The man who gets the most satisfactory results....

"The man who gets the most satisfactory results is not always the man with the most brilliant single mind, but rather the man who can best coordinate the brains and talents of his associates." ~ W. Alton Jones

Top 5 Lies That Marketing Tells Sales

Top 5 Lies That Marketing Tells Sales
By Geoffrey James | February 19, 2009


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There are a lot of very talented people in marketing. However, the sad truth is that many of them are still trying to market like it’s still the 1980s. They spend big money while adding little value. Whenever I run across such groups or individuals (and plenty of them leave comments on this blog) I find that they tend to promulgate five dysfunctional lies. To be fair, the marketers who espouse these lies happen to believe they’re true. But they’re lies nonetheless.
LIE #1: Branding is vital to your success. Marketing execs take everything that happens in a company (product design, development, call center, sales, manufacturing) couple it up with the stuff that marketing does (advertising, marcom, etc.) and call it “branding.” Then, because all those things are important, they convince the boss that “branding” is important and therefore marketing should get a bigger budget to oversee all the “branding” activities.
LIE #2: We can train you to sell. Selling is like sex; if you’ve never done it, you have no idea how to do it well. Many marketing professionals have never sold so much as a glass of lemonade, so they have no idea what customers want and how they think. The training that marketing provides is almost always product features and functions, which is of very limited usefulness, because customers, frankly, don’t give a rat’s rear end about features and functions.
LIE #3: Our market research is scientific. There are exceptions, but from what I’ve seen, a lot of what passes for market research inside most firms is simply Marketing figuring out a way to get somebody else to produce the smoke they want to breath. In any case, a great deal of B2B “market research” qualitative and anecdotal (e.g. focus groups) that lacks both validity and value.
LIE #4: We can handle the media. In the 15 years I’ve been a freelance writer for major national publications, I have run across about 4 marketing managers who were capable of working well with the media. All you have to do is look at the trash that passes for press releases in most firms. And what’s really pitiful is when the PR managers think that THEY should be the source. Clueless.
LIE #5: We are giving you good leads. CSO Insights recently conducted surveys of more than 2000 sales and marketing professionals. Get this: 85% of company marketers felt they were doing a good job generating quality sales leads. By contrast only 50% of the sales professionals in those same organization were satisfied with marketing’s efforts. The result of the disparity is fewer closed deals and less revenue. Ouch!

READERS: I’m perfectly willing to give Marketing equal time on this issue. Feel free to leave a comment describing some Lies that Sales Tells Marketing. If I get enough, I’ll publish them as a full post.

http://www.bnet.com/blog/salesmachine/top-5-lies-that-marketing-tells-sales/867?pg=2

Everything You’re Told About Setting Goals is Wrong

Everything You’re Told About Setting Goals is Wrong
By Jeff Haden | June 8, 2011

Setting goals is a popular topic: Google lists nearly 20 million results for “goal setting” and Amazon.com lists 1,600 results for “goal setting” alone.

Clearly millions are desperately trying to achieve their goals.

Too bad most of the advice they get is wrong: Otherwise every guy would be fit, trim, erudite, wealthy, and married to Gisele Bundchen and every woman would — well, I don’t know other than I’m sure my name wouldn’t show up on that particular list.

Most people fail to reach their goals — and then beat themselves up for lacking the willpower, drive, and persistence to achieve their goals.

If that’s you, stop. Now. The problem isn’t a lack of willpower or drive; the problem is how you’ve been taught to think about goals.

For example, did you get to work on time today? Did you get the kids to their activities on time? Did you get dinner on the table and cut the grass and do the laundry and all that other stuff? Of course you did. Why?

You didn’t really have a choice.

That’s the main problem: Most goals give us a choice.

Tasks are what we have to do. Goals are things we want to do. That’s why we fail to achieve goals. We make it to work on time because we have to; punctuality is non-negotiable. We don’t make it to the gym because we don’t have to; we can negotiate, if only with ourselves, and make other choices.

Other poor goal setting advice?
We’re told, “Make goals meaningful” (the “M” in the SMART goals approach.) No goal can be “made” meaningful. A goal either has meaning or not. The more you work to find or contrive some meaning the less likely you are to achieve the goal. Face it: It’s impossible to “find” the meaning in a particular goal. Meaningful goals always find you.
We’re told, “Setting goals helps you focus.” Goals tend to make an already complicated life even more complicated. Think about the last time you wrote a list of business or personal goals. When you finished did you think, “Wow, this is awesome because I have a clear direction and purpose,” or did you think, “Oh crap, how will I ever get all this done?” I’m guessing you thought the latter — if not right away, certainly after a day or two.
We’re told, “Make goals personal.” Every goal has a personal component, but it’s a lot easier to achieve a goal when you share and work towards that goal with others. Watch youth swimmers: Almost every kid swims faster when part of a relay team than in solo races. Why? If nothing else, they don’t want to let their teammates down. It’s a lot easier to let ourselves down than it is to let others down. Peer pressure — and peer support — is a wonderful thing.
We’re told, “Make goals attainable” (the “A” in SMART.) There’s nothing inspiring about an attainable goal. Attainable goals are targets, not goals. “I will cold call twenty prospects today” is a target; just pick up the phone twenty times and you meet the target. Valuable, but not inspirational.

Think of it this way: Your boss tells you to finish a report by noon. Meaning, focus, personal, attainable… your boss provides all the “important” aspects of a “great goal.” But anything your boss asks you to do is a task, not a goal.

Only you can set a goal. Here’s a better way:

Make a list of all the things you currently consider to be goals: Career, business, personal, health… whatever. Now look at each entry. How many are really tasks? For example, basic health — eating well, getting a little exercise, keeping your weight under control — is a task, not a goal. Basic health should be non-negotiable. (World-class athlete? Goal. Basic level of health? Task.)

Same with career or business: The steps you take to succeed are tasks, not a goals. (If you have to work, shouldn’t you get the most out of it you possibly can?)

When you turn what you thought was a goal into a task, and treat it as a non-negotiable item (like getting to work on time), completing the task will be a lot easier. That’s what we’re programmed to do.

I realize you’ll probably end up with a seemingly overwhelming number of tasks on your list. That’s okay. Cut some of the stuff you currently do that is unnecessary. You’re smart. You can figure out what should go.

Then list your dreams. Review your list, think big, and pick one dream. Pick a dream that won’t feel like work to try to achieve. Pick a dream you can share with someone, even if from afar. Pick a dream you would “work” for because you feel like you have to, that if you don’t chase it will someday cause you to feel your life was incomplete. Pick a dream you would strive for even though the odds of success are slim.

When you have to — when you’re compelled to because it comes from inside — then you’re chasing a real goal, not jut completing a task.

When you chase a goal that comes from inside you, when you chase a goal that finds you, the effort itself becomes a reward, even if ultimately you “fail.” Weed out the tasks so you can see your goals for what they really are — dreams you will do anything to achieve.

Will you achieve the goal you choose? Maybe yes, maybe no… but at least the trying part will be easy.

http://www.bnet.com/blog/small-biz-advice/everything-you-8217re-told-about-setting-goals-is-wrong/2311?tag=content;drawer-container

Want A-List Salespeople? Here’s What to Look For

Want A-List Salespeople? Here’s What to Look For
By John Warrillow | May 12, 2011

An exceptional salesperson can be two or three times as productive as an average salesperson. When you find one, all you want to do is clone her.

But screening for sales talent is an inexact science. Complicating matters, the very best salespeople with an established client list rarely want to leave their current job, so you’re often left choosing between second-rate salespeople with experience or taking a chance on a relatively inexperienced person.

Here are three tactics I use to improve my odds of finding top-performing salespeople:

1. Look down-market

Generally speaking, salespeople get paid on commission, and since their commission is based on what they sell, the more expensive the product they sell, the more money they make. That’s why it is virtually impossible to recruit a top salesperson away from industries in which they sell very expensive things. For example, the best investment bankers on Wall Street sell entire companies and take home seven or eight figures for the privilege.

Top real estate salespeople make more than a million dollars in commissions selling luxury homes. Top car salesmen take home hundreds of thousands of dollars a year, and so on down the line. The only salespeople willing to leave a job selling an expensive product are the underperformers.

By contrast, the top wireless phone salesperson working at your local Verizon store is probably earning mid five figures. Look for the top-performing salespeople in an industry selling cheaper products than yours. If your average sale is $1,000, look for top performers in industries in which the average sale is around $500. That way, you can avoid picking over the second-rate performers and go straight to the top rep, who will have an incentive to leave his company and join yours.

2. Look for carnivores

The one personality trait that defines the best salespeople is a high degree of competitiveness. They define their worth by how they compare to others, and once they are on your team, you can use this competitive streak to your advantage to motivate your group. To find a competitive tendency on a résumé or in an interview, look for examples of the candidate comparing herself to others in rank order. For example, “achieved 105% of plan” looks nice on a résumé, but it says nothing about how she performed relative to others.

You’re looking for statements like “ranked second among 26 salespeople,” which communicates she knows and cares about how she compare to others.

3. Look for competitiveness in their personal lives

Skip down to the candidates’ “interests” section (or ask about their hobbies in an interview) and look for how they spend their time outside of work. To find great sales potential, look for a competitive streak in their hobbies. If a candidate was a ski racer as a kid or runs marathons now, you know you’re dealing with someone who is competitive with others and himself, which is the secret sauce that drives salespeople to top performance.

A competitive streak is easy to see if someone is sporty, but there are other ways hobbies can reveal the desire to win. Dog groomers, for example, take their dogs to shows and want them to win a ribbon — that’s beyond my realm of understanding, I admit, but to each his own. The type of interest a candidate has is less important than the way he approaches his passion.

Just curious — how do you find your top-performing salespeople?


http://www.bnet.com/blog/build-business/want-a-list-salespeople-here-8217s-what-to-look-for/479?promo=808&tag=nl.e808