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If, for a profession, you lend money to people (for the big loanshark fanbase reading, 320% interest is not cool!) then finding out that a customer is looking to expand or fund a project is probably very useful to you. If it isn't, maybe you should try a different profession. But for me, sales intelligence doesn't stop there. Of course, that is a pretty solid example of a 'lead' or sales trigger. But automated media monitoring can also provide a more subtle edge, one which may not seem as important, but fundamentally can make or break a deal. Example: A lender looking after a small company was recently alerted to the fact that the boss of the organisation was doing a skydive for charity after being alerted to it in a local paper he'd simply never normally read.Now, that seems fairly irrelevant. But if you're competing with a rival for this companie's business, and you can start a free flowing conversation about the dive and the day, how much they raised for Charity etc, who comes off looking the better? That's a personal relationship you're forming with that person. When it comes down to it, who are they likely to remember best? You've shown commitment and interest above the call of duty. Business based or not, that can surely only be a good thing?
When in doubt, do what Rocky would doI'm a regular reader of Paul Castain's Sales playbook, a blog which I highly recommend (just so long as you come right back here afterwards...) and I was really struck by a story from his post yesterday.Running down a list of best practises to love your customers one point, if you'll forgive the plagiarising paragraph, noted a piece of brilliant customer service at Disneyland:"We went to a dinner show one night and the waitress was visibly hustling from table to table. Somewhere in the mix, she forgot my son’s lemonade. When she returned to our table, my son very respectfully called it to her attention. She immediately apologized (doesn’t that have a way of immediately diffusing a situation?) and said “Wait until you see how we fix things when we make mistakes at Disney” What happened next blew my mind. She returned with an entire pitcher of lemonade (complete with a very cool straw and glow cubes). So let me see if I get this. What was once a mistake has now turned into a “Wow”?"This is exactly why responding to customer wants and needs is so important. A criticism or a disappointment should not be taken as a negative. It should be a challenge, an obstacle to overcome which will ultimately make your product stronger. Whilst it can sometimes be difficult to take a lot of criticism, it is ultimately how you respond to the challenge that builds strong customer bonds.
Daily...Yes, daily 247 billion emails are sent. By 2013 that'll be 507 billion. Daily!! For those who want to see that in digits, that's 507,000,000,000,000 (in English terms). Those of you who set up daily alerts, be it Google alerts, site specific feeds or general subscriptions know it is all too easy to skim over your daily intake. And why shouldn't you? It's an easy habit to get into, just to spot the formulaic mail and gloss over it, missing the key detail. It is simply not plausible to keep interested in so much noise (I find 9/10 stories from a Google alert are completely irrelevant).We're now developing a system that allows greater personalisation to an alert than ever. The user can not only match a company with a topic (say mergers and acquisitions) but they can also choose, based on noise volumes, when that news is important enough to be alerted to it. That is an incredibly powerful tool. And having everything relevant in one alert means you don't gloss over the detail. And more importantly, you set the ground rules, so if it's in the inbox, you know it's important. 247 billion emails or not, there is only one you need to check every morning.
A ridiculous conversation got my mind racing this morning. I was debating the key elements of my manifesto should I form a party and run for parliament (as you do). One of my main policies was to scrap bank holidays and instead deploy a system where if the sun is shining brightly and the temperature hits a certain level before 7am the day is declared a national holiday, thus letting everyone enjoy the day and not worry about being rained on during a long weekend stuck in a Cornish tent (not that I'm drawing upon personal experience). Then I thought about the recent volcanic chaos that saw Eurostar hike their prices to near mortgage levels, something they'd only previously done during the summer holiday weeks. Everything now is reactive, not formulaic. Everywhere you look people are acting on events. An England fan has become so disillusioned by stories of expensive hotels in South Africa that he's bought his own property in Cape Town and claims to have already recouped most of the money from supporters willing to pitch tents in the garden and book out the spare rooms for 4 weeks. A business decision is so much more effective when it has something to work off, an action or event it can respond to. So whilst, its probably safe to say you shouldn't be voting for me just yet - as soon as I sort this whole budget thing out I'll let you know and we can get serious - it is certainly worth considering being far more reactive in day to day affairs.
Before we venture into the important stuff I just want to bask in the glory of my glorious headline, effortlessly summarising the news that Salesforce have acquired the company Jigsaw for a $142 million price tag. Other titles considered included 'Salesforce completes the jigsaw (acquisition)' and 'Saleforce find missing piece of the puzzle'... I thank you. Moving on from my pun related arrogance, yes, this is the news that the contact data provided by Jigsaw will now form part of Salesforce's ever increasing functionality. It is sure to be a popular acquisition with users, although sadly you no longer get paid for uploading contact details :( Spoil sports.Whilst it is certain to add another string to Saleforce's bow, as I've preached on here for a long while now, although the contact is useful, it is ultimately the reason for contact that helps along the sales process. Having a gem of insight that can be used as a reason for your call is what gets the attention. Knowing a number is one thing, bringing relevance to a call is another.
Watching the Andrew Marr show yesterday (does anyone else find the opening credits completely ridiculous? You host a talk show, not a M16 operation!) I heard one of the guests -apologies, I wasn't paying enough attention at the time, to busy laughing at the credits - saying this election campaign had bought back the importance of telvision. The argument was solely based on the debate coverage and shots of candidates running round consituencies shaking the hands of anyone who came within ten yards of them.But to say this has been a TV campaign would be wrong. I have never seen so much hype over an election, and it's not because 3 guys stood in front of a camera and talked utter garbage for 2 hours. It's down to how easy it is now for people to express and share opinions very easily using the web and real time tools. How many surveys have been around this year? Daily, hourly in fact. 'Lib Dems are winning according to Twitter', 'Labour catching up according to online poll', 'Raving Loony party odds on says Facebook data', it's relentless.With this much information available to digest it would be understandable if every spin doctor in the country just collapsed with exhaustion. The whole thing is chaos, and they have absolutely no idea what to target next. The real time update element has bought a huge bundle of policy messes and to be honest, it might as well be a flick of the coin now. It's just another example to indicate, if we want real time web, we need tools able to handle the overload. Otherwise, we could be left with a loony majority yet.
Those familiar with the DailyMash would have enjoyed the headline 'Fears Grow that massive ash cloud may be unable to prevent tonight's leader debate'. It somewhat terrifies me just how much seems to be resting on the events of this evening. I heard someone say it was the ultimate chance for the leaders to sell themselves, their beliefs, their product. But it's not a sales pitch at all, it's a complete fake. It's not the endless rehearsals, the line learning, the posture training that bothers me (although I would love to have been a fly on the wall watching Gordon Brown learn how to walk powerfully). These are all signs that you're taking the pitch seriously. Preparation is everything after all. No, what bothers me is that the whole thing is staged, with leaders only answering questions they themselves have set. That's like walking into a sales meeting and asking 'can you avoid these areas please? We're still a little ropey on those.'You'll hear 100 times daily that the key to a successful sale is listening to the needs of the customer. How can you listen when you won't let them say what they want to say? Listening, adapting and implementing the desired change is what makes a deal worthwhile, so cutting out the first stage seems somewhat ridiculous to me. So whilst tomorrow morning, party officials will be raising their hands in triumph, like a boxer claiming the points victory after the last bell has rung, there will be no winners, only disillusioned politicians and frustrated customers.
It came to my attention today that a company called Info-Tech Research group are looking for orginisations, who have been involved with vendor selection relating to automated lead management software, to complete a short three minute survey on the 'drivers' they used when selecting vendors and their overall general experiences. Seeing as I'll be very interested in the results of the report (self interest at it's finest) I thought I'd do my bit and point anyone interested in participating in the right direction. You can find out more information hereJob done, awareness raised, I look forward to finding out the results.
I read two very differing blog posts today, both with the same underlying message but one laying the blame at one door and the other chucking the responsibility straight back in the other direction. Post A suggested that corporate managers were not providing their sales people with enough support, thus companies were losing key customer opportunities (they even spouted the figure that 90% of inquiries generated being ignored by sales people...I find that maybe a little far fetched). Post B believed it was the salesperson themselves to blame for this inefficiency, believing that if they wanted to be the best, then they had to put the time and dedication in to make sure that happened. So which argument do you side with?Very much sitting on the fence here, I was intrigued by both. But what it comes down to is that both managers and sales professionals should be exploiting technologies to make the whole process much easier for both. New techniques are driven from the top and yes, corporate managers should be looking at new methods to support their team. Similarly, once the tools are provided to make the job simpler, sales teams should be making the most out of whats on offer to them. It's very much a two way street but a street, nonetheless, which is extremely manageable using the right processes.
Just stop and think to yourself a minute, how many times in the last month have you seen something similar to this:'Increase sales 100% using Facebook and Twitter!' Which, translated into reality actually means:'pay us lots of money and we'll tell you blindingly obvious facts that you probably already know!'Facebook and Twitter are not rocket science. They've been built up as this big barrier that companies have to engage with or face a slow, painful death, and I'm always hearing of million pound campaigns trying to exploit the platform, almost on a daily basis. I'm not claiming to be an expert here, in fact, far from it. I'd still like to use both sites to greater benefit for this blog but the fact is, Facebook and Twitter work because it's an easy place for people to highlight what they want. In the same way that picking up the phone and asking a customer what they need is useful. If you want to be really 1980's about write the customer a letter asking the very same thing. There is no hidden science behind the social networks, they're just simple ways to interact with customers and gage their needs. If you're good with conversation then you can probably master the social networking world, so my advice would be to not throw lots of money at someone who'll most likely tell you exactly the same thing.
Anyone got a 50p for the pay and display?If you're one of those poor people who parks their car on the M25 every morning around quarter to 9 then you've probably, almost certainly cast your eye over a big road map at least once in your life desperately looking for another route. You're looking for another route because you are absolutely sick to death of the current solution. In sales terms, if someone could offer you that other route you'd take it (probably hugging whoever could in the process and animatedly shaking your fist at all the other losers still stuck motionless on the M25). If however, by some minor miracle, the famous motorway/car park was somehow able to figure out a way of actually allowing cars to move and flow freely you'd probably be quite happy joining the road each day. You probably wouldn't want to look at other complicated routes, the current solution is working. Knowing when someone is unhappy with something is the ultimate sales trigger. Why sell to someone who doesn't want to be sold to? Filtering down those who do want a new solution not only saves you time but significantly improves the chance of gaining interest and a prospective new client. That said, anyone know a good route round the damn M25?
Hugh Grant may seem a strange answer but read onI recently got caught up in a bit of a dispute (court date pending) over what makes a trigger event useful and whether or not they could be used successfully both in prospecting and inside business intelligence. When I say a dispute, it's really for dramatic affect, I'm afraid it was all very amicable but nonetheless I've run home to my blog to have my say. Part of the debate centered around whether relying on sales triggers was more or less important than building solid relationships with customers. But see, in my opinion both come hand in hand. Take, for example, the classic social disaster of putting your foot in it. Asking a friend to go see the new romantic comedy at the cinema failing to realize they've had a fairly horrendous break up two days previously. Your relationship is likely to hit a bit of a wall, probably after several expletives are shared. If you had the knowledge of the breakup, you would actively avoid the rom com (despite your desperation to see Huw Grant get Sandra Bullock for the 18th time) and focus on the friend's needs, thus making you look much better in their eyes. This is the same in business. If a bank calls a company after hearing they're set to expand, they probably stand a better chance of matching that companie's need than if they phoned them say, out of the blue, not hearing the news that they'd just received a £500,000 grant. Thus, the relationship between client and company is much stronger, you've met their needs at a crucial time and they appreciate it. So to separate strong customer bonds and sales triggers would be unfair. The sales triggers inside business intelligence is what builds the bond, not compensate for it.
