Want to do a keynote? Most people start by getting out the slides which is not the best practice for a corporate speechwriter. Here are nine questions to help you plan your talk. How do people perceive you now? Honestly. No,honestly. Get some unbiased feedback from someone who does not work for you. Go and…
In the latest of weekly series from Eloqua .. The Eloqua Closed-Loop Reporting Benchmark Index examined what leading edge companies were doing differently in terms of campaign execution and follow-up. These companies have: (1) over 3x as many average monthly landing pages activated. It appears these companies are engaging with their buyers at every opportunity…
Is your sales team good at listening? Really good at listening? The fact is that most B2B sales teams are quite poor at listening and ironically, that is arguably the most important skill in selling to the enterprise. Let’s examine the elements of listening and a framework for effective selling. The first step in listening…
My career has always consisted of presenting to large groups of people, senior execs and even a select few presentations to F500 board members. I’m a career sales professional and sales executive. Sales presentations are important but it’s not just about getting them to buy your product or solution, rather it starts with getting them…
vA lot of marketing theory on content. But what do the sales people do? I liked this email I just got fromAmerican Express via Marketingprofs. Insight over information A great deal of the salesperson’s role at one time was to deliver information. Most salespeople today face the possibility that a prospect may actually know as…
In the Kevin Costner movie Field of Dreams, there is a classic line: “If you build it, they will come.” The refrain is whispered repeatedly to Kevin Costner’s character ‘Ray’ to build a baseball field in his cornfield and the ghosts of great baseball players from the past will come to the field and play.…
It goes without saying that last 24-36 months have been challenging. According to analysts, while the economy has shown some improvement, the top B2B sales and marketing pressures today remain the difficult economic environment, fewer dollars, reduced headcount, an inability to move leads forward to a sales cycle, a noisy competitive landscape and too few…
This is a guest blog post by our partners @ Crowded Ocean (http://www.crowdedocean.com/). It’s a marketing truism that you can’t manage what you can’t measure. But, faced with all the challenges of starting a company from scratch, the question is: what do you measure and when do you start measuring it? Startups often think that…
That’s just not true in a personal relationship. You’ll rue the day you can’t say sorry to your partner. Thanks Hallmark. But it is a often bad thing – in fact a terrible thing – in internet marketing and in business in general. In business, as a famous CEO once drilled into me: “..don’t every…