Sales&MktgWatchSM Grow your revenue If you are having difficulty seeing this mail or images in it, you can view it in your Web browser. Volume 10, Best of 2010      In This Issue:   Secrets of a Superstar Salesman          What's a fair sales quota in 2010?   Master the art of cold-calling          Dig deeper: Improving your cold-calling technique   Cold-Calling 101          Mastering your elevator pitch   Why Social Media Really is worth Your Time   How to Close a Sale          4 new killer sales apps   How to Improve Your E-mail Marketing   A frank talk with you, boss BusinessWeek          Bad Bosses: What Kind Are You?          The Disposable Worker   The Ultimate Sales Approach   We Have Met the Enemy and He Is PowerPoint   Mediocrity to Mastery: Use These Vocal Techniques to Set Yourself Apart If you enjoy this newsletter, read more in our Archive and Explore more Topics and Events Secrets of a Superstar Salesman What is your key to success in any environment? What's a fair sales quota in 2010? Setting sales quotas is never easy, but here are some tips to help you do it right. Is John "Grizz" Deal the greatest salesperson around? "You can tell a lot about what you're up against in a sales pitch by the way they serve you coffee," John Deal mumbles to me, as the others in the room noisily take their seats around the conference table at a well-known British engineering and defense contracting company on a dreary day in central England. I take this to mean that Deal has his work cut out for him, given that his prospects have unceremoniously plunked down in front of him a jug of scalding coffee and a stack of plastic cups, with no cream or sugar in sight. Deal begins making his case to six poker-faced executives, who proceed to blast him with an array of questions that cast doubt on his product, his business plan, his prospects for survival, and possibly his sanity. Every sentence seems to start with, "What I don't get is," or "The sticking point with me is," or "But how can you possibly...?" Forty-five minutes later, however, the managers have changed their tune. Now they are asking... Read the article     Back to top Master the art of cold-calling If you do a lot of cold calling, don't miss out on these techniques! Dig Deeper: Improving Your Cold-Calling Technique Each Cold calling tip has a short summary that is matched with a detailed article on that particular technique, such as this one. Let's face it: nobody really enjoys making cold calls. But sparking a connection remains a crucial skill to have whether you are a business owner, job seeker or even a volunteer looking to raise money. Here's a guide to closing more deals with fewer dials. Let's face it: nobody really enjoys making cold calls. But sparking a connection remains a crucial skill to have whether you are a business owner, job seeker or even a volunteer looking to raise money for your local non-profit group, says Eliot Burdett, co-founder of Peak Sales Recruiting in Ottawa, Canada. "Even with the rise of the Internet, which has changed the way people buy, having the ability to connect with someone cold on the phone remains a valuable skill for anyone to have," he says. The problem, quite frankly, is that like any skill, cold calling requires practice. And even then, the numbers don't always add up,... Read the article     Back to top Cold-Calling 101 Who should you be calling and what should you expect from them? Mastering your elevator pitch Create your script, test, revise, and test again. Thinking of just picking up the phone and dialing an executive to drum up some new business? Not so fast. You need a game plan. Here's how to develop one. No one really likes the idea of being on the giving or receiving end of cold calls. The name alone is enough to give you chills. Maybe that's why some refer to the practice by the more euphemistic term "prospecting." "There's the old adage that 90 percent of people hate cold-calling and the other 10 percent are lying," says Brian Carroll, CEO of InTouch Inc., and author of the book, Lead Generation for the Complex Sale. However, even in today's business world, picking up the phone remains one of the best ways to reach an organization's senior executives. A 2007 survey by MarketingSherpa, a research firm that tracks what works in the marketing profession, found that only... Read the article     Back to top Why Social Media Really is worth Your Time Show you the Money? Yes it can! It pays off in actual business, not just buzz, says a new survey. And the more time you use it for (and the more experienced you become), the better the results. Forget the endless speculation about whether and how and how much money social media sites like Facebook and Twitter and LinkedIn can make. The key question is: Can they show you the money? The answer appears to be yes, according to a new report. One in three business owners say that social media helps them to close business. That percentage may yet improve... Read the article     Back to top How to Close a Sale Just closing the sale is not enough in today's environment, you need more to thirve. 4 new killer sales apps Social Marketing tools to give you a leg up. Here are some strategies to help create a win-win business relationship of customer satisfaction and longevity. The drive to close a sale is portrayed in Glengarry Glen Ross, the David Mamet play turned into an Oscar-winning 1992 film, as the ultimate end-all in a Chicago real estate office. "A-B-C," says Blake, the ruthless businessman played by Alec Baldwin in the film, who is sent to shake up the sales staff by holding a sales contest in which the winner receives a Cadillac and the loser gets fired. "Always be closing." These days, many salespeople have come to think of "the close" a little differently. The goal is not so much to sell anything just for the sake of making a sale. The goal is to book sales that truly help satisfy a customer, and that create a mutually-beneficial, long-term relationship. "The 'close' of the sale is usually described as... Read the article     Back to top How to Improve Your E-mail Marketing Keep your emails out of the trash by marketing the smart way. Your customers and clients are overloaded with e-mail every day. We asked experts for their tips and tricks for more effective e-mail marketing. Spreading the gospel of good e-mail marketing is what Justin Premick, e-mail marketing expert and self-proclaimed e-mail evangelist, has been doing since 2004. Premick believes that permission e-mail marketing works, and as director of education marketing at AWeber Communications Inc. in Huntingdon Valley, Pennsylvania, he works primarily with small businesses. "You don't have to tell the Proctor & Gamble account manager that e-mail works, but you might have to convince the independent retailer, or the local coffee shop, or art store," Premik says. E-mail can be used by your business to market to customers, alert them to new product offerings, and offer loyalty discounts or promotions. At the same time, your customers can use e-mail to... Read the article     Back to top A frank talk with you, boss The annual review you would like to give to your boss... Bad Bosses: What Kind Are You? Slide Show: Why and how you should fix your shortcomings The Disposable Worker Temp jobs may save or ruin your company. Know how to keep productivity up. You're a bad manager who's driving us nuts, and here's what those of us who report to you want to tell you—whether you like it or not. Welcome! I'm so glad you made it. Make yourself comfortable. You're probably wondering why I invited you. You're in for a treat. You see, this is your annual review, the one your boss never gave you, the one that really matters. Don't get up. This isn't going on your permanent record. It's just between us, one professional to another. In reality, I guess you could call this an intervention. As with any wake up call, I'm doing this because I like you. You have so many gifts. But you've lost your way. And frankly, you're doing more harm than good these days. This is going to be hard to hear, but I'll say it anyway:... Read the article     Back to top The Ultimate Sales Approach If you offer to educate first, you will probably get the first sale. A revolutionary technique to get and close more sales. The concept you are about to learn was borne out of the desire to not be treated like a salesperson. That was the seed of the idea. But now this concept has gone on to spur a best-selling book, revolutionize sales methods for multibillion-dollar conglomerates, as well as catapult one-person army companies to double-digit sales in a single year. It's called... Read the article     Back to top We Have Met the Enemy and He Is PowerPoint The US military is hooked on PowerPoint, for good or bad, for richer or poorer... Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, the leader of American and NATO forces in Afghanistan, was shown a PowerPoint slide in Kabul last summer that was meant to portray the complexity of American military strategy, but looked more like a bowl of spaghetti. "When we understand that slide, we'll have won the war," General McChrystal dryly remarked, one of his advisers recalled, as the room erupted in laughter. The slide has since bounced around the Internet as an example of a military tool that has spun out of control. Like an insurgency, PowerPoint has crept into the daily lives of military commanders and reached the level of near obsession. The amount of time expended on PowerPoint, the Microsoft presentation program of computer-generated charts, graphs and bullet points, has made it a running joke in the Pentagon and in Iraq and Afghanistan. "PowerPoint makes us stupid," ... Read the article     Back to top Mediocrity to Mastery: Use These Vocal Techniques to Set Yourself Apart How you give a presentation is about more than just being seen and heard. The voice plays an important role in linking concepts to content. However, the vocal elements of your skill involve more than just speaking loud enough to be heard. There are several elements of your vocal strategy that can take your presentation effectiveness to another level including proper breathing, voice projection, juxtaposition and interaction... Read the article     Back to top                   Forward to a Friend: Do you have a friend that would like to receive Sales&MktgWatchsm? Perhaps you know a peer within your organization, or associate at a partner company that would benefit from applying to receive this publication. Inviting a friend to experience the benefits of joining the BusinessWatch Network is easy! Just FW: this newsletter to the person you know who may have an interest and ask them to click here http://www.businesswatchnetwork.com Your friend will be glad you did! 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