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iPad or iPass?

I spent part of last weekend reading iPad reviews and a review of iPad reviews.  I particularly liked the Engadget review.  Long, well organized, thorough, thought provoking.  For the first time ever I’m really thinking about trying first generation technology — I can always upgrade, right?  I received a number of comments and some feedback about my tiny tweet and the Engadget review.

Alex – who if memory serves camped out for first generation iPhone – forwarded me his one-word “iPass” response (which I’ve shamelessly borrowed for the title of this post).  Steve asks:  “If I’m in the market to buy a new laptop (mine is 8 years old), should I consider the iPad? I only use my laptop for Email, Internet browsing, and programs like Word/Excel…”

Here’s what Engadget says: 

Raybec’s Approach

Hot on the heels of really successful SalesLink implementations, we’re doing a lot of consultancy these days with our clients.  Some of it is directly tied to SalesLink. All of it has to do with helping to define and execute relationship strategies.  It was in this context that we had the chance to reflect a bit on our approach and I’m happy with the outcome – so I thought I’d share it here.  We are collaborative partners who focus on strategy AND execution and always respect budgets. 

The Anatomy of a SalesLink Email

Our team spends a lot of time helping our clients understand how to get the most out of SalesLink and execute best practices in follow-up.  If you don’t know what SalesLink is/does, check out the SalesLink website.

There’s that really helpful visioning adage — begin with the end in mind.  If you have a decent sense of how SalesLink emails work then in no time you will become really good and very confident at sending out SalesLink emails and making them dance for you.  This post breaks down the different elements of a SalesLink email and shares some of the SalesLink lexicon.  As always, questions and comments (especially where something isn’t really clear) are really helpful and appreciated.

{Firstname}, Check Out What Personalized Subject Lines Can Do For Your Open Rates

Whenever we get the chance we like to run statistically valid tests with our clients.  They’re hard to do – most of us in the business world are happy to run a small test, not necessarily bound by the large sample sizes and constraints of statistical validity.  We’re happy with a directional sniff of where the winds are blowing and then make decisions based on that (not statistically valid) information.

Before writing this post, I trolled through Google and, while there’s lots out there about the efficacy or inefficacy of personalized subject lines, I couldn’t find one post that referenced any actual statistics.  So I thought I’d share some success that our friends at Mackenzie Financial had recently.  It’s also interesting to note that this is a B2B test. 

T-shirt case study promo from MailChimp

I gotta say that the good folks at MailChimp do a really nice job at…well…lots of stuff.  Here’s part one of their case study on their free t-shirt giveaway on Twitter.

My summary of what they did (though I did miss it on Twitter):

• Planned to give away 1,000 free t’s as a way to measure engagement — it also would build their Twitter and Facebook followers…but that wasn’t the goal (nice side effect though)
• Didn’t require anyone to retweet or add a hashtag (can be effective for measurement but annoying)
• Used a landing page to control the campaign

Google on SEO

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.

Internet Explorer Losing Browser Share

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?

Building a network and learning along the way….

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.

A Sales Effectiveness Index

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.