name is Jeremy Miller and I am calling from LEAPJob. I am calling today to introduce our services, do you have a moment?" It is direct and allows me to manage the customer relationship properly.

If I get voice mail, I leave a message with the same starting point and send a follow up email that mentions the voice message. The prospect knows exactly why I am calling, and the email helps provide a second point of access. People are more likely to respond with a short email than pick up the phone for a five-minute conversation. This approach is also successful, because I respect the people I am calling. Nine times out of ten, the prospect is friendly and tells me where they stand. They will request more information, direct me to someone else, ask me to follow up in three months or say they are not interested. If I get no response, I simply make a "To Do" to call again.

Prospecting does not need to be scientific. It should be simple, direct and honest. If you truly care about helping your clients, then each call you make has a purpose. It isn't simply about asking them to put their money in your pocket. You are demonstrating how you can help your clients and what it is like to work with your firm. When you prospect well, you get rewarded with faster sales cycles, smoother negotiations and plenty of referrals. Starting the sale off right makes all the difference in the world.

End Note: It may seem odd that I have directed so much attention on Jeffrey Gitomer. Much of his sales techniques and strategies are sound. Gitomer's cold calling techniques caught my attention, because he has a short clip on YouTube that is receiving a lot of attention.

*****

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Cheesy Prospecting Lines: Manipulation is not a cold calling strategy

Cheesy Prospecting Lines: Manipulation is not a cold calling strategy