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Bitcoin and The Basics of Blockchain

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bitcoin and blockchain

I wrote this post about Bitcoin and Blockchain back in 2017, but with the continued flurry of interest in Blockchain, I’ve updated it.

Yesterday James Surowiecki published The Bitocin Dream is Dead, a thorough review of why the cryptocurrency Bitcoin never truly became a currency. Instead, it has become a speculative asset, as people hoard it simply to wait until they can sell it at a tremendous profit.

There Has Always Been Concern

In September of 2017, Jamie Dimon, CEO of JP Morgan, made waves when he called Bitcoin, a cryptocurrency, a “fraud.” He also said it was “just not a real thing,” and predicted that eventually it would be closed. This all happened at the Delivering Alpha conference that CNBC and Institutional Investor presented. Dimon said many negative things about the cryptocurrency, comparing it to the tulip craze of the 1600s. His comments impacted Bitcoin, and the cryptocurrency plunged in value.

If you have been watching Bitcoin over the past five years, your first reaction may be “of course Dimon didn’t want Bitcoin to be successful; it has the power to drastically disrupt traditional financial institutions. Blockchain, the software Bitcoin utilizes, may very well do to banking what Uber did to the taxi industry. It stands to reason that Dimon wants it to be a mirage, and his statements certainly frightened investors. He was prophesying something he has the power to help make real; the demise of Bitcoin.

Or is he? Investopia reported that “JP Morgan reportedly bought up XBT shares for exchange-traded notes that track the price of Bitcoin.” So, after Damon ridicules Bitcoin from his position of power, JPMorgan bought XBT shares on September 15 that same year. 

Dillon Wasn’t The Only Drag on Bitcoin

Bitcoin has been valued based on supply and demand. There was a huge rush of investors early on, and the cryptocurrency has seen spikes periodically. Back in 2017, Dimon may have had an impact on Bitcoin’s value, but there’ was a lot more pressing the cryptocurrency’s value down. The Wall Street Journal reported that Chinese authorities are set to ban trading of cryptocurrencies. Bitcoin dropped 20 percent that September.

One can certainly question the motives of Dimon and the Chinese government. Investment in Bitcoin protects investors in volatile economies. Some in China have concerns about the Yen failing, and areas of Southeast Asia that have long struggled with untrustworthy currency see Bitcoin as a safer alternative than the financial institutions they don’t trust.

What Other Experts Say

Other financial experts didn’t waste time calling Dimon out for his statements on Bitcoin. Laura Shin, the Forbes Senior Editor for Crypto and Blockchain Technology, wrote an excoriating “open letter” to Dimon. In it, she describes the “depth of ignorance” Dimon expressed. Shin laughs at the idea that Bitcoin could be “closed,” and calls the idea “absurd.” Shin points out that Bitcoin is running on 9,000 nodes all over the world, with myriad governmental oversight, making it close to impossible that all of those governments would “close” Bitcoin down simultaneously. She closes by pointing out the hypocrisy of JPMorgan buying $350,000 work of XBT shares.

On Bloomberg View Aaron Brown described the beginning of Bitcoin in 2009 and why it grew in popularity by solving the “problems of the existing money and banking system: inflation, expropriation, taxes, use restrictions, financial repression and fees, especially for small and cross-border transactions.” He describes the monetization of Bitcoin and how its value is based on projections of future problems it will solve. He states “If this be fraud, all money is fraud.”

Ari Paul,co-founder of BlockTower Capital, told CNBC that Bitcoin has the potential to replace offshore Swiss and Cayman bank accounts. JPMorgan and other institutions that have opened these accounts for their clients stand to lose trillions of dollars.

No financial expert can predict the future of Bitcoin or other crypto-currencies, but when a CEO of a traditional financial institution rails against it, taking it with a healthy dose of skepticism is not unwise.

It’s Blockchain, Not Bitcoin, That Really Matters

Blockchain, the software that makes Bitcoin possible, is the technology that stands to transform the financial industry. Commonly called a public ledger, blockchain has the real potential to transform banking in regions where banks are not fully trusted and where currency value is volatile. It was created in 2008 by Satoshi Nakamoto and functions as a distributed database of ordered records called “blocks.” Each block has a timestamp and links to a previous block. Once data is recorded, the data in a block cannot be altered retroactively. 

Blockchain serves as a distributed ledger that records transactions between two parties in an verifiable and permanent way. It is hosted by millions of computers and is accessible to anyone on the internet. With no central server or need for “access control,” hackers cannot access a central version of the data since the blockchain database isn’t stored in one place. It is an extremely secure public ledger, and in regions like Southeast Asia and Subsaharan Africa where banks are not fully trusted, the potential to create a trustworthy, impenetrable banking system can transform the industry.

Interestingly, JP built its own blockchain, called Quorum, built on the crypto-network Ethereum. A primary and important difference is that not just anyone can join Quorum; it is permission based. Financial institutions hold up blockchain as a way to cut costs, but it is clear that they understand the potential for transformation blockchain possesses. People don’t like change, no matter their industry, but when you head a financial institution that is one of the largest and most powerful in the world, it’s understandable why disruption might concern you. The financial sector will be watching the continued journey of Bitcoin and Blockchain closely, and trying to ensure their place in the future of cryptocurrency.

Photo by Micheile Henderson on Unsplash

Great Content Is Not Cheap

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Writing is a highly specialized skill. Master craftspeople take years to develop these skills, and they don’t give their work away for pennies. Upwork and other freelancing platforms have caused many to believe that all content is basically equal, and cheap. If you’ve ever tried to build organic SEO and a blog audience from scratch, you know that this is bunk.

Writing for Your Target Audience

Unless you’re marketing a commodity product that everyone uses, like toilet paper, your content requires an author who is in the community you’re aiming for. They need to understand what moves/entices/interests your audience or they won’t be able to appeal to them. They need to be able to speak (in written form) in a way that legitimizes their content to that specific audience. The more sophisticated your audience, the more highly skilled the writer needed, the more you should value the content.

Jacks of All Trades Master None

One indicator that your content strategy will fail is if the entire process falls to one individual. Can you be a great content strategist, digital marketer, community manager, and content creator at the same time? No. There just isn’t enough time to do all of them well and produce quality content at the cadence necessary to hold an audience.

Creating great, targeted content takes time – time to research, time to write, and time to edit, repeatedly. Great content is succinct and clear, and that takes time to work.

So the writer who breeds
more words than he needs
is making a chore
for the reader who reads.

Dr. Seuss

And, it is an impossible thing to edit yourself well; your mind tricks your eyes into seeing what is supposed to be there, and mistakes are overlooked. Great writing goes through a process, and that process requires a team of professionals. Guess what that means? Great writing costs money.

There is a Payoff

Think of writing as an investment. Great pieces of content stand the test of time in most circumstances. The price you pay today for a solid piece will bring you traffic now and in the future if it’s correctly targeting your audience, of interest to them, and written in a language they appreciate.

Photo by Raquel Martínez on Unsplash

Beware of Industry Jargon

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I recently took a new sales manager position in an awesome office technology company. Although I’m a seasoned B2B salesperson, this is an entirely new industry for me. I spent the early years of my career in manufacturing, and the past 10 in social media and marketing. It’s good to be back in the role I am meant for – working with business owners and decision-makers and helping them become more efficient and sharper. I’m comfortable, mostly.

One thing I’m not comfortable with is the industry lingo that flies all around me. And I don’t ever want to become comfortable with it. People who sell products and services often need shorthand terminology to get to the point quickly. That is totally understandable, but salespeople often become too comfortable (and lazy) with their own industry language, to the point that they assume their customers and prospects are just as comfortable. Admittedly, some of them are, but I bet my bottom dollar that many of the people you talk to in your sales role have no idea what many of your industry jargon words mean.

Coming into an industry totally ignorant of the jargon made it very clear to me how much of it is used. For shortcuts internally, it’s great, but be careful not to speak jargon when calling on prospects. They won’t tell you what they don’t know, and you’ll miss out on all sorts of customer cues and entire conversations because you will make a classic sales mistake: assuming you know exactly where your customer is in their buying process.

Slow down. Speak plain English. And leave the jargon out of it.

Photo by Matthew Brodeur on Unsplash

Practice to Not Sound Practiced

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I am the world’s biggest fan of the phone and cold calling. What I know is that, as Anthony Ianarrino often says, the phone is the fastest and least expensive way to a new customer. It has become even more powerful in the last decade or so as gutless “salespeople” turn to digital methods where rejection isn’t as cutting or quick. How much can an ignored email hurt? Not much, but being rejected verbally? That can sting.

What smart, successful salespeople will tell you is that the phone is second only to a face to face meeting. Connecting via voice makes you far more human to your prospect. Intonation and emotion are not transferrable via text.

Why Some People Fail on the Phone

Building rapport and getting a meeting via the phone is an art form, and like all forms of art, practice makes you better. Overcoming nervousness while cold calling happens through repetition. However, practice should not be a mindless activity. The danger in practicing mindlessly is that you may stop being present, and when that happens, you stop being real.

Everyone hates robocalls. To this day I have yet to hear anyone describe a robocall that caused them to take action. A salesperson who sounds stilted and rote is not much better than a machine, and humans do not connect with machines. They may LOVE machines, like the one you’re reading this on, but machines do not create emotional, trust-based relationships with humans. Don’t behave like one on your call.

The way to practice without sounding practiced is to rehearse not only your script but by practicing sounding authentic and connecting with your prospect. Humor can work wonders, and so can a pledge to not waste your prospect’s time. Offer something of value that makes your call worth taking (information that will help their business for instance), and be present, sound human, and don’t treat them like one of a hundred calls you’ll be making today, even if they are.

The Basics to Get Your Blog Off the Ground

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My work puts me in contact with small business owners and solopreneurs on a regular basis. The vast majority of them wear many hats, one of the most important being sales and marketing. Too many of them are overwhelmed when it comes to digital marketing. Creating a comprehensive digital marketing plan for your small business is necessary, but it doesn’t have to be overwhelming. You can take one step at a time. My best advice for small business on small budgets is to do two things: create a targeted Facebook advertising campaign, and get blogging.

I am not a Facebook advertising specialist, but I know one of the very best out there and can refer you. I am a content marketing specialist, which means I know how to set up a blog and make it thrive. If you’re just getting started, here are the steps you need to take:

  1. Make sure they can find it. People will not search around for your blog. They are not dying to read it, at least not when you first start out. Make it easy to find on your site.
  2. Have a sign-up form for your blog. If you’re writing good stuff, your readers will want to come back. Make that easy for them to do by creating a very visible sign-up form or pop-up.
  3. Don’t make it tough to read. Light gray, tiny font may be all the rage with trendy web designers, but it’s ridiculously difficult to read. You have seconds to capture your reader’s attention. Don’t make them work extra hard to consume your content.
  4. Create a cohesive strategy. Like any marketing campaign or device, you need a strategy for how your blog will work. What does your monthly and yearly calendar look like? What are the best days to blog, and what key events should you touch on during the year?
  5. Yes, you can do this. One of the most common comments I hear from those considering a blog is “I don’t know what to write about.” The answer is simple: write posts on the things your customers want to know about. If you’re in a tourist area, write about local events. If your business is service-oriented, write informational or instructional posts. And keep notes when ideas pop into your head. You have more inspiration than you think you do.
  6. Do it regularly. The key issue many businesses struggle with regarding their blog is sticking with it. If you seriously intend on using your blog to market your brand, you must be disciplined enough to write regularly, and that means once a week, minimum.
  7. Write at least 300 words. Many content marketers will tell you to write 1200 words or more, but you don’t need to write that many words. You’re likely not trying to take over the internet. Rather, you are trying to build your own audience. Anything less than 300 words won’t rank with Google. In most cases, anything too much longer won’t be read by your busy customers.
  8. Pay attention to what they like. Once you get some content out there you can keep an eye on what your readers are responding to. Installing Google Analytics helps you track what gets the most visits on your site. You can refine your content based on reader response.
  9. Encourage people to share. You’re writing to raise brand awareness. It’s great that you have a reader, but make sure you encourage them to spread the word too. I like share buttons and the top and bottom of posts so that readers don’t have to search for them.

One of my clients has written every single day for over six years. Every. Single. Day. His posts often are around 300 words, and over the past 6 years, he’s built an email list of over 64,000 people. Because he is consistent, and because he publishes really good stuff, he has been able to use content marketing to explode his business. That sort of success is entirely possible for you, too. All you need is discipline and a strategy.

If you have any questions or would like guidance, email me.

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John Adams: A Flawed Hero

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script of words Fallible Hero

On this 4th of July as Americans celebrate the birth of their nation, much attention will go to the eloquence of Thomas Jefferson. The words he wrote in the Declaration of Independence will be spoken about in reverential tones. Over the years, Jefferson has become one of the most celebrated of our Founding Fathers. He is certainly not my favorite.

John Adams is far more my cup of tea. Adamant about his own moral beliefs and unafraid to be unpopular, Adams lacked Jefferson’s charm and has long dwelt in his shadow. Both men famously died on the same day, July 4th, 1826, within five hours of each other. Frenemies til the end, Adam’s mistaken last words were

Jefferson still survives.

Simple and Undervalued

David McCullough’s popular 2001 biography of Adams finally brought our second President some of the attention he deserves as a political philosopher. He is finally given credit for the foundation of much of the thought behind Jefferson’s famous words. Yet he is still little known to many Americans.

Unlike Jefferson’s decadent lifestyle, Adams lived a very simple New England life. A descendant of Puritans and the son of a farmer, Adams had none of the flash, nor extreme wealth, of Jefferson. There would be no Monticello for Adams. Instead, after his political achievements and one term as president, Adams lived out his life quietly on his farm in Quincy with his wife Abigail.

Known for his irascible temper, Adams was also a moral and honest man. He never owned a slave and believed the institution of slavery to be immoral. Unlike Jefferson, who had affairs with married women, and children with at least one of his slaves, Adams was loyal to his beloved wife. Their relationship is remarkable for its time in that he truly saw Abigail as his partner and often sought her opinion on complex political challenges.

Our Heroes Are Flawed

It is a difficult thing to admit the fallibility of our heroes. Coming to terms with the fact that Adams, the Founding Father I respect so much, also made incredible mistakes is not something that came easily.

It meant making peace with the fact that, although Adams knew that slavery was immoral, he was not pro-abolition and instead advocated for a more gradual, less explosive winding down of the institution. Of course, this was political expediency put before eradicating an institution he knew to be morally corrupt. I’ve often wondered how much heartache for millions of slaves and our country as a whole would have avoided if Adams had been more forceful and put his moral beliefs ahead of politics as our Founding Fathers navigated the structure of the new country.

In 1798 Adams signed into law one of the nastiest pieces of legislation of our early years as a country, the Alien and Sedition Acts. They authorized the president to imprison or deport “aliens” considered dangerous and restricted free speech critical of the US government. Adams was squarely targeting newspapers and broadsides critical of his administration. This sort of behavior would be his downfall, and allow Jefferson to defeat him after serving only one term in the next election.

The concept of the fallible leader isn’t new; if we look deep enough into the life of anyone we respect we will find mistakes and flaws. But in the current culture of celebrity worship and blind adherence to “our side,” especially in this election year, it is wise to stop and think about the flaws of our heroes. Do Adams’ failings make me admire him less? Possibly, until I stop and consider my own life and the many mistakes I’ve made. There isn’t a single life that has been lived without blemish.

So I choose to continue to respect the good in John Adams, the wise, moral man who, like me, made a few profound mistakes.

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Photo credit: Realization via photopin (license).

This post originally ran on July 4th, 2016.

Use the Power of the Data You Already Have with CRM

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If the failure of many pollsters to accurately predict the results of the 2016 election taught us anything, it is that data, without unbiased interpretation, can be dead wrong. Data is supposed to reveal the truth, and truth is the very essence of successful marketing. Data marketers know this, and they also know that great marketing campaigns are built on one particular truth: whatever it is that really matters to your customer is what must drive the campaign. In order to know what really matters to them, you must know your customer. How can data help you do that?

Know more about your customer

The first rule of effective marketing is: know your customer. You must understand what touches them and what drives them to purchase. The best source of information in this regard is the customer you already have. You acquire this information through disciplined practices and the use of a customer relationship management (CRM) tool to build profiles of the people who are already buying your offering.

Implementing a CRM tool and using it in a disciplined manner allows you track exactly where your customer is in the buying cycle, and what prompts triggered their purchase. Stored in your CRM tool should be a wealth of data on your customers. What have they purchased, and when? What have they purchased more than once? What emails were ignored? Which moved them to buy? Did they call your customer service department? If so, what was the result?

Knowing what your best customers look like

External data can tell you a lot about the behavior of consumers in your area, people who may or may not be your customer. On our blogs, we have provided a lot of information on how age, gender, and even home zip codes can impact consumer behavior. This is all valuable information on potential customers passing by retail locations, but no external data will tell you as much as the information you already have about your most valuable customer: the one you already have.

If you’re just starting out and have little customer data, you can start building a picture of the customers you bring in with the first sale. A year from now, you will have learned a lot. External data will help give you an early understanding of your potential customers and thereby help attract new customers.

A CRM tool will help you track the details of who your customers are by logging age, gender, home zip code, purchasing habits, preferred methods of communication, and other information relevant to why and how they buy. This will allow you to build customer profiles so that you can go and find potential customers who share the same traits as your best existing customers.

Your Web site provides even more

Tools like Adobe Analytics and Google Analytics are a goldmine of information about what your customer likes and doesn’t like about your Web site. It tells you where they spend time, where they don’t, and can let you know when they back out of a sale. It will also tell you the following:

  • Where your customers are geographically
  • What keywords people are searching for on your site
  • What people click on most
  • What content they like the most
  • What content they aren’t interested in
  • Where they are when they abandon their cart and don’t purchase
  • What browsers your visitors are using
  • What keywords brought them to your site
  • How they’re viewing your site: mobile, desktop, or tablet
  • Who they are: age, gender, and interest categories

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Analytics is often overwhelming, but it is so incredibly valuable from a data perspective. Like your CRM tool, analytics can provide a wealth of information about the people who are already interested in your offering, and Google offers free courses to help you understand how to use it.

Merging all of the information

Through your CRM tool and Google Analytics, you have gathered a tremendous amount of insight into your existing customers. Now, what can you do with it all?

First, build a profile of your best customer types. Look for the similarities in the ones who spend the most money with you. What is your gender split? And what parts of your messaging appeals to which gender? What is the age range of your best customers? Where do they come from geographically? What products do they buy most often, and when do they purchase most? Answering these questions and creating an image of your best customer type can inform all of your marketing. You can also integrate your CRM information with Google Analytics to create Adwords remarketing.

You already have access to all of the information I’ve described. The power comes from you implementing a disciplined system to collect it in a format that is useful. Using an affordable Web-based CRM tool, like the solution SAP offers can help you harness your knowledge and find more customers like your best customers.

This post was originally published on digital.sap.com in December 2016.

The Truth About Sales Prospecting

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Do you have a regular flow of new prospects? Are you opening relationships with potential customers daily? Are you regularly connecting with new people who might be potential clients? Or maybe you’re just wasting a lot of time barking up the wrong tree.

If you want a healthy sales funnel, you need effective prospecting. In order to get it, you need to get to the bottom of what sales prospecting actually is.

What is Prospecting?

By definition, prospecting is the act of looking for new possibilities. Where sales is concerned, it is the act of opening new relationships. It is not the act of working on existing prospects with whom you have already connected. That is actual selling, and that’s important, but it’s not prospecting. When you prospect for business, you are connecting with new people and opening up new relationships.

The Urgent Need for Daily Prospecting

Without daily prospecting, your sales funnel will dry up and your business may falter. It’s as simple as that. There will be a million distractions pulling you away from this essential part of your job, but none of them are more important than this key step to sales success. You need to consciously embrace, not just accept but actually embrace, the idea that prospecting is a must-do item every single working day of your life, and some of your days off as well.

Set aside 30 minutes every day and guard that time like your life depends upon it, because your business does. Despite all of the other responsibilities that make demands on your time, you must hold the time you set aside for prospecting sacred.

Prospecting Comes in Many Forms

The beauty of the modern world is that there are countless ways to open new relationships with people. Gone are the days when you had to go out of your way physically to meet a new person. Real-life networking still has its place, but social media has opened up a world of possibilities for meeting potential clients. Just be careful to be as genuine as you can on social media; that means finding common ground to begin building relationships, not asking for a sales call as soon as you connect.

Your connections will be more authentic if you make them in the way that you’re most comfortable with. You may prefer to make them via email, social media, direct mail, referrals that you ask for, or even cold calling (one of the most powerful and underused forms of communication). Over time you will learn which methods are most effective for you.

Planning for Prospecting

Sales expert Anthony Iannarino often talks about using scripts in sales, an idea that makes some people step back. They think of awful experiences they’ve had with call centers interrupting them at home while a person drones on, obviously reading, but that isn’t what Anthony is talking about. Writing a script for what you are going to say does not mean you call the person up and read it in a robotic manner. It means that you do a lot of preparation in order to get your message across.

You have approximately 10 seconds on that first call to convince your prospect that you can bring value; you must use it wisely. Writing a script, and memorizing it, will help you use the right words and say exactly what you want to say. Preparation using a script does not make you robotic; it makes you efficient and on target.

It’s important to remember what your goal is in the first call. It is not to sell something. It is to build a relationship and learn about your prospect. It is to get a commitment for a second call during which you will show the person that you can provide even more value and help fix problems.

Prospecting Does So Much More Than You Think

Having disciplined prospecting built into your daily schedule does so much more than bring you new opportunities. It also keeps you from wasting time on bad prospects. When you don’t have new opportunities regularly flowing in, you may try to convert bad prospects out of desperation. Even if you are successful, these bad prospects usually turn into bad customers.

goodcustomermad2

If you step back and look at the big picture, the most important thing to remember is that regular prospecting keeps your business alive and healthy, because what every business needs to stay alive is new customers.

This post was originally published on digital.sap.com in November 2016.

Convert Better Customers Faster

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happy customer

There isn’t a business alive that doesn’t want more customers. That may be a bit of hyperbole. There are companies who are growing so fast that they need to onboard customers more slowly, but business is supposed to be about earning customers and getting sales. In fact, most businesses focus solely on growth. They measure success by year-over-year growth in sales. That growth is most often achieved by getting more customers.

The Answer Isn’t Always More Customers

You want to grow your business, but setting a goal to simply get more customers won’t always get you there. Some customers cost more money than others, or waste our most valuable resource, time. Although it goes against every one of our sales-hungry instincts, there are customers you are better off without, especially if you are a small organization with limited resources and manpower. You can’t afford to waste your employee’s valuable time on customers that don’t maximize your net earnings. So how do you avoid that?

The first step is to understand who your best customers are. To do that, you need to actually know your customers. Using a CRM (Customer Relationship Management) tool can simplify this by allowing you to quickly determine who your best customers are. Depending on your business, some important factors may differ, but no matter your industry, your best customers are the ones who buy from you the most frequently with the fewest complaints.

Your best customers are the ones who buy from you the most frequently with the fewest complaints.CLICK TO TWEET

Really Know the Top 20 Percent

It is an old sales adage that the top 20 percent of your customers produce 80 percent of your business. That adage endures because it is accurate. Your best customers are always the most certain route to more frequent, faster sales. With that in mind, in order to maximize your business you will have to do something that may cause you some anxiety; ignore customers that are nearer the bottom of your customer list.

For the purposes of this exercise, which is to increase sales, you won’t totally ignore the lesser customers. In order to go after better customers you need to understand the traits and purchasing behaviors of your best customers and your worst. Using your CRM or other sales tracking tool you can determine the makeup of your best customers. How do they breakdown by age and gender? Where do they live?

It is especially important to review their purchasing habits. How often do they purchase and what do they purchase frequently? What products or services do they purchase together? What did they best respond to? …Email marketing? …Facebook advertising? …Direct mail? …Cold calling? Conversely, we should look at your worst customers with the same exacting eye.

Before we continue, it’s important to define “best” and “worst” customers. Your worst customers are not simply the ones who do not purchase frequently. If you haven’t nurtured them you don’t know their potential. You may very well have customers who have purchased previously who forgot about you because you forgot about them. Worst customers are the ones who don’t purchase often, yet suck up a tremendous amount of your time responding to their concerns and needs.

Answer the questions asked above and you begin to create a picture of the customers you are looking for and what they respond to.  If you aren’t using a CRM to simplify this task, you need to check out SAP’s affordable digital CRM. You already have all of the data you need about your better customers, you simply need to analyze that data.

First Steps in Converting a Concept Customer

Now that you’ve created a picture of our target customer and their behaviors, how do you convert them into new customers? First and most obviously, you need to reach them. That means using all of the tools you used to get your best customers and find others who look like them from a data perspective. In simple terms you need to use your lead generation system to bring in leads that look like your best customers. Once you have those leads, you need to convert them, in the fastest way possible, into customers who are willing to give you their money for your offering.

A big step in quickening the pace of conversion is to set a timeline that creates a sense of urgency. You may combine this with a promotion to entice the potential customer to purchase, but you must create a limited timeline for the promotion. You must also commit to not overworking tired leads. If you’ve cold-called, sent three emails, and reached out on social media to no avail, it isn’t a hot prospect and you need to move on. You set the pace. That doesn’t mean you won’t continue to nurture that prospect, but move them to the colder lead line and focus you best efforts on the ones who are more responsive to your efforts.

Language is Critical

Sales language and exactly how to ask for the sale has bewildered business people since the beginning of trade. There is an art to asking for the sale without being overly pushy or gauche, and it doesn’t have to be overly complicated. First, put yourself in your prospect’s shoes. You know exactly how it feels to be sold to, so respect their time and be succinct. Get right to the point of how your product or service can help them. If it helps them be more productive or ups their ROI, lead with that. Now is not the time to exercise your English class prowess.

This next piece of advice may seem obvious to the extreme, but you must ask for the sale. Too often businesses spend all of their energy generating and nurturing sales leads, but shy away from the most important aspect of the entire process, actually asking for the sale. If you’re on a call, just ask for it. If you’re emailing, have a link anda Call to Action. If you’re selling through your website make the point of purchase area obvious and easy to navigate. Ask for the sale or you will never get it.

If You Fail

If you follow the process thoroughly and still aren’t converting fast enough, it isn’t time to give up. Instead, it’s time to reassess your process from beginning to end. Go back and make sure that you were accurate in creating your best customer demographic. Make sure the leads you are generating match those target customer types. Review your language and then test, and test again. Here again, your CRM can really accelerate the process if you’re tracking it as you go. What did prospects respond to? What failed when it came to language and promotions?

You can continue to refine the process, moving the leads who didn’t convert into your nurture channel and continuing to focus on the hottest potential customers. Like anything you do, focus and discipline over time will dramatically alter your results. If you want to learn from one of the greatest sales minds working today, watch the recording of our webinar with Anthony Iannarino, Top 3 Challenges Small Sales Teams Struggle With…Solved.

This post ran originally on Digital.SAP.com.

Photo credit: Mister G.C. Another Happy Customer via photopin (license).

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Why You Need a Sales Process and What It Should Look Like

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Organizations live and die by the health of their sales process. It is a given that the number-one concern for leaders of small and large businesses alike is to answer these questions:

Where is the next sale coming from, and how can we make it happen faster?

Sales is the lifeblood of their business, keeping their company alive and their employees paid. None of us are owed or guaranteed sales, so it is imperative that an effective sales process is built.

The Stages of a Successful Sales Process

We all know that time is the business leader’s greatest resource, and sometimes the lack of time is what makes people avoid doing the one key thing that must happen to begin a healthy sales process. However, “above the funnel” sales effort is critical work that should come before everything else. First, let’s examine what a sales funnel is and what the stages are as potential customers flow through it.

Think of a giant funnel with a wide opening that diminishes in size. At the very top of that wide-mouthed funnel are all of the leads you have generated. As you work these leads and sift through the solid ones to find the actual prospects, people who have a need you can fill, the funnel narrows. You then work hard building relationships with these prospects to turn them into opportunities. Opportunities are prospects that you have developed into potential clients with whom you have entered into serious discussions.

These opportunities are generally where most people want to spend their time. These prospects are so close to actually becoming customers that you can almost taste it. If you can convert them and close the deal, you will experience the satisfaction of securing a sale for your business, and the security of the income it will generate. But spending all of your time here is a mistake.

Where You Must Spend Your Time

Seriously successful salespeople know that the most critical part of the sales process actually starts before they even get to the funnel; it’s the work they call “above the funnel.” The people above your sales funnel aren’t thinking about you, your product, or your service… yet. What you need to know is what they are thinking about, what worries them, where is their energy and time spent, and how you can reach them while they’re thinking about those things.

above-funnel

The work you do above the funnel is the work that will bring you prospects, people actively looking for your product or solution. It may look like any of these:

  • Social media activity. For a while it was popular to call this “social selling,” but that is really a misnomer. Nothing is sold on social media; it is marketed. The activity you do on social media to present yourself as a thought leader and problem solver is above-the-funnel work that will make future prospects sit up and take notice of you.
  • Content creation. This is really a marketing activity, but smart salespeople understand the value it brings, especially if they create it. If you want to be known as a trusted advisor, someone who provides solutions to your prospects’ problems, blogging regularly to provide advice is a superb above-the-funnel activity. But it does take time and discipline.
  • Networking. Whether you network online or in person, at its core, this activity is about building new relationships, and it’s where prospects are born.

Perhaps the most common issue responsible for a lack of success in sales has to do with this above-the-funnel work not getting done. A client’s pressing needs or the temptation to close prospects often push this work off your plate. You think you’ll do it when you have more time. You downgrade its importance. Then, before long, your sales funnel begins to dry up because new leads aren’t being nurtured.

The Process Is What Helps You Avoid Mistakes

Building an effective sales process doesn’t happen by accident. You must understand both the fundamentals of sales and the proper stages of the process. Then, once you’ve gained all of that knowledge, you must have the discipline to work through that process on a daily basis. There really is no magic solution to building a healthy business. People and businesses don’t succeed over the long term through luck, or even because of economic conditions. They succeed when they build a sales process that keeps their company healthy, creating new opportunities every day.

If you want to learn more about how to build and implement a winning sales process, watch SAP’s recording of our recent Webinar with global sales leader, Anthony Iannarino, “The Top 3 Challenges Small Sales Teams Struggle With…Solved.” Click here to watch the recording.

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This post ran originally on Digital.SAP.com.