1 and 1 Web Services - a good value?

My review of 1and1 services:

I registered a domain recently through 1&1 online. The process was quick and easy and was delivered relatively quickly. A few days later I received a call from a sales rep. The rep seemed knowledgeable and well-spoken. I explained, in detail, my needs, including two must-haves. He convinced me that the 1&1 Online Store would meet my needs.

I tried to set up the online store through the 1&1 store to my specifications. The editor was clunky and extremely limited with a weak and convoluted user interface - I've seen worse, but not since 2008. This would have been more than acceptable if it was able to deliver at least one of my two must-haves.

The cumbersome control panel with disparate systems, it's weak instruction manuals, and limited online Help section were all equally unhelpful, so I decided to call their 24-7-365 support line. After being on hold for about 20 minutes, the customer support person quickly decided that she was unable to help and transferred me to an "eCommerce Specialist." Another five minutes on hold and two minutes re-explaining my two must-haves, the Specialist said 1&1 was unable to deliver and that the rep I spoke with had deceived me (perhaps unintentionally, but I was very clear with him). I asked to cancel my contract and the Specialist said he'd need to transfer me to a third person. Thirty seconds later I was hung up on.

As I'm writing this, I'm on hold after calling back. We'll see how it goes.

- - -- --- -----

Update: I was able to cancel without too much (more) trouble, but still feel the entire experience was an unfortunate waste of time. One gets what one pays for.

D&B to Discuss Predictive Analytics Strategies

Leveraging Big Data to Predict Business Opportunities / Risk

Dun & Bradstreet will be presenting a free webinar on capabilities to identify B2B clients and prospects poised for growth or actively shopping. In the video below, Paul Ballew, D&B's head of analytics offers a sneak peek for the online event scheduled for Wednesday, March 26 at 10 AM Central.

Interested in attending? You can register here.

TheLadders.com Class Action Lawsuit

Painting Turds Gold

Court Okays Suit Against Job Board for "$100k+ jobs" 

On March 12, 2014, NY District Judge John G. Koeltl ruled to deny TheLadders.com's motion to dismiss deceptive practices and breach of contract suit filed by consumer class action attorneys Bursor & Fisher a year ago.

The case alleges that the premium job search website:

• Scraped job postings without employers' knowledge or consent and misrepresented them as $100k+ jobs
• Didn't screen opportunities for to ensure all jobs were indeed $100k+ jobs
• Some of the opportunities listed either didn't exist or misrepresented income potential
• Offered "expert résumé critique" that simply triggered a form letter sales pitch for paid résumé re-writing services

According to recruitment blog Ask The Headhunter, one plaintiff claimed "a resume 'expert' at TheLadders produced a scathing critique of his resume — which he had previously paid TheLadders to write for him."

Plaintiffs were paid subscribers for premium access to TheLadders.com.

Check out that Headhunter blog for more info and to view a copy of the court's most recent ruling.

Thanks to Joel Cheesman for bringing this to our attention.

Talent Acquisition and Retention: The Six Bs

The 6 "B's" of Talent Acquisition and Retention

AND 6 QUESTIONS TO ASK TO ENSURE YOU'RE ON TRACK

You know I'm not a fan of oversimplifying complex processes with silly acronyms and whatnot, but the subject of the Human Capital's Bs came up yesterday, and I thought I'd share my two cents with you here on how world-class organizations attract, develop, and retain their talent pools.

Here is a short description of each of the HR Bs and questions executives should ask of their human resources professionals and internal leadership.

Buy

"Traditional" recruitment, including investments in:

• Employment branding
• Internal referral programs
• Business networking groups
• Automatic access to applications and employment data
• Relevant online recruitment resources
• Maintenance of contact with qualified prospects
• former applicants
• former employees
• contractors/consultants
• vendor reps

• Executives should ask "Are we effectively sourcing and onboarding talent?"

Build

Training and development through investment in things like:

• On-the-job development opportunities (i. e. advisory board, tasks force, special project)
• Training coursework (classroom and web-based)
• Mentorship and coaching programs
• Interdepartmental projects
• Empowerment, work/life balance
• Quarterly/Semi-Annual 2-way reviews

• Executives should ask "How do our employees rank their growth and satisfaction outside of work?"

Borrow

Partnerships developed with customers and vendors to increase innovation and share knowledge through:

• Joint ventures
• Experiential marketing
• Exchange programs

• Executives should ask "How much of our organizational intelligence comes from outside?"

Bound

Progressing talent through various career paths while promoting engagement 

• Personally relevant motivation
• Competitive compensation, and compensation incentives
• Non-financial investments
• Flexible and customizable benefits and working arrangements

• Executives should ask "How often do we fill key positions from the outside, and how does our retention rate compare to industry averages?"

Bounce

Drop the underachievers according to Welch's vitality model, but invest in:

• Defining and articulating the ideal culture
• Painting a clear picture of the future
• Transparent expectations and standards, with backing of Legal
• Providing candid feedback on all suggestions and complaints
• Fair and independent analysis of situations and markets
• Establishing just due processes including development opportunities
• Prompt and direct management of behaviors that are not in line with organizational goals and values

• Executives should ask "Are our poor performers in the right jobs? the right company?"

Bind

Constantly improve retention rates, foster pride and loyalty, and nurture potential through:

• Compensation
• Creative and personalized recognition and rewards
• Engagement tools
• Granting disciplined freedom with ownership of duties and outcomes
• Becoming an employer of choice by building a strong brand and employee value props
• Align internal and external communications to share and expand the message(s)

• Executives should ask "What more can we do to retain our top-performers?"

Sliding Scale Vending

Beverage Vending Machine Automatically Changes Price Based on Outside Temperature

While in Chicago the other day for the Shopper Marketing Expo, Coke’s Global Customer & Commercial Leadership Director (responsible for foodservice development and international growth strategy) described the technology used to increase traffic to vending machines at a handful of amusement parks in Spain for the past two years. The machines would automatically lower their prices as the outdoor temperature rose, by means of a software developed by Varadero.

From their headquarters, Coca-Cola spokesperson Carrie Brown explains, “The machines were designed specifically to increase trial of Limón&Nada as a thirst quencher in the summer heat.” Limón&Nada hopes to come to America under a different name as a low-cal, preservative-free lemonade from the Minute Maid brand. Also being offered in test markets is Limón&Nada Peppermint and Limón&Nada Light.

Brown said that the software hasn’t been used in other markets, but declined to comment as to weather (tee-hee) they planned on using this technology in the future.

Hungry for Change

Our Scouts were killing.

It was the Homecoming Game for our local high school. A buddy of mine came to see his son perform his courtly duties alongside the King and Queen of the day. The class of 1993 was celebrating it's twentieth reunion that weekend, so the stands were full of people recently flown to town wearing flannel with fanny packs while listening to Nirvana on their blue Walkmans.

The good ol' home team defense had just intercepted a beautiful pick when my almost potty-trained daughter tugged on my pant leg. With a familiar step dance her slightly raised eyebrows betrayed a distress that snapped me to action. As I was weaving through bleachers and band nerds with daughter in tow, I noticed that the line for the bathroom was certainly too long for her tiny bladder. I snatched the kid up under my right arm, brought my left across my chest to prevent a fumble, pivot and sprint with the all grace of number 10 (the Scouts' wide receiver) towards the school gym. Finally, we reach the sanctum of a clean restroom; and none too soon.

While she sat and playfully sang her version of  "Summertime Sadness," I wandered around the immaculate high school gym, admiring their top-tier equipment and amenities... but then, I saw this:

I was shocked.

Here I am, at one of the top high schools in the country, in the part of the school where they focus on teaching young people about health and fitness, and the almost-empty vending machine is almost all junk food. With all of the talk over the past ten years about child obesity and educating the youth on making healthy food decisions, how is this even possible? It is so counterproductive for government entities like schools to promote junk food and make it so easily accessible to children while other government entities are investing billions in healthcare and health education focused on choosing healthful foods and making healthy lifestyle choices. I can't believe that healthy vending isn't more of a priority for U.S. schools, especially for a school that prides itself on its commitment to wellness.

This is not over.

I got so worked up, I'm going to look into what the disconnect is, and see what we can do to fix this. Sorry Snickers.

Business Card Icons

I'm designing new business cards, and wasn't super excited about the vector image icon choices available, so I ended up making these in MS Word. Help yourself.

Why do we love Friday?

1956 Wisc. Badgers Cheerleaders possibly cheering for Friday*

Happy Friday!

After a very informal survey, resulting in not-so-surprising results, most American’s least favorite day of the week is Monday and we strongly favor Saturday. Friday beat out Sunday by a large margin, and Thursday took a close fourth. Chances are your favorite days are Friday and Saturday as well... But why?

Anticipation       

Disclaimer: I’m no scientist, and wanted to write this quick blog post in time to be relevant, so I didn’t do a lot more research, but I believe it is because anticipation of happiness is almost as powerful as the experience of happiness. The converse also applies, perhaps more so.

I mean, if you hate Mondays because of work/school, and love Saturdays because of lack thereof, then it rationally follows that Sundays should yield the same level of happiness as Saturdays. But they don’t for most of us. Friday is also a workday (and often a more demanding workday), and yet, we love Fridays. Some of us even prefer Thursdays to Sundays because the week is almost over.

Your Weekend Homework

Yup, I’d like you to do something over the weekend. I’d like you to take this information to increase your own happiness. Now, Fridays are awesome, and I want to you to continue to love Fridays… that anticipation of future bliss is a valuable tool, which can be applied to many other parts of your life, as well as improving outcomes for your clients**. My advice to you is to nurture anticipation of future happiness while suppressing negative emotions related to future misery. When things are not quite where you want them, look forward to the brighter future and positive outcomes of your work. When all is right with the world, be there in the now. Enjoy your Sunday. Hope for the best, and realistically prepare for the worst without cynically dwelling on it. I promise this will make you happier, healthier, and more productive.

*image used via Creative Commons license, attributed to http://uwdc.library.wisc.edu/collections/UW 

**I had a section prepared for how to leverage anticipation of positives for winning more deals and improving customer satisfaction, but decided that subject would be better discussed in its own post. Stay tuned!

Monster.com: Bad April Fool's Prank or Bad Quality Control?

Sexperience Wanted

This posting was sent to me this morning. I laughed.

"Previous Sexperience in the Staffing Industry a plus." If this was intentional, Astrix Technology Group, then I take back my laughter. Here's the link if you want to see how long it takes for Monster to correct the mistake* after I notify customer service about the typo --> Account Executive, Schaumburg. When contacted for comment, a representative for Astrix Technology said that their "administrative staff is probably already aware [of the issue]." As of this writing, the job ad has been up for a week.

Another funny job-board goof

This posting reminds me of this one time when I found, years ago when I worked at CareerBuilder, a job posting for pool cleaners. Apparently the ad was scraped from a partner newspaper listing with a title longer than the job board's character limit for the title section. So, the advertisement went live on about 1400 websites saying something like "Growing Company Seeks Customer-Facing Poo." I was in the middle of a web-conference showing a prospective customer what a job-seeker would see if there weren't any relevant listings for their query, assuming that the keyword "poo" would be a guaranteed zero results search. That, and the word tends to lighten the mood during a long product demo.
Although it is embarrassing to uncover a quality control issue while live with a prospect, it allowed me to demonstrate another value in working with one of our experienced account managers, while illustrating the agility with which we work interdepartmentally and across company borders to make changes (right after taking a screenshot to giggle with coworkers about later).

So please, anytime you use self-service advertising, like job boards, directories, AdWords, even blogs, take the time to have someone proofread your copy before going live. It is also strongly recommended that you pull up your ad in a few different browsers and through other sites that may aggregate your content as soon as it launches. Remember, your words and images reflect your brand.

Don't Rely on AI

For this same reason, it is not advised to rely on non-human tools to do proofreading for you. I'm sure there are plenty of instances of auto-correct or Swype helping you put your foot in your mouth. For another example, here's what happens when you use Google Translate to convert the lyrics of the most popular i-Tunes download of the winter from English to Chinese to Portuguese and back to English:

Now, joined the club as "how? I have a big rooster!" explains

No, I just pump the thrift store to buy some dog feces

The ice edge is so damn cold

"Mother, this is a ghost white ass cold"

Roll the sandwich led Hella deep

Rosa, but my crocodile shoes using, these are green

Phi at the girl next to me, a mink leopard

Maybe should have been washed, smells of R. Kelly board

(Pissssss..)

But, Mom, this is 99 cents!

Damn, Coppin, wash it, Bout 'to get some praise

These others were walking in moccasins

Bummy and lame, sex, I'm flossing and stunting

I save my money, I'm hella happy, this is a business, [expletive removed]

I am your grandfather's style, I'm the style of his grandfather

Not true, ask your grandfather, I can have it I spend less? (Thank you!)

Velvet overalls and some slippers

The poop brown leather jacket, I found that mining

They have a broken keyboard, I bought a broken keyboard

I bought a UFO blankets, and then I bought a plate of knee

Hello, hello, my ace, my gentle

John Wayne has nothing on my game edge, hell no

I might need some wings to keep them fresh and sale of these

Movement toe: "Ah, he has a velcro"

That being said... 

Humor in job postings can be a great way to better target candidates for cultural fit and a certain level of intelligence. Here are a couple that I found fun.

A different kind of poo job:

A while back, I came across an ad for a Flash Designer (must have been a while ago... Does anyone even develop solely in Flash anymore?) that listed the following Job Requirements:
  > The ability to design, program and animate every aspect of a website.
  > Need a can-do, will-do attitude for every project.
  > Enjoys being shot in the head with a bazooka.
  > Can work as part of a collaborative team - willing to change creative direction at any time.
  > Is not afraid of chemical warfare. Or shaving cream.
  > Salary DOE.

Another oldie (Does Blockbuster even have stores anymore?):

Your turn!

Share your funny or strange job postings or stories below!
- - -- --- ----- --------

* (update: 4/1/13) When I called Monster to report the mistake, I was promptly transferred to Employer Customer Service... Well, I mean after being on hold with poorly rendered elevator music and abnormally loud Monster advertisements for social-media integration products, world-wide exposure, diversity/inclusion products, and BI reports for just shy of nine minutes. The friendly and bright "Kimberly" took my call and was able to pull up the post, identify the typo,take down my email address, and ask if there was anything else for which she may be able to help, all within a few short minutes. Although she was unable to correct the "big mistake" herself, the ad had been edited within twenty minutes of hanging up. I kept hitting refresh after the conversation, so I know that it was at least 15 minutes. That's actually a pretty good turnaround time, right?

Creativity Inside the Box

 

I was just in Kenosha this weekend for my buddy’s fortieth birthday. Kenosha, in addition to being the nearest city to those lovable characters of That 70’s Show, is the birthplace of Orson Welles. There I stumbled across this quote of his:
The enemy of art is the absence of limitations.

Wait, what? I thought freedom and "thinking outside the box" were the keys to creativity. Orson, you crazy fat man, what in Grover’s Mill are you talking about?

After giving it some thought, with both sides of my brain firing, this actually makes a lot of sense. Humans aren’t wired to operate without some boundaries that allow us to focus our creative energy appropriately… and, as I’ve grown to realize in my years, total freedom is a myth.

Here are a couple of ideas that can help you unleash your creative potential:

Understand Your Limitations

To be truly free, it is necessary to have some structure – and even more importantly, to understand those limitations. Great music relies on rhythm and meter, great paintings on the size and texture canvas (and frame), great speeches on the knowledge and energy of the audience, etc. To be truly creative is to embrace, not only the restrictions of your media and tools, but your mistakes and weaknesses as well.

Half the time when men think they are talking business, they are wasting time.

                                                                                                -- E. W. Howe

To nurture your rhythm and feel the meter is to provide the lucidity and purpose to engage your problems locked-and-loaded. Many people end up wasting time with sub-par or ineffective work because they simply didn't take the time to understand the limitations of the project or articulate the goal beforehand.

Who are the stakeholders? What is the desired outcome? What steps need to be taken for approval? What tools are available? What are the deadlines? Where will the work appear? Why am I doing this? It is only after these types of questions are answered that you should start to work on the How.

 

You Are What You Eat

The old mantra of CRM implementers and data analysts, "Garbage in, garbage out," is also an important factor for creativity. What you consume is exceedingly important in how effective you are at problem-solving and creating. Of course, I could take a minute to address what you physically consume, as this will certainly make a difference in your production and outcomes... but no. I'm talking about what your mind consumes. As with the food you eat, the first step is to be conscious of what you are taking in.

Here are a few other enemies of creativity that should be avoided at all costs:

• Reruns
• Unnecessary Complexity
• Fear
• Unlucky/unsuccessful people
• Assumptions
• Boredom
• Unattainable expectations

...and a few things we should actively seek out:

• Relevance (what can this seemingly unrelated thing tell me about my problem/project?)
• Published works of the leaders in your industry
• Time-sensitive opportunities
• Information about things you are passionate about
• Recent innovative products or concepts
• The classics

Change Things Up

So, now that you're limiting your 'junk food' and focusing on healthier consumption, it's important to note that, while broccoli is super good for you, if you go and eat nothing but broccoli for a couple weeks, you'll probably end up green-face-first in a ditch on the side of the road. Please note that, for most people, some junk can be okay –even beneficial – in moderation.

Getting stuck creatively is often a product of the pattern of seeking the warm embrace of comfort. Stretch yourself and resist the temptation of seeking the security of your comfort zone. Keeping your mind active and purposefully interrupting your usual patterns can do wonders for stretching your ability to solve problems and grow the pool from which you draw insight. Here are a few things that I urge you to do at least once a week to boost your creativity:

• Start a conversation with a random stranger
• Go to an event outside of your comfort zone (i.e. attend a religious service that you don't subscribe to, see a lecture of someone you don't agree with, go to a club that plays music you don't usually listen to)
• Be a mentor
• Learn a new game
• Take a different route to work
• Brush your teeth with the wrong hand
• Read aloud with exagerrated emotion and/or a silly accent

 

What Do You Think?

 

Another awesome way to get the creative juices flowing is to post a comment below.

11 Sales Quotes that You Probably Haven't Heard Before

So, because I wasn't able to find them on any of the big quotation search sites, I've decided to provide a home online for the following 11 sales quotes you probably haven't heard yet:



Theory is very helpful in business, but only when the business has already been settled.
  -- Italo Svevo

Nothing is as irritating as the fellow that chats pleasantly while he's over-charging you.
  -- Kin Hubbard

You can't just ask customers what they want and then try to give it to them. By the time you build it, they'll want something new.
  -- Steve Jobs

Half the time when men think they are talking business, they are wasting time.
  -- E. W. Howe

Clarity trumps persuasion.
  -- Dr. Flint McGlaughlin

Knowledge without courage is sterile.
  -- Baltasar Gracian

Nothing is free anymore to sell itself or give itself away.
  -- Jean Giraudoux

Bring the best of your authentic self to every opportunity.
  -- John Jantsch

When a man is discontented with himself, it has one advantage, however, that it puts him into an excellent frame of mind for making a bargain.
  -- Laurence Sterne

There is only one boss. The customer. And he can fire everybody in the company from the chairman on down, simply by spending his money somewhere else.
  -- Sam Walton

Good bargains empty pockets.
  -- German proverb



Please share any other obscure quotes about sales and/or marketing below.

Ramblings

In my blog post last year CMO v3.0: The Enlightened Buyer, I hinted at the changing landscape for marketers, and the need for organizations to embrace this change to quickly capitalize on market opportunities. However, I should have pointed out that it is important to keep an eye to the future as well. It would have been dangerous, for example, to misinterperet market conditions as the new permanent reality -- during a recession, people don't stop buying stuff, they are just more frugal about those purchases. Although they may not consume some of the goods/services that you are offering, they can still consume your marketing and become an advocate. If you've found yourself taking your foot off the gas pedal, now is the time to accelerate while your competitors may have thrown in the towel.

Voices in the Rubble - a documentary

Here's a short trailer for a movie that my buddy is trying to get made. Please take 4 seconds to "like" this video (by clicking the heart icon). If you don't have a Vimeo account, please take 47 seconds to create an account and then "like" it. Thanks!!


VOICES IN THE RUBBLE from Herman Wilkins on Vimeo.

http://vimeo.com/58913203

The cat

About this time 11 years ago was a sad time for my young family, and my sweet wife was having a particularly rough time with it. At some point I realized that I had to give in to her pleadings. Even though I had a terrible allergy (and slight aversion) to cats, we ended up taking home the first kitten we came across, and the furry fury has been ruling our homes with an iron paw ever since. Her name is Kaya.

So, because this sassy cat has been kind of a symbol of my love and sacrifice, I thought it would be fun to give my wife a portrait for Valentine's Day this year...

"Kaya" 2/13/2012

"

Kitty kitty Kaya may be cute
But beware
Children, she steals your playful breath
Kitty kitty Kaya has no heart
Has no care
Instead she plots your painful death"

                                -- Ancient Egyptian Dirge -- 

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2013/02/08 - Finger Drawing

Finger Drawing

 

see full size: winchestergoose.com/art

Sigh

I felt such a feeling of dread when I realized I was on the final chapter of my book this morning. I finished on the train, and made this on the bus (from a pic I'd drawn a couple months ago).

This is SO going viral.

Please share this photo. It's for a good cause.

Twitter Tracking You Across Internet: What may this mean to you?

In case you missed it Twitter sent out an email last night announcing some updates (new languages, new mobile app, etc.), and then...
"In addition, we've made a number of updates to our Privacy Policy and Terms of Service.
Here are some of the main changes to our Privacy Policy, with links for more information:
We've provided more details about the information we collect and how we use it to deliver our services and to improve Twitter. One example: our new tailored suggestions feature, which is based on your recent visits to websites that integrate Twitter buttons or widgets, is an experiment that we're beginning to roll out to some users in a number of countries. Learn more here. We've noted the many ways you can set your preferences to limit, modify or remove the information we collect. For example, we now support the Do Not Track (DNT) browser setting, which stops the collection of information used for tailored suggestions. We've clarified the limited circumstances in which your information may be shared with others (for example, when you've given us permission to do so, or when the data itself is not private or personal). Importantly, our privacy policy is not intended to limit your rights to object to a third party's request for your information.
In our Terms of Service, we've clarified how your relationship with Twitter works and made a number of small changes and formatting improvements, such as new headings for easy reference and updated descriptions of our services.
Take a moment to read our new Privacy Policy and Terms of Service, and thanks for using Twitter."
Further reading in the new privacy policy: “We may tailor content for you based on your visits to third-party websites that integrate Twitter buttons or widgets… While we have the widget data, we may use it to tailor content for you, such as suggestions for people to follow on Twitter. Tailored content is stored with only your browser cookie ID and is separated from other Widget Data such as page-visit information.”
If you chose the DNT option, it may take 17 days to remove the data from some of the Widgets.
I have a feeling that this announcement will cause a bit of a stir. Stay tuned as I read this over and share my thoughts on how this will effect Twitter users and advertisers - I just wanted to get this posted right away for my buddy Chris, who deleted his email without reading it.

 UPDATE (7/1/2012): You can now test this new feature in the US via your settings. Let me know what you think.

Art Without a Frame

The importance of context: What I learned from The Washington Post’s Joshua Bell experiment

Last week I saw a Facebook wall photo go viral with a thought-provoking editorial credited to a Josh Nonnenmocher*. Because this name screamed pseudonym, I didn’t bother to read it until it was shared by my friend (thanks Cecil!). I’m glad I did.

I was so inspired, in fact, that I thought I should share my two-cents here for you.

So this story was available to me through multiple channels, but because of the initial red flag (made-up name), I didn’t even give it a chance until it was recommended by a source that I respect and trust.


After a little digging, it turns out that this was actually an abbreviated version of this 2007 Washington Post social experiment and accompanying article Pearls for Breakfast by Gene Weingarten. Whether you’ve seen the Facebook version or not, this true version is considerably more eloquent and well worth the read.

Spoiler Alert

Here’s the Cliff Notes version: A street musician set up in a busy subway and masterfully played six carefully selected, timeless, works for about 43 minutes during the Friday morning rush hour. By the end of his set about 1100 people passed by and he’d collected a total of $32.17. Maybe a dozen people actively paid any attention at all, most of which were children. Here’s the kicker – the performer was Joshua Bell, widely considered one of the top violinists in the world, perhaps of all time. You might recognize him from the soundtrack for “The Red Violin.”


This WP article which offers streaming audio of the full performance, focused on the pretty sad fact that hardly anyone had stopped, or even slowed their pace to smell the roses. It was about the dwindling appreciation for beauty in a busy world. It was about spiritual starvation and a culture of oblivious focus.

My point

As a musician that has played for anonymous passersby in a few public areas around the country, these points were not lost on me. As a salesman that works primarily with marketing professionals, however, something else spoke to me. No one’s to blame. These DC bureaucrats weren’t cold, naïve boors. They were offered art without a frame. Or, “Sort of like handing out expensive wine from a cart in plastic cups” as described by ‘Daniel from Tel Aviv’ in Weingarten’s post Post post Q&A discussion. Without context, it’s extremely difficult to gain someone’s attention, let alone money.


Only a very specific person would be drawn to art without a frame. This is marketing with only one of the Ps (Product, Price, Place, Promotion). To the salesman in me, this is like trying to sell the ‘what’ without first providing the ‘why.’ As someone who works with websites, this is exactly why we are often educating marketers and executives on the value of content marketing and relational content... because in today’s culture of oblivious focus, it is not content that is king, but rather context. 

-----------

*Reluctantly linking to the Nonnenmacher plagiarism 

20 steps to a strategic sales plan for a territory



An executive recruiter recently asked me "How do you go about building a strategic plan for your territory?"  Having never really articulated this before, I probably came across a little scatterbrained, although the interview seemed to go well.  As soon as I got a chance to sit down at the computer, I took some time to write down what I should have said.

Have a look, and let me know if I forgot anything...

Image by Scott Chan - Thanks Scott!

1) Clearly define territory.

2) Identify top current accounts and top competitor accounts in the territory. 

a) What makes them good accounts? What do they have in common?

b) Who were the key decision makers and influencers? Who do they have in common (outside influencers)?

c) What products/services are they not using and why not?

3) Based on data from 2a, identify top prospects in territory and learn everything about them, their industries, their executives, and their buying process.

4) Based on data from 2b, identify key decision makers within top prospect organizations, and start to develop an individual value proposition for each.

5) Using data from 2b, and my network, identify a few non-decision maker contacts and best method to contact each.

6) Set information gathering objectives (how are critical processes handled, what are their current and future priorities and plans, who/what am I up against), what's in it for them, and make contact.

7) Build trust and rapport, qualify organization, and confirm key decision makers.  If necessary and aligned with this initial contact's scope, ask for they're support.

8)  More research - dig into new information gathered

a) Identify selling points of me vs. competition.  Based on this, identify key criteria that each decision maker must require to select me.

b) Diagnose potential needs and problems and list they're symptoms.

c) Develop ROI statement, may differ for each decision maker

9) Reach out to decision makers to get a meeting, using symptoms and ROI.  Upon scheduling, if possible, get them to confirm key criteria identified in 8a

10) More research, create presentation using all relevant data gathered.  Develop a list of questions to ask that focus on keeping solution necessary, simple, and relevant to the decision maker's priorities.

11) Make the call(s) - ask the questions, keeping presentation of company and solutions to a minimum

a) Move them to articulate pains and/or opportunities, urgency, and priorities.

b) Don't present a solution, rather, a diagnosis. 

c) Close with something like "If we were able to present a solution that could quickly solve X, Y, and Z while [8a criteria] and give an ROI of at least __ within __, would we be able to move by [date]?"  

   - If no, what else needs to happen? 

   - If yes, what steps do we need to take (identify logistical obstacles)?  Generally, at this point, they'll say they need to run it past some people or do their due diligence, etc.

d) Schedule follow-up date and time, or get a deadline for delivery of proposal/presentation and follow-up date. 

12) Fine tune proposal and script out presentation based on new information gathered from Decision Makers.  Include cost benefit data, feedback loops, milestones, how success will be measured and when, follow-up process.

13) Present and negotiate.

14) Determine additional critical players in implementation internally and externally (including non-essential members of revenue-driving departments), and proactively contact to champion project.

15) Get agreement in place; send multiple confirmations with next steps.

16) Ensure excellent account management/customer service while implementing follow up process/meeting milestones.

17) Use this constant contact to determine other areas for opportunity within the organization, gain referrals and testimonials.

18) Once vision is realized (or failed), ask for feedback.

19) Rinse. 

20) Repeat.