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Well, how fast is this market moving… AI is everywhere all of a sudden and is on track to definitely make 2023 the year of AI.  There are plugins and platforms appearing daily. Jasper and ChatGPT remain perfect partners when it comes to producing AI copy.

It is great to see how strong Jasper has remained in the market –  more about that later with some fantastic new features.

New Examples of AI Tools

Here are a few cool uses for AI beyond the most popular “copy” creation…

• Do you bill time.. tools for looking back at your past weeks activity and create a summary of where you spent your time or put it directly into your favourite tracking tool.
• Meeting notes / minutes are regularly a bug bear – not done, incomplete – us AI to create an accurate transcript, both audio files and direct from conferencing tools.
• Use AI to learn your Calendar habits and unify multiple Calendars and automate who is available.
• Graphics generation, we see huge advances with Dalle.E 2 and MidJourney
• ChatGPT AI assistant built into your PDF reader.

Big Update from Jasper

Now, how about the fantastic news from Jasper.ai – some really significant enhancements.  This will further help everyone understand where Jasper and ChatGPT fit together.

ChatGPT continues to be great for ideation, however when it come to using AI in your business and doing it efficiently, Jasper is the right tool for creating copy.

Jasper have made some incredible announcements, so I wanted to share.  Let me know if you want more information on any of them.

• Jasper Everywhere – AI Chrome Extensions brings Jasper wherever you write with Jasper.
• Jasper Brand Voice – this is an exciting enhancement that enables a business user to give Jasper’s AI Engine specific information about their company, products, positioning and values to tailor outcomes so they’re more authentic and individualized to that brand.
• Jasper for Team Sharing – There have been significant enhancements in the functionality to allow teams to work together on AI content.

Check out more about Jasper for Business here

You can leverage existing templates and recipes and of course, make your own.  Add to this the new features of Jasper and you have a set of tools that WILL save you loads of time.

You can learn more about Jasper for Business here.

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It is not very often we follow a newsletter with the same subject in succession – we like to provide a variety of information for you.  However, following our theme of using AI for Sales we felt it necessary to have a bit more to say about the EXPLOSION of AI in the press, in particular Jasper AI and ChatGPT.

We started on a journey early last year with Jasper, then know as Jarvis.  We could see the enormous benefit it brings to Sales and Marketing to enable shorter time cycles for the production of Blogs and Posts in particular.  This has not changed – we can now add the many new AI options out there to ensure your business operates effectively and efficiently while delivering excellent customer service.

So one of the key questions we are already being asked and you will see it in news posts – does this AI capability kill off quality copy writing, graphics creation or even Google Search!!

Lets tackle these thing one at a time…

No, AI does not kill off the need for quality copywriting. While AI can be used to generate text, it is not yet advanced enough to fully replace the skills and creativity of a human copywriter. Additionally, the use of AI in copywriting can actually enhance the work of human copywriters by providing them with tools to streamline and optimize their work.

AI can be used to generate graphics, but it is not yet advanced enough to fully replace the skills and creativity of a human graphic designer. AI-generated graphics can be used as a tool to assist graphic designers, but the final product still requires human touch and creativity to meet the desired quality and style. Some AI-based tools can generate images and designs based on certain inputs, but it is still not at the level of a human graphic designer.

Google Search uses a combination of AI and traditional search algorithms to return the most relevant results to a user’s query. AI is used to understand the intent behind a user’s search and to identify patterns and connections between different pieces of information. Google’s AI technology, called RankBrain, is used to help understand the intent behind a query and match it with the most relevant results. However, Google search results also include human-curated contents from websites and other sources. So, it’s a combination of both human and AI that provides the search results.

So there you go, the above italicised paragraphs are straight out of ChatGPT – AI talking about AI.

How about Jasper, do we need it still?  Hell yeah!  ChatGPT does a great job of responding to queries but using both Jasper and ChatGPT together gives you outstanding results.

The key behind is the ability to produce Templates and Recipes – allow the operator to create new output on different subjects to a common approach or style.

Something else to consider with ChatGPT is that it cannot help you with responses for information after around 2021.  Further to this, it can be simply WRONG. Us humans will have to elevate to be able to manage these tools and ensure it does read how you want it to read.

We have built a service that allows you absolute minimum input while we produce blogs and posts of high quality.  I have spent decades trying to get engineers to write blogs and so few will do it, now we just ask them a simple question and can produce a great output for them to check.

In discussions the question came up “What should be included with SQL Database Maintenance services?”

Formulate the question..

Describe with bullet points what is meant by SQL Maintenance?

20 Seconds Later….

SQL Maintenance refers to the regular tasks and procedures that are performed on a SQL database to ensure its proper functioning and performance. These tasks can include:

• Backups: Creating regular backups of the database to ensure that data can be recovered in case of failure or corruption.
• Indexing: Organizing data in the database for faster searching and retrieval.
• Statistics update: Updating the statistics that the query optimizer uses to create execution plans.
• Reorganization and Rebuild: Reorganizing and rebuilding indexes, tables and other database objects to reduce fragmentation and improve performance.
• Error checking: Running checks for consistency and integrity of the data in the database.
• Monitoring: Monitoring the database for any issues or performance bottlenecks and addressing them as necessary.
• Security: Managing user access and permissions, and implementing security measures to protect the database from unauthorized access.
• Upgrades and Patches: Installing updates and patches to the database software to ensure that it is up to date and secure.
• Archiving: Removing old data that is no longer needed to keep the database size small and running efficiently.
• Performance tuning: Analyzing and optimizing the database performance to ensure that it runs as quickly and efficiently as possible.
• Disaster Recovery: Plan and testing for recovery of the database in case of a disaster.

Conclusion:

Check for accuracy and suitability for your purpose, but in 20 seconds it produces something that would have taken way longer and probably discussion with others.  I think it nailed it pretty well!

Check out our previous post with some discussion on AI – Get an edge on your competition with AI.

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You can get an edge on your competition with AI.

AI is making great strides and businesses would be wise to take advantage of its capabilities. Businesses owners can use AI in many ways, including marketing, operations, and customer service. The possibilities are endless and the benefits are undeniable. With AI’s rapid growth, there’s no better time than now to start using it in your business. Don’t miss out on this exciting technology!

You may not be aware of this, but AI has matured a great deal in the past few years. It is now affordable and easy to deploy, making it a valuable asset for businesses of all sizes.

There are many ways that AI can help your business grow and improve efficiency. For example, AI can intelligently find related data or be used for forecasting future trends.

One key area where AI can be extremely helpful is in customer service. In fact, many companies are already taking advantage of AI’s ability to provide accurate responses to queries.

Another great use for AI is in content creation – the ability to write a few words and have AI generate a flow of information for a Blog or proposal is incredibly helpful.

Here are just some of the ways AI will improve your business operations.

1. Improve efficiency by automating tasks that are repetitive or time-consuming.

2. Gain an edge on the competition with insights and analytics that are only possible with AI.

3. Increase productivity by freeing up staff to work on more important tasks.

4. Make better decisions based on data-driven insights instead of gut feelings or anecdotal evidence.

At the core of AI is the ability to sift through vast volumes of data and see the logical connections that relate to the task you have set.  We use this everyday with web search and online maps.

Applying it purposefully in your business requires a conscious focus to find where you may be using it incidentally vs a focused approach to maximise the benefit.

One of my areas of interest is where we can go with creation of video.  We read it all the time that video is preferred for simple instruction.  We can now quite inexpensively use AI to create the words for a podcast but then use these words to generate the podcast in your OWN personal voice.  You can then take that voice and have animated video of your own face presenting this material – this is getting very reachable by most as the capability increases, while the price becomes more affordable.

Below are a few other practical areas.

Chat Bots

Appearing more and more as the preferred way to deliver customer service.  The one big tip most are getting across is the need to have an opportunity to move from a Bot to a Human, something most are also implementing.

So, if we need a a “Human”, then why a bot?  The bot will allow a good percentage of general or standard questions to be answered or at the very least direct the customer to the correct area.

AI in a chatbot takes advantage of natural language processing (NLP) along with Machine Learning to understand data and utilise algorithms.

Although there are other more sophisticated options, my favourite here is SalesIQ from Zoho with its Chat and Visitor Tracking – the winner being the ability to integrate this back into your CRM, WhatsApp and many others.

Writing Content

My favourite here is jasper.ai, this platform allows you to enter in a handful of words and generate paragraphs of highly relevant content with accurate grammar.  This is shifting the ability to write well to being an expert at leveraging an AI platform for writing.

AI Conversational Assistant

Use natural language to ask for a report – “give me gross sales for Q1 in my region”.  This provides a context intelligence.  What is even better is when it is used across multiple product areas to search for anything related to your search.  A really great example of this is Zia from Zoho as built into their CRM.

AI in Monitoring

This is probably the first place I had a whole lot to do with AI and now see it deployed regularly and in a number of areas.  One of the most popular is moving from a static threshold to using Machine Learning to understand the changes in behaviour and alter the threshold to suit.  ie: If it learns that at 4PM on a Friday when you run reports CPU and RAM always peak, you would prefer to not be alerted as this is “normal”.

The other area becoming more and more popular is with Forecasting.  Especially in the world we live in now with Cloud computing where costs can get out of hand, you need a good handle on what is coming up. This is often much more involved than taking a straight line. AI via ML is providing a much more accurate picture.  If you are interested in this area, drop us a line and we can discuss further.

Conclusion:

There are many areas where we see AI being used and we need to be careful on how it is used.  If we assume it can all be automated, it is likely to fail.  The key is to remove as much “human” handling as you can while ensuring when Customer Service is involved, that customers don’t feel like they cannot chat to a human. This delivers efficiency while improving customer service.

What is surprising is that many clients we deal with already have AI / ML built into their products and have not explored how to take advantage of it – have a look at what benefit you can get from a small amount of effort..

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Over my many years of working with business and in my own, few have a good handle at all on Contracts and certainly don’t understand the effect it has on sales.

• 81% of companies say productivity would improve with better process, skills, or competency training (source).

I am quite surprised at how many organisation have not engaged with Contract Lifecycle Management.

This is so important that we are running a short 30 minute Webinar at 11AM on October 27th, 2022. (AEST)

Sometimes I see this as an intersecting of events…

• Recognition of the need starts bubbling to the surface
• Complexity of solutions become easier to implement and operate
• Cost of running comes down to a level for easy decision

In whatever area – when all these three come together we see a high adoption rate.

The Benefits of Contract Lifecycle Management for Sales Teams

A sales team is only as good as its contract management process. In order to be efficient and effective, a sales team needs to have a system in place for managing the entire lifecycle of a contract, from creation to execution to renewal. This system is called contract lifecycle management (CLM).

Let us ask just a few questions…

• Can you easily report how many contracts you have that are currently active company wide??
  • This covers not only customers but also suppliers, contractors, and government panels or similar.
• Are you able to get visibility of what your current obligations are for all contracts?
• A simple example; how many NDA’s have you signed and what is their current state?
• Do your team routinely copy an existing contract for a new customer & edit to suit?
• Do you have a workflow for approvals? Is it embedded as a system?

I could go on, but these are just a few things that I see constantly slowing up the sales process and bogging down your sales team.

CLM software helps sales teams automate and streamline the contract management process, saving time and money. In this blog post, we’ll look at some of the benefits of CLM for sales teams.

Improved Visibility Into the Contract Lifecycle

With CLM, all contracts are stored in a central repository. This gives sales teams increased visibility into the status of each contract and allows them to see where each contract is in the lifecycle at a glance.

In addition, CLM software provides alerts and notifications that let sales teams know when a contract is due for renewal or needs to be reviewed. This way, they can proactively manage their contracts and avoid surprises down the road.

Now I hear some saying they have a place in their CRM or PSA or similar for storing contracts.

The MAJOR difference is that a CLM is driven from the legal commitment perspective and does a whole range of things that other record keeping areas do not.  This is not to say that you would not for example record contract details into a CRM or PSA; but that the “centre of truth” for all legal docs sits with your CLM and where required information is also populated in other systems.

Increased Efficiency and Productivity

CLM software automates many of the tasks involved in contract management, such as creating contracts from templates, routing contracts for approval, and storing signed contracts. This frees up sales teams to focus on more strategic tasks, such as developing relationships with clients and prospects.

In addition, CLM software makes it easy to find the information you need when you need it. For example, you can easily search for all contracts that are due for renewal in the next 30 days. This can help you prioritize your work and make sure that nothing falls through the cracks.

More importantly you can record obligations with timeline for the life of the contract and be alerted as they come due.  Could be a payment milestone or a reporting milestone.

Improved Customer Satisfaction

Happy customers are essential for any business. One of the ways that sales teams can improve customer satisfaction is by ensuring that contracts are executed flawlessly. With CLM, all stakeholders have visibility into the execution of a contract, so everyone knows what needs to be done and when it needs to be done. This increases transparency and accountability, which leads to improved customer satisfaction and reduced time elapsed or spent.

Conclusion:

Contract lifecycle management is an essential tool for sales teams. It helps them be more efficient and effective by automating repetitive tasks, improving visibility into the contract lifecycle, and increasing transparency and accountability. If you’re not using CLM software already, now is the time to start reaping its benefits!

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Reduce Cost of Sales

Check out our infographic to help illustrate an approach to this challenge…

In all the business groups I have been involved with and all the companies I have managed or advised – Reduce Cost of Sales Lead Generation would be one of the most common concerns.
Sitting right beside this is of course that you have the right strategy and processes in place – something we will cover in another Business Tip.

Reducing cost of sales can also read as more quality leads, better pipeline and increased sales.

This blog is more about managing the transactional costs of Sales – I would recommend reading our earlier blog about Targeted Sales as a pre requisite.  This positions where you spend your energy and is aimed at reducing the cost of sales across the board.
All of you involved in sales are very familiar with the Pipeline… simple isn’t it – pour more leads into the funnel and get more sales.
Hmmm, why do I hear constant questions about not getting a return.  Probably because you are bogging down your most expensive and valuable team members with “noise”.

Let us suggest that the very best use of your lead sales resources would be to be talking and presenting to new prospects – are you on board with that?

We have an entire process to discuss around who should go into the pipeline, but for now, how about we just assume in your target market there are 500 possibilities you have identified.  Each of these will likely have multiple potential contacts and require many attempts to connect with them.

Sifting Leads

Let us agree that when you know the contact is the right contact; that your trained and experienced sales person would be the right person to have a conversation with the prospect.

To get to this point some serious research needs to be completed – do they match the Perfect Customer (PC) profile – have you defined one??

So you have them sitting in front of a computer researching, noting contacts and contact details and attempting to connect with them.  This is a HUGE amount of work that anyone with the right training could do.
Download our Infographic and see what we are saying.

Document who the ideal target is (PC) and where you can connect or research them.  Have support staff do this research and better still, do an introduction on behalf of the sales resource. Move over to sales directly only when the customer is qualified and/or ready to talk.

Delivio provide a process to Reduce Cost of Sales Lead Generation or we can show you how to do it yourself.

Check out our graphic, download it from here.

Anything at all further we can help you with this just drop us a line.

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One thing I learnt a very long time ago – Data is King!  In my early days I spent several years selling and installing predictive maintenance software.  Here I learnt the value of keeping ALL data – sure you can flag it as deleted or redundant; but the data was still there.

The more data we collected the more interesting the results, and the more predictive we could be.  We collected and kept everything that was considered cost effective to obtain.

The problem with data is that you just do not know what will be useful later.

So, what has this got to do with KPI’s?  Well it is the same principal, the more data you collect the more you can analyse and act.

First step is to start with the basics.

• Strategic Plan
• Goals

To execute your Strategic Plan and achieve your Goals, what are the most important factors?

Are you defining things like…?

• Company revenue
• Growth
• Market share
• Service levels
• Locations
• Awards
• Net Profit
• Return per $ spent on staff

Whatever it might be, do your KPI’s match?  Are they thorough enough?

Standard KPI

Let’s consider the most common area for a form of KPI – Sales Commissions.  Most SME businesses run a revenue or GP based sales commission.  But is it structuring the right behaviour to meet your goals?

SME’s keep it simple because it is easier.  Some of the most successful businesses around have very complex reward systems.

Manage Complexity

Finding a balance between relevant and complex is a challenge and we need to err on the side of simplicity but not to the point of losing relevancy to our goals.

Here are some examples I have come across – yes you might look at them and say that it is obvious; these were really happening in very established businesses.

1. Sales staff were driven to sell xx connections per month.
   • It was discovered that not enough attention was paid to margin, and while successful, they were losing on each sale.
   • Not enough attention was paid to “keeping” customers, a high proportion were pressured into signing, to only want out a month later.
2. Delivery services were measured on “on time” delivery to the client.
   • It was discovered that the number of incorrect orders tripled – should have read “on time, correct order and not damaged”.
3. Service department was measured on reduced call queue.
   • This was achieved by finishing incomplete calls and assuming several customers would not call back.

All these KPI’s were perfectly valid, but just too simplified.

Examples of Setting KPI’s

Some examples of KPI’s and thinking behind them:

Simple version: 5% growth in number of new customers who have transacted this QTR

OR do you mean: 5% growth in number of new customers who spent over $xx this QTR.

Further could be: Growth in average transaction size, sales of specific product(s)/service(s) or to a particular vertical.

All of these are measurable and can be reported in a timely manner.

Expanding on this.  If your strategy was to increase your success in a specific vertical with increased deal sizes, you could have the KPI: Increase in average deal size and number of deals into “vertical”.

Timeliness of Reporting

Next aspect of KPI reporting is timeliness – no point waiting for this data to be ready after it is useful.

I would prefer an employee that knows what stretch is required to reach their targets in time, and in a format that they can act on to reach their KPI.  Have them as live as possible, use the progress as a tool to discuss their focus and workload, find out what are they doing to ensure they meet targets.

There are many tools around that can create dashboard metrics.  My favourite simple tool is Zoho Reports, it has an extraordinary array of capabilities for a very low cost. More information can be found on our Zoho Business Tools page.  What I like to use extensively is the ability to prepare a report automatically and send it to the right people on a scheduled basis.

So what are examples of KPI’s that I have seen?

I have attached a brief list of the range of KPI’s I have seen in use.

 

You might like to refer back to my previous notes about happy customers; another area that KPI’s are important.

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How can someone outside help?

For a long time, in my first years of business I found myself thinking and saying this.  How can someone outside really understand my business?

One of the key reasons I have chosen a path to helping other business owners is that I have travelled this journey and get it – I have the scars to prove it ?

Sharing 30 Years of Experience

Therefore, I have prepared a comprehensive Sales & Business Process Review for FREE.  I spent many weeks putting down on paper the major questions that need to be considered.  Not only is it done in a manner that should take little time to respond – I will also review each of them and provide feedback for FREE.  No catch, of course if you see value in something I can help with, then I am in!

I am not suggesting anyone can move to any sort of business and provide specific advice – but what is true is that there are more things similar between business operations than there are differences – especially around the Sales operations.

More of the Same

I spent 8 years in a business group with around 14 other business owners.  Some of these changed over the years, so let’s say there were between 25 and 30 businesses I had the privilege of looking inside.  Purposefully they were all non-competing different businesses.  Transport, IT, Manufacturing, Printing, Consulting – all sorts.  It was very rare for someone to raise a problem or challenge that we did not understand – why??  In the end, way over 90% of the discussion was related to some core areas that covered all of us.  Finance, HR, Sales, Marketing, Planning, Legal, Systems/Process.

Sure, employing a software developer is very different to employing a storeman – or is it?  Are the steps/processes not extremely similar – just the content that changes?

I say all this as a premise to my own experience managing other businesses.  It all becomes quite clear that there are many common factors.

Obtaining help?

Business coaching/consulting has been around for a long time and is a popular business tool.  What I found after having a range of consultants in to help my business in the early days, was that, like so many things with a strong personal involvement, you needed a match to get the MOST out of it.

My biggest issue was getting that extra layer of them connecting with our business, not just the process it required.  When I found that, it was like GOLD – a massive turn around.

Another parallel I would draw: I can go to 5 equally qualified and experienced sports masseurs – why is it that I connect better with one of them?  Part of the human mystery; the others will help but the right one will help all that more.

What am I saying: an experienced coach or mentor will always be of value but don’t hesitate to try a few to be sure that you get the best fit.  That way you will have a much longer-term relationship, deeper understanding and help for you and your business.

It is a curious thing, all the elite sports people you can think of plus most of the successful entrepreneurs, all leverage coaching and/or mentors.  Some of the most renowned entrepreneurs are skilled coaches themselves.  Warren Buffet and Richard Branson are good examples – they employ people to run their business and coach them without telling them what they can and cannot do – very empowering.

Here is a nice summary of how Richard Branson thinks, how he coaches his leaders. https://youtu.be/i3fQqUs5WSQ

So why is it that most SME business owners think they don’t need help?

Energy

It is fair to say that most entrepreneurs have a huge amount of energy and ideas often pour from them – the staff around them find much of it hard to keep up with or understand.  Having someone from outside that can highlight what is being missed is invaluable.  Employees, partner, shareholders – they are too close, too involved.

What I noticed as I travelled through the various roles and businesses is that when something was brought to my attention – I already knew how to do it properly; but in the busy hectic environment of growing a business, some things slip, I need to bring my focus back.

My favourite “busy” story is around playing squash, when you are on the court and everything is happening so fast, having someone watching and reminding you of what to pay attention to is of high value.

If you are a CEO or Owner and interested in some input, drop me a note via our contact form and I can arrange access to our Free review. https://www.delivio.com.au/contacts/information/ Select Sales Process Review.

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I am asked this most often – the typical question is – “do I need to engage with social media?”

Remembering that most of the businesses I deal with are business to business and what I would call solution focused.  In other words, generally not consumer based.

Now statistics can say all sorts of things.  On the surface the appealing thing is that around 70% of the population engages in Social Media – maybe the other 30% get the work done!! Just joking… The figures are clear that we cannot ignore Social Media as PART OF our marketing mix.

It sounds like there is a great pool of opportunity there to tap into.  Hell yeah!!  If you are seen when it matters – when someone is receptive.

Is someone on Facebook going to look at a software strategy for their business? Probably not.

Build Engagement

Social Media is all about building an interest and desire to engage.  You need a medium to long term strategy and to follow a plan.

In the Online world, most business will be driven by web search and email interaction. Social Media is a great open net, but direct engagement is where most professional businesses gain success.

You need to leverage the big net of Social Media to pull it back into your more targeted and personalised marketing & engagement.

Having said that, promoting your brand can be of great relevance in Social Media.

Social Media is a phrase for describing some extremely different platforms.

Facebook and LinkedIn are very different; however, the strategy of building contacts has some similarity.

Build an Engagement Process

The more important question is “What do I do with a new potential business contact?”  “What is my engagement strategy?”

How many of you have met a contact at a conference, connected on LinkedIn and that’s it?!  There is a whole lot more you could do.

With one recent project, we knew we needed to target a set of roles, we understood who the buyers were, so we used LinkedIn to help focus in on these. This was not a one off “blast” but a planned engagement over a period of time.  Facebook was the wrong place for buyers but still good for awareness.  We found a high incidence of potential customers saw us on Facebook, but our actual engagement came from LinkedIn and subsequent traditional sales activities.

Conversely, another business we built a strategy for meant Facebook was a great fit as we could target business owners, above a certain age and within a very specific geography.  Targeting this group with a Facebook Event was ideal.

(Click here for our blog article “Targeted Approach to Marketing”)

Publishing to Multiple Platforms

We have mentioned LinkedIn and Facebook, but you still need to publish to blog articles and via email campaigns.

This leads to the other question; how do I manage publishing to multiple sources with the minimum of effort?

To help I have produced a “flow chart” image.   If you would like a copy of this click here.

Analytics and Integration

There are some great management tools around, but I have found Zoho Social to give me the best value outcome (Particularly as it integrates back into my CRM).  It is simple to use, can publish to all the main targets including: LinkedIn for both your personal and business pages; Facebook (page only, not profile); Twitter, Google+, Instagram.

You can create drafts, so others can review before publishing.  You can also schedule a list of articles to publish.  Zoho Social delivers great analytics about all your activity on Social Media in one place.

Here are a couple of examples.

You will see from the flow chart that the key aim is to build a list of people who find your information relevant and that at some stage will potentially be a customer.

Through these methods we can build a long-term nurturing process that is inexpensive to deliver, yet can give us great metrics on interest levels.

Communicate, Educate, Engage, Resolve, Transact, Service. CEERTS

One of the best tips I remember getting for marketing – if you have marketed well, the customer is ready to buy from you.  That is a whole other discussion, however getting the customer ready to buy is certainly a function of Social Media.

Content

The other thing we will touch on briefly is what do I talk about in Social Media, what material do I present?  As with all marketing, the old saying is still true … “Content is King”

A couple of quick things to consider:

Provide informational pieces.  Back to my CEERTS process.

Don’t oversell, focus more on good information. The parallel I draw here is how I conduct a seminar – most of my effort goes into ensuring the audience leaves having learnt something.  Sure, I am upfront about why an event is sponsored, of course someone needs to create business from it – but it is not about the product, it is about what you can do with the product or service; what you can say without even mentioning the product name.

Content is always important….

• Video has rapidly become the king of communication on LinkedIn and Facebook. Short 2 to 4-minute videos about a subject are very popular and there are many economical ways to build a video; even just you in front of your phone video recorder.
• Make it educational.
• People love reals situation examples, you may not be able to mention names, but describing the scenario is very helpful.
• Something new you have come across

So, in summary – what do you need?  You need something to manage your Social Media Campaigns. I am using Zoho Social, there are other popular tools like Hootsuite, Socciable etc  You also need to have a Campaign tool for your email campaigns.  I use Zoho Campaign, once again due its tight integration back into my Zoho CRM but you might use Mail Chimp, Constant Contact or similar.

Let me finish with a note on why I am using and promoting Zoho – simply put; INTEGRATION.  The screen shot below is a great example of the benefits.  All that other activity shows up in my CRM, LIVE.

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This is another one of those headings that many people would say – of course, targeting is obvious.  But truly how many do this and understand the many aspects of sales and marketing this applies to?

Being clear about who you are targeting drives huge efficiencies and increases the win rate when you know who you are engaging with.  I have found this can help Sales staff immensely.

Let me put a few stories together to help explain…

What is your target definition?

First, you need to come up with a definition of your target that is easy to understand and clear.

This can be related to market accessibility, verticals, geography, technology.

Let us also be clear on the difference between focused selling and accidental sales.

Focused Sales

Focused selling is where you are spending most of your energy in an outbound mode.

Accidental Sales

Accidental sales are those that come to you through referrals or advertising but are not necessarily your target group.

Example Targeting Health

Let’s see how it could work with a technology company, targeting Health.

First, Health is a big banner with many different facets, so you need to break this down.

We have decided to focus on nursing homes as we have some reference customers in that field and some technical expertise that fits.

The first thing this has done is tell us where we are NOT going to spend outbound energy – Hospitals, Consulting rooms etc.

The other thing it tells us is where to network.  What events to attend, or sponsor?  What linked in profiles to connect with and build relationships?  What vendors to leverage into that space?

The next is to narrow this down further.  How many beds would our target have and what is our primary geographic target?

Develop a Target Statement

So perhaps we can have a target statement like this…

I am focused on Nursing homes within a 1-hour drive from Dandenong that have a minimum of 40 beds.

As a sales manager this also helps as you can review sales activity and anything that does not fit the target you can pull the sales person into line.  Many sales people focus on activity, not effectiveness.

This allows you to buy research and lists that are very targeted.  You know what the primary LinkedIn groups are that you should join, look for any other meetups or similar for that industry in the defined area.  Attend functions that fit the description.

All outbound energy MUST be targeted at this definition.

Now let us look at the other side, why it saves effort and improves efficiency.  If I decided to go to hospitals as well, then we now have a different networking group entirely, typically different events to attend.  I would be watering down my efforts.  If hospitals are potential users of our technology, we can target them later once we have cemented this area of focus.

Referrals are Great

Of course, as you do your networking and people move around you will get inbound enquiries from outside your target that fit your expertise; these are the accidental sales. That is great, we all love referral business.  It lowers the sales effort and increases the success factor.

I have an example in line with this where a provider did some great work in Brighton, that customer told another person at a conference in Sydney resulting in a customer on the Sydney north coast.  That is an accidental customer.

Expanding your Target

Now the beauty of the targeted approach is that this statement is just the beginning.

One way I like to look at this is that my target is to get xx% of the addressable market in my defined target before I expand the target.

Addressable market is always up for interpretation. Still using our Nursing home example, let’s suggest there are 500 nursing homes within that 1-hour range, 250 with more than 40 beds.  Further to this, we learn that around 30% of them have had major technology upgrades in the last 18 months so would be difficult to target.  That leaves 175 as an addressable market.  There is more you could add, but you get the idea.

So, following the example…

I am focused on Nursing homes within a 1-hour drive from Dandenong that have a minimum of 40 beds.

Could change to all of Victoria or Melbourne and Sydney metro.  You get the idea.  As you build profile and success – reaching saturation levels – you expand the target.

The advantage I have found in this style of approach is how much more successful the engagements are.  We know the lingo, we know the problems they face, we have seen them before, we know how to position ROI.

Building this activity around a well structured CRM solution will bring significant rewards.

Here is simplified example of a worksheet you can use to have a quick review of your Customer Focus.

We have just started with the top 5, you can add as many as you would like.

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