1. The #7 ZMOT Selling strategy
2. How to WIN THE SALE ON YOUR 1^st CALL
3. Nimble 2.0 – Putting ‘Relationships’ back in to CRM

My apologies for not writing a blog post for almost 5 months. Besides being busy, and suffering from a case of writers block, it took longer than anticipated to map out a series of seven blog posts about applying Google’s ZMOT to Business-To-Business (B2B) selling.

In my last blog post I shared information on Google’s Zero Moment of Truth (ZMOT) and since I could not find anything on the Internet about applying it to B2B selling I decided to write a series of blog posts on how to do that.

This is my first in a series of seven blog posts on what I think are the top seven ZMOT Selling Strategies – David Letterman style: Starting with #7 and working my way to #1.

The #7 ZMOT Selling strategy is  all about having content that is found by and resonates with those who recently experienced a Zero Moment Of Truth.

When creating content keep in mind that content resonates with people based upon events in their lives that trigger Selective Perception. Eg. When you buy a new car you begin to notice that exact car all over the place.

If you don’t have time to read a previous blog post on the power of selective perception (link above) you can watch a short (1:39) video that explains how to harness the power of Selective Perception.

Having the right content is only 1/2 the battle the second 1/2 is where to put your content so it get’s found by those who recently experienced a ZMOT. For me that’s the real value of Social Media. By having profiles on social media sites you go from being just one of the top two of the top 10 results to being all or most of the top 10 results. Do a search for Craig Elias or Trigger Event Selling and you’ll see that I’m the majority of the top 50 results.

Remember that YouTube is the 2^nd most used search engine so it’s important to include video to your content strategy.

Another good reason to include video in your ZMOT Selling strategy is that at the recent Sales 2.0 conference Matt Childs reported that “Email click-thru rates increased by 50% when video was included” and on slide 26 of a recent webinar I watched Jeffrey LePlante said that email open rates increased by 200% by providing a link to a video.

Visible Gains is my favorite tool for creating and publishing video content. Here is an excellent example of the power of Visible Gains – notice how the viewer is empowered to choose the direction they want to go next. This allows the viewer to control which content they want to see which will vary by the events that triggered their interest.

How to WIN THE SALE ON YOUR FIRST CALL

After a successful webinar series with Citrix that had almost 7,000 registrants in April I continued my no charge webinars with Andy Paul the author of Zero Time Selling.

You can access the recording and handout at http://ShiftSelling.com/Webinars

In today’s selling environment, competition is fierce and an extended selling cycle opens the door to the competition.

In this fast paced webinar we show you strategies that will help you WIN BUSINESS ON THE FIRST CALL.

In this one hour webinar Andy Paul and Craig Elias, show you:

1. The importance of responsiveness
2. How to identify to a lead before the competition
3. The four essential steps of a sales lead follow-up
4. How to sell with maximum impact in the least amount of time

Nimble 2.0

I’m user 3,956 of over 160 million LinkedIn users and I use it on almost a daily basis because I am a relationship oriented sales professional and Nimble is the first CRM tool I have found that focuses on the relationship.

As an added bonus it integrates with my email ( Google Apps for Business), and my social media accounts on Twitter, Linked and Facebook so it can be used as a social consolidation tool that combines the multiple email addresses and profiles that my many relationships have  in all the disparate social medial tools and it layers on the ability to listen and engage.

One of the cool features is that Nimble alerts you to  people’s job changes by suggesting you call and congratulate them on their new job. For those of you familiar with my bounced email lead generation strategy you know this creates a number of sales opportunities.

I could go and on about why I love Nimble but instead I suggest you read a recent blog post by Nancy Nardin of Smart Selling Tools titled “The 8 Buying Considerations CRM Vendors Don’t Want You to Know About”

Have an Eventful week!

Craig

1. Smarketing Strategy #7
2. Applying the ZMOT to B2B Sales
3. How to Make Webinars Your #1 LEAD SOURCE

In my last blog post I shared Smarketing Strategy #6 : How to nurture prospects, score opportunities, and notify sales at EXACTLY the right time.  If you did not have time to read it, below is a short video (3:00) that explains it.

Smarketing Strategy #7 – using the Situation, Target, Plan (STP) framework - is to analyze your best wins so you can improve your content, where you place it and your scoring system. Your best wins are the ones where three or more of the following happened:

1. The sales cycle was shorter than normal
2. The sale was relatively easy to make
3. There was little or no price objection
4. The customer is willing to be a reference or to give you a testimonial

Odds are these best wins happened because the decision maker was in the Window of Dissatisfaction™ when you got to them and these are the wins you want to find a lot more of. You can learn more about identifying these wins by downloading the Window of Dissatisfaction™ worksheet and instructions on how to use it.

Recently Google has described the activities that prospects engage in while in the Window of Dissatisfaction™ as the Zero Moment of Truth (ZMOT).

When 73% of CEOs think Marketers lack business credibility it’s great to see the Chief Marketing Officers (CMOs) of organizations like General Electric, Johnson & Johnson,  and General Foods embracing ZMOT.

Listen to Beth Comstock the Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) of General Electric (GE) and VPs at FedEx & Grainger talk about how ZMOT applies to both Business-To-Business (B2B) & Business-To-Consumer (B2C) selling.

This video includes a segment where Beth shares how they apply ZMOT to sell IT solutions to hospitals.

In all of their models Google talks about a stimulus that comes before the ZMOT.

From a Trigger Event Selling™ perspective this stimulus is the first Trigger Event – The one makes a decision maker want to change - Shifts them out of Status Quo and into the Window of Dissatisfaction™.

Once you know the events that trigger the ZMOT you can implement a strategy to turn prospects that are in the ZMOT into customers.

Here is an example of how you can apply a ZMOT strategy to B2B Selling.

What are the best strategies to apply the ZMOT to B2B selling?

Since learning about Google’s Zero Moment of Truth I have searched for strategies and tactics that B2B sales and marketing teams can use but so far I have found almost nothing.

So rather than wait for this kind of content to be delivered I decided to put together a team of Tier 1 thought leaders that could create and deliver unique, compelling and relevant content on how to benefit from the ZMOT.

So far the following people are part of this team:

• Christine Crandell: The creator of the Buyers Journey
• Patrick Cahill: An expert resource on how to make webinars pay
• Tony Zambito:  The originator of the Buyer Persona methodology
• Carlos Hidalgo: The Executive Director of the Marketing Automation Institute
• Doug Kessler: Runs a brilliant B2B Marketing company in the UK called Velocity

I’m currently looking for a Tier 1 thought leader on B2B Social Media and Search Engine Optimization to be part of the team. Please call/text me (+1.403.874.2998) if you know someone you think should be considered for the group.

In the new year I’ll be working with this team to deliver a 7-part series on the 7 Best Ways to Apply ZMOT to B2B Selling.

How to Make Webinars Your #1 LEAD GENERATION METHOD

In the world of B2B Selling, webinars are one of the best ways to attract the attention of those who are in the ZMOT.

To help B2B sales organizations harness the Zero Moment of Truth I am also working with Citrix’s Goto Meeting and GoTo Webinar teams to put together an insightful 3-part series on that will show you the end to end process (Webinar planning to closing the sale) of how to make webinars your #1 LEAD GENERATION METHOD.

The first one is on Tuesday, January 10, 9 AM (PST) / 12 PM (EST).

When done right, webinars can be the best way to generate a large number of interested prospects for your sales team.

Using the right mindset, strategies, and tools you’ll be amazed at what a webinar can deliver.

Hear Craig Elias and Patrick Cahill share important steps to improve the quality AND quantity of webinar generated leads.

Join this live webinar to learn:

• Which content gets the highest number of registrations
• Which activities drive a higher than average attendance rate
• What gets the best prospects to identify themselves during the webinar
• How to re-purpose webinars to generate an ongoing flow of sales-ready leads

Register even if you can’t make the live event because all registrants receive links to the recording and handout from the event.

Click the button below to sign up now!

http://bit.ly/BestLeadGenMethod

Learn more about the speakers below!

Patrick Cahill is an expert resource for organizations like SalesForce.com, Hoovers, RainToday, and The Sales Lead Management Association. He helps them understand how to host compelling webinars that attract motivated prospects, develop valuable content that establishes credibility, implement flawless events that engage and impress attendees, and implement follow-up programs that uncover qualified opportunities.
Craig Elias is the creator of Trigger Event Selling™ and author of the Bronze Medal winner of the Top Sales Books of 2010 “SHiFT!“ His knowledge of Trigger Events has resulted in a 20 year track record as a top sales performer, winning a $1,000,000 prize in a global billion dollar idea competition and coverage on NBC, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal.

Have an eventful Christmas!

Craig

1. 5 Ways To WIN AT SOCIAL SELLING
2. Smarketing Strategy #6
3. Lead Nurturing Resources

Did you know it’s easier to sell today than it was 10 years ago?

Sales professionals who harness real-time data available via social media have an unfair advantage over those that don’t.

Learn the best mindset, strategies and tools to reach motivated decision makers before your competition.

Join experts David Meerman Scott and Craig Elias on Tuesday November 22^nd and learn:

• The best tools to use
• How to leverage real-time information
• How to make your solution more relevant right now
• How to create content that attracts the best prospects
• How to share content that gets decision makers to call you

This webinar will be moderated by Cliff Pollan the CEO of VisibleGains - His tool VisibleGains for sales is one of my favourite Social Selling tools.

Register even if you can’t make the live event because all registrants receive links to the recording and handout from the event.

Click the button below to sign up now!

http://bit.ly/WinAtSocialSelling

Learn more about the speakers below!
David Meerman Scott’s book The New Rules of Marketing & PR opened people’s eyes to the new realities of marketing and public relations on the Web.

David’s popular Web Ink Now blog and hundreds of speaking engagements around the world give him a singular perspective on how businesses are implementing new strategies to reach buyers.

Craig Elias is the creator of Trigger Event Selling™ and author of the Bronze Medal winner of the Top Sales Books of 2010 “SHiFT!“ His knowledge of Trigger Events has resulted in a 20 year track record as a top sales performer, winning a $1,000,000 prize in a global billion dollar idea competition and coverage on NBC, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal.

In my last blog post I shared Smarketing Strategy #5 : How to convert visitors to prospects.  If you did not have time to read it, below is a short video (1:50) that explains the three best questions ask when following up with those who access your digital marketing content.

Smarketing Strategy #6 – using the Situation, Target, Plan (STP) framework - is to nurture, score, notify sales at EXACTLY the right time.

Carlos Hidalgo – The Executive Director of the Marketing Automation Institute – has a Lead Management Framework that explains some of the benefits of effective lead nurturing are:

• Deals closed on nurtured leads have a 47% higher order value
• Nurture email have a 200% higher open rate
• Win rates are improved by up to 20%

My contribution to the lead nurturing conversation is understanding there are three key times you want to notify sales about a prospect’s activity:

1) They Reach a Scoring Threshold

In order to minimize prospect frustration and maximize sales productivity, sales 2.0 savvy organizations are implementing lead scoring systems that are an indicator of a decision makers likelihood of making a buying decision soon.

If you want to create a lead scoring system that includes key elements of Trigger Event Selling™ here is the link to download the Trigger Event Scoring™ worksheet.

When you complete the form you will receive an email with links to the Trigger Event Scoring™ (aka Trigger Event Qualifying™) worksheet, instructions on how to use it, and a sample of the completed worksheet.

2) Their Email Address Bounces

As you may have heard from me before a single bounce email is a Trigger Event that creates at least three different sales opportunities for a savvy sales professional to phone and follow-up on:

1. The person who left – where did they go?
2. The person who left – who took their place?
3. The person who took their place – where did they come from?

3) They Access Justification Resources

When the access justification resources it is highly they have experienced both the want event and the afford event now they need to justify their decision to their superiors, subordinates, or stakeholders.

Now is one of the key moments in making sure the purchase happens and you are the supplier who wins the deal.

Tom Pisello – the ‘ROI Guy’ – has an excellent infograph that talks about the need to help decision makers justify their decision based by providing:

• ROI calculators
• Third party validation of your claims
• Business cases on other customers who have benefited from your solution

One of the things that Tom’s company -Alinean - does is help organizations build ROI calculators. See their Social Media ROI calculator as an example of what they do.

Eloqua – My choice as the #2 Sales 2.0 Sales Tool - has some great resource on the process of lead nurturing:

1. A Best Practice Tool Kit on Nurturing
2. Blog posts and webinars on Nurturing
3. An infograph on which content is best used when

Have an eventful month!

Craig

P.S. Carlos Hidalgo is one of the speakers in my three part webinar series – How to Turn Webinars Into Your #1 LEAD GENERATION METHOD - with Citrix (GoToWebinar & GoToMeeting) that runs the 2^nd Tuesday of January, February, & March. Stay tuned for registration details.

1. Smarketing Strategy #5
2. Resistance Free Selling
3. Sales 2.0 and Social Media

In my last blog post I shared Smarketing Strategy #4 : How to put your content where the best prospects go. If you did not have time to read it, below is a short video (0:25) that explains this ‘Here vs. There’ problem and here is a visual that also explains it.

Smarketing Strategy #5 – using the Situation, Target, Plan (STP) framework - is to convert visitors to prospects and then connect with them.

I’m a big fan of using forms on a web site to convert visitors to prospect and I am a big believer of MIT’s lead follow up research - which demonstrates that you are 100X 100 times more likely to reach the person who filled in a form when you follow up in 5 minutes versus 30 minutes.

The report has some other enlightening information and can be downloaded from InsideSales.com. So if you are going to follow up on web leads do so as fast as possible.

I firmly believe that the statistics of those who fill in forms are similar to those who register for webinars. Patrick Cahill writes in an article “How to Pinpoint Real Sales Opportunities with Your Webinars”

People who register for events fall into four categories: immediate opportunities (5%) and short-term leads (20%), long-term leads (50%), and perfectly nice people who will never buy related services (25%).

The challenge is to ask questions that help you figure which group is which without pissing any of them off by being too aggressive.

So when I phone those who complete a form on my web site I always introduce myself (to make sure they know who I am) and the ask for permission to ask three quick questions   …  ”I’m Craig Elias, the Trigger Event Selling™ guy whose information you just filled in a form to download. Can I ask for two minutes of your time to ask three quick questions?”

What are the three best questions to ask?

The best way to answer that question is to start first by asking – What are the most important things to learn?

For me the three most important things I want to learn about those who fill in a form on my web site are:

1. Did they get the email, with the link to the resource the requested?
2. What made them fill in the form?
3. Is there a sales opportunity?

In today’s world of a million and one different spam filters you can never be sure that the email your systems automatically send out gets into the recipient’s inbox.

So, my first question is “Did you receive the email with the link to download the resource?”

Question #2
I am always curious what was it that they saw or heard that captured their attention and made them willing to provide their email address and phone number for in return for access to what is being offered.

So, my second question is “What resonated and made you say it was worth taking the time to complete the form ?”

Question #3
My last and perhaps most important questions is to learn which buying mode the person is in so I can learn if there is a pursuable sales opportunity. Knowing which buying mode someone is in is a key component to Trigger Event Qualifying™.

So my last questions is “What happened recently that made it more relevant or more important?”

If I learn they recently experienced a ‘Want’ Trigger Event and are in the Window of Dissatisfaction™ I ask permission to ask a few more questions so I can understand what problem they are trying to solve or what outcome they are trying to accomplish and then pursue the sale.

If I learn they recently experienced an ‘Afford’ Trigger Event and are already Searching For Alternatives  I ask permission to ask a few more questions so I can understand who they are already talking to and how I can position myself as the least risky alternative.

If I learn they have not recently experienced a Trigger Event and are in the buying mode of Status Quo  - and believe they have money, authority, and influence I start fostering a relationship while raising their expectations.

I use to ask the question where did you hear about this resource but I added that to my forms so I can focus on the what I think are the three most important questions when I get them on the phone.

Two weeks ago I had the pleasure of being one of the speakers on a webinar titled “4 Steps to RESISTANCE FREE SELLING” that was put on by iSellUK. Complete the form on the page to access the recording and download the handout.

One of the steps of Resistance Free Selling is selling to those who can afford your services so I went looking for list of companies that who were most likely to afford new services.

During  my search I learned that Silvia Quintanilla of Industry Gems had almost 80 lists of top companies who are highly likely to afford your services. The collection of lists includes:

• Top Banks
• Top Insurers
• Top Hospitals
• Top Manufacturers
• Top Private Companies
• Top Public Companies
• And many more….

Click here to get your copy of The Companies Most Likely to Afford Your Services.

The next Sales 2.0 Conference is about how to leverage Social Media in your sales and marketing efforts.

It will be held in Santa Monica and features great thought leaders like Anneke Seley, Carlos Hidalgo, and Matt Heinz as well as sales and marketing executives from companies like IBM, Salesforce.com, RIM, and Frost & Sullivan.

I’ve had the luxury of attending and presenting at Sales 2.0 conferences in Boston and San Francisco and have always come away with new ways to make sales and marketing more effective and new relationships that help me stay informed of the latest sales and marketing ideas, resources, and success stories.

I would go but I’m travelling to London England to work with one of the world’s largest financial institutions.

Please let me know if you attend so I can call you the week after the event to talk about what you learned.

1. Smarketing Strategy #4
2. How to SELL WITHOUT DISCOUNTING
3. The Best iPhone App EVER!

In my last blog post I shared Smarketing Strategy #3 : Creating content that jumps out at those who are most likely to become your customer.

If you did not have time to read my last blog post below is a short video (1:39) that explains how to create content that jumps out and here is link to some resources by Doug Kessler and his team over at Velocity Partners that also talk about it.

Smarketing Strategy #4 – using the Situation, Target, Plan (STP) framework – is to take your content where your best prospects go.

One of the major challenges of marketing is to solve the ‘Here vs. There problem’ – Here is where your content is, There is where the prospect is.

So you need to figure out where online your target audience goes, what they read, who they listen to and then find a way to get your content there or get links to your content posted there.

One of my favorite strategies is to comment on blogs and leave behind a cookie crumb – that leads people to a resource on your website.

If you want to use that strategy, here is a web site that ranks all the tops blogs by category.

Using a Here vs. There strategy:

• One comment resulted in over 500 people filling in a form to access my Won Sales Analysis™ template
• My Won Sales Analysis™ landing page has been viewed almost 15,000 times in the last 12 months.

The next stage of this strategy is to make my comments a status update on LinkedIn and let it be automatically tweeted.

Join us on September 13^th as thought leaders Mark Hunter, Craig Elias, and Steve Connolly share 3 Ways to Eliminate the Price Objection. (See the bios below.)

You don’t want to miss this FREE Online Event at 11:00 AM – 12:00 PM PDT | 2:00PM -3 :00PM EDT on Tuesday, September 13, 2011.

Register even if you can’t make the live event because all registrants will receive links to the recording and handout from the event.

Click the button or below to sign up now!

http://bit.ly/NoMoreDiscounting

Learn more about the 3 speakers below!

Mark Hunter, “The Sales Hunter,” helps B2B sales professionals close more high profit sales by identifying better prospects, building profitable long-term customer relationships, and negotiating mutually beneficial strategic partnerships.

Mark has conducted thousands of training programs to organizations like BP, Novartis, Northrop-Grumman, American Express, and Kawasaki. His book High Profit Selling is due out in December of this year

Steven Connolly is a 15 year veteran of B2B product management and is currently the Senior Product Manager responsible for the revolutionary new sales tool iSell.

Steven is a frequent presenter on sales topics such as using social media for increasing sales as well as best practices for prospecting and lead generation.

Craig Elias is the creator of Trigger Event Selling™ and author of the Bronze Medal winner of the Top Sales Books of 2010 “SHiFT!“

His knowledge of Trigger Events has resulted in a 20-year track record as a top sales performer, winning a $1,000,000 prize in a global billion dollar idea competition, having his last company chosen by Dow Jones as one of the 50 most promising companies in North America, and coverage on NBC, The New York Times, and The Wall Street Journal.

I’ve been an iPhone lover ever since I found one on eBay that was hacked so I could insert my SIM card from a Canadian cell phone provider and have the phone work in Canada.

Since then I have played with every sales / marketing / business development app I could find. At last count I have downloaded 217 apps.

My 10 favorites are:

1. CardMunch
2. Gist
3. LinkedIn
4. Salesforce.com
5. Google Apps
6. Twitter
7. SplashID – Keeps track of all my online and offline passwords
8. Skype 
9. GoToMeeting
10. Weather Eye

Nine of them allow me to do on my iPhone what I can also do on my laptop.

CardMunch on the other hand allows me to do what I have always wanted to do on my laptop but have never been able to:

• Enter all the business cards of the people I meet into my address book
• Send these people a LinkedIn connection request
• Send all of them follow-up email with my contact information.

CardMunch on the other had does all the above quickly, easily, AND IT’S FREE!

Here is how it works:

• Open the CardMunch and take a picture of a business card. This picture is then sent to a team of people who manually enter the data – If for some reason the data is not entered correctly simply push a button and it gets sent back to be re-entered.
• Once the data comes back to the application – which typically takes less than 10 minutes – all you have to do is touch a button on the screen to send a LinkedIn request and send a post meeting email
• I have mine configured so it automatically sends a custom LinkedIn message once the date comes back and adds that person to my list of contacts. All I have to do is then touch the button that sends my standard meeting follow-up email that includes my contact (.vcf) file.

1. Smarketing strategy #3
2. Content that captures the best prospects
3. How to SELL WITHOUT DISCOUNTING

In my last blog post I shared Smarketing Strategy #2 : Using a Won Sales Analysis™ – to identify what made you win your best customers so you can replicate your biggest successes.

If you did not read my last blog post below is a short video (4:49) that explains the Won Sales Analysis™.

Smarketing Strategy #3 – using the Situation, Target, Plan (STP) framework - is to tailor your content so it’s highly likely to be noticed by those who recently experienced the Trigger Events you identified during your Won Sales Analysis™.

Have you ever noticed that as soon as you buy a new car you see it all over the road or that when you or your wife get pregnant, you suddenly start seeing pregnant women everywhere?

This is called selective perception. The Trigger Events we experience change what we see. Every time we experience a Trigger Event a new version of selective perception is created. We begin to notice things that were always there. We just did not ‘see’ them.

Why is this important? By focusing your marketing on getting the attention of those who recently experienced a Trigger Event not only will your marketing be more likely to be ‘seen’, its more likely to resonate with the decision maker and cause them to act.

You get their attention by using words, visuals, or scenarios, that will make your marketing jump off of the page and get noticed by those readers who recently experience a Trigger Event and are most likely to become your customers.

The next time you craft a message, harness the power of Trigger Event Marketing™ to focus on the audience that recently experienced a Trigger Event. Remember to use a call to action so that when they see it, they will take that most important step to becoming your customer – phoning you.

Here are  few examples:

• Getting pregnant
• Getting a raise
• Getting engaged
• Getting a new job

If you are asking yourself why am I not using B2B examples, It’s because I have not been able to find any. If you know of any please comment on this blog post and provide a link to your example.

For me it’s always fun to find people who just ‘get it’.

The Trigger Event of me starting this blog post on using Trigger Events in marketing had me seeing blogs that talked about – you guessed it – using Trigger Events in marketing.

One article by Doug Kessler the Creative Director of a B2B Marketing Agency which says “Trigger Marketing … can be the most powerful Huskie in your B2B marketing dogsled” stood out from the rest.

Doug’s article provides some excellent insights and ideas on how to implement Trigger Event Marketing™.

Here is a link to his article B2B content marketing around Buying Triggers

While on the Velocity Partner’s website be sure to checked out their B2B Marketing Manifesto that talks about:

• 3 new realities of B2B Marketing
• The REAL B2B marketing challenge
• 5 B2B imperatives
• 6 B2B staples

P.S. They also have a B2B Content Marketing Workbook that I like.

Join us on September 13^th as thought leaders Mark Hunter, Craig Elias, and Steve Connolly share 3 Ways to Eliminate the Price Objection. (See the bios below.)

You don’t want to miss this FREE Online Event at 11:00 AM – 12:00 PM PDT | 2:00PM -3 :00PM EDT on Tuesday, September 13, 2011.

Register even if you can’t make the live event because all registrants will receive links to the recording and handout from the event.

Click the button or below to sign up now!

http://bit.ly/NoMoreDiscounting

Learn more about the 3 speakers below!

Mark Hunter, “The Sales Hunter,” helps B2B sales professionals close more high profit sales by identifying better prospects, building profitable long-term customer relationships, and negotiating mutually beneficial strategic partnerships.

Mark has conducted thousands of training programs to organizations like BP, Novartis, Northrop-Grumman, American Express, and Kawasaki. His book High Profit Selling is due out in December of this year

Steven Connolly is a 15 year veteran of B2B product management and is currently the Senior Product Manager responsible for the revolutionary new sales tool iSell.

Steven is a frequent presenter on sales topics such as using social media for increasing sales as well as best practices for prospecting and lead generation.

Craig Elias is the creator of Trigger Event Selling™ and author of the Bronze Medal winner of the Top Sales Books of 2010 “SHiFT!“ 

His knowledge of Trigger Events has resulted in a 20-year track record as a top sales performer, winning a $1,000,000 prize in a global billion dollar idea competition, having his last company chosen by Dow Jones as one of the 50 most promising companies in North America, and coverage on NBC, The New York Times, and The Wall Street Journal.

1. Smarketing strategy #2
2. How decision makers buy
3. How to shorten your sales cycle

The second step in my seven step Smarketing (Sales & Marketing Alignment) strategy is to understand what makes you win.

In my last blog post I shared Smarketing Strategy #1 – A simple method to identify who are your best prospects. If you did not have time to read this part of my last blog post below is a short video (1:43) that explains it.

Smarketing Strategy #2 – using the Situation, Target, Plan (STP) framework to align your sales and marketing efforts – is to analyze sales to your best customers so you understand what makes you win.

It’s what I call a Won Sales Analysisâ„¢  - aka Trigger Event Analysisâ„¢. Every time you make a sale to a new customer where you get a customer with 3 or more check marks next to them, from Smarketing Strategy #1, you want to ask decision makers the following four questions:

1. What event or events led up to this purchase?
2. When did they happen?
3. What made you choose us?
4. How can we make it easier to become our customer?

Answers to these questions will tell you:

• The events that let them afford to buy from you (which starts them Searching for Alternatives) and the events that helped them to justify their purchase (which allowed them to make the purchase).
• The events that made them want to change (which initially put them into the Window of Dissatisfactionâ„¢)
• What made them choose you over your competition (which tells you the real value they get out of being your customer)
• What you can do to make it easier to become your customer (which tells you how to make it easier for prospects to find you, learn the value of being your customer, and make the purchase)

You can use this information to target and reach the best prospects and help them define the problem, design the solution, and start developing a relationship before your competition even knows there is an opportunity.

Here is a link to download the Won Sales Analysisâ„¢ template and instructions.

I recently came across a report “Mapping the Technology Buyer’s Journey”.

For me some of the most interesting things from the report are:

• How decision makers become aware of new solutions
• How decision makers are most active in seeking out new solutions
• How traditional marketing methods are by far the most effective way to reach decision makers

While the research focuses on those who purchase technology I think the results are indicative of what happens in every industry.

Here is a link where you can access the webinar, survey responses, and analysis by Kevin Kerner of Mason Zimlber – a Harte-Hanks company

I am a big fan of selling to executives (Those with money, the authority to spend it, and influence – have friends just like them: also have money, authority, and influence).

I recently read – and commented on a blog post by Andrew Hunt on The Customer Collective that I think does an excellent job of explaining why selling to executives shortens your sales cycle.

Feel free to contact me if you have questions about ANY of the content above.

Have an eventful week!

Craig

• Smarketing strategy #1
• A new sales 2.0 tool called IKO-System
• Golden Sales Strategies of Top Performers

In my last blog post I talked about sharing a list of the top seven sales and marketing alignment (Smarketing) strategies and using a modified version of the Situation, Target, Plan (STP) process as a framework to help you and your team sell more by aligning it’s sales and marketing efforts.

This is my first of those blogs posts and it’s about understanding your current Situation – who are your best customers?

For me the first step in any sales and marketing alignment effort is to define who you want as customers.

I would argue that you want as customers those who purchases from you in the past where:

• The sales was relatively easy to make
• The customer is willing to be a reference
• You had a shorter than average sales cycle
• You encountered little or no price objection

These are the customers you want to replicate.

The easiest way to replicate them is to identify who they are and the way you do that is using this Window of Dissatisfaction™ worksheet to make a list of the new customers you’ve acquired in the last 12 months

Start with your newest customers (the ones you recently won) and work backward. If you have too many put on the worksheet, then pick the ones you think matter the most.

Once you’ve made that list, identify the ones where you had a shorter sales cycle by going down the list and putting a checkmark next to each of those customer names where you had a shorter than average sales cycle.

Next go down the list putting a checkmark next to each of those customers you feel were easy to sell to.

Next, put a check mark beside the ones where you encountered little or no price objection.

Finally, put a checkmark next to those you feel are more than willing to be a reference for you.

Now look at all the customers who have three or more check marks next to their name. In all likelihood they were in the Window of Dissatisfactionâ„¢ when you first connected with them.

A blank version of the Window of Dissatisfaction™ worksheet shown at the top of this page can be downloaded by completing the form found at the bottom of this page  http://www.shiftselling.com/window-of-dissatisfaction/

In my next blog post I will show you how to analyze the list of customers with three or more check marks so sales and marketing can work together to replicate these highly desirable customers.

A brand new sales 2.0 tool that I recently started using is called IKO-System – the brainchild of Nicolas Woirhaye.

I’m a huge fan of harnessing the Trigger Event of job changes (promotions within a company and moves to a new company) as opportunities to engage a decision maker in a conversation.

When a new decision maker is put in place there are several factors that make this one of the best times to reach out.

• They have been brought in to make change happen
• They want to make change happen fast
• They have little or no attachment to current solutions or vendors

There are two dynamics that make these the single best events to be notified of:

1. A decision maker has money (aka budget), the authority to spend it, and influence. As a result they seldom need to experience all three trigger events (want, afford, justify) before making a purchase
2. What I call the Domino Effect – A change in one decision maker leads to three opportunities:

• The person who left – where did they go?
• The person who left – who took their place?
• The person who took their place – where did they come from?

I’m a big fan of LinkedIn because I can use it to learn when any of my 1^st degree connection change jobs. I’m also a big fan of using Gist because it allows me to learn more about my LinkedIn connections so I can establish rapport and have a conversation that is more relevant to them.

The only challenge with using LinkedIn is that I can only see these job changes for my 1^st degree connections – today about 10,700 connections. What IKO-System allows me to do is see all the job changes in my 2^nd degree connections – today that’s over 4 million people.

With about 3% of people changing jobs every month I now have access to over 120,000 job change notifications every month and with each job change creating 3 opporutnities I just found myself 360,000 different people I can call to see if what I sell is now more important, more relevant, or more affordable.

Now all I have to do is put in place my secret 3 step process to engage these individuals in a conversation. If you want to know what this secret 3 step process is you’ll have to phone me (+1.403.874.2998) because right now I don’t have time to write about it and I only want to share it with those who will take the initiative to call and learn how it works.

P.S. If you want to learn more about Gist see the recording of the webinar I did with THE networking guru -Keith Ferrazzi – and the founder and CEO of GIST – T.A. McCann.

The recording and handout from my webinar with Art Sobczak are now available for downloading.

This is one of my all time favorite webinars. Art Sobczak and I share a specialized form of cold calling (what Art calls Smartcalling) strategies that get the attention of decision makers.

We share unique and compelling cold calling strategies and then, using Onesource’s iSell, product we look at real-time Trigger Events that happened during the webinar and show how you could use these real time Trigger Events to reach decision makers.

Have an eventful week!

Craig

1. Seven Sales and Marketing alignment strategies
2. An upcoming trip to London, UK
3. Four podcasts on networking

In my last blog post I talked about my previous top 7 lists (Top 7 Sales 2.0 Tools, Top 7 Social Media Tools, & Top 7 Sales Mistakes) and that my next top seven list will be the Top 7 Sales & Marketing alignment (aka Smarketing) strategies.

Smarketing IS NOT about trying to get people’s attention and telling them what you want to say IT IS about getting the attention of the right people and telling them what they want to hear.

So the big questions are:

• Who are the right people?
• What do they want to hear?
• How do you get their attention?

During my first sales job the General Manager, of what was back then called AMP of Canada, told a story of 10 people on bicycles racing toward their goals versus 10 people on a bicycle built for 10 racing towards a common goal. That was the moment I realized the power of creating alignment in an organization.

Over the next seven months I will share my top seven sales and marketing alignment (aka Smarketing) strategies. I will be using a modified version of the STP process as the framework to help you and your team align your sales and marketing activities.

The STP process is a method to create a common understanding of where you are (the current Situation), get consensus on where you want to go (the desired Target) so that you can create alignment on how you are going to get there (the Plan).

Here is the current version of the STP template that I will be modifying.

The UK

I will be joining Nick Hewer of UK’s “The Apprentice” and Jonathan Farrington in London England to be part of OneSource’s UK product launch.

All attendees will be provided with a copy of my Trigger Event Sellingâ„¢ book – SHiFT!

I will be in London from June 19^th through to June 25^th and staying at the Park Plaza County Hall ( 1 Addington Street) so if you would like to connect over beverages or food while I am there just text me (+1.403.874.2998), Skype me (Craig.Elias) or send me an email (Craig.Elias@TriggerEventSelling.com).

Event Details

Date: Wednesday June 22nd ²⁰¹¹

Location: Vinopolis, London’s City of Wine, No.1 Bank End, London, SE1 9BU

Time: 15:30 – 19:30

http://bit.ly/TriggerLaunchUK

Nick Hewer is Alan Sugar’s right-hand man on the UK version of The Apprentice. His facial expressions, borne of wonderfully dry humour and a lifetime’s business experience, tell you exactly what he thinks of the contestants.
Nick’s speech will take audiences behind the scenes of “The Apprentice”, before turning into an extended question and answer session. With The Apprentice consistently topping the ratings, this is certainly not one to miss.

Craig Elias is the creator of Trigger Event Sellingâ„¢ and the author of SHiFT! Harness The Trigger Events That Turn Prospects into Customers. His knowledge of Trigger Events has resulted in a 20 year track record as a top sales performer.

Jonathan Farrington is a globally recognised business coach, mentor, author and consultant, who has guided hundreds of companies and more than seventy thousand frontline sales professionals and sales leaders around the world towards optimum performance levels. He is Chairman of The JF Corporation and CEO of Top Sales Associates, based in London and Paris.

• Art – A webinar with Art Sobczak
• Action – The second of two podcasts about selling to the C-Suite
• Alignment – Seven strategies for sales and marketing alignment

Art Sobczak  (the Gold medal winner of the Top Sales Books of 2010 ), Steve Connolly (Senior Product Manager for OneSource (the Gold medal winner of the Top Sales 2.0 Solutions of 2010) and myself (Bronze medal winner of the Top Sales Books of 2010) join forces to share the “GOLDEN SALES STRATEGIES of Top Sales Performers”.

In this ‘real time selling’ event we will look at three Trigger Events that happen the day of the event and share how you can use them to sell a number of different solutions.

When you register be sure to select your industry. The three industries with the most registrants will be the ones we apply the ‘real-time’ Trigger Events to.

Date: Tuesday May 24^th at 11:00AM PST | 2:00PM EST

Speakers: Art Sobczak, Steve Connolly & Craig Elias

Registration: http://bit.ly/triggerwebinar

Register even if you can’t make the live event because all registrants will receive links to the recording and handout from the event.

Click the button below to sign up now!

http://bit.ly/triggerwebinar

Below is my 2nd podcast with Steve Bistritz the author of Selling to the C-Suite.

In this podcast we talk about value and what makes executives buy.

We also talk about the power of:

• Establishing rapport and a connection with executives
• Understanding an executives aspirations, value, and interests
• Working with those who will have money, authority, and influence not just those who have it now

In the past two years months I have created three different top 7 lists:

• Top 7 Sales 2.0 Tools
• Top 7 Social Media Tools
• Top 7 Sales Mistakes

For the next seven months I will write about sales and marketing alignment (aka smarketing).

On the last Tuesday of May and will focus on why sales and marketing alignment is so important.

My first post – the #7 Smarketing Strategy – will be published the first Tuesday of June.

I would like to include some success stories in that post so if you have a smarketing success story you would like to share with the 8,000+ readers of this blog post please contact me via phone (+1.403.874.2998 or 866.744.7904), Skype (Craig.Elias), email (Craig.Elias@ShiftSelling.com) or using this contact form.