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| Volume 8, Issue 1 |
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In This Issue:
 Forging a sales culture across your organization
Seven deadly sins of branding
Sales lessons from the Yankees
The top 12 presentation mistakes
Boost your presentation performance
 Storytelling and the art of persuasion
 MP 'Classic Truths': The best metrics for managing marketing performance
'Classic truths': Top 5 do's and don'ts of opt-in email list building
'Bounce Rate' as sexiest web metric ever
What is advertising's most important word?
 The hottest salaries
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Forging a sales culture across your organization
Culture is defined as the shared attitudes, experiences, beliefs, and values of individuals in the same work environment—at least in the context of the business world—and most companies have a broadly defined organizational culture that provides its employees a means to fulfill the corporate mission.
But departments oftentimes compartmentalize their goals because their culture is too narrowly focused on individual functions—not shared across the organization—and sales often operates as an independent business unit, receiving little institutional support. Most companies would acknowledge that their mission is to ensure a healthy bottom line and build a strong customer base. And when you examine all the functional areas within an organization, sales bears the burden of fulfilling this mission. But you can ensure that your company's individual functions support the corporate mission by supporting and embedding a sales culture in your organization.
Measuring Your Sales Culture
To determine whether you have a sales culture, answer the following questions:...
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Seven deadly sins of branding
In the $36 billion dollar beer market, the brand strength of an American beer is sometimes its most powerful "reason-to-buy."
The Wall Street Journal recently had this to say about the Stroh Brewery, the nation's fourth largest brewer, now being sold off: "The sale of Stroh, a 149-year-old Detroit brewer that was once a strong contender in the beer market, is the result of poor brand
management in a flat market, distributors said…If [Stroh] didn't take advantage of its strong regional brands…" The above story doesn't just happen overnight. For every "right" a brand can do, it can also make multiple "wrongs"—actions that simply don't contribute
anything worthwhile to a brand's presence, personality, strength and, ultimately, its sales. So how do you know when you've made a wrong before its too late? To better manage the fate of your brand, here's a compiled things-not-to-do checklist that...
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Sales Lessons from The Yankees
The falling-out between the Yankees and Joe Torre happens every day in business. Here's what salespeople need to know so it doesn't happen to them.
This time of year salespeople begin to reflect on their performance. Was it a good year? Was it a great year? Some will say they earned what they wanted, so it was a great year. Others will hang their hat on an account they won. But as Joe Torre,
former manager of the New York Yankees learned, employers have a single data point for measuring success that dwarfs all other statistics. After the Yankees were eliminated in the first round of the playoffs, rumors began to swirl that Torre
wouldn't be asked to return as manager in 2008. He had just finished the last year of a three-year contract, so there were decisions to be made. Interestingly, many say his best managerial year was 2007, a year in which the team was eliminated early
in the post-season but rallied from a 14-game deficit during the regular season. As manager of the Yankees, Torre took the team to the post-season every year. No other team is enjoying a winning streak of this magnitude, but that wasn’t enough. Torre
said when he arrived at the Yankees' executive meeting in Tampa, he saw a room full of successful business executives who wanted to continue that success. Torre is a former baseball player, broadcaster, and manager, but not typically described as a
businessman. He was caught off-guard by the business presence in the room. Following the meeting, team president Randy Levine explained that...
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The top 12 presentation mistakes
Mistake #1: Overlooking "Murphy"
If it can go wrong, it will go wrong.
This mistake basically means that you walk into the room where you're going to present and something is wrong. LeRoux tells a story about a multimillion-dollar sales
presentation to which "Murphy" paid a visit—in the form of missing curtains and a boardroom window overlooking a huge pool surrounded by bikini-clad swimmers (you can
guess what the attendees looked at instead of the presenter). Remedy: Visit important presentation rooms at least a day in advance. If that's not possible, have someone take
pictures from different angles and email them to you.
Mistake #2:...
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Boost your presentation performance
We've all heard the statistic that people fear public speaking more than death. It may be an urban myth—but death? Wow, that’s some powerful fear.
Look, if you're in business and you work in any department where you need to communicate with others—inside or outside your organization— then, guess what? You've got to make presentations. But there is some good news. Often this fear is
actually presentation performance anxiety—which isn't life threatening. Rather than live in fear of your next presentation, you need some ways you can build confidence in your presentation skills. Increasing your presentation performance will reduce
your fear and accelerate your career. So how can you improve your presentation performance? I use the term "presentation performance," because, just like sports, there are certain techniques, tactics and strategies you can master. Are some people
better presenters than others? Of course! But you can become a better presenter over time as well. Interestingly, it's not the act of presenting that causes all of the angst; it's the doubt in your presentation itself—your message—that often causes the
pain. Ever notice that some of the strongest actors and actresses become absolute boors and goofballs when they're accepting an award or sitting on a talk show couch? It's because they no longer have a script, a solid story to tell. Here's seven tips
that will help you significantly boost your presentation performance...
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Storytelling and the art of persuasion
Our columnist talks to author and executive coach Robert Dickman, coauthor of Elements of Persuasion, about telling your story and making sales.
Robert Dickman is an executive coach who teaches about using stories and narrative strategies as they relate to corporate communication. I do a great deal of coaching myself and I have found his five story elements very useful for understanding why some leaders achieve long-term changes in behavior, while others do not. He and his partner, Richard Maxwell, both of whom have backgrounds in the entertainment business, have just written a book, Elements of Persuasion, that lays out their whole theory in a light, breezy style. I met with them recently. Here is an edited version of our conversation:
In the last few years storytelling has gone from something tolerated around the water cooler to a recognized skill in organizational communication. Why is that?
There are two things everyone in business does on a daily basis...
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MP 'Classic Truths': If you don't measure, you can't manage: The best metrics for managing marketing performance
Without metrics to track performance, marketing and business plans are ineffective.
Businesses need to know which success factors require measuring, and they must understand the differences between measurements (the raw outcomes of quantification), metrics (ideal standards for measurement), and benchmarks (the standards by which all others are
measured). For marketers, three primary metrics constitute a starting point for tracking their performance. Once companies are aware of their competitive position, their desired outcomes, and what it will take to achieve those outcomes, companies will be better able to
identify the success factors, benchmarks, and appropriate metrics to meet their target.
Why Measure?
Metrics are a part of our everyday lives: from our heart rate, to our bank balances; from our weight, to the gas mileage on our cars. If we don't pay attention to these numbers, we create a risk for getting a heart attack, being overdrawn, or running out of gas. The same
is true in the business environment. If a company doesn't identify and track important performance measures, it increases its risks...
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MarketingProfs 'Classic Truths': top five do's and don'ts of opt-in email list building
A myriad books and articles have been written lately about the validity of opt-in lists, which are advantageous both for click-and-mortar and for brick-and-mortar companies.
Once you have targeted names in your company-managed list, you can cross-sell and up-sell those existing and potential customers your offerings—a proven less-expensive way of increasing revenue and creating customer loyalty. We know some
tried-and-true tips and tricks for building your list. There are five key points to consider and five glaring points to avoid when creating opt-in lists from the very beginning...
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'Bounce Rate' as sexiest web metric ever
It might seem farfetched to characterize a metric as sexy, but by the time you are done reading this article you'll be more than attracted to the metric and will mentally associate all sorts of possibilities between you and bounce rate!
It is quite likely that the biggest challenge for you is that you are spending tons of time, energy, and budget on Web marketing efforts, yet conversion rates (or ROI) are stuck in the 2-4% range. You are trying really hard to figure out how to improve the performance,
but you are stymied by the fact that there is ton of data and you have no idea where to start.
Ms. Bounce Rate to the rescue.
Bounce rate is a beautiful way to measure the quality of traffic coming to your Web site. It is almost instantly accessible in any Web analytics tool. It is easy to understand and hard to misunderstand, and it can be applied to any of your efforts. So what is this
mysterious metric? In a nutshell, bounce rate measures the percentage of people who come to your Web site—and leave "instantly." Thought about from a customer perspective, rather than "I came, I saw, I conquered," the action is "I came, I saw, Yuck, I am out of here." Your
marketing efforts should yield more customers who are able to conquer (accomplish the task they are there to accomplish) and fewer who say yuck and leave...
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What is advertising's most important word?
If you had to guess the single most important word in advertising, what would it be? Free, special, discount, sale, new, improved, bigger, better...?
So many words have lost their meaning or been corrupted by misuse or abuse that it is not an obvious choice. The terms "luxury," "exclusive," and "world-class" have been rendered meaningless after being applied to everything from 800-square-foot condos to restaurants
that serve microwave frozen dinners. We can't even rely on "light," "diet," or "low-carb" to actually describe what's inside a package. What advertisers have done is create a hyper-cynical marketplace, where the audience for whatever you sell has lost faith in what
is being said. But the Web with its emphasis on content gives advertisers an opportunity to redeem themselves and to deliver meaningful information to its audience.
All Content Is Advertising, All Advertising Isn't...
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