The discussion around mobile customer engagement heated up last year with Forrester’s release of its Mobile Is the New Face of Engagement report. While their finding – that by 2016, smartphones and tablets will put power in the pockets of a billion global consumers – isn’t breaking news, the report was a wake-up call for everyone in sales. More...
Do you remember playing The Game of Life as a kid? The classic board game is still going strong, with newly updated careers and life events. Times have changed, though. Now you can be sued for $100,000.
But can you guess the least desirable career card in the game deck? If you guessed salesperson, you’re right on the money.More...
What do sales people continuously hear?
“Always Be Closing.”
That might sound great in principle but in reality sales teams frequently don’t have the tools or resources to make it happen.
Here are three sales scenarios where we all lose opportunities:More...
I’m a pretty big Futbol fan (being Argentine, it’s in my blood) and I was watching a game tonight before setting out to write a blog post. As I thought about Futbol and Sales Enablement it struck me that “the beautiful game” as it’s called illustrates the most fundamental strategy to successful selling: space management.
Space is the difference between good and greatMore...
I was recently looking for current statistics on what I call the “info-gap between sales and customers” and I came across some pretty stunning numbers (thanks to Motorola for sponsoring this Dec 2012 research):
3 out of 5 sales managers believe users are better
connected to information than their sales associates.
4 out of 5 sales associates believe improving communication
with managers would have a positive effect on shopper satisfaction.
I’ve been talking about this information gap for a while, and felt the numbers would be impressive, but even I thought these numbers are high. Remember the classic family game The Game of Life? If this were The Game of Sales then the customer would drive a Prius while the average sales associate feels they drive a Chevette. Not a fair match-up, is it?More...
Earlier this week IBM reported their fourth quarter results and beat market expectations. The company that was an IT powerhouse, then wasn’t, and is again, pulled in $29.3 billion in the quarter — certainly an impressive amount. IBM’s numbers look very solid for this quarter and they’re offering some very good future expectations — and that bodes well for the economic recovery.
But that’s not what this article is about. This article is all about where IBM is telling us they’ll go. If you read the commentary that goes with the results you’ll see this quote by Ginny Rometty, IBM CEO: “Looking ahead, we continue to invest to deliver innovations for the enterprise in key areas such as big data, mobile solutions, social business and security.”
Wait. What?
I get the big data piece — this is IBM after all and they’ve moved more bytes around than we can count and then stuffed them all into Watson, the supercomputer that won Jeopardy. (By the way, if you want a quick laugh - check out this Fortune article on how Watson learned, and then was made to forget how to use profane language in its answers.) But back to the point, I get big data and I get security. Sure, those are IT/Enterprise staples. IBM will be selling those two solutions until … well, you get the point. But innovating in Mobile and Social Business? That’s not the IBM we’ve known for years… is it?More...
Part 2 of 2 Know your industry, brand, audience, and content.
In our last post we looked at what content marketing and content curating is. Leaving us with the question: how do you aim that enhanced content in the right direction? It starts by knowing your industry, brand, audience, and your content. However, we must lay out more questions in order to begin to answer our first question “how do you aim that enhanced content in the right direction?”More...
Have you been hesitant to ask your employees to act as your brand’s storytellers, promoting your company and its products to friends, professional peers and family? Many organizations have been slow to allow their employees access to social media at work. This reluctance places your brand at a competitive disadvantage. Let’s look at the possible reasons your team is slow to the social media trough.
Business owners nationwide were astounded when The New York Times reported that two Domino’s Pizza employees deliberately mishandled customers’ food orders in the restaurant’s kitchen, then posted the video of their grotesque pranks online. Within two days, thanks to the power of social media, more than a million disgusted viewers had watched the video, and Domino’s faced a public relations crisis. References to the prank were in five of the top 12 results of Google searches for “Dominos,” and discussions about it had spread throughout the internet.More...