by Chris Waszczak | Oct 4, 2018 | B2B Sales, B2B Telemarketing, Lead Generation, Outsourced Sales, Telemarketing Services
Welcome to SalesFish Brand Marketing & Sales, the most strategically biased B2B Marketing Agency, telemarketing services, telemarketing companies (sales agency) and digital marketing companies, serving Orange County, Los Angeles, San Jose, Sacramento and the Pacific Northwest (Bend, Portland, Seattle). We gladly serve California and all 50 United States!
To: Wormwood
From: Screwtape
Subject: Divide and Conquer
My Dear Wormwood,
Here we at a critical juncture. The pesky Patient has decided to kick up the level of his marketing. Not to worry—this situation can be the catalyst for a delightfully dreadful downfall. You must learn these three ways to frustrate even the most ambitious marketing intentions: The three D’s.
Divide: Influence your charge to enlist as many disconnected sources as he can find. I influenced one of my own patients to hire a freelance graphic designer, buy into a do-it-yourself website, use his sister to write content, and get a moonlighting “marketing expert.” This motley team had some decent individual talent, but could not form a unified team. Imagine taking ten pieces each from four different 50-piece puzzles, and attempting to fit together a unified picture. My patient “saved” a few bucks, but the ensuing brand message was predictably weak and disconnected; what she lost far outweighed any gains. (She also wasted a good deal of time trying to chase down each contractors to re-explain everything to each.)
Dilute: A coherent, unified team produces an effective, cohesive brand message capable of making powerful connections that lead the humans them to buy, buy, buy. Prevent this happening, at all costs! Just like the game of “telephone,” the more disconnected people that crafting the message, the more diluted, distorted and dissonant it becomes. See the how that works?
Discourage: The regrettable results of the first two D’s will always lead to discouragement. Plant a mixture of truth and error into the Patient’s mind. Make him believe the problem lies in the media platform. “YouTube ads don’t work for me,” or “social media must not produce any real returns.” The truth of such thoughts depends on whether or not he divides and dilutes his marketing message.
If we can portray truth as relative, we can really mess things up!
Your affectionate Uncle,
Screwtape
P.S. We now have the opportunity to guide the patient’s determination by perpetuating the insane idea that trying other media with the same thrown-together “team” will produce different results. Good luck with that one, human!
Call SalesFish today and our high-touch, dedicated team will assist you in assessing your strategic sales goals, and the marketing and sales tactics best suited to your specific needs. And, yes, we will also advise you on the best A.I. tools that actually work and complement the real people in your business!
Stay tuned for more relevant content on creating world-class digital marketing strategies and B2B telemarketing sales strategies. We at SalesFish Brand Marketing & Sales thank you for joining us in our commitment to unwavering strategic planning, B2B brand marketing and B2B sales execution.
Call today and our “high-touch” dedicated team will assist you in assessing your strategic sales goals to tailor our marketing and sales tactics to your specific needs.
SalesFish Net of Sales Services:
- B2B Direct Sales, Channel Sales and Marketing Strategies
- On-Site B2B Presentation, Negotiation and Sales
- B2B Telemarketing and B2B Telesales Services
- Cold Calls and Appointment Setting
- Online Presentations and Webinars
- Product Awareness and Announcement Calls
- Primary Research: Quantitative and Qualitative Surveys
- Experiential Event Marketing
- Pre and Post-Event Calls
- Audience Acquisition, Exhibit Sales and Sponsorship Sales
by Chris Waszczak | Sep 4, 2018 | B2B Sales, B2B Telemarketing, Lead Generation, Outsourced Sales, Telemarketing Services
Welcome to SalesFish Brand Marketing & Sales, the most strategically biased B2B Marketing Agency, telemarketing services, telemarketing companies (sales agency) and digital marketing companies, serving Orange County, Los Angeles, San Jose, Sacramento and the Pacific Northwest (Bend, Portland, Seattle). We gladly serve California and all 50 United States!
Technology has made it possible for more and more people to work remotely from home. Increasingly, companies are offering remote work options to attract talent and keep costs down, but what are the pros and cons? Where is remote work headed, and is it right for your company? Trending data add clarity to the question.
- Remote work is increasing rapidly. According to a Telework Research Network study, remote work increased 73% between 2005 and 2011 in the US; a recent Gallup survey found the percentage of US employees working remotely rose from 39% to 43% between 2012 and 2016.
- Your competition offers it. According to GWA, 50% of the US workforce holds a job with at least partial telework; 20-25% frequently work outside the office. A 2016 Gallup Poll indicated that 43% of Americans spend at least some time working remotely, most industries embrace remote work, and Fortune 1000 companies around the globe are revamping their spaces around the fact that employees are already mobile.
- It’s where you’ll find top talent. 75% of remote employees earn over $65,000 per year, putting them in the upper 80th percentile of all employees, home or office-based. To stay competitive in capturing the best talent, your company should consider offering remote incentives.
- It’s attractive to employees. According to Global Workplace Analytics (GWA), 80% to 90% of the US workforce says they would like to “telework” at least part time.
- Remote work resonates with Millennials. A Queens University study reports 49% of Millennials support social tools for workplace collaboration; 41% prefer to communicate via technology. The US Bureau of Labor predicts Millennials, already over 50% of the workforce, will soar to 75% by 2030.
Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer’s 2013 remote work ban and those by IBM, Facebook and others bolstered a persistent myth that remote workers are less productive and collaborative. However, these decisions appear to be outliers correlated with company-specific issues, not the overall fitness of the remote work model or the effectiveness of virtual collaboration.
In spite of these few isolated examples, “A variety of studies show that telecommuting and working from home is associated with higher productivity,” David Lewin, management professor at the University of California told Forbes.
The question that emerges is whether remote work is right for your company. A wealth of research strongly suggests net positive effects on team collaboration, productivity and profit.
Lewin cites a 2011 WorldatWork study indicating that companies with cultures of flexibility experienced lower turnover and increased employee satisfaction, motivation and engagement.
Harvard Business Review interviewed Nicholas Bloom on a study launched “to persuade some skeptical managers that flexible work arrangements wouldn’t hinder business performance—to have data that proved the case…We found that people working from home completed 13.5% more calls than the staff in the office did—meaning that Ctrip got almost an extra workday a week out of them. They also quit at half the rate of people in the office—way beyond what we anticipated. And predictably, at-home workers reported much higher job satisfaction. It estimated that it saved $1,900 per employee for the nine months.”
A 16-year study by Idea Champions, cited in a blog by Dave Evans entitled The Workplace of The Future: Connected, Collaborative, Creative, found that only 3 percent of people come up with their best ideas at work. The other 97 percent said they encounter great ideas throughout their day, at home, or even on vacation.
Bloom advises company leaders to test the remote work waters for themselves. “I tell executives all the time to exploit natural opportunities—for example, severe weather that prevents people from getting to the office—to measure how productive employees can be at home. Any disruption that offers a chance to have people work remotely is an opportunity to see how effective they are off-site.”
“Clinging to an old-fashioned fantasy that all work must be conducted in a central office puts companies at risk,” writes Mike Elgan for Computerworld. “We’re now entering an era where a majority of the workforce works remotely at least part time. If your company pretends this isn’t happening, you’ll fail to develop relevant policies and build secure remote infrastructure…The winning approach is not a blanket ban on remote or office work.”
Is remote work right for your company? Could it increase your company’s productivity? Perhaps it’s time to test it out. One thing’s for sure, it’s here to stay. Check out this article on How To Be a Digital Nomad and Work From Anywhere by Alliance Virtual Offices’s Ceci Amador.
Speaking of productivity, check out this guide: 13 Ways to Increase Business Productivity, enjoy!
Call SalesFish today and our high-touch, dedicated team will assist you in assessing your strategic sales goals, and the marketing and sales tactics best suited to your specific needs. And, yes, we will also advise you on the best A.I. tools that actually work and complement the real people in your business!
Stay tuned for more relevant content on creating world-class digital marketing strategies and B2B telemarketing sales strategies. We at SalesFish Brand Marketing & Sales thank you for joining us in our commitment to unwavering strategic planning, B2B brand marketing and B2B sales execution.
Call today and our “high-touch” dedicated team will assist you in assessing your strategic sales goals to tailor our marketing and sales tactics to your specific needs.
SalesFish Net of Sales Services:
- B2B Direct Sales, Channel Sales and Marketing Strategies
- On-Site B2B Presentation, Negotiation and Sales
- B2B Telemarketing and B2B Telesales Services
- Cold Calls and Appointment Setting
- Online Presentations and Webinars
- Product Awareness and Announcement Calls
- Primary Research: Quantitative and Qualitative Surveys
- Experiential Event Marketing
- Pre and Post-Event Calls
- Audience Acquisition, Exhibit Sales and Sponsorship Sales
by Chris Waszczak | Aug 23, 2018 | B2B Sales, B2B Telemarketing, Lead Generation, Outsourced Sales, Telemarketing Services
Welcome to SalesFish Brand Marketing & Sales, the most strategically biased B2B Marketing Agency, telemarketing services, telemarketing companies (sales agency) and digital marketing companies, serving Orange County, Los Angeles, San Jose, Sacramento and the Pacific Northwest (Bend, Portland, Seattle). We gladly serve California and all 50 United States!
Are your sales needing a boost? Are you having trouble generating quality leads? So often, when companies need sales to pick up, they look for a method or system to pick them up. They try every trick and strategy in the book and, the needle doesn’t move. Maybe they’re approaching it wrong.
In biology, there’s a concept known as the “limiting factor.” It is the idea that the health of an organism, its ability to thrive, could be held back by the lack of something it needs. Take your lawn for example. If it is lacking sufficient iron, it will have trouble greening up and won’t grow well. Iron is its limiting factor. You can water more, add more nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium—you might spend big bucks on all kinds of fancy “cures” and potions—but see no improvement. But once you take away the limiting factor by adding iron, your grass will suddenly spring back to lush, verdant growth.
So before you go scour the Internet for articles like, “Seven Strategies to Lift Your Sales,” or you hire a high-dollar consultant, go back to the basics. The following items may seem simple, but if they are deficient or out of date, they could be the limiting factor holding back your sales. Ask yourself these five questions:
- Is my website pulling its weight? A website should be a lead-generating machine, not just an online brochure. It needs to be the hub of all your outbound marketing, the place you’re driving your audiences to. Do you have dedicated landing pages with specific calls to action for specific campaigns or offers? Is your site optimized for the search engines? It may be time to get a website audit to reveal the strengths and weaknesses of your site and so you can be equipped with effective website lead-gen strategies.
- Am I tracking and using the data? If you can’t answer this question in the affirmative, you need to speak with a professional who can show you how to set up data tracking, interpret the results and change your approach accordingly.
- Do I have a lead-nurturing sales funnel? It’s fine to offer an eBook or give a webinar, but those are just lead magnets. You need to have a long-term lead nurturing strategy that leads people from that initial contact, to interest, to the sale. For example, if you lead a webinar, it’s fine to offer an eBook as a takeaway, but if you haven’t gotten them to opt in their email address, you’re missing a chance to keep the conversation going. Work with a marketing professional to help set up automatic drip email campaigns, pay-per-click and other strategies that will help fill the funnel. Make sure those campaigns are based on solid, skilled sales content.
- Are my online and offline media integrated? Make sure that your offline strategies like direct mail, advertisements and even vehicle signage link back to your online strategies so you can get them into your funnel.
Yes, these seem like elementary concerns for a business, but too many people overlook the opportunity to dial in the fundamentals. Sometimes, getting your sales growing strong again is just a matter of providing that limiting factor—and it may be a relatively easy fix!
Call SalesFish today and our high-touch, dedicated team will assist you in assessing your strategic sales goals, and the marketing and sales tactics best suited to your specific needs. And, yes, we will also advise you on the best A.I. tools that actually work and complement the real people in your business!
Stay tuned for more relevant content on creating world-class digital marketing strategies and B2B telemarketing sales strategies. We at SalesFish Brand Marketing & Sales thank you for joining us in our commitment to unwavering strategic planning, B2B brand marketing and B2B sales execution.
Call today and our “high-touch” dedicated team will assist you in assessing your strategic sales goals to tailor our marketing and sales tactics to your specific needs.
SalesFish Net of Sales Services:
- B2B Direct Sales, Channel Sales and Marketing Strategies
- On-Site B2B Presentation, Negotiation and Sales
- B2B Telemarketing and B2B Telesales Services
- Cold Calls and Appointment Setting
- Online Presentations and Webinars
- Product Awareness and Announcement Calls
- Primary Research: Quantitative and Qualitative Surveys
- Experiential Event Marketing
- Pre and Post-Event Calls
- Audience Acquisition, Exhibit Sales and Sponsorship Sales
by Chris Waszczak | Aug 2, 2018 | Uncategorized
Welcome to SalesFish Brand Marketing & Sales, the most strategically biased B2B Marketing Agency, telemarketing services, telemarketing companies (sales agency) and digital marketing companies, serving Orange County, Los Angeles, San Jose, Sacramento and the Pacific Northwest (Bend, Portland, Seattle). We gladly serve California and all 50 United States!
There are right and wrong ways to go about marketing, and the pitfalls are many. A lot can be learned by seeing how not to manage your marketing. This original blog series weaves together an entertaining story that will help you navigate 21st-Century marketing with a view from “the dark side,” as “Screwtape” teaches his apprentice “Wormwood” via email how to sabotage your marketing. Enjoy…
PART TEN:
To: Wormwood
From: Screwtape
Subject: Heading Off Headlines
“On the average, five times as many people read the headline as read the body copy. When you have written your headline, you have spent eighty cents out of your dollar.” David Ogilvy
My dear Wormwood,
Read and re-read this quote by the “Father of Advertising”; feel the cold shiver run down your spine. The power of the headline to stymie our mission of mayhem cannot be overstated. It is the content equivalent of Thor’s hammer, smashing through the cognitive filters by which people ignore most advertising. There are no words more critical in marketing content. With just a few words, an audience can be hooked—with the end result that articles, blogs and other content stand a good chance of being read, shared and talked about.
So I thought it prudent to share some things the patient must not be allowed to do:
- Devote significant time to crafting a creative headline…first.
It’s usually a mistake to start writing advertising content before one establishes the flavor and theme of the piece with a good headline. That’s like mixing ingredients before you determine what you’re baking! The Enemy suggests that in many cases, he spends most of his time on the headlines when he is creating a content marketing campaign.
- Focus your headline on values
We just love headlines that tout features of products or services because they are sure to turn people off. People aren’t buying products or services; they’re buying the end result. They don’t want a laptop with an X38T core processor; they want a faster computer that’s lighter in their computer bag. So a headline like, “We Taught our Laptops to Fly” would get more attention than, “Introducing the New X38T Processor.”
Compelling headlines make readers curious. They lead readers to click or keep reading to find out more. Questions often make good headlines. For example:
Can Your Laptop Fly?
Compelling doesn’t always meet clever. Many a clever headline may get a chuckle (or an eye roll), but fail to stir the curiosity to find out more. The best headlines are both compelling and clever.
Expanding on the laptop headline, this might look like:
We Taught Our Laptops to Fly
20% Faster, 50% Lighter—The New MacBook is Going to Fly Off the Shelves.
The headline should be short, attention grabbing and focus on value to the audience. The subhead can start introducing specific benefits and features. Do not talk about yourself till you have first highlighted the value of your offerings to the client. Starting out with features and talking about yourself is just asking to be ignored. Start your piece by answering the question, “what’s in it for me?” (“Me” being the reader.)
Of course, Wormwood, there is much more to say on the topic of headlines, but focus on preventing these few actions, and you will successfully keep the Patient’s content campaigns from getting off the ground.
Your affectionate uncle,
Screwtape
Call SalesFish today and our high-touch, dedicated team will assist you in assessing your strategic sales goals, and the marketing and sales tactics best suited to your specific needs. And, yes, we will also advise you on the best A.I. tools that actually work and complement the real people in your business!
Stay tuned for more relevant content on creating world-class digital marketing strategies and B2B telemarketing sales strategies. We at SalesFish Brand Marketing & Sales thank you for joining us in our commitment to unwavering strategic planning, B2B brand marketing and B2B sales execution.
Call today and our “high-touch” dedicated team will assist you in assessing your strategic sales goals to tailor our marketing and sales tactics to your specific needs.
SalesFish Net of Sales Services:
- B2B Direct Sales, Channel Sales and Marketing Strategies
- On-Site B2B Presentation, Negotiation and Sales
- B2B Telemarketing and B2B Telesales Services
- Cold Calls and Appointment Setting
- Online Presentations and Webinars
- Product Awareness and Announcement Calls
- Primary Research: Quantitative and Qualitative Surveys
- Experiential Event Marketing
- Pre and Post-Event Calls
- Audience Acquisition, Exhibit Sales and Sponsorship Sales
by Chris Waszczak | Jul 25, 2018 | B2B Outsourced Sales, B2B Sales, B2B Telemarketing, Lead Generation, Telemarketing Services
Welcome to SalesFish Brand Marketing & Sales, the most strategically biased
B2B Marketing Agency,
telemarketing services,
telemarketing companies (sales agency) and digital marketing companies, serving Orange County, Los Angeles, San Jose, Sacramento and the Pacific Northwest (Bend, Portland, Seattle). We gladly serve California and all 50 United States!
Cold calling can leave even the most seasoned pros with a chill. It’s always worth polishing up the tools you use to break the ice, and teaching them to your team. Here are our faves of the experts’ tips and tricks for warming up your technique.
Aim for quality, not quantity
You may think that a longer list of prospects is key to eventual success with your cold calling, but it all depends on the quality of those leads. In her article for Entrepreneur, Jane Porter advocates doing some research when it comes to your clients. If your product or service best serves large companies or organizations, then make sure your prospect list reflects that. Of course, even the most well researched prospect list doesn’t guarantee a “yes,” but you set yourself up for a higher rate of success when you target the right audience for cold calling.
Try a strategic name drop
Do you and your prospect perhaps have a mutual contact or friend? Easy enough to find out with a simple dash through Linked In. Don’t underestimate the value of a well-placed name. It may just be what tips the scales in your favor. Leading sales expert Brian Tracy believes that having a common denominator helps to relax your prospects when cold calling. If you don’t have an initial or obvious mutual connection, then it’s time to hit up LinkedIn and see where your circles overlap.
(Read 7 cold-calling mistakes you’re probably making right now.)
Master your voicemail approach
Kraig Kleeman, who bills himself as “The World’s Greatest Cold Caller,” reminds us that only 1% of voicemails get returned. Those aren’t good odds at all for your bottom line. Though banks like JP Morgan and Citigroup are in the process of axing voicemail, Kleeman urges you not to give up. You want people to call you back? Spend time refining that voicemail and consider writing a script that you can customize for each client. Sales expert and Salesforce partner John Barrows of is a fan of the 30-second or less voicemail during which you leave your name and company at the end of the message, not the beginning, to avoid any hasty hang ups based on false assumptions your prospect might have about your company’s services.
For another good read with valuable advice please check out: A Follow-Up on Following-Up.
By Dan Sincavage
Dan is a Co-Founder of Tenfold and currently serves as the Chief Strategy Officer. Dan oversees the Tenfold sales organization, manages strategic partner relationships and works with key enterprise accounts to ensure their success with the Tenfold platform.
Stay tuned for more relevant content on creating world-class digital marketing strategies and B2B telemarketing sales strategies. We at SalesFish Brand Marketing & Sales thank you for joining us in our commitment to unwavering strategic planning, B2B brand marketing and B2B sales execution.
Call today and our “high-touch” dedicated team will assist you in assessing your strategic sales goals to tailor our marketing and sales tactics to your specific needs.
SalesFish Net of Sales Services:
- B2B Direct Sales, Channel Sales and Marketing Strategies
- On-Site B2B Presentation, Negotiation and Sales
- B2B Telemarketing and B2B Telesales Services
- Cold Calls and Appointment Setting
- Online Presentations and Webinars
- Product Awareness and Announcement Calls
- Primary Research: Quantitative and Qualitative Surveys
- Experiential Event Marketing
- Pre and Post-Event Calls
- Audience Acquisition, Exhibit Sales and Sponsorship Sales
by Chris Waszczak | Jul 25, 2018 | B2B Sales, B2B Telemarketing, Brand Marketing, Digital Marketing, Lead Generation, Outsourced Sales, Telemarketing Services
Welcome to SalesFish Brand Marketing & Sales, the most strategically biased B2B Marketing Agency, telemarketing services, telemarketing companies (sales agency) and digital marketing companies, serving Orange County, Los Angeles, San Jose, Sacramento and the Pacific Northwest (Bend, Portland, Seattle). We gladly serve California and all 50 United States!
Getting on page #1 of the search engines is a great goal; winning Facebook likes is nice. But such things mean nothing if your content isn’t engaging. In fact, any marketing medium is only as good as its content.
You’ve probably heard the oft-repeated maxim that “content is king,” and there is truth behind it. Content mainly refers to the written word, but may also include such things as images, photos and video. A lot of people focus on getting their business seen, but form without substance is dead. Even more than where you place your message is what you have to say and how you say it.
According to the Content Marketing Institute’s (CMI) blog, What is Content Marketing? If You’re Not Content Marketing, You’re Not Marketing:
“Content marketing is a…technique of creating and distributing relevant and valuable content to attract, acquire, and engage a clearly defined and understood target audience—with the objective of driving profitable customer action. Basically, content marketing is the art of communicating with your customers and prospects without selling. It is non-interruption marketing. The essence of this content strategy is the belief that if we, as businesses, deliver consistent, ongoing valuable information to buyers, they ultimately reward us with their business and loyalty…Consumers have simply shut off the traditional world of marketing. They own a DVR to skip television advertising, often ignore magazine advertising, and now have become so adept at online ‘surfing’ that they can take in online information without a care for banners or buttons (making them irrelevant). Smart marketers understand that traditional marketing is becoming less and less effective by the minute, and that there has to be a better way. Thought leaders and marketing experts from around the world…have concluded that content marketing isn’t just the future, it’s the present.”
Constantly pitching your products and services will turn people away; however, if you’re educating, entertaining and engaging your audience with relevant content, you are likely to get results. “Selling without selling” is the most effective way to generate leads.
Here are a few stepwise tips, based on the “AIDA” model to help you understand how content marketing leads to a sale, without appearing to sell:
- A: Get Attention—before anything else!
Minds are either captured or lost in the first few seconds of contact. Don’t start your website, advertising, posts or updates explaining your attributes and features you offer. Start with a great headline and an introductory paragraph that answers the question, “Why should I care?” Why are people searching for your services or products anyway, and what is their emotional state when they encounter your message? Meet them at that place.
- I: Develop attention into Interest
Leverage the attention you’ve gained with compelling content. “According to the Roper Public Affairs, 80% of business decision makers prefer to get company information in a series of articles versus an advertisement. 70% say content marketing makes them feel closer to the sponsoring company, while 60% say that company content helps them make better product decisions. Think of this—what if your customer looked forward to receiving your marketing? What if when they received it, via print, email, website, they spent 15, 30, 45 minutes with it?” (CMI)
- D: Lead the visitor to a Decision.
Make your content so compelling and informative that the reader will want to know more, that you have the goods or services to meet their needs. They may not yet be ready to buy—they may not even act for some time—but if you can get them to decide that you are worth further consideration, then your content is working. You will have Top of Mind Awareness (TOMA), so that when they are ready to buy, you’re foremost in their thoughts.
Provide a simple and non-threatening way for visitors to get more information; offer them an exclusive benefit such as a free white paper or webinar. Make it easy to take advantage of your offering, but don’t always go straight for the “Buy Now” button. Some people act in small steps, nibbling before they bite, so don’t try to set the hook too early.
Content marketing is a specialized skill, so hire a great content writer, not just someone who knows how to build a pretty website or who knows Facebook inside and out. A skilled content marketer will turn your marketing to gold.
Call SalesFish today and our high-touch, dedicated team will assist you in assessing your strategic sales goals, and the marketing and sales tactics best suited to your specific needs. And, yes, we will also advise you on the best A.I. tools that actually work and complement the real people in your business!
Stay tuned for more relevant content on creating world-class digital marketing strategies and B2B telemarketing sales strategies. We at SalesFish Brand Marketing & Sales thank you for joining us in our commitment to unwavering strategic planning, B2B brand marketing and B2B sales execution.
Call today and our “high-touch” dedicated team will assist you in assessing your strategic sales goals to tailor our marketing and sales tactics to your specific needs.
SalesFish Net of Sales Services:
- B2B Direct Sales, Channel Sales and Marketing Strategies
- On-Site B2B Presentation, Negotiation and Sales
- B2B Telemarketing and B2B Telesales Services
- Cold Calls and Appointment Setting
- Online Presentations and Webinars
- Product Awareness and Announcement Calls
- Primary Research: Quantitative and Qualitative Surveys
- Experiential Event Marketing
- Pre and Post-Event Calls
- Audience Acquisition, Exhibit Sales and Sponsorship Sales
by Chris Waszczak | Jun 19, 2018 | B2B Sales, B2B Telemarketing, Lead Generation, Outsourced Sales, Telemarketing Services
Welcome to SalesFish Brand Marketing & Sales, the most strategically biased B2B Marketing Agency, telemarketing services, telemarketing companies (sales agency) and digital marketing companies, serving Orange County, Los Angeles, San Jose, Sacramento and the Pacific Northwest (Bend, Portland, Seattle). We gladly serve California and all 50 United States!
Marketing is about more than the tools you use; rubbing elbows is also important. Social media, in particular, was designed as a networking and word-of-mouth proxy. In other words, it’s the online version of schmoozing. Besides social media marketing, it’s important to remember social media networking. Talking at people is different than talking with them.
It’s important to evaluate your social media goals: why do you have social media and what do you want out of them? Realistic expectations that social media can deliver include: Brand awareness, increased search engine value, long-term community connection, insight into customer minds, competitive analysis. Unrealistic ones include: Dramatic sales increases, benefits from casual or occasional use, a “silver bullet” effect.
Think as well about how you will educate and engage your audience. What are you going to talk about besides yourself, your products and your services? If you plan to use Social Media to push a sales message, don’t bother. People want interaction, entertainment and information relevant to their lives, not a sales pitch.
Consider the Voice of your communications and be consistent with it. Do you want to be funny, serious, speak in a pirate accent (arrr…)? Choose a tone and personality that fits with your brand as well as your target demographics’ personality. Just because you’re a “serious” business doesn’t mean your Facebook voice has to be. Think AFLAC and GEICO—NOT boring (and that’s the point).
Make a plan ahead of time, including how often you will post, as well as topics you wish to cover. You will need to provide content at least a couple times a week to maintain interest. Beyond content, however, it’s crucial to be responsive and conversational with your following. It’s better to build deep connections with a few target businesses than shallow connections with a multitude. Make a target list, and then be consistent about commenting on their pages, sharing their content and developing your online relationship.
Make sure your social media is truly social; don’t neglect the good, “old fashioned” foundations of human relationships and effective conversation. Talk with people, not just at them.
Call SalesFish today and our high-touch, dedicated team will assist you in assessing your strategic sales goals, and the marketing and sales tactics best suited to your specific needs. And, yes, we will also advise you on the best A.I. tools that actually work and complement the real people in your business!
Stay tuned for more relevant content on creating world-class digital marketing strategies and B2B telemarketing sales strategies. We at SalesFish Brand Marketing & Sales thank you for joining us in our commitment to unwavering strategic planning, B2B brand marketing and B2B sales execution.
Call today and our “high-touch” dedicated team will assist you in assessing your strategic sales goals to tailor our marketing and sales tactics to your specific needs.
SalesFish Net of Sales Services:
- B2B Direct Sales, Channel Sales and Marketing Strategies
- On-Site B2B Presentation, Negotiation and Sales
- B2B Telemarketing and B2B Telesales Services
- Cold Calls and Appointment Setting
- Online Presentations and Webinars
- Product Awareness and Announcement Calls
- Primary Research: Quantitative and Qualitative Surveys
- Experiential Event Marketing
- Pre and Post-Event Calls
- Audience Acquisition, Exhibit Sales and Sponsorship Sales
by Chris Waszczak | Jun 6, 2018 | B2B Sales, B2B Telemarketing, Lead Generation, Telemarketing Services
Welcome to SalesFish Brand Marketing & Sales, the most strategically biased B2B Marketing Agency, telemarketing services, telemarketing companies (sales agency) and digital marketing companies, serving Orange County, Los Angeles, San Jose, Sacramento and the Pacific Northwest (Bend, Portland, Seattle). We gladly serve California and all 50 United States!
The day of your sales pitch is drawing closer. You’re two parts scared, two parts excited about the whole situation. You just want to craft a killer sales pitch that will ensure the close. It’s a big one and you definitely don’t want to mess it up.
This is not your first go around but you feel like you’re just seeing what sticks with your last few pitches.
Pitching is definitely an art and there is no one way to go about it. However, there are certain things that you should remember. And these things help you focus on the goal, keep your pitch effective and even version control your pitches for various clients and deals.
I put together this list of solid pitching advice you must take to heart and apply not only to your pitches but to all your sales calls and presentations.
Diligence is key: Plan ahead, stick to it and follow through
There’s no way around hard work in sales. More so in pitching where a lot of the work that’s been put in so far relies.
You have to understand and take to heart that selling isn’t easy (if you haven’t already).
Understand your prospect
The more you understand your prospect, the more you know about them, the higher your chances are to close the deal. You’d think that this is obvious but 82 percent of sales professionals lose deals because they are not aligned with the needs of the buyer. No matter how awesome your product is, if you can’t show its benefits in the context of the buyer’s situation, the value will probably be lost on the buyer.
Besides, do you expect the same pitch to close different clients? The only way you can tailor-fit your pitch to a prospective customer is to research about them and make projections ast to what kind of delivery and what pitch angles would work for them.
Starting there, you can start creating a solid pitch.
Initially, you must ask the right questions that will extract the customer’s specific needs (which you must have initial ideas of already). This eases the process to the next step.
Clients feel valued when you exhibit knowledge of their company. Unless it’s classified information, they’d appreciate that you took the time to get to know their process and show how your product will work for them. Highlight which features will bring solid, quantifiable benefits to them.
Are you talking to the decision maker? Make sure you are!
A pitch is a only a pitch if there’s a possibility of closing the deal on the same meeting. Not that being prepared for meetings isn’t good practice but there’s a significant difference between a sales call that’s for prospecting and for a pitch.
If you’re pitching to a non-decision maker, you’re wasting both your time and theirs.
Give answers that fit in the sales pitch proper
You should be able to provide answers to any question they might have relating your product and problems they are struggling with.
Author, Canva chief evangelist and venture capitalist Guy Kawasaki shares,
Enchantment is the purest form of sales. It is about changing people’s hearts, minds and action because you provided them with a vision or a way to do things better. The difference between enchantment and simple sales is that with enchantment, you have the other person’s best interest at heart too.
Instead of focusing on the strengths of your product on its own, acknowledge the prospect’s problems and discuss how the product will provide solutions. Don’t cast a wide net when talking about problems. Speak to the unique challenges of your client’s company and hone your pitch to the specific features that fit nicely as a solution to your prospect’s issues.
Always, always use simple language.
Even when according to your research, the client has deep experience in the field, the ability to discuss benefits as simple as possible is always more impressive that a bunch of words that sound nice but are hardly comprehensible.
You should be capable of presenting your unique value proposition (UVP) in a simple, easy-to-digest way. Your UVP is a short, single, clear and compelling message that states exactly what sets you apart from all existing solutions and makes the case that your product is worth buying.
Base your pitch on the length of time that’s available to you. Prepare a sequence that will make sense with how much time you have. Deliver the most value within the time that’s allotted to you.
Address objections firmly and respectfully
First things first: Do not avoid or ignore objections! Don’t dance around it. And definitely don’t invalidate objections. The prospect comes from a place of need and an objection is a moment of being astray. Lead them back by addressing the objection and emphasizing the benefit and value once more.
When preparing for the pitch, you must write down all possible objections you can think about.
You’re probably familiar with BANT—where most objections come from.
- Budget – No money for your product
- Authority – No authority to decide
- Need – No need for your product
- Timing – Not the right time to buy
Explore possible objections and prepare answering each one, not only with a response that would calm the reasons of objection. A good way to approach objection is to flip the script.
If they’re already using a competing product, always address objection based on value and not by criticizing competitors directly.
- Sample objection: Product-needs risk.
Your prospect may say, ”Your product may work for others, but will it work for me?”Counter argument: The easiest way to deal with this particular objection is to outline the features of your product in detail, so that your prospects can see how they would benefit. Show the delineation of how it will benefit them and how it helps others too. If possible, give them a free trial.
Over time, your ability to answer objections will be honed. Your understanding of how your product fits their business is your best weapon.
Another tip: For pricing objections, remember that it’s never about price. Do you think someone who is in the position to call the shots for a business will turn down a product that put them in the position to grow over time in a much faster pace, guaranteed, just for a couple thousand dollars? If the product fits and you’ve done your job as a sales professional, the price issue would be easy to answer.
Show value for money
Your product’s pricing plays a significant role on the number of clients you get and the revenue you build over time. If the prospecting and research have been done right, it’s only a matter of showing the prospect that the product brings much more value than what it costs. Even when you’re confident that the price point is nothing compared to value, you still need to make them realize that and get over the phase where the prospect is getting negative feelings just because it’s a discussion on price already.
And of course, make sure price is the last issue you go over. Validate the need, demonstrate value and address objections before coming to the price discussion. This is a proven formula that’s brought success to many pitches. Pro-tip: On the pricing page of your slide (if you’re using one), still empasize benefits.
Don’t listen to answer, listen to understand. Listen, really listen.
Keep an open mind, go into the pitch with a readiness to listen. Make the prospect do most of the talking. Explore their thgouhgts and respond with deep, incisive followup questions. Aim to understand their business needs and show empathy—both are crucial in closing deals.
When you can mirror their thoughts into your product presentation, the sales message will be strong and attractive. You will be able to successfully preempt pressing questions and objections. Most successful companies use this to their advantage.
Insert calls to action as natural and appropriate
Move your prospect through a “smaller” sales process throughout your pitch. Get them to agree to your points and make them an advocate of your product by setting up opportunities where they say how the product will help them. This takes skill, and most of the skill lies in asking questions.
When you ask the correct questions that unlock realizations in a prospect’s mind, they will sell to themselves. Of course, when the questions are answered, you have to promptly plug-in a call to action which can be many things. You can ask them for more ways they see the product working for them, ask them if they’d like a trial, ask for their ideas on how the product can be improved or customized based on their needs, and of course, THE ask.
Remember that throughout the questions and mini call to actions that you’ve been serving, the internal objective for you is to stoke their interest and desire. Give them more reasons to say yes, make them realize more reasons and let them come up with more uses and benefits your product will bring the company.
The ask or the closing call to action where you directly ask the prospect to purchase your product should come at the right and ripe time within your pitch. If you’ve addressed all objections and have gone over the pricing hump, go for the close.
Pitch with confidence
The great American racer Bobby Unser said, “Success is where preparation and opportunity meet.” And that’s definitely the case with sales pitches. You’re given the opportunity or you’ve created the opportunity to be able to close a sale. You have airtime with someone who can make the decision. Prepare and go there in confidence. When you’re prepared and you’ve ran over everything in your head, there’s no reason to fear. Besides, your pitching skills will get better over time. Prepare well, pitch with confidence and learn from your experience.
It’s just a matter of diligence for you to become a closing machine.
By Dan Sincavage
Dan is a Co-Founder of Tenfold and currently serves as the Chief Strategy Officer. Dan oversees the Tenfold sales organization, manages strategic partner relationships and works with key enterprise accounts to ensure their success with the Tenfold platform.
Stay tuned for more relevant content on creating world-class digital marketing strategies and B2B telemarketing sales strategies. We at SalesFish Brand Marketing & Sales thank you for joining us in our commitment to unwavering strategic planning, B2B brand marketing and B2B sales execution.
Call today and our “high-touch” dedicated team will assist you in assessing your strategic sales goals to tailor our marketing and sales tactics to your specific needs.
SalesFish Net of Sales Services:
- B2B Direct Sales, Channel Sales and Marketing Strategies
- On-Site B2B Presentation, Negotiation and Sales
- B2B Telemarketing and B2B Telesales Services
- Cold Calls and Appointment Setting
- Online Presentations and Webinars
- Product Awareness and Announcement Calls
- Primary Research: Quantitative and Qualitative Surveys
- Experiential Event Marketing
- Pre and Post-Event Calls
- Audience Acquisition, Exhibit Sales and Sponsorship Sales
by Chris Waszczak | Jun 1, 2018 | B2B Sales, B2B Telemarketing, Lead Generation, Outsourced Sales, Telemarketing Services
Welcome to SalesFish Brand Marketing & Sales, the most strategically biased B2B Marketing Agency, telemarketing services, telemarketing companies (sales agency) and digital marketing companies, serving Orange County, Los Angeles, San Jose, Sacramento and the Pacific Northwest (Bend, Portland, Seattle). We gladly serve California and all 50 United States!
Business owners often ask the question, “When is the best time to put resources into my sales & marketing?”
The answer is simple: always. If you want to avoid the “feast or famine” revenue swings so many businesses experience, then you need to be consistent in reaching out to new prospects.
It’s tempting to cut back on your marketing and sales efforts when things are busy, or when you have new contracts in the hopper. The danger, however, is that sometimes a verbal approval on a contract gets put off or drops off a potential client’s radar. If you’ve slowed down on your prospecting in anticipation of the next contract keeping you busy, you’ll be left with an empty pipeline.
Even if you’re landing plenty of work or making lots of sales, markets ebb and flow. As we learned from the recent recession, the economy is a fickle thing, as peaks are inevitably followed by valleys.
So, our simple tip to level out the ups and downs is to never stop marketing, never pull back on your sales. If you find yourself with more business than you can handle, you can always add more resources, refer, or negotiate deadlines. It’s a good problem to have—certainly better than the alternative of going through dry spells.
Besides helping you keep the pipeline from shutting off, staying consistent with your marketing and sales also presents the opportunity to refine and strengthen your message, media, demographics and timing. You can do this very simply through A/B Testing. A/B testing consists of testing one variable of a message and comparing it with a control.
For example, you may test one email subject line against an alternative; you might have two versions of an ad designed and measure the effectiveness of each; you can test different call-to-action offers, such as a free eBook vs. 10% off your services for example. You can find plenty of good advice on A/B testing online. One of the main things to remember, however, is that you generally want to only test one variable at a time. If you’re testing sending an email at 8:00 am vs. 4:00 pm, don’t use a different subject line for each because if you do, you won’t know if the time of day or the subject line accounts for the performance difference.
Keep your marketing and sales machine going through all the ups and downs and you’ll have more of the former and less of the latter!
Call SalesFish today and our high-touch, dedicated team will assist you in assessing your strategic sales goals, and the marketing and sales tactics best suited to your specific needs. And, yes, we will also advise you on the best A.I. tools that actually work and complement the real people in your business!
Stay tuned for more relevant content on creating world-class digital marketing strategies and B2B telemarketing sales strategies. We at SalesFish Brand Marketing & Sales thank you for joining us in our commitment to unwavering strategic planning, B2B brand marketing and B2B sales execution.
Call today and our “high-touch” dedicated team will assist you in assessing your strategic sales goals to tailor our marketing and sales tactics to your specific needs.
SalesFish Net of Sales Services:
- B2B Direct Sales, Channel Sales and Marketing Strategies
- On-Site B2B Presentation, Negotiation and Sales
- B2B Telemarketing and B2B Telesales Services
- Cold Calls and Appointment Setting
- Online Presentations and Webinars
- Product Awareness and Announcement Calls
- Primary Research: Quantitative and Qualitative Surveys
- Experiential Event Marketing
- Pre and Post-Event Calls
- Audience Acquisition, Exhibit Sales and Sponsorship Sales
by Chris Waszczak | May 15, 2018 | B2B Sales, B2B Telemarketing, Lead Generation, Outsourced Sales, Telemarketing Services
Welcome to SalesFish Brand Marketing & Sales, the most strategically biased B2B Marketing Agency, telemarketing services, telemarketing companies (sales agency) and digital marketing companies, serving Orange County, Los Angeles, San Jose, Sacramento and the Pacific Northwest (Bend, Portland, Seattle). We gladly serve California and all 50 United States!
There are right and wrong ways to go about marketing, and the pitfalls are many. A lot can be learned by seeing how not to manage your marketing. This original blog series weaves together an entertaining story that will help you navigate 21st-Century marketing with a view from “the dark side,” as “Screwtape” teaches his apprentice “Wormwood” via email how to sabotage your marketing. Enjoy…
PART NINE:
To: Wormwood
From: Screwtape
Subject: Freezing Out the Cold Call
My dear Wormwood,
Let us explore sales a moment in this missive, shall we? As you well know, Wormwood, most businesses cannot survive without sales. And while many of the “old school” sales techniques of the past are not as effective in the digital age, some still apply. Herein lies opportunity for you to sow dissonance and contradiction into the Patient’s sales plan.
Let’s focus in on the concept of the “cold call.” We have two opportunities here:
- Convince the Patient that cold calling is dead.
- If that does not succeed, inspire the Patient to make the cold call truly “cold.”
The truth is that cold calling is not dead; it has merely evolved. That is to say, that the concept of pursuing prospects you’ve not yet had contact with can still be effective, and even necessary, for many businesses.
The best way to freeze out cold calling is to put a stereotype of into the Patient’s mind. Evoke unwanted phone calls, SPAM emails and other annoying disruptive techniques. I call these the “wolf whistles” of the sales world. You see, it’s perfectly acceptable for a young man to take interest in a “beautiful stranger,” but approach is everything! A genuine and friendly introduction will be received much differently than a wolf whistle or a cheesy pickup line.
See where I’m going with this? If you can convince the Patient that cold calling means being “salesy” and intrusive, he of course is going to shy away from such an approach. Our goal is to get the Patient to dismiss cold calling as he would a polyester suit and white wingtip shoes.
But should he realize that a genuine interest in the prospect and an offering of value can and will gain prospects, our cause is seriously threatened (as is your frail good favor, which I remind you can be lost). If the Patient has the annoying insight to realize that cold calling can be warmly done, then we are in real trouble (and by “we,” I mean “you”).
One small chance remains: Convince the Patient that cold calling only applies to the telephone, when in fact, email, social media and other media provide opportunities superior to simply going down a telephone number list.
Lock this is a vault, but the simplest way to do cold calling boils down to a few key tactics:
- Define your value proposition for a particular audience.
- Make a list of companies that would benefit from that value proposition. Be specific as to size of company, geography, any other demographic details that will narrow the list to the most promising prospects.
- Prepare something of value to give to them. It may be a white paper, a free eBook, a free 30-day trial—there are many options.
- Make the first contact about a genuine interest in their business—in THEIR story—NOT selling or expounding the virtues of your product. Offer that “something of value,” no strings attached. It’s acceptable toward the end to ask if you can contact them again. After all, the young Romeo may ask for a phone number if his interest is reciprocated.
More on this later, but to drive home my point, just go back up to these four points and simply add the words “do not.” Now are you getting the picture? If the Patient annoyingly chooses to use cold calling, then assure he’s as annoying as possible to the prospect. Make sales a hunt based on numbers—that is, if I take enough shots at enough people, something is bound to hit. The alternative is to focus on quality of leads and genuineness of approach, and we don’t want that happening, now do we?
Your affectionate uncle,
Screwtape
Stay tuned for more relevant content on creating world-class digital marketing strategies and B2B telemarketing sales strategies. We at SalesFish Brand Marketing & Sales thank you for joining us in our commitment to unwavering strategic planning, B2B brand marketing and B2B sales execution.
Call today and our “high-touch” dedicated team will assist you in assessing your strategic sales goals to tailor our marketing and sales tactics to your specific needs.
SalesFish Net of Sales Services:
- B2B Direct Sales, Channel Sales and Marketing Strategies
- On-Site B2B Presentation, Negotiation and Sales
- B2B Telemarketing and B2B Telesales Services
- Cold Calls and Appointment Setting
- Online Presentations and Webinars
- Product Awareness and Announcement Calls
- Primary Research: Quantitative and Qualitative Surveys
- Experiential Event Marketing
- Pre and Post-Event Calls
- Audience Acquisition, Exhibit Sales and Sponsorship Sales
