Posts

We are on the path to 1,000 sales leads.

/in /by

Last week I wrote about the big picture of what it would take to attract 1,000 leads, both the philosophy and structure of what would create the attraction. I also talked about all the research I did to find ‘the best time’ to tweet, re-tweet, post, and take other social actions in order to get the full measure of exposure. Turns out no one really knows the best time. Pretty interesting.

CLARIFICATION of purpose and process:

THE WHY: These messages, promotions, and solicitations will be used to attract people interested in becoming Gitomer Certified Advisors. Certified Advisors will be able to use, teach, and resell my classroom and online offerings.

THE SYMPHONY: We are going to use all our social media sites and outlets, in harmony, to achieve this objective and strategic plan. In order to do so, I must message all of my LinkedIn connections, Twitter and Facebook followers, blog subscribers, e-zine subscribers, and YouTube subscribers. From there, I am going to send out a master email every week with the subject line “Build your own or expand your existing sales training business.” This same message contained in the email will be broadcast worldwide through all of my other social media and Internet sources.

Based on that information, and the fact that I am all about value-based (non advertising) messages, tweets, and posts, the campaign will take place “at random” until we discover the best times and places to elicit response.

Luckily we’re in the age of data analytics, so it should be a relatively easy task to see what comes from where, and when. It will not be a 100% accurate evaluation, but over a short period of time we’ll be able to take smarter (analyzed) guesses.

WHAT’S IN THIS FOR YOU? As you read (hopefully study) our plan of action, see which elements you might be able to use to build your own lead-generating program. For me, this will be the measure of how valuable my social media time investment has been. What could it be for you?

Achieving 1,000 leads will be an amazing return.

Here’s the detailed outreach game plan:

  • Strategic E-Blast. An initial mailing to my entire list on a Wednesday morning. Thereafter on the following Monday. And 11 days later on a Friday. This gives me maximum penetration of my own list. The email will link to my promo video and information site (gitomercertifiedadvisors.com). The copy in the email will be short and sweet. It will make NO promises other than “start or build your own sales training business using my material and my brand.”
  • Facebook posts on both my personal and business page. We will link the post to our informational video promo, and offer a value message rather than an ad. It will be a message based on better presentations or better selling. It will ask questions and create a desire to find out more. When they click the link, there will be no registration barriers whatsoever.
  • Facebook testimonial posts from existing advisors. Both video and text. This will authenticate my requests, and make interested people less reluctant to respond.
  • Daily tweets with varying messages. All with a shortened link to take the interested people right to my info site. No barriers to the information.
  • Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube, and Twitter ads that will target similar sites and messages. That’s right, you can put target ads on the competition’s social media pages. Love it.
  • A small but targeted LinkedIn ad campaign. Similar to the ads on my competition’s pages, but intended to reach people based on background and title.
  • Daily LinkedIn messaging to my entire group of 19,000+ connections. Sending them a link, requesting they take a look AND make their contacts aware of the opportunity.
  • Targeted LinkedIn messaging. Searching for people with training, sales management, and coaching backgrounds and inviting them to “take a look.”
  • Several short YouTube information videos in addition to my existing ones. They will be loaded with keywords and hash tags.
  • Blog posts twice a week with information on how to be a better sales trainer or coach. Value-based information with an ability to click for more information.
  • Weekly e-zine ads and informational tips. Similar to the blog, my weekly e-zine, Sales Caffeine, will feature training tips and a “for info on how to become a Gitomer Certified Advisor and build your business using my name, my brand and my material,” click here button.

THE EXPECTED RESULTS: A steady flow of semi-qualified incoming leads who will discover our team of knowledgeable, friendly people who can convert them to happy, enthusiastic buyers.

THE PLATFORM IS THE MEDIUM: The reason I’m able to attract anyone to my message is because I have (slowly) built a solid platform of customers and followers. So can you. I started with ONE. Pretty low number. So can you.

Study my sites and follow my results. Those lessons will teach you the real law of attraction: VALUE ATTRACTION.

If you’d like to see the exact email and subject line I’m using, and links to all my social sites, go to www.gitomer.com and enter the word ADVISOR in the GitBit box.

Reprinted with permission from Jeffrey H. Gitomer and Buy Gitomer.

About the Author

Jeffrey Gitomer is the author of The Sales Bible, Customer Satisfaction is Worthless Customer Loyalty is Priceless, The Little Red Book of Selling, The Little Red Book of Sales Answers, The Little Black Book of Connections, The Little Gold Book of YES! Attitude, The Little Green Book of Getting Your Way, The Little Platinum Book of Cha-Ching, The Little Teal Book of Trust, The Little Book of Leadership, and Social BOOM! His website, www.gitomer.com, will lead you to more information about training and seminars, or email him personally at [email protected].

A game plan to generate a thousand social media leads.

/in /by

I have a goal and a plan to attract 1,000 leads in the next 30 days.

Six months ago I launched my Gitomer Certified Advisor program. It allows others in the coaching and training field to use my brand and sell my classroom training and my online platform along with their offerings – or by itself.

After a very successful (but limited) launch, I want to take the program to the next level and need to find interested and qualified people to do so.

THINK ABOUT YOU AS I TELL YOU ABOUT ME. Before I get into the strategy and actions I’m going to take, I want you to understand why I’m writing about the process. I want you to compare it to how you attract, how you prospect, and how you connect with willing buyers.

  • How do you get leads?
  • How do you prospects?
  • What is your strategy to socially involve and attract?
  • Is your personal platform strong enough to attract?
  • What is your social media lead-conversion rate?

The answers to these questions will significantly impact results.

BIG PICTURE: The strategy for this ‘attraction campaign’ is to use every form of social media and electronic outreach to find interested people, and offer them multiple ways to connect with me. The goal is to give information immediately without a barrier of registering or giving me their information. I want to get my messages BOTH responded to and passed along.

THE TARGETS: In order to get 1,000 leads, I am going to mass mail my contacts and connections AND specifically target existing coaches, existing sales trainers (corporate and independent), and anyone looking to start their own sales training business that wants to use the Jeffrey Gitomer brand to increase authenticity. As a Gitomer Certified Advisor, I provide them with the content, the brand, and the training to make it happen.

TIMED SOCIAL MESSAGES: Posting time and frequency are directly proportionate to the audience reached and their likelihood of response. From my personal experience, my social media consulting expert, Joe Soto, and the article, The Scientific Guide to Posting Tweets, Facebook Posts, Emails and Blogs at the Best Time in The Huffington Post, the best times to post on social media are as follows http://blog.bufferapp.com/best-time-to-tweet-post-to-facebook-send-emails-publish-blogposts:

Facebook. Best post times are between 1 pm and 3 pm Monday through Friday; engagement rates are 18 percent higher on Thursdays and Fridays.

Twitter. Tweet later in the day. Re-tweets on Twitter are higher at 5 pm compared to any other time during the day; the best times to post are between noon and 6 pm. This same study found that people are on Twitter 181 percent more during their commute. Think about it. Aren’t you more likely to be all about your life and how to improve it before or after work?

LinkedIn The Media Bistro suggests LinkedIn is most often used right before and after work hours (specifically on Tuesday and Thursday, but no one knows exactly (except maybe LinkedIn).

Blog readers read in the morning, with the ‘sweet spot’ being Thursdays around 11 am. But that’s a subjective opinion as well.

YouTube has no ‘best time.’ By comparison to others, its visitors are more search oriented, so I intend to be both searchable and findable. And my new video posts will go out to all my existing subscribers.

CRAP SHOOT REFINED: No one really knows. All messages are different, and all experts are flawed. (I’ve been proving that for years.) I believe that content is a bigger key than what time you post it. And key words will get you found. So that’s where I’m concentrating. I’m going out to my audience, and asking them to go out to their audience (re-tweet, repost, forward, like, comment, and anything else that spreads the word organically).

My overall goal is to generate at least 1,000 leads by May. You may think that is an aggressive goal, but highly achievable through social media and email. Generating 1,000 leads will create a pipeline that will lead me to one sale per day by June 2014.

And I am going to give you the complete detailed outreach plan for you to use as a guide to creating your own game plan for new leads – next week.

If you’d like to see the exact email and subject line I’m going to use, go to www.gitomer.com and enter the word ADVISOR in the GitBit box.

Reprinted with permission from Jeffrey H. Gitomer and Buy Gitomer.

About the Author

Jeffrey Gitomer is the author of The Sales Bible, Customer Satisfaction is Worthless Customer Loyalty is Priceless, The Little Red Book of Selling, The Little Red Book of Sales Answers, The Little Black Book of Connections, The Little Gold Book of YES! Attitude, The Little Green Book of Getting Your Way, The Little Platinum Book of Cha-Ching, The Little Teal Book of Trust, The Little Book of Leadership, and Social BOOM! His website, www.gitomer.com, will lead you to more information about training and seminars, or email him personally at [email protected].

Lessons Learned from Corporate Branding and Rebranding Efforts of Note

/in /by

Lesson: Don’t fix what’s not broken
Coca-Cola learned not to tamper with a beloved brand in 1985 when it decided to re-stage its iconic brand with “New Coke.” The public was outraged and let Coca-Cola know they didn’t want a “new” Coke. They wanted their old Coke, literally a quintessential icon in American popular culture. Coke responded within a few months and brought back “Classic Coke.” Classic Coke sales rebounded. Although New Coke remained on the shelves, it eventually faded from store shelves. Some commentators felt the move to New Coke was a marketing gimmick to regenerate interest and sales in the brand after sales erosion due to the “Pepsi Challenge” taste test campaign. Don Keough, company President, responded to the charge saying “We’re not that dumb, and we’re not that smart”.

Lesson: Expansion may require a bigger umbrella
International Harvester changed its name to Navistar International in 1986 when it sold its farm equipment business and entered the truck, diesel engine, and bus markets. Although the name is “made up,” it broadened the brand and has strong connotations of movement and direction. As a 2013 company report* stated, “Navistar was selected as a name with a strong sound, a resonance to Harvester, and a connection to its root words “navigate” and “star.” It does all of those things and has since become the name of the holding company over multiple Navistar divisions, International Trucks, and MaxxForce Diesel engines.

Hi there! This article is available for free. Login or register as a StrategyDriven Personal Business Advisor Self-Guided Client by:

Subscribing to the Self Guided Program - It's Free!


 

About the Author

CEO Miller IngenuityWith more than three decades of management, executive, consulting and speaking experience in markets all over the world, Miller Ingenuity CEO Steve Blue is a globally regarded business growth authority and ‘turnaround specialist’ who has transformed companies into industry giants and enthralled audiences with his dynamic keynotes. In his upcoming book, Outdo, Outsmart… Outlast: A Practical Guide to Managed, Measured and Meaningful Growth, he reveals why seeking growth and surviving growth are equally perilous, and require different sets of plans to weather the storms. Steve may be reached at www.StevenLBlue.com.

7 Keys to Executing a Successful Business Rebrand

/in /by

No matter your reason for embarking upon a business rebranding effort of a company or product name, logo, phrase, design scheme or other such asset, which can be mixed and many, one thing is certain: execute poorly and suffer extreme consequences. There is simply no rebranding effort where the stakes are not extraordinarily high and the margin for error is slim at best. This history has been proven repeatedly amid a litany of rebrand debacles that didn’t heed just a few fundamental principles.

With this in mind, globally regarded business growth authority Steve Blue, CEO of Miller Ingenuity – a 60-year old company that successfully implemented a corporate rebranding effort, offers these 7 best practice keys for effectively executing a rebranding initiative:

Key #1: Get clear on what a brand is
A brand is not just your logo. A brand is the sum total of the messages, interactions, and experiences a customer has with your product, services, and people. To a customer, a brand is the promise of an EXPERIENCE and the customer’s EXPERIENCE of that promise delivered. It’s a valuable asset to nurture over time.

Hi there! This article is available for free. Login or register as a StrategyDriven Personal Business Advisor Self-Guided Client by:

Subscribing to the Self Guided Program - It's Free!


 

About the Author

CEO Miller IngenuityWith more than three decades of management, executive, consulting and speaking experience in markets all over the world, Miller Ingenuity CEO Steve Blue is a globally regarded business growth authority and ‘turnaround specialist’ who has transformed companies into industry giants and enthralled audiences with his dynamic keynotes. In his upcoming book, Outdo, Outsmart… Outlast: A Practical Guide to Managed, Measured and Meaningful Growth, he reveals why seeking growth and surviving growth are equally perilous, and require different sets of plans to weather the storms. Steve may be reached at www.StevenLBlue.com.

Online subscriptions offer amazing perks and value

/in /by

Online publications are the rage and the future. They offer amazing value for the publisher, for the advertiser, and for the reader. They also offer more than significant cost reduction for all three players.

BACKGROUND: I moved to Charlotte in 1988. I brought as much of the Northeast with me as I possibly could. That included my subscription to The New Yorker magazine. The magazine doesn’t just have the best articles in the world; it also has the best cartoons in the universe.

The magazine comes out 47 times a year. As you can imagine, oftentimes, for one reason or another (as with your subscriptions), the magazine did not get read. Sometimes there would be an unread pile of five or six. Guilt would set in.

Finally after about eight or nine years, I stopped my subscription. Occasionally I would pick up one in the airport gift shop and read it on the plane and I continued to subscribe to the cartoon newsletter. It came to my email inbox with all the cartoons once a week. Then they changed it, and made you click onto their website in order to see the cartoons, so I quit reading it.

TODAY: This morning I got a random email listing the contents of this week’s New Yorker magazine. I guess they had my address and decided to quasi-spam me. I bit.

I clicked on the link and found out that for $59.95 a year, I could get a digital subscription that included the current issue, a one-year subscription, and access to EVERY back issue since 1925. Plus they throw in The New Yorker cartoon calendar. I couldn’t resist.

I bought the online version, and from now on I will only buy the online version of anything I want to subscribe to or read. Here’s why: I go on the airplane, I click The New Yorker magazine icon on my iPad. Then I read this week’s issue, I look at this week’s cartoons, and I can go back and look at nearly 5,000 other back issues that are searchable by content. Holy magazine, Batman!

REALITY QUESTIONS: Are they trying to discourage me from buying their printed issues? If you have an e-reader, why would you buy any printed magazine?

REALITY FACTS; Newsweek, which had more than 100 years of printed issues, STOPPED PRINTING their magazine. Now you can only get the magazine online.

TODAY: I used to subscribe to Selling Power magazine. It’s the voice of salespeople, sales tips, sales techniques, sales lists, and sales products.

THE FUTURE IS TODAY: They stopped printing the magazine a few months ago, and only offer an online version. Brilliant. Gerhard Gschwandtner, the founder, publisher, and visionary saw that print versions were declining in revenue, and it was time to decide on the future rather than lament the present.

REALITY: Online cuts costs. DRASTICALLY. Online makes advertising more affordable. Online offers more options for the reader to connect with the advertiser. With print ads, the reader has to make a call or go online and search. With online ads, the reader is already online and only has to click the ad to find out more, subscribe to a blog, get a video, go to the advertisers website, or buy something.

I’M ALL IN: Am I missing something here? Value, versatility, and instant access. Look for my ad in Selling Power magazine in April. It’s an ad I would have NEVER placed in the print version; an ad that is 50% less expensive than it was in their printed version; an ad that gives their reader (my prospective customer) instant access to my offer to buy.

FOOLS GOLD: Five years ago I had a talk with some Yellow Pages executives. I asked them how much longer the Yellow Pages would be printed, and when they would be switching to an online version. They smiled and proclaimed, “We’re not going to stop printing. The book is our cash cow.” And they changed the subject. In the last five years, the book has gone from a cash cow, to a cash calf, to a cash rump roast. And YP.com is more than ten years late to the dance.

Please don’t read this the wrong way. Print is not dead. In fact, it will always be alive. Many people still don’t have the ability to get online publications. But the market is making a HUGE shift. There are “only” a few hundred million e-readers and tablets, and a few hundred million more smart phones. The print impact felt by online availability is undeniable.

THINK ABOUT YOU: How much of an impact has your e-reader or tablet made on your reading habits? What are you subscribing to? Has online reading brought you greater convenience and availability? Easier access and more incentive to stay current?

And finally, what are your plans to make your products and services ‘online available?’

THINK ABOUT THIS: Every time you see someone reading on a tablet, they could be reading about you!

Reprinted with permission from Jeffrey H. Gitomer and Buy Gitomer.

About the Author

Jeffrey Gitomer is the author of The Sales Bible, Customer Satisfaction is Worthless Customer Loyalty is Priceless, The Little Red Book of Selling, The Little Red Book of Sales Answers, The Little Black Book of Connections, The Little Gold Book of YES! Attitude, The Little Green Book of Getting Your Way, The Little Platinum Book of Cha-Ching, The Little Teal Book of Trust, The Little Book of Leadership, and Social BOOM! His website, www.gitomer.com, will lead you to more information about training and seminars, or email him personally at [email protected].