Watch for the Signs

Looking for signs you are on the path to sales success?  Check out the most popular video on the Sales Is Not For Sissies YouTube Channel.

Free Shipping Offer

Have you ordered your copy of "The Sales Pro's Guide to Using LinkedIn"?  If not, for a limited time we're offering free shipping if you order the book through TTBooks. 

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Invest 5 Minutes and Make a Better First Call on Prospects

There are three critical pieces of information you should know before you meet a prospect face-to-face for the first time. Most of the time you can collect this information in 5 minutes or less. Simply Google the prospect's name or search for them using LinkedIn.

The three things you want to know are:

1. What is their exact title? Knowing a title gives you insights about a person's goals, responsibilities and the kind of problems they want to solve. Titles offer clues as to how much authority the person has, and whether or not they are the purchasing decision-maker.
2. What do you have in common? Do you have the same alma mater, know the same people, or belong to the same organization? By finding a commonality, you jump-start relationship-building.
3. What is their history? Have they changed jobs three times in five years, or had a rapid progression inside their company? This could signal ambition and ambitious people are agents of change and open to new ideas from salespeople. Did they formerly work at a company where you have contacts? This gives you the opportunity to drop names and build on existing relationships.

Taking the time to do this research makes first calls to new prospects go better, and helps you sell more.

Fewer now use business cards

Another interesting article to round out the week.  Curious to hear what your thoughts are on this...

BUSINESS ETIQUETTE

 

Fewer now use business cards

 

• Revenue from the printing of business cards has declined 13 percent in the last five years.

 

BY MATT STEVENS Los Angeles Times

LOS ANGELES — Chalk up another looming casualty of the Internet age: business cards.

Ubiquitous as pinstripes, the 2-by-3.5-inch pieces of card stock have long been a staple in executive briefcases. 

 

Exchanging cards helps to break the ice and provides a quick reference for forgotten names.

But to many young and Web-savvy people who are accustomed to connecting digitally, the cards are irrelevant, wasteful — and just plain lame.

Diego Berdakin, the founder of BeachMint Inc., a fast-growing Santa Monica, Calif., e-commerce site, has raised $75 million from investors without ever bothering to print up a set. He doesn’t see the point.

“If someone comes in to meet me, we’ve already been connected through email, so it really doesn’t feel like a necessity in my life,” he said.

“When I go into a meeting and there are five bankers across the table, they all hand me business cards and they all end up in a pile, in a shoe box somewhere,” he added.

U.S. sales of business cards have been falling since the late 1990s, according to IBISWorld Inc., an Australian business data company whose data go back to 1997.

The slide appears to be accelerating. Last year printers posted revenue of $211.1 million from the segment. That’s down 13 percent from 2006.

Many under-30 tech entrepreneurs see the paper rectangles as an anachronism, so they are turning to digital options.

About 85 million people have a professional network on LinkedIn. Some 77 million smartphone users have downloaded the Bump app, which allows them to bump their phones together and instantly exchange contact information.

Others carry a personalized quick-response code that smartphones can scan like a hyperlink. And, of course, there’s always Face-book, email and digital business cards.

If they do take a paper card, some said they use a smartphone app to snap a picture of it and instantly digitize the card’s information. Then they toss it into the nearest trash can.

“Paper is not so appealing to this generation,” said Kit Yarrow, chairwoman of the psychology department at Golden Gate University in San Francisco who has studied Generation Y: the 20- to 30-year-olds who grew up with the Internet. Sam Friedman, co-founder and chief executive of Parking in Motion, which sells a mobile app for finding open parking spaces, said his San-ta Monica firm’s digital presence is its most effective communication tool.

“The business card is your website,” he said.

Still, old habits die hard. Friedman said he makes sure his employees are issued business cards, which sometimes come in handy at conferences.

Brain Power

 

Is It Possible to Use More of Our Brains? (From Scientific American)

By Barry Gordon | March 3, 2012

Is it possible to use more of our brain?
-- Michael Lenneville, Washington, D.C

Barry Gordon, professor of neurology and cognitive science at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, replies:

Yes! Though perhaps not how you might imagine. You can't put more of your brain to work. Your whole brain is working all the time, even when you think you're just being lazy. What you can do is make it work more productively.

There are two proved strategies to make your neural systems more efficient. The first strategy is to focus, which is hard to do. It is quite difficult to force your brain to stay on task and to shut off extraneous thoughts. Yet by concentrating, your brain can muster the neural tools it needs to tackle a complex problem. In fact, intense focus may be one reason why so-called savants become so extraordinary at performing extensive calculations or remembering a slew of facts.

The second approach is optimization. The human brain is far from an ideal "thinking machine." Our mental processes are slow, and the accuracy of our memory is far from perfect. Our intrinsic limitations are compounded by the simple mental blunders we make; these unhelpful tendencies, however, are correctable. For instance, you can become a better problem solver by looking beyond your personal biases and blind spots to consider alternative solutions. The more you learn to recognize and seek a variety of answers, the better your brain will be at finding optimal solutions.

Some proof that focus and optimization can improve the brain's performance comes from research on video gamers. Neuroscientists at the University of Rochester have shown that even novice gamers can improve cognitive skills such as perception and attention by playing action video games. These games can strengthen players' mental acuity because they require intense concentration and ruthless self-correction (otherwise, your friends shoot you!).

Sometimes, however, you may think better when you're not trying so hard. (You have to consider all the alternatives.) Periods of artistic and scientific creativity—when people often tackle the biggest, most open-ended problems—usually require letting your brain meander, percolate, chill. It may not feel like you are using more of your brain when you unleash it in this way, but one virtue of the human brain is that it often does its best work when it does not seem to be working at all.

Mark Potter: Be An Original

Another thoughtful post by Canvas Publisher Mark Potter.  Be sure to follow him on Twitter @markricepotter.

I was driving up to Nashville last week to visit with a client and attend a conference.  On the ride up, I was jamming to some classic rock.  I'm talking about iconic bands like Led Zeppelin, The Stones, AC/DC, and Journey.  I swear I sounded just like Steve Perry when I was singing "Just a small town boy...Living in South Detroit". 

As other drivers chuckled at this 40-something acting like a complete dork, I couldn't help wonder what made these bands iconic.  They have stood the test of time. In fact, many of the kids today know the words better than I do and wear t-shirts with the bands’ logo on the front.

So, what gives?  Why have these bands become iconic? I can't think of any band in the last 10 years that has become more than a passing thought.  My opinion is that there was and continues to be an aura around groups like Led Zeppelin.  People talk about seeing them in concert like it was an event that changed their lives.  Millions of us never saw them and have to picture what it was like in our minds.  There was mystery to the group and we actually had to use our imagination to think about how cool they really were.

Seeing them in concert or hearing their songs conjures up images that become bigger in our mind than they may have actually been.  Think about it, there was a time when someone could tell a story and embellish it with some half-truths to make it a bit more entertaining.   Today, people can't take those liberties.  The ability to validate facts at a moment's notice doesn't allow a little creative leeway.

The immediacy of the Internet and all of the corresponding media has diluted our imagination, while simultaneously killing the mystery of who we are.  The great rock bands of yesteryear may just be great because of the lack of exposure they received and the mystery that the absence creates.  Today, the fact that even the most meaningless piece of information receives constant and immediate exposure makes them less and less interesting.

Take back your mystique.  Just because everyone else is doing something, doesn't mean we have to. 
Stop tweeting every 10 minutes.  It is boring and generic.  In contrast, why not try to be an original?  Rather than pumping out social drivel and creating a tune that becomes played, why not say something when you have something relevant to say?  Stay true to who you are and keep some of it for yourself.  That is what is cool.  That is being an original.

Online To-Do: March 2012

Considering a Facebook strategy for your business?  While consumer brands have a very easy time engaging with customers on this social media platform, it can be a bit more challenging to find success if you are marketing B2B.  If you're interested in launching a company Facebook page, check out this month's online to-do, http://www.facebook.com/business.