Came across this pretty good presentation by Google on SEO. Here are key takeaways for me:
- There’s no substitute for being meaningful and providing value
- The presentation encourages us to focus on our role as “suppliers” of meaningful content. We can be more effective in this role if we pay attention to what people want. In the context of search, that means understanding what search terms people are looking for.
- Links to your site are important. People link to:
- Interesting and useful content
- How-to guides and tutorials
- Lists (“Top 10 best…”)
- Thought-provoking or unexpected content
- Sites that update frequently
The Google Search Engine Optimization Starter Guide referenced under the article is very good for the basics.
As developers of a new web-application we’ve been paying attention to the browsers that people use. Here are the latest stats posted on Tech Crunch. The number of people (organizations really) that are still on IE 6 is falling precipitously — thank goodness. The browser came out in August 2001 (8 years ago!). We run into real problems writing code across all browsers — IE6 just adds another level of complexity altogether. We’ve found Chrome (Google’s new browser) to be really fast but it’s hard to believe that it will have real legs over Firefox, IE, and Safari. It’s definitely interesting to watch the browser wars, though.
What browser do you use? What others have you tried? Are you browser loyal? Are you constrained by your workplace?
As part of our SalesLink development I continue to meet with people in my network nearly all of whom introduce me to someone new. It’s a major investment of time but yields sales leads and/or invaluable insights. You also meet some amazing people along the way.
One of these networking-chains led me to Adam Bullied, a product manager who’s worked largely in start-ups. Adam is genuine, generous and smart! In a short hour he shared a few product management basics and asked a bunch of questions that made me think pretty hard about the work we’re doing. He also left my confidence in tact which I appreciated. I’ve subsequently spent some time on his blog and have found more thought provoking material there.
Adam really helped with a simple conversation that helped me connect the dots between
- Problem Statement. What problem is the product solving?
- Vision. How are you going to solve the problem?
- Market Segmentation. Whose problem is it?
- User Objectives. What are they trying to accomplish?
He then showed me how these are building blocks to value proposition, features and benefits, differentiation, and a number of other concepts.
A second line of conversation (short though it was) had to do with formalizing pilot/beta programs – making sure that these programs have:
- stated objectives,
- a set number of customers
- a defined start and end date
- set timelines (what’s going to happen between the start and end date)
- well defined requirements; and
- an identified program manager
Here too – none of this is revolutionary – but it caused me to stop and think. It’s also added another item to my To Do list.
My time with Adam was important because I’m reminded that broad generalists (like me) can really benefit from specialists who have frameworks at-the-ready. Of course, we (generalists) often take those frameworks, oversimplify them, and then run into all kinds of trouble but that too is a topic for another day.
Summary
We’ve been working with clients and friends on a new Sales Effectiveness Index. the goal is to help organizations support the execution, measurement and coaching of defined relationship sales processes in the workflow. This is a post-sales call evaluation form, which can be completed by the sales rep to measure/track performance from one call to the next. It is a self-reported, self-discovery exercise to improve overall performance i.e. Did I get commitment for a follow up meeting to discuss the issue? Was I adequately prepared for the meeting? How effective have I been in my sales efforts? When done correctly the index moves us away from sales effectiveness coaching and towards sales effectiveness management.
The Traditional Sales Management Process
Traditional Sales Management Process
The traditional sales management process starts with product and brand training, which is supported in the workflow with performance reviews, sales management and coaching. Performance data and success ratios (eg. call to meeting, meeting to sale) are usually well defined and data is available to uncover if activity or sales effectiveness is at issue.
When an increase in effectiveness is desired, coaching activities include self-evaluation, performance appraisals, field visits and role-playing. The cycle is then repeated with the rescheduling of the next training engagements.
The issue with the traditional sales management process is that coaching is based primarily on performance data and not on information directly linked to the defined sales process. If this data were available for all calls we could transform coaching into a more effective management process.
A New Approach
New Model for Sales Effectiveness
Sales engagement is intended to create value for our customers by uncovering and satisfying their needs. This relationship sales process has specific elements that are the basis of our sales training:
Plan – Approach – Probe – Prove – Handle objections/misinformation – Close – Set next steps
We can define the outcome data for each of these steps of the sales process and provide a tool to capture this information after each meeting. The process must be easy to use and take minimal time (under 2 minutes). This data will now give us the foundation to understand, manage and increase our sales effectiveness.
The result: a move away from Sales Effectiveness Coaching and a move towards Sales Effectiveness Management. It’s powerful and compelling work. I’ll provide updates from time-to-time as they become available. If you have comments or feedback on this or other ideas please feel free to share them.
People who know us well know that we’ve developed a lot of really powerful technology over the years. We never set out with the intention to be software developers — and to this date, we’re not. What we know is that the best way to get leverage and to scale best practices is to define them and then automate them. Knowing the capabilities and limitations of technology intimately has given us a tremendous advantage to create innovative solutions and execute them quickly.
The software developers we work with (past and present; internal and external) have taught us a great deal as we translate what we want to do into instructions for them to be able to help us.
Recently we had lots of discussions and moved to fixed release dates of improvements and bug fixes in our code. I have found parallels here to other parts of my work (and maybe even non-work) world. Here’s a well-written understandable (albeit technical) article about fixed release dates. I particularly identify with the section: “Done Means Done”. It’s so easy to keep reviewing and adding features. I see this in report writing too. Better to just “chunk stuff up” into bite size parts and then call them “Done”.
It’s a good read.
For the last few months we’ve been working on a product called SalesLink. SalesLink advances our relationship sales and marketing work. I’ll write a separate post about different uses for SalesLink. I was at a seminar given by Freshbooks CEO Mike McDerment last week where he encouraged us to capture the development of our product in a blog. With Mike’s gentle reminder I’m back “on” – there are so many thoughts and bits of feedback I’d like to share and get feedback on from my fairly robust network…we’ll see how it goes.
Does it have to be either Sales OR Marketing that owns the customer relationship? In dialogue internally and with clients and friends, we’ve been actively exploring the idea that Marketing has a much bigger role to play in the customer relationship. The Sales function traditionally has laid claim to the customer relationship as their sole territory. In many ways, they’re right. At the micro, face-to-face level it often falls to Sales to develop and maintain relationships. But Marketing has a really unique and arguably more objective perspective to add.
Consider an organization where:
- Customer engagement strategies are defined;
- Sales best-practices have been tested and documented;
- Sales has exactly what they need BEFORE AND AFTER any interaction to enhance the velocity and probability of close; and
- Leads are developed, scored and well-qualified before they get funneled to Sales
These are just some of the ways Marketing can be involved above and beyond the traditional boundaries of the function. When Marketing starts to look at Customer Relationships with the objectives listed above as their desired outcomes we can start to see a framework where ownership and management of the customer relationship might at least be shared…
My LinkedIn buddy, Lori Franze at Canada Post pulled together a great conference at the beginning of March — Think Inside The Box. Lots of interesting sessions and stats for Direct Marketers. Mike D’Abramo, Director, Research & Strategy at Youthography gave a great keynote presentation about the youth demographic. He’s a very compelling presenter with strong research and stats behind his message — very refreshing.
Raybec presented in the B2B stream. Our presentation, Relationship Strategies Will Help You Sell More Now, is available on our site. It includes six specific relationship strategies that you can implement today:
- Thank your customers and ask them for feedback.
- Offer your customers help in making their purchase decision.
- User your administrative contact (like a statement mailer) to collect actionable feedback.
- Present your customers with a “no-strings-attached” value program.
- Give your customers access to experts who can help them grow their business.
- Have every salesperson ask two key questions in their next sales call. Take action on what they hear.
To reinforce the point about technology enabling blogging/idea exchange, here I am on my iPhone posting to my blog minutes after getting started. OK – next challenge – relevance.
Somewhere, in a box, are the handful of attempts to keep a journal over the course of my lifetime. Somewhere, in the ether, there are one or two attempts at blogging. As always, this feels different…and it might be. The technology is so accessible – I have to give it another shot.
