Salesconx

The Advantage of Using 1099 Independent Sales Reps

2011-06-20T10:49:00.001-04:00

Companies, both big and small must always focus on increasing sales if they want to stay in business. Competition is fierce among competitors and only those that stay on top of their game survive. The key to a successful business always comes down to sales. You can have the greatest product ever invented, but, if you have no sales, you will quickly go out of business. So, the question comes up as to the best strategy for promoting your product or service.

There are many large companies that rely on an in-house sales staff to drum up business. Maintaining a strong in-house sales force can be expensive because you have to pay salaries, insurance and other benefits as you would with any other employee. You incur high costs before you may see any positive results. An alternative to having an employee-based sales team is to have outsourced sales driven by independent sales reps.

In today’s economy, many businesses do not have the means to support a full-time sales staff. They certainly want to do all they can to attract new business, but they must be a little more creative. Setting up an independent sales force that will accomplish the same goal of increasing sales and bringing in new customers is not as simple as it may sound.

Depending on the type of company or business you are running, an outsourced sales force may or may not be appropriate. For instance, if you have a very specialized product where technical knowledge is essential and your sales people must be very fluent in all of the latest technology; it can be very difficult to find qualified independent sales reps that can handle the job. A company may need to hire and thoroughly train a sales force so they can effectively present the company’s products before potential clients.

On the other hand, field sales can easily be handled by well rounded independent salesmen that have experience in a number of different areas of sales. If you can sell TVs, mattresses or payroll services, you probably can sell air-conditioners, tires or cell phone services.

An independent sales rep is almost always paid on commission. When he or she brings in business, they are paid an agreed upon commission. Instead of receiving a W-2 form showing their taxable income, an independent sales rep receives a 1099-MISC form and is considered an independent contractor who is responsible for paying their own Social Security and Medicare taxes. In return for giving up control over the sales rep, a company is not forced to pay taxes, insurance, healthcare or other benefits, all of which can add up to a substantial sum of money.

Another advantage of hiring independent sales reps to drive company sales is that they often cover territories that do not get covered by an in-house staff. Some independent salesmen may have 5 or 10 different product lines they represent and run in very different circles than would normally be associated with your business. Their contacts can be invaluable for generating new business. As long as you find a competent professional, both big and small businesses can benefit by engaging the service of an independent sales representative.

Work Market is a platform for the management of labor and human resource services. Work Market gives businesses access to an on-demand scalable work force along with tools to manage three categories of labor: employees, contractors and third parties. The software is modular, flexible and highly customizable for use by sole proprietors all the way through multi-billion dollar global organizations.

To register for your free Work Market account go to http://bit.ly/mjFKNH

Deploying a Virtual Sales Team

2009-05-01T15:05:00.001-04:00

Deploying a Virtual Sales Team is the ideal solution for augmenting your sales force and closing new business.

For most business owners, the concept of a perfect sales force is a moving target. With new product and service announcements, shifts in regional priorities, and evolving vertical market requirements, the result is an ongoing source of anxiety, and a drain on even the most efficient organization’s bottom line.

With On Demand Sales, a service of Salesconx, we remove this burden, and replace it with easy access to the best sales professionals in the country. They work for your company, selling your products and services, on a pay-for-performance basis. Our nationwide network of selling experts have a proven track record of success, and can be ramped up or down as your business requirements dictate. So you can forget about recruitment fees and the expense of in-house hiring. There are no administrative nightmares to toil over, and no huge overhead expenses to concern yourself with. It’s that simple.

Looking for results? Look no further than On Demand Sales. Visit us at www.ondemandsales.com.

America’s Most Wanted - B2B Insider Information

2008-12-01T16:33:00.001-05:00

The words “insider information” evoke visions of Charlie Sheen and Michael Douglas in Wall Street. Insider information is illegal. The SEC carefully and diligently monitors and tracks potential transactions based on insider information. But does the same hold true for business to business (b2b) transactions? Are B2B insider information transactions the most profitable ones and yet completely legal?

In fact, insider information when it comes to B2B sales is sought after information (not that insider stock trade aren’t). We have seen terms like ‘trigger selling’, ‘timed selling’ and other similar expressions to denote knowing the right time to actually sell to a prospect. But, what about when a sales professional at a company has insider information about an upcoming sell. Let’s say you are selling security software or services to a company. You hear that they are sick and tired of their current telephone provider and are looking to switch vendors. Is this insider information? What could you do with this information? If you had a VoIP division you would certainly email someone about this opportunity. This represents an excellent referral opportunity.

If I told you that you could list your clients opportunity on Salesconx and make some extra money, is that something that you might be interested in? (Please note that this should be read with the voice of Bob Ryan of Entourage). And why not? This information is extremely valuable. Think about what a VoIP vendor would have to pay to generate the qualified lead and opportunity that you are now a party too? The PPC for VoIP is around $5. With a 1% conversion rate, that would equal around $500 (3% would be $165). Use an appointment setting firm or telemarketer and it could cost you $250-$1,000 for the appointment. In short, companies are spending $90billion per year to find qualified prospects and drive revenues for their companies (of course we could expect this number to come down but 80% of $90billion is still enough). Armed with the information that a company is indeed “in the market” for a product or service should be worth as much (if not more) than your standard qualified lead.

Now, how about pulling this insider information out of your client? Why not ask your client what other pains they might be having. Don’t think for a moment that an investment banker (the few remaining) isn’t sitting down with the CFO or CEO and asking them where their pains are. The objective of course is to ascertain where the investment banker could play a role in driving revenues for his company. Most their activities revolve around advice and introductions. Why not become the investment banker for your customer? Find out where are their pain points and help them find solutions to solve those problems. In today’s economic turmoil driving some extra revenue is certainly something we all want.

Prospecting 2.0

2008-09-03T10:51:00.002-04:00

Not too long ago (say 1990) if we wanted to drive leads for our business we would send out postcards. Really great looking postcards. We would send out thousands of them, hoping for a 1% response rate. Online postcard companies that would send the postcards out for you automated this process. These companies would even provide the mailing list. Over the years, these organizations morphed into email houses and other eMarketing shops.

Prospecting 1.0 moved us onto the “internet superhighway” with online seminars (webinars). No longer limited to an in-person seminar in multiple local cities (can anyone else say 10 city seminars in 4 weeks?) the Internet allowed us to produce an online version of our in-person seminar. These of course became so dry that we supplemented the rather poor attendance with recordings that became available ‘on demand’. Prospective 1.0 eventually led to Podcasts and who (other than me) doesn’t want to listen to selling training materials on their iPod?

Web 2.0 has created a more open approach to the Internet, in particular user-generated content, blogs, podcasts, social media, review sites, Wikipedia, etc. Prospecting 1.0 has clearly benefitting from Web 2.0 trends as companies are using the social networks to drive business (certainly the recruiting industry and consultants are benefitting from social networks). Sales 2.0 brought together discrete marketing and sales tools into a single framework (think Salesforce.com, WebEx and Genius) and thus the Sales 2.0 sales force leverages the activity from Web 2.0 venues (such as Blogs) to deliver leads to the sales team. Web 2.0 was a real paradigm shift as consumer-oriented venues (Facebook for instance) are being leveraged for businesses. Companies started thinking about their social media coverage the same way they measure their public relations (print) coverage. But there has not been a shift in the way that prospecting occurs – it is very much the same formula; response to lead to qualified lead to warm lead to hot lead to opportunity to hot opportunity to deal. Many people have written about these steps (from Miller Heimen to Siebel) but let’s assume these are pretty much the steps. Web 2.0 has given more ways for responses to occur – from clicks, to blog posts, to downloads and web responses. These build on the direct mail response leads from the early 90s but in the end are still just responses. Shouldn’t the Internet be able to shift the way that people prospect for business the same way the recruiters now fish for candidates across LinkedIn?

Prospecting 2.0 is the new trend in allowing buyers to reach decision makers without the need for the first 3 steps of the marketing equation (response – lead – qualified lead). This is actually the most costly area of the marketing process. Think of how much you spent on your last Google PPC campaign and how many qualified leads were generated from that campaign. Think of how much you spent to exhibit at your most recent tradeshow and the number of qualified leads that were generated from that event. Web 2.0 has created an environment where one could easily leverage what we will call human capital. This started with eBay (albeit Web 1.0) where your ‘stuff’ is valuable because there is someone willing to purchase it. Prosper.com created a marketplace where your liquid cash can be ‘sold’ for higher interest rates because there is someone willing to pay a premium for a loan. More recently expert networks have become a common place where professionals could earn extra money (often referred to as an honorarium) by speaking to companies looking to leverage their knowledge (check out glgroup.com). Prior to an expert network a company would have no alternative but to hire a consulting firm whose analysts would serve as the industry experts on the desired subject. The analysts would do their research gathering information on their own and sifting through the bits and pieces to come up with their own conclusions that they would share with their clients for a very hefty fee. Online expert networks (the Web 2.0 flavor) bypass the analysts and consulting firms connecting the company directly with the industry expert.

Prospecting 2.0 works in a similar vein. Rather than a company using Google or other traditional marketing tools to drive responses, leads, etc. they bypass them by going directly to the source of the opportunity. They do this by creating a marketplace for referrals driven either by the buyer (of the qualified leads) or the seller. Companies like Myndnet, LeadVine and ThePerfectNetworker allow buyers to literally publish their lead request and the fee they are willing to pay for the referral. Companies like Inquisix and Passitto take the sellers approach by allowing a seller to list their referral or contact opportunity and allowing buyers access to their connections. Companies like Salesconx do both buy and sell introductions to decision makers. Are they working? It is probably too early to tell as a sector, but $10 billion will be spent in 2008 by businesses in the US on lead and opportunity generation. Checking out these companies sites, it isn’t just small businesses using these services. Myndnet has a few listings from Netscout, Passitto has a law firm, and Salesconx has Administaff, MessageLabs and Berlin Pacific. Companies of all sizes are faced with the constant struggle and desire to grow. In a day and age when every dollar counts, isn’t it time for Prospecting 2.0?

Recession Selling – making the best out of the worst (or the very bad)

2008-07-07T17:42:00.004-04:00

It is no surprise that trying to sell in a tough market is one heck of a challenge. Think of the opposite – just how easy it was to sell when everything was going great. Companies buy to either (a) drive revenue or (b) cut costs. Y2K, Sarbanes Oxley, SEC and HIPPA compliance are long gone (unless you are one of the lucky ones) so forcing a company to spend money to get into compliance isn’t an option for most of us.

In sports, it is common for one team to be struggling against a far better or more prepared opponent. Yet somehow, time and time again the underdog emerges victorious. Something happened during the game to allow the seemingly defeated to emerge victorious. Perhaps there is something there for us to learn and emulate.

Here are some suggestions for surviving during a tough selling period:

Pull the goalie or go for the goal. In a hockey game it is common for the coach to pull the goalie and replace the goalie with another offensive player in the hopes of getting a goal in the final seconds. Pull out all the stops and go for that “big” account you’ve been talking about. Think huge (bigger than big) and try to get a piece of business that never in your wildest dreams you ever thought you would get.
Full court press. Spend as much time as possible on site with your client. Participate (for free) at creative meetings or strategy sessions. Take people out to lunch. Learn as much as possible about where your client is headed to and weave your way into those projects.
Switch pitchers. The market isn’t going to change overnight so whatever you are doing today needs to change accordingly. Try a whole new approach to your service or offering.
Go for the interception. What similar service is your target buying from someone else? Why not focus on stealing that piece of the business from one of your competitors. All is fair in love and war. There is only a finite of business that your client will transact so why not shift some money your way. You may need to discount it highly but squeezing more money out of the same client is far easier than landing a new one.
A walk is as good as hit. Not everything you do needs to be a homerun. Just try to make a sale no matter how small with a new client. Think about what you could offer a client that is easy to buy – keeping it very simple. Filling your plate up with singles is much better than having no one on base.

While we all hope that the market turns around soon, we are all in this for the long haul and having the stamina and fortitude to make it through the storm successfully will make you feel like a winner.

Getting Your Foot in the Door

2008-06-02T11:22:00.002-04:00

You have a great product or service to sell. You know the pitch back and forth and are prepared to handle any objections made by the prospect. All you need now is a prospect. Knowing full well that the right person isn’t going to pick up the phone and call us – how do you get in front of the right people?

We all make cold calls or, in the web 2.0 vernacular, send out blind emails (not spam). We certainly want to make the most of our lead generation time. Marketing is always concerned (or should be) with the return on investment (ROI) of marketing spend but how about the ROI on sales time? Who is measuring whether the time spent on the phone prospecting is actually paying off in revenues? If reaching the wrong person is a sure fire way to not drive business, then reaching the right person will certainly move the ball forward.

Aim High – why not set your targets on reaching out to the best possible prospect first? Go for the homerun! Find out the person’s name by using Zoominfo, Hoovers, LinkedIn or any professional network. Why not send a well written by brief email to the target? If I am sending an unsolicited email I always apologize for the intrusion and ask for their assistance. Make a list of your top prospects and send them all similar but personalized emails. Make sure the subject is interesting and compelling. Perhaps you read a recent article demonstrating their ingenuity or some other element that connects you together – use it.

Stop and Ask for Directions – when you are talking to any prospect, why not ask them to steer you in the right path? Start by stating upfront that you know he/she is not the person you should be talking and then ask for the right person. If you are able to engage a person in a conversation then have them help you. Talking to an administrative assistant or a subordinate – ask them when the best time would be to reach the prospect.

Think Out of the Box – let’s be real, whatever you are selling the chances are that someone pitched the very same thing to your targeted prospect within the past 30 days. If not then you got a hot one. Why not think about a different pond to fish in (enough metaphors). If you are selling small business benefit services why not pitch to local accountants that serve small businesses? If you are selling web design services why not introduce your services to local computer stores?

Buy Your Way In – larger companies spend a fortune in marketing getting their service/product in front of the right people. According to the American Marketing Association, $90 billion was spent in the US in 2006 in marketing. While you may not have that kind of money to spend, think of what it is worth to you to get in front of the right prospect. Is it $50? Is it $1000? Why not offer that up to your network as a referral fee for helping you get into door of a prospective client. Most enterprises use appointment setting services where they pay telemarketers to open up doors for them with prospects. Why not do it yourself?

Knocking down doors is a hard business, especially in a difficult marketplace. If your company’s marketing department isn’t driving leads for you then you have to do it yourself. The good news is that we (all of us sales guys) have done it before. We all have good days and bad days. The key is always persistence, staying on top of leads and following thru.

The First 10 (Customers)

2008-05-08T12:39:00.003-04:00

Your research is completed. Your development is done. Your blood, sweat, and tears have finally come to its zenith. Your forecasts for revenues are in line with your expense projections. Your hot-off-presses business cards are printed and your website is going ‘live’. All that’s left is to finally prove to the world (and of course all the naysayers) that your idea for a new business was right on the mark.

We can talk about writing press releases, taking out ads and sending out mailers. But, think about it - in tangible terms, how are you going to get those first ten customers? Your first few customers are so critical to your success because they:

Legitimize your offering, demonstrating that yes, there is indeed a market for your products and services (“dogs eating the dog food”).
Provide valuable feedback to help you improve your business operations.
Give you real testimonials and referrals.
Pay the bills (let’s not forget about that one).

The Old Way

Let’s assume for our purposes that you are not blessed with a brand name like Pepsi or Jack Welch. If that was the case, then simply cold calling a potential customer would suffice. There are a number of ‘old school’ ways to find potential customers in your immediate network – the “warm market”.

Personal Contacts – friends and their friends, school connections, fraternity brothers, club members, church and so forth.
Business connections – former employers, employees and customers. Your personal vendors - lawyers, doctors, accountants, insurance agents, mortgage brokers, bankers, real estate agent, contractor and so forth.

After you have built your list of contacts, send them all something letting them know about your new business. Keep in mind that you aren’t necessarily soliciting them to be a customer but rather, you are informing them that your new venture exists and with that knowledge your contacts could either decide to become a customer themselves or refer folks that might be interested in your product or service. Make it really simple for them too; what problem are you trying to solve and how do you solve it. When should you be brought into the situation? A colleague/friend is going to refer business to you in the hopes of them looking good to both you and the prospect.

In order to attain your first customers, you are relying on the trust that you have built (ideally) with your personal relationships, friends and family. While this method will hopefully drive business, if your business does not directly align with your contacts then hitting them up for business will be futile.

The Internet Way

What better way (presumably) to launch your new company than to leverage the power of the Internet to get your first 10 customers. The (now) classic steps are:

Build your website.
Optimize it to be visible within search engines.
Launch a pay-per-click campaign with text and banner advertisements.
Tweak the messages to attract your audience.
Weed thru the clicks to find quality leads.
Close business.

While this seems extremely straightforward and easy to launch – it is still difficult to get your first customers this way. We surveyed 800 small businesses at the end of 2007 and most of them were concerned about upfront costs on any marketing program.

While the internet will help you drive people into your store, when they look around they aren’t going to see pictures of satisfied customers – because there aren’t any. As they look around for accolades from your biggest clients, all they’ll find is smoke and mirrors. Of course you could get lucky and convince your site visitors to buy your service but this could take quite a while. It is no wonder this approach is often called the ‘spray and pray.’ Think about it; you have allocated a significant amount of money (that you likely don’t have) into Google and PPC advertising in the hopes that one of the hundreds of people who will click on your advertisement will convert to a customer. It could happen…but can you rely on it for your first ten customers?

The New Way

With the proliferation of social and professional networks, there must be a better way of ‘finding the right person’ to buy your product/service. And, isn’t that what all this marketing is really about – finding the decision maker who could authorize a purchase or trial of your product/service. The “old way” as described above, finding the right person was by leveraging your immediate network. The internet way says: broadcast your message to as many folks as possible and someone (hopefully) will be the needle in the haystack.

But, the new way, and ideally the most cost effective and efficient method is to harness the business relationships of others to find the decision maker. Here is a good visual – if you were to launch your company and have 50 independent sales people ready to promote your product/service would that be a better approach to finding your first ten customers? Think of the power of having an army of people trying to open up doors for you the “master salesperson” to close the deal.

Social and professional networks have really gotten the ball rolling on this approach. Think of your ideal decision maker – the head of sales training at a company with more than 100 sales reps, the head of marketing at a consumer good company or the CIO of a retail chain. Now, why not tap into your professional network (whether it’s LinkedIn, Xing, Ning or others) and ask them to make introductions for you to your target decision maker. I know some folks on LinkedIn (like Moshe Weiss) who have 17,000 contacts in his ‘network’. Surely, the type person that you are looking for could be found in Moshe’s network. Getting these networked folks to make introductions for you shouldn’t be too difficult even though you don’t actually know them. How, you may ask? Would you ask 50 independent sales reps to go out and find customers for you without compensating them? Of course you wouldn’t. So why not offer the same compensation you would offer an independent sales force – on performance or based on success.

Let’s assume that you stand to earn $50,000 from landing your first customer for your new product or service. If you hired a sales executive they would expect commission of 5%-7% on top of a base salary. So why not offer $5,000 to anyone that could bring you a customer. Maybe it is a residual payment of 10% of the monthly revenue. Think of what it is worth to you to get that customer and what it would cost you to drive that lead yourself – PPC ads, telemarketing, etc. Add on top of that the cost of commission to a full time sales executive. It certainly sounds far less expensive to leverage a 3^rd party sales team that to build one yourself – especially if you are only paying for success. Outsourced sales and telemarketing is a huge business that usually incurs upfront fees or monthly minimum commitments. They could be very effective but it requires an investment in time and money.

Leveraging the networked folks seems like a winning combination; a broader reach than your personal contacts without the cost exposure of a full blown internet marketing campaign. Let’s not forget that money is a great motivator so why not offer money to help drive your business. I generally don’t like the whole favor business – the quid pro quo of you doing this for me and I’ll do this for you. I prefer, here is what I need and I am willing to compensate you accordingly.

So here is the question; if I was looking to meet someone you know professionally and compensated you for making the introduction a percentage of any revenue I generated from the relationship – would that create more of an incentive for you to make the introduction? That would make you the middleman just like the role of a real estate broker or even an investment banker. Now if you could only earn the fees of an investment banker – wouldn’t that be something?

The New Networker

2008-04-23T10:53:00.000-04:00

Social and professional networking has really taken the Internet by storm. LinkedIn, the largest of the US professional networks, has more than 20 million professionals from around the world, representing 150 industries. There are many smaller professional networks such as BizNik, FastPitch networking and Xing just to name a few. Recruiters and corporate recruiters were the first ones to jump on the professional networking bandwagon. Examine the top “connected” folks on these sites and you will still find an overwhelming number of them in the recruiting field. And it is no wonder, before the days of business networking - the recruiters always carried the largest rolodexes. Online networking created a new platform for recruiters to tap not only the folks in their network, but also the contacts in their network. Private wealth managers also account for a healthy segment of this user base. These folks spend a large portion of their day cultivating new clients and landing one produces significant fees.

Recently, a new breed of online networker has emerged – the ‘power networker’. The power networker doesn’t tap into his network to sell his/her product line. The power networker doesn’t tap into his/her network to find potential candidates. The power networker in fact doesn’t sell anything to contacts in his/her network. Rather, the power networker derives revenues from simply having amassed the collection of contacts. How does the power networker make money?

(a) The old fashion Internet way – Ad revenue. Pretty amazing that we treat ‘old fashion’ in Internet-speak as advertising revenue but so it goes. For the power networker to earn advertising dollars he/she invites their network over to platform that provides them a share of the advertising revenues. Xing has put together a great platform for doing just that – creating a true partnership between the social networking site and the creator of the network. Facebook and LinkedIn both have group functionality and this resource has been leveraged by the power networker to collect users and then bring them over to another site that provides them revenue. Given people affinity for joining social and professional networking sites joining yet another one is not a far stretch. A similar approach (even easier) is to drive ones social network traffic to ones own site where advertising revenues could be earned. [it should be noted that we found a number of power networker’s home pages are actually their social network profile].

(b) The business developer. This clearly is the favored approach and most likely the reason that professional networking exists – to help drive business. For the power networker with rolodexes exceeding 10k professionals, the odds are the person that you are seeking is in their rolodex. Requests are made to power networkers throughout the day requesting introductions and access to their rolodex. The power networker is entitled to ask the requestor for a fee in exchange for making the introduction. Though this functionality is not built into the traditional professional networks, these fee based transactions are occurring and are growing in frequency and size.

(c) Referral Fees from 3^rd parties. As anyone who has purchased a lead list before could attest to – just obtaining a name is valuable. Zoominfo, Hoovers and Spoke are just some of the firms that provide contact information (of course for a fee). Well, the power networker also has valuable contact information and could easily leverage their network. Of course the power networker needs to be careful how many times they tap their network for promotional purposes but it is a great source of revenue. Many online publications derive lots of revenue from dedicated emails, sponsored promotions and newsletters. The power networker has access to the same base of users and in many instances outweighs the smaller publications.

If you missed the boat on buying up 1800 telephone numbers, registering thousands of domain names, or setting up an offshore development company, chances are you are too late to become a power networker. We are already seeing a significant amount of cross over in terms of contacts from power networker to power networker. But, as new people are joining social and professional networks everyday it shouldn’t take long for anyone to amass enough of an online network to drive some real revenue.

LinkedIn Lion Taps Salesconx to Monetize Network

2008-04-14T14:28:00.002-04:00

NEW YORK- April 14, 2008--Salesconx.com, the online business referral marketplace today announced that Moshe Weiss, a master rainmaker and leading networker with over 16,000 direct business connections, has joined the Saleconx Partnership Program to monetize his network.

Salesconx helps businesses drive more revenue by providing a platform for qualified lead and deal generation by leveraging the 17 million sales professionals in the United States. The member base currently consists of 1,800+ frontline experts across numerous industries and disciplines including finance, banking, real estate and business services. These members are compensated for introducing qualified decision makers in their individual networks to other Salesconx members seeking these connections.

"Salesconx is all about delivering added value to the sales cycle - from the buyer, to the seller and the decision maker," said Evan Sohn, CEO of Salesconx. "Shortly after launching, we were approached by companies who wanted to deliver similar value to their members. This served as the foundation for our Partner Program."

The Salesconx Partner Program was launched this past March to make the platform more accessible to new sales, marketing and small business professionals. The partners consist of small businesses and networking individuals interested in adding value to their network by providing their members, users or contacts with the opportunity to buy and sell business referrals on Salesconx.com. Salesconx Partners are looking to help their existing contacts drive more business, while profiting from these relationships they have cultivated over several years.

In a world of web 2.0, sales 2.0, social and professional networking, Weiss is a new breed of networker. In past a truly “connected” person has a few thousand relationships. Weiss by leveraging and focusing on online networking tools has amassed an online ‘rolodex’ of over 16,000 professionals. Moreover, Weiss spends his time cultivating and nurturing his contacts. “These aren’t merely names in a list,” said Weiss, “I spend most of my day communicating with my contacts, listening to what relationships they are seeking, and helping them grow their business.” By leveraging Salesconx, Weiss is now earning income while helping his connections drive revenue for their business and for themselves. “I am always looking for new ways to bring value to my network,” Weiss continued. “By inviting my contacts to join Salesconx I am now enabling them to drive revenue for their business and for themselves.”

About Moshe Weiss
As a master rainmaker and leading networker with over 16,500 direct business connections on LinkedIn alone, Moshe Weiss (http://mosheweiss.com) is always looking for ways to support and offer value-added benefits to his network, especially with people whose companies and products have a stake in the successful rollout of Relationship Capital. Interested networkers looking for a way to monetize their contacts can join Moshe on Salesconx at http://www.salesconx.com/mosheweiss.php?reff=1003. Join Moshe’s growing network here.

About Salesconx
Salesconx, Inc., the leading marketplace for business referrals, provides an online platform for qualified introductions, pay-for-performance deal generation and appointment setting. Salesconx has helped small businesses, sales professionals and marketers across the country drive more business, adding more clients and customers in a broad range of industries and disciplines including financial services, banking, computer services, real estate and marketing services. Visit Salesconx at http://www.salesconx.com.

Brainstorm Host Monetizes contacts using Salesconx

2008-04-14T13:16:00.001-04:00

I was interviewed recently by the host of Brainstorm (www.brainstormbusinesspodcast.com) Penny Haynes, who also happens to be a successful member of Salesconx.com. Listen here: http://quikonnex.com/search/displayenc_pop.php?itemid=30609.

Penny is actually the founder of Online Communities Magazine (http://www.OnlineCommunityMagazines.com).

Thanks Penny.

Lessons from the First Salesman – The Serpent

2008-04-08T13:46:00.001-04:00

The serpent is one of the oldest and most widespread mythological symbols. “Now the serpent was more cunning than any beast of the field which the Lord God had made,” Genesis 3:1. The serpent is indeed the original salesman. It is no wonder that when being derogatory about a person’s characteristics one might say that they are slippery like “snake oil”. But (for our purposes) the serpent must have been one heck of salesman. God, as the story in the bible goes, created for Adam and Eve the ultimate in luxury. Think of the Ritz Hotel, Naples Florida with all expenses paid. Everything, from food to worldly pleasures was merely a touch a way. There was but one rule – do not eat from the forbidden fruit.

So let’s review the selling environment for the serpent; no compelling reason to purchase, no purchasing authority at the local level (we can assume God’s commandment was the guiding principal), not a very big market (although 2 out of 2 would be considered 100% market share) and decision making shared between two people. The odds were certainly stacked against the serpent being successful in making his sale. As the story continues, the serpent convinces Eve to bite from the fruit and God punishes Adam and Eve by banishing them from the Garden of Eden. How was the serpent able to convince or sell Eve on eating the fruit? Taking into consideration all the elements working against the serpent – he must have been some salesman.

Perhaps there is something to learn from this salesman #1:

Get your customer to start talking. The serpent didn’t start his dialogue with Eve about eating the forbidden fruit. Instead, he asks her a question about all the trees in the garden of eden. Listening to your customer or moreover getting them to speak about their issues and concerns is far more important than you rattling off your pitch. Perhaps by actually listening to your customer you could on-the-fly adjust your pitch accordingly.

Deal with arguments one at a time. The serpent jumps on one of the facts that Eve states – that touching the forbidden fruit will kill her. By focusing his argument on this one issue the serpent is able to get Eve to let her guard down. There are always barriers to a close but getting your customer to state them in detail and then dealing with them one at a time until there are no barriers left.

Portray a compelling image post purchase. After dealing with the arguments against eating from the forbidden fruit the serpent immediately began to paint a picture for Eve what her world would be like if she ate from the forbidden fruit. Giving tangible examples of revenue generating or cost cutting solutions is critical to selling success. Most folks want to be a hero in their organization (or at least to themselves). How will buying your product/service make them a hero? Make sure that have a clear image of what will occur once your product/service is deployed. Is their life easier? Are they able to earn more money? Save time? Be clear and specific. The serpent convinced Eve she would be Iike a God if she ate the fruit – now that’s a compelling argument.

Get the customer engaged in a trial. The serpent didn’t ask Eve to take title to an entire forbidden fruit tree, he merely convinced her to take a bite a see what happens. Make sure it is easy for your customer to try out your product/service. Everyone likes to try before they buy and while some services don’t work well in a trialing environment perhaps you could package a subset of your product/service for a trial. Making it easy for your customer to chew on your product/service will help them get a taste for what it will be like when it is fully deployed.

‘You could always learn something from everybody’ as the phrase goes. While most symbolic representations of the serpent are indeed that of evil let us not forget the caduceus or Wand of Hermes - a staff entwined by two snakes in the form of a double helix. The caduceus represents the authority to quickly deliver vital or wise information to aid, assist, negotiate, and enlighten. Perhaps there is something to learn from the serpent after all.

Does Salesconx Really Work?

2008-04-01T16:50:00.002-04:00

Since launching this past fall, many of my former sales and marketing colleagues have asked me ‘does Salesconx really work?’ Despite my conviction the ability to prove my theory of Salesconx was a bit limited.

Meet Nat Silverman. Nat is a telecommunications sales rep in NYC selling for nearly 20 years. Though Nat is typically limited to selling a single product line (a T1 line or telco equipment) Nat has a wealth of experience in telecommunications and general IT services.

“I realized that there were better opportunities for me to make money by leveraging my network,” Silverman said. “I am always trying to play the role of business consultant to my clients, advising them on services outside my company’s service portfolio.”

Silverman did what ever good sales person is supposed to do – he listened to his customer. He asked questions about what additional products or services his contacts were interested in, these products ranged from marketing materials to web services to telephone equipment. In understanding the immense value of these conversations, of these opportunities, Nat was able to make over $1,700 dollars in a few short weeks by listing his customers requirements on Salesconx.

After his first post was quickly sold, he posted a few more and watched the bids roll in. After a week of posting “Connections for Sale” on the site, he was over $1,700 richer - but he wasn't the only one benefiting. According to Nat, “Of course I’m making money and building my network and repertoire, which is important as a business consultant. But equally important, I’m making my clients happy by introducing them to people that they want to work with.”

We are always told that listening to our customer is a key to making a sale – it couldn’t be more true.

The Top 5 (Classy) Ways to Earn Extra Money on the Internet

2008-03-27T09:26:00.002-04:00

As a professional (and of course I take liberty when using that term) how could I leverage the Internet and the billions being transacted on the Internet to make some extra money. I am not about to start selling my kids clothes on eBay nor am I going to start selling online courses to my friends and family. Clearly, I missed out on the opportunity to buy and park domains names – just imagine how much has been made by those smart individuals. If I was more technical I would have set up an offshore development company a few years ago and rode that train – but I didn’t. So what could a regular guy like me do to capitalize on the Internet’s money making opportunities – without being subject to federal investigation by ~~Elliot Spitzer~~ someone else?

Here are my top 5 (classy) ways to earn extra money using the Internet.

Take a survey – probably the easiest of the bunch, there are a number of companies that will offer you up to companies to take survey and actual pay you (cash and incentives) for taking surveys. Payment is usually in the form of a company check that is mailed to you via postal mail, usually within a few weeks. But more and more companies are starting to use online payment processors such as PayPal - which is great because it means that you’ll usually receive your reward much faster. The Paidsurveyonline presents the compensation details before each survey and you could decide if you want to participate or not.
Candidate referrals – you know someone that might be perfect for a new job, why not get paid for it. Check out Zubka for potential opportunities. On this site, companies post their job openings and the referral fee they are willing to pay for a successful referral. Fees are in the thousands are dollars as it is generally a percentage of the targeted salary (just like a recruiters commission). I saw this morning fees ranging from $2,000 to $7,000 for referring candidates. If you have a strong network of people why not go thru the Zubka site and see if you have any potential matches.
Blogging – it’s no secret that any blogger can make money. Setting a blog is easy and free, especially with simple platforms like BlogSpot and Word Press. As long as you’re writing about interesting, compelling things, you’re guaranteed at least a bit of traffic to your blog on a regular basis. With traffic, come the opportunities to monetize traffic – many popular bloggers are making hundreds, if not thousands of dollars a month just by blogging about the things that they’re interested in. Google Adwords is a great place to start.
Expert yourself – while freelancing is certainly open to just about everyone with a skill in demand, it could be quite trying to find clients and the time to consult. But what about spending an hour or so every now and then. Do you have knowledge or an expertise that someone would want? There are expert networks such as Gerson Lehrman and Bitwine they will compensate you for providing your advice to another party. Of course someone has to be willing to pay you for your time but thanks to the Internet these folks are getting aggregated to make your opportunity for consulting fees even greater.
Monetize your relationships – similar to the expert networks, there is a growing opportunity to leverage and monetize your business relationships. Just like Zubka will pay you for referral potential candidates, companies such as Salesconx (self promotion) will compensate you for introducing your business relationships to potential buyers. Fees vary depending on the type of transaction from a $25 appointment with a decision maker to a $2,500 success fee for a consummated deal. Didn’t your client just tell you they were looking to replace their telephone system or evaluate a new public relationship firm? Those relationships are worth real money on Salesconx.

While the Internet is crawling with MLM, get rich quick gimmicks and online courses to get rich quick MLM and gimmicks there are a handful of reputable and high class ways to earn some extra money leveraging the Internet. I don’t think you’ll retire on any one of these methods but earning an extra $1,550 in 5 days (see my next Blog) leveraging ones relationships doesn’t sound too shabby either.

The Top 5 (Classy) Ways to Earn Extra Money on the Internet

2008-03-26T13:57:00.000-04:00

Here are my top 5 (classy) ways to earn extra money using the Internet.

Take a survey – probably the easiest of the bunch, there are a number of companies that will offer you up to companies to take survey and actual pay you (cash and incentives) for taking surveys. Payment is usually in the form of a company check that is mailed to you via postal mail, usually within a few weeks. But more and more companies are starting to use online payment processors such as PayPal - which is great because it means that you’ll usually receive your reward much faster. The Survey Club presents the compensation details before each survey and you could decide if you want to participate or not.
Candidate referrals – you know someone that might be perfect for a new job, why not get paid for it. Check out Zubka for potential opportunities. On this site, companies post their job openings and the referral fee they are willing to pay for a successful referral. Fees are in the thousands are dollars as it is generally a percentage of the targeted salary (just like a recruiters commission). I saw this morning fees ranging from $2,000 to $7,000 for referring candidates. If you have a strong network of people why not go thru the Zubka site and see if you have any potential matches.
Blogging – it’s no secret that any blogger can make money. Setting a blog is easy and free, especially with simple platforms like BlogSpot and Word Press. As long as you’re writing about interesting, compelling things, you’re guaranteed at least a bit of traffic to your blog on a regular basis. With traffic, come the opportunities to monetize traffic – many popular bloggers are making hundreds, if not thousands of dollars a month just by blogging about the things that they’re interested in. Google Adwords is a great place to start.
Expert yourself – while freelancing is certainly open to just about everyone with a skill in demand, it could be quite trying to find clients and the time to consult. But what about spending an hour or so every now and then. Do you have knowledge or an expertise that someone would want? There are expert networks such as Gerson Lehrman and Bitwine they will compensate you for providing your advice to another party. Of course someone has to be willing to pay you for your time but thanks to the Internet these folks are getting aggregated to make your opportunity for consulting fees even greater.
Monetize your relationships – similar to the expert networks, there is a growing opportunity to leverage and monetize your business relationships. Just like Zubka will pay you for referral potential candidates, companies such as Salesconx (self promotion) will compensate you for introducing your business relationships to potential buyers. Fees vary depending on the type of transaction from a $25 appointment with a decision maker to a $2,500 success fee for a consummated deal. Didn’t your client just tell you they were looking to replace their telephone system or evaluate a new public relationship firm? Those relationships are worth real money on Salesconx.

The American Idol Philosophy of Selling

2008-03-17T09:22:00.001-04:00

I don’t know about your home, but my house is an American Idol home. I am not alone as American Idol is now the most valuable TV format in the world with an estimated value in excess of $2.5 billion. As we are in the midst of American Idol mania I was thinking about the lessons learned from seeing talented performers compete week after week. What makes an American Idol champion? What makes a winning American Idol performance? All things being equal how does one contestant rise above the others? Given that it isn’t always about the one who has the best voice - what makes an American Idol? The biggest reality of this reality show is the contestants need to sell themselves week after week to the American public. These 12 contestants (now down to 11) are therefore thrust into being top salespeople. The compensation plan is fierce, the payout is huge and the space in the President’s Club is limited.

Here are the characteristics that make up an American Idol:

The Right Place at the Right Time - a solid performer picking the wrong material is a sure fire way to get ridiculed by the judges and fall out of grace with America. Timing in sales is always important. Getting in front of the right decision maker with the right solution at the right time is more an art form than coincidence. You could be the best salesperson on your team but not returning a client call in time could be the difference between getting the deal and losing the deal. Knowing when your client is most open to your pitch is just as important as the pitch itself.

You Gotta Have Heart - being emotional in what you sell is always important. People respond to those who really care about what they are selling. You have to always believe in what you are selling. If you don’t, then I suggest you sell something that you can get passionate about. Passion sells.

Honesty - a lot of the judges talk time on American Idol is telling contestants to be true to who they are. A country singer should sing country and a rock and roller should always rock and roll. Putting on a bandana and carrying a chain doesn’t make a person a rock and roller and the customer is never fooled. Don’t try to convince the customer that your service or product does more than it really does. While you might get through the first few rounds, the likelihood is that you’ll soon get tossed.

Listen - nothing pains me more than watching these young performers acting smugly when getting advice from Simon Cowell. Simon, a seasoned recording professional is always trying to get the best out of the contestants. The show is his product and he strives for excellence. Those who listen to him almost always come back the following week to rave reviews. All they have to do is listen. Selling is just as much about listening to your customer as it is talking to them (maybe even more so). Hear the feedback from your customer. Why aren’t they as excited about your offering as you think they should be? How was your pitch?

Never Forget Your Lines - remembering the words to your song is selling 101 basics. Giving a presentation to a room full of people should be a conversation between you and your audience. Stopping the presentation to look up your notes ruins the flow of your presentation. Rehearse your presentation over and over again. Go over potential questions. Be prepared.

Nice Guys Don’t Always Finish Last - while American Idol is supposed to be a talent contest it is just as much a personality contest. An obnoxious, egotistical and arrogant performer no matter how good never makes it to the end. Simon is quick to point out who is nice - never as a matter-of-fact but always as an asset to any performer. People like to work with nice people. A sale is about forging a relationship between two parties. Choosing nice people to work with is the prerogative of the decision maker. When in doubt - be nice.

So, do you think you have what it takes to be an American Idol?

Driving leads with a balanced portfolio

2008-03-04T10:00:00.001-05:00

There was a Linkedin question posted on the 29th of February – perhaps the whole leap year effect brought out the best out. The question asked, ‘What type of lead generation strategies for software industry do you recommend?’ Well, given that Linkedin is limited to 4,000 characters could only assume that the person asking the question was hoping for a single answer. I could only assume that the same person would ask a hedge fund manager ‘what type of investment strategies do you recommend’.

Ironically, both answers are pretty similar – a balance portfolio. In marketing this means a combination of online marketing such as banner advertising and pay-per-click, event marketing such as tradeshows, seminars (online and offline), cold calling which including telemarketing, word-of-mouth and referral campaigns, channel marketing and advertising. Depending on your industry some of these initiatives should be weighed more than others. Specialty software for example would do better at a niche tradeshow than say cold calling. A broad horizontal software service for SMBs for instance would do better with PPC campaigns than with a live seminar – though you may want to try both.

The key is to invest some time and money in a combination of these items and always measure the results.

Many of today’s marketing programs could be started and stopped with very little notice; Google Ad words could be set up online and your could pause your account or double it instantly. Clearly, planning for an industry tradeshow takes time and money but many programs have less up front costs. Regardless, always measure your return on these programs increasing your investment in those that are working. One last thing to remember is that marketing in today’s world is very fluid. What worked great 2 years ago produces poor results today. Think of where direct mail is today.

Why Do We Keep Giving Away the Milk?

2008-02-28T15:03:00.004-05:00

Being in the sales and marketing sector it I am often asked for advice. This ranges from reviewing someones marketing plans, recommending PR strategies and more often leveraging my network introducing someone to a potential customer or vendor. I came across this blog yesterday which really struck a cord.

Reprinted from the blog of Drew McLellan (http://www.mpdailyfix.com/2008/02/why_do_we_keep_giving_away_the.html)

“I was at lunch with a peer and friend the other day, telling her a story about how a mutual acquaintance had called me out of the blue to ask for some marketing counsel, which of course I gave her. My lunch companion said, "I hope you charged her."

Gulp.

I've been in the business for 20+ years. Owned my own agency for almost 13. I know better. But I still give away too much milk. And then I get frustrated when no one wants to buy the cow. I know I am not the only marketing professional out there who struggles with knowing when a simple conversation turns into a billable opportunity. Am I?

I'm not suggesting that I carry a time clock in my pocket and start punching in every time someone asks me a question over a cocktail or at a networking event. But when someone asks you to have coffee or if you "have 10 minutes" at what point do you know this has turned into a business transaction?

And, how do you gracefully let them know it has turned into a business transaction? I don't want to even think about how much money I have left on the table over the years because I didn't have the answer to those two questions.

Don't get me wrong. I want to be helpful. I want to be generous. I'm even okay with being an absolute fool now and then. But, I also want to be a smart business owner.

As Steve Lovelace said in a post on this topic: Nobody expects their architect to work free... so why would you?”

It is very disturbing to me that we are afraid to get compensated for doing our jobs. If your friend was a broker and you were buying a home through him who you expect him to forgo his commission? If you went to your friend the physician for a check up are you charged a fee? So why do we allow our assets to be given away for free simply because someone asks nicely? Is your knowledge in marketing any less valuable than the physicians knowledge of medicine. Your friend the broker gets commission simply for showing you a property.

This doesn’t mean of course that all your time is billable but it also doesn’t mean that you are running a pro-bono service either. And by the way, I don’t buy into the “what goes around comes around adage” as that was created by people who simply wanted something for free. In the situation above I would have told the acquaintance, ‘your situation sounds very interesting and it really merits more than a flip answer. Why don’t you come into my office so we could discuss the situation professionally?’ Now this is the litmus test; if the acquaintance isn’t willing to schedule an appointment in a professional manner than why should dole out counsel for free. Note that I didn’t explicitly say to charge the acquaintance – you could determine that at the meeting and whether there is an opportunity for some billable time. But, you wouldn’t expect you friend the physician to give you an off-the-cuff physical examination either.

It is important that we recognize that our human capital be it from an expertise that we have, to relationships that we have cultivated, are valuable and giving them away for free only serves to reduce their value.

Supplementing Your Income

2008-02-19T09:50:00.003-05:00

At a local conference I got into a discussion with a mortgage broker dealing in commercial real estate. He confided in me that he hasn’t been selling much lately and was looking to supplement his income while still working in the real estate market.

I am hearing this question more and more often these days. And, it is a common problem not limited to a downturn in the economy. No matter how high one climbs on the workplace ladder, folks are regularly looking for additional or supplemental income sources. It could be the CEO of a large company that sits on the board of directors of other companies, to the administrative assistant who works on the weekends in a retail store. Man (and woman’s) inability to satiate material desires has created a secondary income market – not related to second income family but a regular second income for professionals.

Online marketplaces like eBay have made it easy for anyone (even an experienced and educated professional) to sell merchandise on the Internet. I know a successful executive at a big finance firm who is selling environmentally friendly light bulbs on eBay. I know another executive at a recruiting firm who makes extra income buying and selling used books online.

So, my advice to the mortgage broker is not to go out and start selling trinkets from around his house on eBay (leave your wife’s glass animals alone for now) but rather, focus on an asset you could leverage. Let me beat around the bush for a moment. I have around 20 years of experience in technology marketing. One would hope that my knowledge is an asset that I could leverage to not only create marketing strategies for my current employer but moreover it is an asset that someone is willing to pay for my advice, opinion or strategy. Not too long ago we would call this a consultant where a company would engage my services for one to three months and I would produce numerous reports, presentations, etc. Thanks to the internet there are “expert networks” where experts are folks like me (presumably far better) and the buyers are companies seeking to gain access to expert knowledge and experience. I signed up for one of these networks and lo and behold I was paid a few hundred dollars to give my advice on email marketing to an investment firm. I provided quality service (or at least I think so) and the buyer got what they wanted without needing to engage me with a retainer, out of pocket expenses, travel, etc.

Now, perhaps the mortgage broker isn’t an expert on urban affairs or corporate construction – nor would anyone expect one to be. But what a mortgage broker has that is valuable are top level relationships with numerous companies in numerous industries. As a broker, you have sold or are trying to sell to businesses of all sizes from startup companies to midsized to large enterprises; from travel agencies to law firms to high tech companies. A broker also has high level relationships inside these companies as they are dealing with the decision maker, the CEO, the owner or the controller. Don’t you think that there are companies, marketers and other selling professionals that would pay for access to these folks? What if you actually knew that your client needed to outsource the IT services or would be interested in getting a Coffee vendor - would that knowledge be valuable to the vendors that provide those services? We think so.

Salesconx has created a market for this very transaction. Mortgage brokers are a great source of warm leads and introductions to many small businesses and they are willing to spend money for simply getting an email introduction. Check out the hundred of posts of businesses seeking introductions in specific geographic area, or why not post up one of your past clients who would be open to taking your call. In the latter case you set the price for the introduction so why not take it for a spin.

You might not retire on the income you get from Salesconx, but a 5 minute email introduction it is certainly worth your time. We have a dental lab that is paying $50 for introductions to dentists and a telecommunications and security company in Illinois paying $500 to meet and close business with a company needing their services, and the list goes on. We have seen a mortgage broker post that their client needs an IT consulting firm and earned $200 after selecting 1 of the 4 companies that offered money for the introduction. These transactions are occurring daily with professionals just like you. And if you feel like you missed the boat well good news, the need for businesses to drive new business is also insatiable. See you online.

The top ten low-cost and low-risk ways to drive new clients for your business

2008-02-11T09:59:00.000-05:00

All businesses share the challenge of finding new business. We recently conducted a survey of 700 small businesses. 43 % of them needed to add over 10 new clients a year. It should come as no surprise that $90 billion is being spent by businesses in the U.S. to grow (American Marketing Association). $20 billion is being spent in online marketing alone. The common marketing portfolio for a company includes advertising (online and offline), public relations, event marketing (tradeshows), client marketing (referrals) and telemarketing (cold calling). An effective marketing strategy will employ multiple initiatives under these areas targeting their customer/prospect segments. Each of these items is important (in different varying levels) to achieve marketing results. But, is there a way to achieve consistent marketing results without having the budget of a Cisco or a Microsoft?

Having been in technology marketing for nearly 20 years, I have seen various marketing methods emerge and some fall to the waste side (does anyone remember direct mail?). The Internet has also provided alternative marketing methods by establishing new channels to targeted customers. Our survey pointed out that most small businesses are not only concerned with getting good results from their marketing campaigns, but are also concerned with the high the upfront costs of these campaigns. With this in mind, here are ten low-cost and low-risk ways to drive new clients for your business. By the way, it goes without saying that you must have a clean website that provides enough of a user experience regarding your service and easy links to the appropriate calls-to-action.

My Top Ten

Client Referrals. Your path of least resistance to new customers is often from your existing client base. Assuming you are delivering quality work, getting a client to refer another client often happens without even asking. So why not ask? Put together a campaign to drive new client referrals offering incentives to your existing clients. Perhaps make a donation to their favorite charity, or discount on your service or even cash! Be prudent in tracking client referrals as it is likely that your best referrals will originate from the same set of clients. Always send thank you note, although I recommend David’s Cookies or Dale and Thomas Popcorn (a real office pleaser).

Blog yourself. While I know I am merely inviting you to join the myriad of people out there who are sharing their views, opinions and thoughts via the web, it really is a good way to get the word out there. Blogger and Wordpress are two free Blog sites that make it really easy to set up and publish your blogs. Blog regularly and more importantly make sure you publish your blog on your social network pages. Blogs are often tapped right into the search engines so even by doing nothing you are getting the word out there. (Check out Fastpitch Networking Blog promotion tools)

Inverse Public Relations. Have you ever read an article online and seen a trail of comments and responses to the article? Well, why not do that yourself (assuming you have something interesting to add)? If you are a subject matter expert (and even if you are not) why not add your two cents to topical articles. Include a link to your Blog or your web site in the response. Of course it is self promotion but it is promotion nonetheless (think about what this piece is for my company).

Socialize yourself online. Word of mouth is always a great way to drive new business. Working ones rolodex was often the terminology for the art of taking out ones rolodex and “dialing for dollars” – reaching out to your contacts to see who might be able to refer some business. Social networking and moreover professional networking has added a whole new dimension to managing ones rolodex. Networks such as LinkedIn and Facebook as well as niche professional networks such as BizNik and Fastpitch make it easy to establish an online profile and provide good tools for reaching out to your network. Join a group on Facebook or set up a live event on Biznik.

Face-to-face networking. Although there is a fee for the more popular networking groups, they are a great way to meet other professionals all of whom are not interested in sharing photos or videos but in growing their businesses. There are online versions of these groups such as Network for Professionals and a number of Meetup groups. Start a Meet up or join one inviting everyone to happy hour (on you of course). You’ll be certain to draw a nice crowd of likeminded professionals.

Web site optimization. Having a web site without it being optimized for search engines is like having an unlisted telephone number – both are bad for business. You need to make sure that people can find you. Go to Guru.com or eLance and find an expert in SEO (search engine optimization) and pay some money to make sure that your web site is posted across the internet.

Pay-for-Performance. If you don’t have the stomach to deploy a PPC campaign and wade through all the unqualified leads and responses, why not look into a pay-for-performance model. These are also called CPA or cost per acquisition. Usually the vendor will determine the price per successful lead acquisition. This could be paying only for leads that complete a registration process for instance. Salesconx.com (self promotion) also employs a pay-for-performance model which allows the buyer (the marketer or business) to establish the price for being introduced to a potential customer. Salesconx has one advantage over current CPA provides insofar as having no minimum commitments. This lets you get up and running very easily, quickly and inexpensively to closely monitor your return on investment.

Share the Wealth (Partnering). Aligning yourself with another company is a great way to “double up” on your sales efforts. If you providing expertise in X and a likely other vendor of your customer provides Y why not partner up with that company. Create an incentive for the other company such as a percentage of revenue generated. You could share clients and create targeted marketed programs reaching out to both your client bases. Maybe deliver a unified presentation or online seminar to draw the synergies of both your companies. This is generally an easy initiative to ‘kick off’ but often a bit harder to deliver in full. To make a partnership successful requires investment (mostly of time), so be patient. Keep in mind that your object is to add N new clients from this partner. So as long as you are meeting your objective it is certainly worth the time and money.

Expert yourself. Assuming you are knowledgeable in a certain field why not make your expertise available to others ‘free of charge’? For example, if you are a Tax specialist why not offer your community church or local library a free communal lecture on “Tips and Traps for Tax Preparations”. Many organization and institutions are regularly looking for topical content and experts, so why not offer these folks your services. My mother was an interior designer in her own practice and started out by writing articles for the local paper on low-cost decorating tips. If you are in the health sector try the local gym – they regularly have evening informational classes. Local chambers of commerce also have periodic meetings and often seek panel representatives. Any opportunity for you to speak in front of an audience where you look like an expert in your field is a solid opportunity.

Independent sales reps. If you believe that your product or service is easy to understand and relatively straightforward to sell, why not recruit selling professionals that are paid only on commissions. It wasn’t too long ago that most sales representatives were independent and there are presently 2.4 million independent sales representatives in the US alone. Granted most of these folks aren’t selling synergistic products/services, but it does demonstrate just how many folks out there make their money solely through sales. Try placing an advertisement in Craig’s List for independent sales reps in your industry or marketplace and see what happens. It does require a good amount of time to train and manage independent folks but getting a few more clients into the pipeline thru a commission only source is certainly worth the effort.

Well, there you have it. My advice is to try some of these methods, certainly the ones that take very little time to get up and running. As always with marketing, continue to invest in the initiatives that are delivering results but, always monitor your return on investment to stay ahead of the curve of diminishing returns.

How Could Social Media Have a Positive Affect on Your Business?

2008-02-04T14:59:00.000-05:00

We are all hearing about the potential of social media for business. I am interested to learn what others find beneficial about the promise of social media.

Social media ranges from bloggers, micro bloggers (things like twitter), social networking and professional networking. Amidst the $20 billion spent on online marketing, social media has emerged as a new (and more importantly less expensive) alternative to driving leads for your business. Word of mouth has always (at least historically) been a great way to drive new business. In my last position driving marketing for an Internet Security Company generating $120 million in revenue, around 7% of our business was client referral business (happy customers referring us to other customers). We regularly tried to increase that amount thru online referral programs but rarely successful. Leveraging ones base has always been a regular sales/marketing initiative.

Social media provides us the opportunity to expand beyond our own base leveraging not only our network but the networks of others. Creating “buzz” in the social media environments is now on the forefront of any effective PR campaign (I have even spoken to companies just focused on social media buzz). Getting the bloggers to write about your product/service has even taken the path of pay-for-blogging sites like payforpost.com. The good news is that tracking the traffic is easier than ever and I would highly recommend you closely monitor your traffic to maximize your ROI.

In the end, it is the return on your marketing investment that should drive your decision making. While it’s always nice seeing your company’s name on a Blog, if that Blog isn't driving transactions on your web site or revenue for your company, then what is it really accomplishing? Marketing initiatives need to be persistent to drive consistent results. Keep in mind that once you start delivering results to the business the expectation for more always increases, thus the need for new initiatives to continue.

Fishing for leads

2008-01-30T16:12:00.000-05:00

I was recently asked a great question at a business networking event: When planning your marketing efforts, should you cast a wide net to find lots of leads, or a narrow net to find highly qualified leads?

Oddly enough, I was (and the operative word is ‘was’) a huge proponent of “spray and pray” marketing. This strategy called for casting as wide a net as possible to catch many fish and then sift thru the fish throwing away most of the trash until you find the “good” lead. The strategy has played out well for the past 20 years – though the method by which we caught fish has certainly evolved.

At the beginning of my career, we used cold calling for almost all marketing initiatives. Sprinkled in were direct mail pieces (anyone remember those) that helped pave the way for cold callers to follow up with the targeted lists. Tradeshows and specifically niche tradeshows help narrow the audience somewhat. Emailing marketing and PPC campaigns again called for broad coverage of the marketing message to drive respondents to web landing pages and then sorted by quality of lead passing only the warm leads over the sales team.

The issue of course is that in 2008 no one returns calls from people they don’t know. No one reads direct mail. Customers hardly attend tradeshows. Spam filters and junk mail boxes store all the email marketing campaigns. Even PPC campaigns have gotten out of control. VOIP has a PPC cost on Google of $4.71. The cost then based on a 3% conversion of Google would be $157 for a qualified lead. With a 1% conversion (more likely) the cost is $471. It is easy to see how $20 billion is being spent on online marketing.

Let’s take a lesson from an unlikely teacher – cyber criminals. Botnets were originally cast among millions of users. The results were excellent at first causing electronic catastrophes such as Michelangelo and the I Love You virus. But no one other than the virus companies really benefited from these wide botnets. In recent years however, the cyber criminals have turned their attention to targeted attacks. Rather than a wide net they are sending hundreds of emails to a specific target in the hopes of a few emails getting thru and converting to a botnet. These localized botnets are extremely valuable and the spammers are generating huge revenues in these attacks from identity theft, corporate espionage and spam networks.

Using this as an example the ideal way to execute your marketing program would be to (a) get extremely detailed and specific exactly who and what is your target (b) what your ideal success would look like in terms of a deal (c) what you are willing to spend to generate that lead and (d) how many of those qualified leads are you looking to generate. The cyber criminals are successful and will continue to be successful not only because they are diligent in targeting their prey but moreover they are constantly trying out new ways to drive the success rates of their campaigns.

Recruiters tend to use a similar targeting approach when searching for a specific candidate. They get extremely detailed on the characteristics of the ideal candidate, the background, experience, accomplishments and of course compensation. They then target those individuals in their network that meet those criteria. Professional networks have now added a layer to recruiters providing them a more automated way to get the word out about the job opportunity as they seek not only the candidate but anyone who might know a potential candidate. I certainly wouldn’t appreciate a recruiter who asked me if I would be interested in a position that is clear not for me.

Marketers should take the same thoroughness in mapping out who their target prospect should be and utilize the tools available to seek out those individuals.

The tools that I would recommend are;

PPC optimization tools such as clickable (www.clickable.com) to get the most out of your PPC campaigns.
Professional network tools such as LinkedIn to help search for the "right" person in your network.
Pay per post blogging sites like payperpost.com to drive specific "buzz" to your targeted audience.
Professional niche networks such as Biznik and Fastpitch that make it easy to post promotions on your company to targeted folks
Business networking marketplace such as Salesconx (www.salesconx.com) - sorry for the self promotion.

How can social networking space be leveraged to create opportunities for Sales?

2008-01-17T14:58:00.000-05:00

I was just asked on LinkedIn, "How can social networking space be leveraged to create opportunities for Sales?"

It is important to bifurcate (yes Maggie I used the word bifurcate) social networking between both those words “social” and “networking”. The social aspect of social networking is the ‘fun’ element. It is the keeping in touch with past colleagues, college friends and associates. It’s helping out one of your past coworkers who is looking for job and needing some added help in making introductions. When my high school was having a reunion (not saying how many years) we used social networking to track and find almost everyone in the class.

What we are seeing in social networks is that ones’ “network” is getting too large so folks are creating groups of like-minded users. These folks interact in smaller environments very much like the early forums of the Internet. Let’s be real for a second; you might have a 500+ rolodex but you aren’t inviting all of them to you house for a party – your rolodex is filled with folks from your past and present; people you have worked with, go to school with and regularly associate.

The other element is that of “networking” – in this case meaning to get introduced to people who could benefit ones career or business. We are leveraging our relationship with one person in the hopes of them introducing us to one of their contacts who could at some time in the future help us in our career or business. From a selling perspective the objective is quite straightforward when put into the context of social networking – can I leverage my contacts to drive new business by having them introduce me to potential customers?

Using traditional social networking tools, I could ask one of my contacts (say someone I worked with at a previous company) to introduce me to someone in their network who might be interested in my service. In the old days we called this ‘working your rolodex’ – calling up folks you knew and asking them to refer a new client to you. Social networking has made this process much easier although the end will be the same. Shaking the trees will often cause fruit to fall but shaking them harder will have little to know effect.

One of the lessons of social networking is our new found comfort in making an introduction between 2 parties. There is also a growing trend of leveraging ones human capital. There are expert networks that will compensate you for your knowledge and expertise. There are peer-to-peer lending sites that will compensate you a higher interest rate for lending money to someone. The same model should hold true for selling professionals. Sales folks have excellent human capital in the relationships they have forged – not only with colleagues and past co-workers but with customers and decision makers. Ask a sales professional how many of their customers are in the social network and you will be surprised just how few. The reason is simple – those are customers not friends. Those relationships have value not only to the selling professional but also to businesses, marketers and other sales people who would want to get introduced to that individual. So trolling thru your networks won’t reveal these golden nuggets. One needs to create an environment that will compensate selling professionals for introducing their customers.

Driving new business – the small business challenge

2008-01-14T16:22:00.000-05:00

Growing a business has its obvious challenges. The owner(s), usually with limited allotment of initial resources, must battle the clock in creating a meaningful strategy to steal market share from larger competitors. A few pivotal client relationships can make or break the entire business. In many ways, these challenges have not changed over time--but in 2008, there are also new ways to compete.

To better understand the issues facing small businesses today we surveyed close to 500 small businesses nationwide from a wide variety of industries, with the objective of understanding the following about owners of small businesses:[1]

• How they value new client relationships

• How they approach lead generation

• How they utilize the Internet’s networking features

New client relationships: the lifeblood of small business

According to our survey, small businesses place far more emphasis on new client relationships as 39% of our respondents count on new business for at least half of their annual revenues. Despite the obvious risks involved in depending too much on a small handful of clients, more than one-third (34%) of businesses surveyed are adding no more than three new clients per year. To add these new customers/clients 61% of respondents answered that client referrals and other forms of word-of-mouth marketing account for at least 50% of new business.

An immediate conclusion one could draw from the survey results is that small business must continue to find new sources of revenue to sustain and thrive. Most of the businesses in our survey are unable to rest on the revenues generated from their existing clients.

Online lead generation is being deployed as a vehicle for attracting new customers and clients without dramatically growing ones sales force. The promise of an even playing field across all vendors who place their advertisements on PPC networks such as Google and Yahoo is incredibly enticing. It was quite surprising to find that only 9% of the respondents where using online lead generation. It was more unexpected to see only 6% respondents attributed online lead generation to garnering 50% of their new client revenue. With 67% of respondents expressing concern about the ROI of launching new marketing campaigns, it is not surprising that the number of small businesses who utilize online lead generation is so low. Of all marketing tools utilized by our respondents, only word-of-mouth delivered greater impact than its utilization.[2]

Let’s just get more words-of-mouth

It would seem logical that the ideal way for a small business to grow would be to find more folks that could drive more business. This premise has ignited a new professional use of online networking, such as Facebook, Myspace, and LinkedIn. Using online networking businesses could extend beyond the rolodexes, gaining better access not just to their existing contacts but to their contacts’ contacts.

Corporate and private recruiters are turning to online networks to help them gain access to the people who know people who would be ideal candidates for open positions. Money managers are tracking business acquisitions in search of prospects that need private wealth management or insurance policies. Growing your network takes time and dedication. Keep in mind that the goal is to reach beyond ones immediate network. Once extended, the professional network becomes a viable medium for finding new clients. And while online networking is a great tool if you are looking to acquire only a few new clients, what if you need to find 15 new clients, or 20 new clients or 50 new clients per year.[3] How can you add enough mouths (in the word-of-mouth mantra) to drive the business that you need to sustain your growth? With only 17% of our respondents having the patience to wait for results from initiating new marketing initiatives it is no surprise that only 11% of those surveyed belong to an online network.[4]

Social media however, has reminded us that an introduction from a 3^rd party is the ideal way to meet prospects. Qualified introductions by 3^rd parties have played a role in the lives of numerous professionals belonging to a variety of industries; from real estate agents, brokers, recruiters and many others. The role of these 3^rd parties is to serve as a conduit between 2 parties with common business needs and wants.

A new kind of online network

What a small business needs is a quick, easy and effective method for expanding and generating new prospects. Salesconx, an online marketplace for business referrals, provides a forum for small businesses, marketers and sales professionals to exchange professional referrals with fees attached to each relationship. All a small business needs to do is post its business referral requirements and establish a fee that it is willing to pay for an introduction. The request will be distributed (pushed and pulled) to the 1,000+ members of Salesconx who have access to the customers that the business is looking to meet. Those interested will respond and the business selects only those they are comfortable working with. A business could even submit a post that pays only on success. Salesconx minimizes the risk and upfront costs associated with traditional marketing campaigns delivering the results that make businesses grow.

Note: anyone interested in obtaining the full survey results should email me.

[1] 82% of participating companies reported less than $500,000 in annual sales.

[2] 22% of the respondents use word-of-mouth initiatives to drive new business and 32% of the respondents say that word-of-mouth accounts for more than 50% of their new business.

[3] 30% of the respondents were adding at least 20 new clients per year with 11% adding over 100 per year.

[4] As of December 26, 2007 Facebook has approximately 50,000,000 users and LinkedIn has approximately 14,000,000 thus accounting for only 11% of the participants.

Salesconx Launch Party at the Social Bar

2007-11-09T09:39:00.000-05:00

From my speech last night at the launch party.

Good evening everybody. My name is Evan Sohn and I want to thank you all for coming out tonight to celebrate the launch of Salesconx.

So how many folks here have closed business in the past 90 days? So you all found and sold to the right guy.

Did u know that over $90 billion is spent by companies trying to find the right guy? Banner ads, click thru campaigns, email marketing, telemarketing, appointment setting are just some of the ways that companies are spending to find the right guy.

There has been a lot of hype around social networking and how it could help with lead generation. I belong to a number of social networs. They make it real easy to add contacts and grow my social network. At least once a month I get a request from someone I don’t know to get introduced to someone I do know – has this happened to anyone else? Let me get this right; someone is paying these sites to meet the people I know. So in the end, these sites are making money off my relationships.

Salesconx changes all of that.

Salesconx recognizes that each of you has great human capital. You have built relationships with decisions makers in numerous industries. You have earned the trust of key people in companies of all sizes. You have closed the deals that bring revenue into your company. You make things happens.

Here’s the reality; business owners, marketers and other sales people are willing to pay you to simply get them into the door of a targeted buyer. Why shouldn’t they pay you?

If you were a recruiter and had a candidate and another recruiter has a job posting and you introduced the parties together. You would get a fee. If you were a real estate broker and I was a real estate broker and you introduced me to your client who took space you would get a fee.

So if a business owner wanted to meet someone that you have a business relationship with and you introduce us together why shouldn’t you get a fee? Is your relationship any less valuable than the recruiters or the real estate agents?

Since going live in September over 700 users have registered on Salesconx and we are adding over 10 users per day. We have a sales rep from Staples looking to meet VPs responsible for buying office supplies. We have an insurance rep looking to meet small business owners. These folks have set a price for what they are willing to pay for an introduction. Do you think it works?

Nevin is a mortgage broker in NJ. For over 7 years he has been building relationships with a number of companies that he has sold mortgages to. Nevin registered with Salesconx around the end of September. As of this morning, Nevin has earned over $650 by introducing other Salesconx users to his business contacts. And we are just at the beginning.

Our goal at Salesconx is very simple – to make you money. We understand and appreciate the value that you bring to the selling process and believe that you should be compensated accordingly.

You are valuable and your time is valuable and we have a dedicated inside sales team to support and help you get the most for your business relationships and help you find the ones you are looking for. Please find Brian, Crystal or Attiya if you have any questions about Salesconx.

So, do you want to make a quick $100? Go to the site tomorrow and introduce one of your business contacts to one of the users seeking to meet them.

You want to make a quick $40. At Salesconx we will pay you $20 for referring your sales colleagues. Refer 2 of them and when they qualify you’ll get $40.

You being here tonight is very important and valuable to us. As such, if I don’t already know, I would ask you to please come over introduce yourself. And since at Salesconx we are all about making money we will give you $10 just for introducing yourself.

Thanks and enjoy…

My first posting

2007-08-30T09:59:00.000-04:00

I have always been an early adopter of new technologies - back in 1993 I had one of the first wireless email systems using the Ardis network, I was one of the first developers on the Apple Newtown, I was in CRM when it was still called sales automation, I was in WiFi when it was called 802.11 and few other similar examples. I remember using Gofer on the my PC to "surf" the Internet in its early days and heck I even lost a lot of money investing in Lycos. I was always ambivalent about THE BLOG but, I decided that as part of the launch of my latest company, Salesconx, I would keep a BLOG as means of both communicating to our users and prospects but also, in the hopes of leveraging your experiences as we develop this new marketplace.

What is Salesconx?
Salesconx (pronounced 'sales-con-ex') is a marketplace for sales people to post and trade introductions to decision makers and buyers. Think of LinkedIn meets eBay. We are in alpha mode right now so go check out the site at http://alpha.salesconx.com.

Sales people have really gotten shafted throughout the evolution of the internet. eCommerce basically says, 'hey customer, I have what you want so buy directly from me'. Thus bypassing the sales person. Maybe an entry level inside sales rep handles some questions for the lead but most of the sales process is done online.

When I talk to experienced sales reps they comment that their lives really haven't changed by the Internet. They are still cold calling to gain entry into their prospective companies; sure they don't use the phone book anymore (does anyone) but use services like Hoovers, Zoominfo and Sales Genie. They are building their calling list and then working the phones.

On the other side of the bullpen, the marketing department is pressured to deliver qualified leads to the sales department (mostly the inside sales department). Yet, the tactics available to reach the target audience have gotten more and more difficult. Direct mail never reaches the decision maker. Unsolicited email gets blocks way before it reaches anyone in the company. Tradeshows have become vendor festivals with all the companies salivating over the handful of customers who actually attend. The art of bypassing a secretary to reach the executive has been replaced with the art of leaving voice mail after voice begging the executive to suggest a good time to call back. Does anyone ever return the call of someone they don't know? Let's turn our attention to PPC campaigns. It is amazing how much we (in the general sense) are spending on Google ads and PPC campaigns. The conversion rates are lower now than they were a few years ago but we still continue to spend the money to make sure our company name appears in Google.

When I was driving sales and marketing for Omnipod, I had direct responsible for producing the monthly revenue number. Thus marketing was really truly integrated into the sales process. Marketing was used to generate the leads that the sales team (we were 90% inside sales) qualified and took thru the sales process. [Let me first apologize to all those who received unsolicited email from Omnipod]. It got harder and harder to increase the lead numbers despite spending more and more money as the conversion rates decreased over time and not increased (conversion from lead to qualified lead). Just this past January, our cost per lead was approximately $350 and our cost per qualified lead was nearly $1000 - and we were considered GREAT by all standards.

It occurred to me (back in November of 2005) that wouldn't it be easier just to post an ad in Craig's list, 'hey, I'll pay you $350 if you know someone who would want to buy my product/service'. Of course, since you don't really know who is responding to you, there has to be a better mechanism of user qualification, transaction mediation and feedback - thus Salesconx was born.

For the Salesperson
Salesconx provides the sales person a vehicle for making money off the relationships that they have cultivated and nourished. It also bothered me that every time (and it occurs at least weekly) I am asked to refer a graphic designer, web site company, lawyer, etc. I never get a dime for it. Yes I know it's quid-pro-quo but, if I was a lawyer passing a client to another lawyer I would certainly get a fee. This process, while appropriate and commonplace for insurance, real estate, law and recruiters has passed over the sales profession. I know you might be thinking that the could be abused well, rest assured we have added safety controls to salesconx to minimize abuse and most of all, there is a feedback system which has succeeded for the liked of eBay and others.

For the small business or marketer
Salesconx allows the business owner or marketer to publish a "request" whether it is for an introduction or merely the contact information of a desired decision maker. A request could be "seeking introduction to building managers of NYC buildings" for a cleaning supply company or "Intros to new companies >10 employees in NJ" for a wiring or VOIP company. One CEO I have spoken to was extremely frustrated in trying to find "the right guy" at a major telco to introduce his product to. It took him over a year to finally get the right people on board who could make the introduction. It would have been much easier to post this request on Salesconx and establish a high fee for making the introduction.

Of course, there is a lot more to say about Salesconx as we are just seeing the tip of the iceberg of what a marketplace such as Salesconx could accomplish and grow into over the next few years.

Feel free to drop me a line or email esohn@salesconx.com if you have any sales experiences that you think should be worked into the Salesconx model.

All the best,

Evan