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Make What You Say Pay. The language that opens minds, closes deals, & wows crowds. Anne Miller.  2010. ISBN 9781450583879. Her second book is just as good as the first Metaphorically Speaking. Well written, concise, the book gets right to the heart of things. With today’s marketing and sales  being all about content, this book should be in everyone’s toolkit.  You need to be able to quickly get to the point with the super busy life we all lead.   Aside from the many great examples there are lots of great quotes. E.g. Jack Welch. The Internet is the Viagra of big business.

Related articles

• Book Review: Make What You Say Pay, by Anne Miller (salesandmanagementblog.com)

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Selling to the New Elite. Discover the secret to winning over your wealthiest prospects. Jim Taylor, Stephen Krause & Doug Harrison. 2011. 978-0814416532.  The authors have been surveying the buying habits of the affluent over the last five years (10 000 interviews and counting). That would be enough to purchase this book, but these  is more , much more.  The first 75 pp. detail the attributes, behaviors and attitudes of successful salespeople.  That is worth having for any salesperson who wishes to improve. Lots of lessons learned:

• The perception of the salesman to their role, and his/her skill set  correlates 2x with success than testing attributes.
• Optimists outsell pessimists
• A passion for sales is important
• only 1 out 3 salespeople is really engaged in their work ( ie 2 of them are not good at it and they are likely calling you tonite)
• The top 5% of  US sales  people have annual income around $420k with liquid assets of $3M
• Facebook is like a telephone – a tool to socialize with, but seen as intrusive for marketing
• Social media can be used for listening about your clients ;  A new job, new venture, job promotion, travel plans.
• Create the detail rich stories that show how you love your job, what you are selling and everything about it -show your passion.
• The affluent had an emotional recession that preceded the economic one by 18 months and they see it lasting another year more.
• You need to increase your value, not lower your price to get the deal.
• Killer words today are value, values, savings, deals and best
• A great brand promise has truth, meaning and distinctiveness

An easy read and well worth time.

Related articles

• How Salespeople Use Social Media Survey (salesandmanagementblog.com)
• When we haven’t sold any value (empwaynek.wordpress.com)
• For the wealthy, a return to luxury spending (usatoday.com)

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The Dragonfly Effect.  Quick effective and powerful ways to use social media to drive social change. Jennifer Aaker & Andy Smith.2010. ISBN9780470614150.  This book is small but punches well above its weight class.  If you want to do something that really matters, here is a tool that will help make it happen. A great line, ” Do not worry about not having a Facebook strategy, Facebook does not have a Facebook strategy.”  The short section on effective story telling is worth the price of the book alone.   It makes sense – using social media to do social good. As marketers, the authors can write and make your journey very enjoyable.

Related articles

• Book Review: The Dragonfly Effect (apocintro2011.wordpress.com)
• The Power Of Storytelling: What Nonprofits Can Teach The Private Sector About Social Media (forbes.com)
• Hot Topics, Sharp Questions (radar.oreilly.com)
• 10 Nonprofit Books from 2010 (bethkanter.org)
• Revolution talk spurs China to block LinkedIn (sfgate.com)

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Rainmaking Conversations. Influence, persuade and sell in any situation.  Mike Schultz & John E. Doer. 2011. ISBN 9780470922231.    The authors are the principals of the RAIN group which publishes sales research and RAIN Today a highly respected sales blog/newsletter.  I am voting this the best sales book of the year so far.  This book  is a fitting complement to David Maister‘s ground breaking work.  The authors have been able to make this a comprehensive book as well as eminently readible.  They keep the book true to the 10 Rainmaking principles:
1. Play to win-win
2. Live by goals
3. Take action
4. Think buying first, selling second.
5. Be a fluent expert.
6. Create new conversations every day.
7. Lead masterful rainmaking conversations.
8. Set the agenda: be a change agent.
9. Be brave.
10. Assess yourself, get feedback, and improve continuously.

I pulled a few jewels on value selling from this as well. The concept of Money Discomfort is well explained.  They explain that there are two parts to this;

1. A general discomfort talking about money and
2. A money ceiling where talking about a certain amount becomes uncomfortable.

This also ties back to a persons buy cycle.

1. Some know what they want, and go out and buy it.
2. Others are indecisive, always price checking, and need sellers to educate them.

If a seller is more like the indecisive buyer, he will reflect that in his sales approach, especially if he trends to being a price seller.
Lesson learned, take individual  money discomfort  level and personal buying cycle into account when you are looking to improve your sales abilities or those of your team.

Related articles

• How to Successfully On-Board Your New Rainmaker. (bmwilliamson.wordpress.com)
• Bust Your Slump – The Benefits of Digital Media (salesandmanagementblog.com)
• A scientific approach to marketing (blogs.sitepoint.com)
• Gift of gab is great for sales … but there’s a time to listen, too (usatoday.com)

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Marketing automation (MA)  is likely a really bad idea for you.   At one time I was selling accounting software for the first micro-computers.  Quickly we would discover (as we were implementing) that we were trying to shoehorn into a perfectly good solution,  a company that had very poor or almost no accounting systems beyond a shoebox, i.e. no  process at all.  Yah technology was going to solve their problem.  We had to step back and  first create a paper accounting system (their dime, our time so it  hurt)   Lots of scars.

The same mistakes were then made with ERP and CRM implementations (automating a bad or nonexistent process). Lots of money spent on these and on implementation. (Bigger shoehorns)   And now it is being played out with MAutomation. Since 95% of companies do not have a well thought out, strategic, successful  lead gen/nurturing process,  MA will be a waste of their money.

Perhaps  Freemium companies think they need MA to sort through the hordes of unqualified down-loaders. I suggest they take the money they would spend on automation and really work on their message, segmentation, targeting and building relevant compelling content .  At the same time really nail down a proven process.  Then use MA to  help grow your business.   Remember,  think,  then act. Things just work better that way.  (You move your spend to an investment that pays back.)

Of course this would require the CEO to know this stuff. Tell me when you meet one of these, since its always easier to buy technology than to solve the problems you have created yourself.   Marketing Automation is likely a waste of your money, but  its not the software, its you.
And that’s 30

• Confession: I Am a Marketing Automation Fanboy (funnelholic.com)
• Keys to B2B Marketing Automation Success: Experts from IDC and Quaero Weigh In (customerthink.com)
• Top 4 Benefits Gained from Adopting Marketing Automation (customerthink.com)
• The Trifecta or: How Marketing Automation, Lead Management, and CRM Are Related (customerthink.com)
• Marketing Automation Preparedness (marketinginteractions.typepad.com)
• Salesforce.com vs. Marketing Automation (demandmetric.com)
• Marketing Automation: The Beginning of the End? (mpdailyfix.com)

The third of 2011 Ready to Rocket Listings have been announced for 25 Life Science companies . Check out readytorocket.com. BC is doing awesome compared to other locals.

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