Posted by David English on Mon, Jul 26, 2010 @ 07:32 AM
Dave Brown, principle consultant for Ridge Consulting (a sister company of TSL Marketing) recently wrote an article published in ConsultingMag.com on the importance of catching your prospects attention and finding a way to create an uncontested value proposition for your company.
Here is an excerpt from this article:
The Problem
"In all aspects of our work, we constantly switch between heuristic and analytical problem solving techniques: the gut feel and the data gathering. And so do our sales prospects and clients. Yet, in many interactions in the sales process, the tendency is to dwell almost completely in the analytical realm. Most sales presentations, webinars and seminars are data-fueled pitches that fill the audience with all kinds of facts and stats. They start with the “features,” move on to the “benefits,” and end with a crescendo of “advantages.” There’s talk about time to benefit, TCO and ROI.
There are graphs, pie charts and magic quadrants. The analytical input is overwhelming. The audience is seen as passive pawns. Give them the right information, show them how your products or services are faster, better, cheaper and bigger than your competition, and they’ll buy. Unfortunately, it doesn’t work that way. Chances are that your clients don’t have the time or interest to wade through the information that is being thrown their way. While you’re delivering that well-crafted pitch, your prospects’ attention is probably wandering, fading in and out, depending on their level of interest or concern. This happens to even the best presenters and best-prepared presentations. Why?
You’re hitting your audience at an analytical level, while they’re operating heuristically. While you’re explaining some well researched statistics, they’re thinking: “I get it already! But will it solve my problem? How much will it cost? How fast can I deploy? What are the risks?”"
The Solution
Learn more about how Dave Brown offers solutions through getting into the mind of your prospect. You can read the full article by clicking here.
Posted by Tara Robertson on Fri, Jul 16, 2010 @ 12:29 PM
It never seems more important to find ways to increase productivity than in the summer months. After all, the sun is shining (usually), the grass is green (most of the time), and your friends and family are calling. So who wants to sit behind a computer and work the days (and often nights) away?
I recently ran across an article that showed how one woman was able to increase work productivity through 11 simple steps. I thought I would share some of the top steps with you that have worked for me in the past and provide our own insight into how you can use these to better manage your productivity in the coming months:
- Respect your time: It is easy to plan your day with a certain "schedule" in mind. However we all know this schedule will most likely be pushed back for last minute projects, conference calls, and many, many, MANY other things. Try to respect your time. When someone asks you for something ask them "is it urgent." You'll find that most of the time, it can wait. This will help you respect your time and your schedule and get more done.
- Schedule time for email: Email can easily turn into a full time job if you are not managing when/how to respond to emails appropriately. To avoid the need to constantly respond to incoming emails, try turning it off for a few hours a day and only responding to emails during designated hours.
- No calls/meetings without a purpose: We all do it. The need to schedule a meeting and leave that meeting with no end result. If you can't craft up an agenda and leave with action items, your meeting can probably wait.
- Forcing people (and yourself) to find the point: It's a fact, we all ramble from time to time. This makes meetings (see above) last longer than necessary and tends to leave many people confused at the end. When making a point, make it, and move on. Try to help your colleagues do this as well!
- Leave that mobile device away while working: In this day and age it is easy to be working off of 2 if not 5 different pieces of technology. One that can be put aside is your cell. Your email is being checked and most likely that text message can wait.
- Cut off personal conversation during working hours: It is easy to get pulled into endless conversations that have nothing to do with what you are working on. While it is important to be able to talk with your colleagues and take time for a break during the day, one conversation can easily turn into 10. Try to avoid personal conversations when your schedule is slammed.
- Only do what's important: Even though that one project seems way more fun, it's not always what's important. Try to prioritize your projects by "need to do, "have to do" and "want to do." This will help you prioritize your schedule and get the most important things done on a daily basis. It's usually ok if your "want to do" projects take a few weeks.
- Having an actual life: While we are all working towards this with all of the steps above, I can't emphasize how important it is to make sure you make time for you. Stress can be one of the biggest causes for loosing productivity and if you make time for you, your level of stress is likely to be much lower than if you work around the clock.
So there you have it. These tips worked for people all over the globe, so why not you! You can read the original article with alternate feedback on how to use these tips by clicking here.
Posted by Norma Shepardson on Thu, Apr 29, 2010 @ 04:06 PM
This coming week TSL Marketing will be sponsoring the MarketingProfs B2B Forum. We are excited for the event, and if you are planning on being there stop by booth 17 to say hello.
These are a few event highlights...
- Get a comprehensive B2B marketing education
- Sharpen your B2B skills overnight
- Use social media to grab more attention
- Learn from your peers in the interactive discussions
If you want to view full agenda for the Forum, click here.
We definitely are looking forward to hosting the Wii station at the Forum, it should be a fun way to see everyone between sessions, seminars, and speakers. If you are planning on attending, stop by and enter the raffle for a chance to win the Wii at the end of the day on Wednesday.
If you are unable to attend the forum, check back in the coming weeks and we will be sure to share some of the new information, marketing trends, and sales advice we will learn about while we are there.
Event details can be found by logging on to the MarketingProfs website, or by clicking here.
Posted by Tara Robertson on Mon, Dec 07, 2009 @ 11:32 AM
As we move into 2010, selling effectively is a key aspect to overall business growth and success. This week we decided to use a cartoon everyone is familiar with to compare the simple use of selling an "O" to some of our proven effective sales techniques.
Now that you have watched the video, let's dive a little deeper into some of the techniques Lefty the Letter Salesman is using on Ernie and compare that to modern day selling:
Qualify your prospects - As simple as this is, one of the top reasons sales personnel do not have high close rates is due to bad data or incorrect prospects. In this video, Lefty knows that Ernie is his "ideal" customer, therefore he is headed right for the decision maker. However, if Lefty was selling to The Count, (who we all know is a "numbers" man) his prospect would not be a qualified fit. Here are some easy tips to help you qualify before you start selling:
- Have a profile of your ideal customer.
- Have a set of criteria that customer's must meet before you sell to them.
A Compelling Offer - Every product and/or service usually has something more to offer than the basic sale. For example, at TSL we don't offer just leads but also a database of business intelligence gathered, additional marketing services, and service level agreements. For hardware you may not just offer a server but also a secure system, backup capabilities, or lifespan guarantees. Here are some simple but effective offers Lefty used in his pitch:
- You can sing a pretty song with it like so...
- 2 sounds for the price of 1: Olive, Ostrich or Ocean, Old, Opening
- Looks just like a donut really good enough to eat
With all of the additional offers Lefty goes through, an O really does seem like more than just an "O."
Create a Sense of Urgency - In 2009 our economy created sense of "waiting" to make new purchases and therefore altered sales stages for companies across the board. While it looks like buying in 2010 will be more aggressive, decision makers are still hesitant by nature to buy. This is where a sense of urgency is needed in order to close the sale. Lefty simply says "It's not often that I offer," which then leads Ernie to believe that if he doesn't purchase, he may just loose the opportunity to buy.
The Proposal - The last technique used in this video is the proposal stage. While we don't actually see Ernie purchase his O, Lefty uses a couple proposal techniques that intrigue the buyer to buy. Here they are:
- It will cost you just a nickel - While a nickel certainly is a small number to us think of the audience Sesame Street caters towards. A nickel when you are a kid can actually be a shiny new coin that you may not want to part with. However, by creating a sense or urgency and discussing the compelling offers behind the many uses of an O, "just" a nickel makes this out to be a great sale. This is based on the theory "you get all of this for the price of just that."
- Buy the O and take it home tonight - In any sale you should be sure that you have a timeline planned out for service and/or product implementation. Be sure that whatever you are selling (whether it be an immediate purchase or longer term implementation) you properly outline the timeline for your prospect and walk them through this together.
We hope these small steps will help your sales techniques as you move into 2010.
Posted by Tara Robertson on Tue, Nov 17, 2009 @ 12:57 PM
As 2009 is nearing its end and the holiday's are upon us, determining the best way to go to market for 2010 is on everyone's mind. TSL is in the process of collecting research from various sources to put together this coming years 2010 trend report. We are interested in hearing from you on what you think will be the best way to go to market this January. Here are the top 5 questions we have come across:
- Will Social Media continue to grow at a fast pace?
- Seminars vs. Webinars - what is your preference?
- Are tradeshow sponsorships worth it?
- Direct Mail - why send snail mail?
- Should you use an avatar?
Feel free to answer these questions or ask your own. We would also like to hear your insight as to what you think will be a top trend in 2010. Be sure to leave your name and email address so that we may share our final trend report with you as soon as it is released.
To check out our Top 5 Marketing Trends for 2009, click here
Thanks for sharing!
Posted by Tara Robertson on Mon, Oct 12, 2009 @ 08:24 AM
If you are anything like TSL, these past couple of months have been swamped! When things such as planning for the end of 2009 and start of 2010 happen, the little things (such as blogs, twitter, linkedin, and social media sites in general) tend to suffer. TSL has put together 3 steps to effective social networking in less than 1 hour per week:
- Blog - Take 10 minutes and brainstorm your next 3 months of blog posts. Instead of trying to come up with a topic on a weekly basis, spend 10 minutes to sit down and think up the hot topics that you will want to write about in the coming weeks. You will soon find that writing a blog will be as easy as picking a topic out of a hat and writing away! When you take the time away from brainstorming you will find your blogging to be quite seamless and should take no more than 20 minutes per post.
- Twitter - Tweet in the morning. For all new followers, TSL sends a thank you along with a link to subscribe to our B2B email newsletters for top marketing trends and tips. Spend an extra minute after responding to new followers and throw up a "marketing tip" or re-tweet something you see that is memorable. This will only take 5 minutes out of your day and will help continue to build your social network substantially.
- LinkedIn - While starting new discussions, responding to discussions, and partaking in relevant industry topics can really build your name and your company on linkedin, it can also be incredibly time consuming. To save time in the next few months, limit your LinkedIn discssions to sharing your blog posts, email newsletters, press releases, and other relevant marketing material through groups. While it is good to also join other discussions, when time if of the essence, getting your material out there and responding to questions directed to you will take up the least amount of time (no more than 10 minutes a week).
I hope these steps will help you manage your time and also allow your social sites to no longer suffer!
Posted by Tara Donnelly on Fri, Jan 30, 2009 @ 02:19 PM
I recently met up with Dave Brown, the principle consultant for Ridge Global Marketing (a premier partner of TSL's) who mentioned to me that he was writing an article regarding tips to landing a new job even with the economic downturn. As several people have been reaching out to myself and my colleagues looking for new job opportunities due to recent layoffs within their company, or upcoming "re-organizations;" I figured what better than to share this article with TSL's universe and show that their can be light at the end of the tunnel.
David Brown; Principal Consultant for Ridge Global Marketing writes:
According to TechCrunch's Layoff Tracker, nearly 120,000 employees in the tech sector have lost their jobs since August 27, 2008. And the number is growing. As a result of the current economic climate, many Professional Services Leaders who once considered their jobs safe are now finding themselves back in the job market. It’s an uphill slog to be sure, with few open slots and many experienced candidates dusting off their resumes and targeting the next opportunity. Not only is it a buyer’s market but competition among world-class candidates is fierce. With this in mind, I was recently asked to consider the following: In order to differentiate ourselves in the job market, can we package and sell ourselves in the same way that organizations sell a product or service? Is it possible to architect and execute a sales campaign for ourselves? Can we in effect sell “Corporate Me” into the career market?
