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LinkedIn Groups are Valuable Sales Tools – When Used Appropriately (Article & Sales Team Meeting Idea)

Thursday, February 11th, 2010

LinkedIn has become a very valuable tool for me.  I enjoy partnering with my connections for referrals, business opportunities, learning experiences and awareness of our industry and business climate.  In the few years I’ve been using LinkedIn I’ve reconnected with former colleagues, exchanged valuable referrals, developed deeper relationships with clients, kept track of clients when they’ve switched companies, connected employers and employees, created great peer networks and, not lastly, increased sales.  My point?  LinkedIn is a powerful tool in my business. 

In the past year, I have gotten more active on LinkedIn Groups.    I wanted to share my experience and some of my best pratices for using these groups to build business acumen, share and gather best practices and grow as a sales professional. 

  1. First of all, you need to find a group that is well-managed.  This means that the group manager is actively involved in the discussions and ensures that spam or selling is not tolerated.  The groups that add value are made up of a community of peers that value sharing ideas and best practices for the benefit of the group – and ultimately the customers they serve.  Here are three groups I am active in and would highly recommend:  Sales Blogcast, Sales Gravy, Sales Playbook  (If you know of other good groups, please post a comment and share them with our readers.)  Visit one or more of these groups and request to join.
  2. Once you are a member, you should share your ideas and opinions on discussion questions already posted. 
  3. If you are facing a sales challenge such as getting a prospect to take your call, overcoming a price objection or dealing with customer service issues, you can post your dilemma for the group.  These groups are made up of professionals from the sales industry and are great about sharing their experiences, ideas and suggestions.  You will have a great list of perspectives to consider as you decide how to tackle your sales challenge.
  4. Be respectful of your network.  You can disagree -it is actually interesting and valuable to get differing opinions.  Just do it politely and with respect.
  5. Make an effort to share news that might be useful to the group.  Most groups have a place to post news.   If you find something helpful, share it with the group. 
  6. Follow up on discussions you post.  Thank group members for their input and continue to facilitate the discussion until it runs its course.
  7. Be abundant.  In the The 7 Habits of Highly Successful People, Dr. Stephen Covey defined this abundance mentality as “a paradigm that there is plenty out there for everyone.”    The Abundance Mentality is in contrast to the Scarcity Mentality.  (The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Dr. Stephen R. Covey)
  8. Invite colleagues to join and participate in groups you find useful. 
  9. Stay positive.  The groups I’ve recommended manage to stay realistic and positive. They are solution oriented no matter the challenge.
  10. Remember the Golden Rule always.

These groups are a great enhancement to your life and career when you participate appropriately.  Please feel free to share your own best practices by leaving a comment for our readers.

Get active in LinkedIn Groups and reap the benefits immediately.

Sales Team Meeting Idea:

Ask your sales team to

  • all join the same group or
  • each join a different group.

At your sales team meetings, bring one of the discussion questions from your LI group to your own team.  Share the LinkedIn Group’s responses and then build on those.

Or, determine a sales challenge that exists on your team and post it to the group(s) you belong to. The next time you get together, share the answers from the LinkedIn group(s).  Be sure to let your LinkedIn Group(s) know how they helped your team by leaving a comment in the discussion thread, also.

(Meeting to Win offers subscribers sales team meeting agendas every week.  Join us by subscribing at https://www.meetingtowin.com/subscribe.)

Posted in agenda ideas, best practice, down economy, free sales team meeting topics, how to have productive sales team meetings, management tips, maximize tools, new managers, performance, sales activity, sales management, sales manager tips, sales managers, sales meetings, sales team meeting agenda, sales team meeting agenda topics, sales team meeting ideas, selling tools, team meeting, tips for meetings | No Comments »

Neal Boortz is Outraged. You Should Be, Too.

Thursday, February 4th, 2010

Neal Boortz is outraged this morning.  To be fair, no matter which day I choose to write this, I could start my post the same way and, to be fair again, there is a lot of stuff to get outraged about if you enjoy being outraged.  Today’s particular outrage is about a school district here in the Atlanta area spending $400K of federal stimulus money to take 200 teachers to a conference in Hollywood, CA for 4 days of learning and development.  The justification for this includes the idea that the teachers will come back from this trip excited about what they learned and eager to implement what they learned in the classrooms.

This topic made me think about the annual sales meeting that many salespeople just came back from.  January is a hot time for this.  It is typically fair to say that salespeople learn a lot during these annual meetings and do come back excited.  But then what happens? Well, the same thing that will happen to these teachers.  Back home things continue to churn and students need to pass tests, parent conferences need to continue, a failing student needs to be addressed, discipline problems continue, the school play needs to be rehearsed, tests need to be graded and so on.  Before these teachers realize it, they are doing exactly the same things they were doing before they left for the conference and the conference was nothing more than a pep rally and a chance to socialize and sightsee with peers from around the country.  Lfie can get in the way of great intentions after all.

Hopefully what will happen is this instead.  The school system will follow this Hollywood conference with a plan to implement the top ideas from these meetings that will make the most impact on key areas this school district needs to address.  Whether that is increasing graduation rate, implementing more sports programs, raising the SAT test scores or reducing absenteeism.  What is the plan and what is the plan to hold these teachers accountable to bringing back the change that will make a difference?

If you’ve just had your annual sales meeting, what is different in the way you help customers because of the time you invested to attend your meeting?  Some companies follow these up effectively and many, many do not.  Everyone comes back after the company has invested hundreds of thousands of dollars and selling time and salespeople have invested selling and family time and …. do the very same things they did before they left.  Sure, they are a little excited, but are also now 4 days behind in their day jobs.  Now it’s catch up time instead of implement-what-you’ve-learned time.

Bottom line, you should be outraged like Neal if your company dragged you half way around the country for a big rah-rah session with no plan to advance, reinforce and apply the valuable lessons and information you absorbed during your meeting.  I know I would be.

(Post brought to you by Jill Myrick of Meeting to Win.  Meeting to Win provides weekly sales team meeting training topics.  Each agenda offers 60 minutes of sales development content along with ideas to reinforce, advance and apply the training in the field.  Join us by subscribing today.)

Posted in discipline, down economy, how to have productive sales team meetings, management tips, meetings, new years resolutions, sales management, sales manager tips, sales meetings, sales team, sales team meeting agenda, sales team meeting agenda topics, sales team meeting ideas, team meeting, tips for meetings | No Comments »

The Q4 Push – Are You In? The Time to Act on 2010 is NOW!

Sunday, October 11th, 2009

j0433410This has been a tough year for many.  It’s Q4 and salespeople could be feeling tired and ready to “write this one off” and take another shot at it in 2010.   Here’s the problem with that.  Momentum is a very cool thing and it’s great when it’s working for you and horrible when it’s working against you.  So, even if 2009 is a lost cause in terms of goal achievement, there is no better time (well, a month ago would have been better, but…) to get momentum going for 2010.

To gain more and more momentum as you close in on 2010, try these strategies:

The first five on the list come from the advice my friend Alvin of Tactivity shared in a LinkedIn discussion. I’ve added (and repeated) a few ideas that have helped me, also.

  1. If you’re on pace to the President’s Club in your organization, then increase your activity.
  2. If what you are doing hasn’t been working, then complete a thorough cleansing of the pipeline/funnel: Is it real? Is it good business? Can you win?
  3. Prioritize your activities around the health of your newly cleaned funnel
  4. Brainstorm a list of possible actions for your top opportunities; then choose only the 3-5 activities that will really advance them towards closure
  5. Go get it done!
  6. Conduct business reviews with existing clients to secure relationships, identify risks and uncover new ways to help them.
  7. Examine your territory for new opportunities a tough economy has turned up.
  8. Increase your sales activity.  Oh, did we already mention that one?  Action creates action, energy creates energy.  Make more calls!
  9. Solidify referral partners.  Decide to gain 20 referral partners and stay in touch with them, ask for referrals, be accessible and be someone they would be proud to refer (hint: send them referrals, also).
  10. Stay “on the grid” with prospects and existing customers.  Share useful information to help them run their business more effectively.  Don’t be out of sight or you know where you’ll be…. Out of mind.  Many of their sales reps have “gone dark” lately as companies do lay-offs and reorganizations.  Just being there may differentiate you!
  11. Have a team meeting every week to celebrate successes, share ideas, collaborate on hot deals and challenge each other.  This team accountability and celebration is fuel for your sales engine.  (You know we couldn’t leave this one out!)
  12. BONUS:  Increase sales activity.  In my experience, there is NO substitute.  Commit to accelerated sales activity in Q4 if you do nothing else.  Yeah, it’s worth mentioning 3 times. 

2010 can be an amazing year.  Salespeople that build momentum now can get a head start and be rewarded by helping more customers in 2010 than they ever thought possible.  Not to mention, for some 2009 can be a distant memory….  Get started today.  Staring in January 2010 will be TOO LATE.

To help sales teams build momentum during Q4, Meeting to Win is running a Q4 Push Promotion which means…free sales team meeting agendas for Sales Managers.  Sales Managers can subscribe for sales team meeting agendas and get all of Q4 for free.  First payment of $10/month won’t be charged until January 2010 (sales managers can unsubscribe any time in Q4 and never be charged).  The agendas are designed to motivate sales teams and accelerate performance while continually gaining and maintaining incredible momentum. 

Read more HERE then join us by subscribing HERE and entering the Promo Code “Q4PUSH”.

Posted in LinkedIn, Uncategorized, agendas, best practice, communication, culture, down economy, free sales team meeting topics, management tips, meetings, new managers, new years resolutions, opportunity, performance, sales activity, sales management, sales manager tips, sales managers, sales meetings, sales team, sales team meeting ideas, sales tips, tough economy | No Comments »

One Salesperson’s Keys to Success – My Observations

Wednesday, September 30th, 2009

For the past 6 months I’ve had the opportunity to witness a salesperson succeeding.  Of course, I know many salespeople succeeding, but this story really intrigued me.  First of all, this salesperson started a consulting business in their field 6 months ago.  They had no brand, about ten thousand competitors and no marketing budget.  Oh, and we were in the downward spiral economically. 

Flash forward 6 months and this salesperson has more business than they can handle and is now considering adding to their team just to keep up.

I am very impressed with how hard this person has been working and really started to think about the actual keys to their success beyond just hard work.  I started making a list of this salesperson’s activities, habits and characteristics and thought it would be fun to share my list in a blog post.

So, here, in no particular order, are my observations or what I am calling “one salesperson’s keys to success”.

  • Creative deal and pricing structures.  This consultant is in an old industry where they’ve always done pricing the same way.  He surprised prospective clients with better deal structures than they’d seen.  Don’t mistake “creative” for lower – these are competitive deal structures that are a win for both parties.
  • This salesperson is not afraid to walk away from deals.  If the deal isn’t in this person’s sweet spot, he actually walks away from it and spends time where he can be more effective – and valuable to his client. 
  • Cold, hard, disciplined sales activity. This salesperson knows what activity leads to sales results and he does that activity EVERY DAY.
  • Manages time effectively.  Plans his work and works his plan – seems so simple. 
  • Does not get slowed down by rejection.  He is able to expect some rejection and take it in stride knowing he is that much closer to a “yes”.
  • Uses technology effectively.  He is very selective about which technology tools to use and which would be “cool”, but just create more work or wasted time. 
  • Frugal.  He is only spending money where there is clear ROI.
  • Networking, networking, networking every day.
  • Chose a niche and sticks with it.  He is turning down business outside his niche.  Since he began doing this his traction in his niche is growing daily and his client list has doubled each month.
  • He sets attitude rules.  For example, if he loses a deal, he only allows himself to “mourn” it for 24 hours.  He uses business development activity to pull him out of mourning which turns into new opportunities before the 24 hours is even up.
  • He takes care of himself – he works out daily, eats right and even took a week vacation.
  • He doesn’t waste time on administration.  He set up a system that is efficient and doesn’t spend too much time on paperwork.
  • This person naturally has no call reluctance.
  • This salesperson has stayed in touch with past clients consistently for 15+ years.
  • He is a master at LinkedIn.  Daily he is on LinkedIn building and sharing his network. 
  • He asks for referrals every day – and gets them.
  • For some reason, Tuesdays were a discouraging day.  This salesperson figured out why (he couldn’t connect with anyone on Mondays and felt no progress) and did something about it.  He created a plan to stay motivated on Tuesdays and recognized that the week always improved.
  • Extremely and appropriately persistent.
  • Knows his ideal customer and pursues ONLY that.
  • Faces reality and addresses concerns during deal pursuits.  He recognizes when a deal may go south and addresses it with the client before he spends too much time.
  • Works a tactical plan.  This salesperson knows his strategic goals and then carves out time to create a detailed tactical activity plan.  When he gets to his office he “doesn’t have to think”, he just executes his plan. 
  • He really enjoys his business and his clients.  Making them happy and solving business needs genuinely motivates him.

These are just my observations of one successful salesperson.  If you are struggling currently, grab some ideas from this list.  Duplicate his success using his habits.  Happy Selling.

This post brought to you by Jill Myrick, Owner of Meeting to Win, LLC.  Get weekly sales team meeting agendas and create momentum on your sales team!  Visit us at http://www.meetingtowin.com/.

Posted in Uncategorized, best practice, down economy, efficient, management tips, performance, recession, sales activity, sales management, sales tips, tough economy | No Comments »

Win in a Down Economy – #7 – Maximize Your Tools

Tuesday, December 16th, 2008

(This winning tip brought to you by Meeting to Win, LLC – www.meetingtowin.com)

Many sales teams are taking a break from investing in new tools – CRMs, on-line sales training, lead sources, Hoovers, etc. Most spending now is on customers, not on ourselves. That may not be such a bad thing. I see it over and over again. The corporate office is looking at the latest bells & whistles for their sales teams. The lastest presentation technology, the latest CRM upgrade, the latest on-line collaboration tool, the latest _________, the latest ________, the latest _________ (you can probably fill in the blanks). They put out an RFP maybe and salespeople come in and share all the great things their _____ can do. All great and probably all very true. It seems the problem comes at the implementation and adoption phase of the project. As new tool is only great when it is used. Too often the latest _______ is rolled out and before it is being maximized, the buyers are off to the next latest ________.

As a sales leader, do a quick inventory of the tools available to you. Do this with your team. Figure out how you can create more efficiencies, drive more leads, shorten sales cycles, eliminate unnecessary work using the tools you already have.

Here is one that applies to a lot of us. Outlook is a tool most of us have. Set up “rules” in Outlook to categorize e-mails that come in. You can color code e-mails based on who they are from, if you are the sole recipient or if you are part of a distribution and so on. You would be amazed at how much less your e-mail controls you once you have these “rules” in place to help you prioritize how you read and respond to e-mails.

Your CRM is a big one, also. Most salespeople don’t use a large percentage of the capabilities of their CRM. What is one way you can use your CRM to help you run more efficiently? Can you mine leads, create a better communication plan with an existing customer, what else?

There are many more ways to maximize the tools available to you. I’d love to hear your ideas, also. Sell more efficiently during a tough economy by maximizing the capabilities of existing tools for you and your team.

Thank you,
The Meeting to Win Team

Posted in down economy, efficient, leads, maximize tools, sales managers, selling tools, tips, tough economy | No Comments »

Win in a Down Economy – #1 – SWOT Analysis

Friday, November 21st, 2008

(Brought to you by Meeting to Win, www.meetingtowin.com)
Thanks for all the best practices and ideas on this topic. As I gather these from sales leaders, I will post them here. Please comment on a post by hitting the “comment” link at the end of a post or submit your best practice or idea at http://www.meetingtowin.com/contact. This series is all about sharing ideas to win deals, solidify client relationships, retain top talent, attract new top talent and gain and sustain momentum even during tough times. Selling through times like these adds “seasoning” to sales managers and sales professionals and we will all be better for it. It will happen again (post 9/11 anyone?) and we will all be better equipped if we take the lessons now.

Best Practice #1:
Get your team together for a SWOT analysis of your business. This is a great time to collaborate and get a good picture of your current selling environment.

I found a few resources on the internet including this one: http://www.sales-and-marketing-for-you.com/swot-analysis.html

SWOT Template:
http://www.sales-and-marketing-for-you.com/support-files/swot-analysis.pdf

Please share your experiences and ideas as they relate to SWOT exercises. Also, as mentioned above, share your own best practices, tips and ideas at http://www.meetingtowin.com/contact.

Posted in down economy, sales managers, swot, team meeting | No Comments »

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