This blog post is about three things:

• 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

This blog post is about three things:

1. The 4 best sales resources: Fillers, Movers, Shakers & Starters
2. Two Webinar Links: Ivana Taylor & Keith Ferrazzi
3. Trigger Buzz #11: Tonight: Sales and marketing alignment

In my last blog post I asked the question what are the best resources to put behind a form so sales can connect with decision makers at the right times.

• Content decision makers want access to once they experience a ‘want’ Trigger Event and start thinking about changing suppliers
• Content that shows decision makers they can afford to change
• Content that shows decision makers how they can justify their purchase
• Content that starts them down the path of becoming your customer

One of the companies that gets this more than anyone else I know is Eloqua. They call the first three types of content funnel fillers, funnel movers, and funnel shakers. They even go so far as to classify members of their marketing team the same way – That’s one of the reason’s I chose them as my #2 Sales 2.0 tool.

The first type of content is the most important because once a decision maker experiences a want Trigger Event they start defining the problem and start seeing products and services that then are used to design the solution. Miss this step and you can be locked out of the rest of the funnel

The first type of content answers questions decision makers have when they have a bad experience with their current supplier or take on a new job (or responsibility) and are curious about what they could be doing.

The second type of content shows decision makers the different ways they can afford to make the purchase

The third type of content helps decision makers justify their decision to their superiors, subordinates, and potentially shareholders.

The last type of content is designed to have the decision maker start going down the path of becoming your customer as soon as possible in the funnel above. Some people think free trials are one way to do this. What I don’t like about free trials is that the decision maker does not get that attached to the solution because they know they will lose all the time and effort the invested once the trial is over.

My preference is any form of a freemium model – Offer something free or at low cost and started them down the path of becoming your customer knowing that when the decision maker experiences an afford Trigger Event they have already invested in learning to do things your way and you are now highly likely to be the supplier of choice – because decision makers are very busy and see limited value in spending the same time learning about your competition.

I hear all the time “this only works for small purchases and in the B2C world”. When I hear this I only have one thing to say – BULLS*&#!  If I have learned one thing in my time as a top performing sales professional and working with a number of customers – First in wins more times than anyone else. So the game is how do you get in first to define the problem, design the solution, and position yourself as the logical choice.

Different types of content that can be use are templates, white papers, case studies, webinars, videos – two of my favorite video solutions are Brain Shark (here is how I use it) and Visible Gains. I recently learned about Visible Gains so I have not completed my first video with them yet. 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 information is tracked and allows you to follow up more effectively.

I could write all day about this but I’m a better talker than I am a writer so I am doing a one hour webinar on this topic with Ivana Taylor of Do It Yourself Marketing which is being hosted by my favorite survey tool Survey Analytics.

Join Ivana Taylor from DIYMarketers and Craig Elias – the creator of Trigger Event Selling™ and Trigger Event Marketing™ – as they join forces to give you a fresh perspective on sales and marketing alignment and show you:

• Which digital assets attract the most profitable prospects
• Where to place content so it drives the best prospects to your website
• When are the three best times to pass a web-based lead to your sales team
• How to get sales to give you the data you need so they get the leads they want
• How to create a simple seven step system that aligns your sales and marketing efforts
• Which sales and marketing research results in the greatest payoff for you and your sales team

You don’t want to miss this FREE Online Event at 9:00 AM – 10:00 AM PDT on Tuesday, April 12, 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 below to sign up now!

http://bit.ly/Smarketing

For those of you who can’t wait until the webinar you can participate in tonight’s TriggerBuzz – see below for more details.

The second webinar that I mention above is the one I did with Keith Ferrazzi and T.A. McCann that has almost 2,000 people register for it. The recording can be viewed at – http://blog.gist.com/2011/03/17/video-recording-the-power-of-connecting-webinar/

Tonight’s Trigger Buzz (Tuesday March 29^sh @ 6:00PM PST | 9:00PM EST) is on how can you align your sales and marketing efforts to attract and close the best customers?

Details on TriggerBuzz and how it works can be found at http://ShiftSelling.com/TriggerBuzz.

Have an eventful week!

Craig

This blog post is about three things:

1. The #2 Sales 2.0 tool - Eloqua
2. 3 Ways to Find Hidden Opportunities - With Keith Ferrazzi & T.A. McCann
3. Trigger Buzz #10 - Tonight: Competitive Intelligence

My pick for the #2 Sales 2.0 tool is Eloqua.

Eloqua is a sales and marketing alignment platform that allows organizations to collect, analyze, and distribute wisdom about customers and their buying patterns so they can maximize new customer acquisition and implement Revenue Performance Management.

With deep integration with Outlook & Salesforce.com, Eloqua helps organizations improve their understanding of:

• Which prospects are at which stages of the sales funnel
• What content should be provided to a prospect
• What actions can be taken

… to strategically move deals down the funnel so when the time is right they can be closed.

The best part is that Eloqua can:

1. Target the best prospects
2. Automatically nurture leads
3. Deliver “sales ready” leads to sales
4. Measure and analyze everything along the way

One secret to making a marketing automation tool like Eloqua work is to create the digital assets that compels decision makers to provide their contact information in order to access them.

My take on that is:

• What information or resources are they looking for once they experience a Trigger Event that makes them want to purchase your solution?
• What would they be looking for once they experience one of Trigger Events that lets them afford your solution?

Win $1,500 worth of Trigger Event services by suggesting the resources you can put behind a form that can be used to alert sales to the fact that a decision maker now wants to make a purchase or can now afford to make a purchase. To win the $1,500 prize you must get the most votes for your answer.

Answers are submitted by commenting on this blog post. Answers are voted on by clicking on the  button that appears at the end of each answer/comment.

Winners are announced the last Tuesday of the month – March 29^th - so voting ends at Midnight (MST) on Monday February 28^th.

Answers/comments need to be approved – to avoid spam – which typically takes just a few minutes. Contact me by phone (+1.403.874.2998), Skype (Craig.Elias), or this contact form, if you don’t see your comment approved within a few minutes of posting it.

Use the “Share” button below to Tweet , Stumble!, Digg, and email your friends so you get the most votes, because the voting system I use does not allow you to vote for your own answers.

In today’s changing world one thing has remained constant – the power of connecting with influential people.

Join us on Wednesday March 16^th as thought leaders Keith Ferrazzi, T.A. McCann & Craig Elias share insights on how to build your network to learn of the hidden opportunities that can take your career or your business to its highest level.

During this 60 minute web event you will learn:

• How to connect with those you want
• Who you want to connect with and why
• How to leverage technology to make it happen

Date: Wednesday March 16^th
Time: 9:00AM Pacific | 12:00 Eastern

Registration: http://bit.ly/FindHiddenOpportunities

Speakers

Keith Ferrazzi, the world’s foremost expert on relationship development, is the author of the #1 New York Times bestseller Who’s Got Your Back. His first book, Never Eat Alone, redefined professional networking today. As founder and chairman of the consulting, training, and research firm Ferrazzi Greenlight, Ferrazzi counsels the world’s top enterprises on how to dramatically accelerate the development of business relationships to drive sales, spark innovation, and create team cohesion. Ferrazzi is a thought leader and a philanthropist, putting his signature methodology to work to aid corporate citizenship and education. Ferrazzi has been published in The Wall Street Journal, Harvard Business Review, Inc., and Fast Company, and has appeared on The Today Show, Good Morning America, CNBC, Larry King, and other national TV. He lives in Los Angeles and New York, and can be found online at Relationship Masters Academy

T.A. McCann was the founder and CEO of Seattle-based Gist (www.gist.com) – a next-generation social contact management solution for business professionals. In February 2011 Research in Motion (RIM) acquired Gist. T.A. now serves as Vice President in the Research and Development department of RIM. Previously T.A. was an entrepreneur-in-residence at both Vulcan Capital and Polaris Venture Partners. Prior to Polaris, he held senior positions at Microsoft, leading product planning for the Exchange Server Group and developing Service Delivery Platforms focused on mobile applications and was the founder of Jump2Go, HelpShare and Soft Labour.  T.A. currently serves on the board of Zoopa and Wishpot. He is also an advisor/mentor for Techstars/Seattle, Founders Institute, h-farm and NWEN. In addition to his deep technology background, T.A. has won sailing’s America’s Cup and sailed around the world.  T.A. holds a BS in Mechanical Engineering from Purdue University. You can learn more about T.A. at gist.com/tamccann or @tamccann.

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 relationship building skills combined with 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.

Tonight’s Trigger Buzz (Tuesday March 1^st @ 6:00PM PST | 9:00PM EST) is on what is the most valuable information you can gather when talking to a decision maker who is firmly in the buying mode of Status Quo because they have experienced a Trigger Event yet?

Gathering this information gives you a significant advantage over the competition once the decision has experienced a Trigger Event.

Details on TriggerBuzz and how it works can be found at http://ShiftSelling.com/TriggerBuzz.

Have an eventful week!

Craig

This blog post is about three things:

• The four best winning questions
• My webinar with Keith Ferrazzi
• Trigger Buzz#9: Tonight @ 6:00PM PST – Closing

In my last blog post I introduced what I thought was the #3 Sales 2.0 tool (Survey Analytics) and asked what kind of analysis provides the most value to an organization and what kind of questions should be asked as part of that analysis.

Here are my answers to those questions. I have found the most valuable analysis is analyzing the deals you win – what I call a Won Sales Analysisâ„¢ (aka Trigger Event Analysisâ„¢).

For almost 20 years my own sales managers had a perspective “If you lost the business never lose the lesson” and I did that for many years. But in the summer of 2002 I did something very different I reflected on the 20 years of sales I won and that’s when I noticed the pattern behind every 6, 7, and 8-figure deal I analyzed.

The real epiphany came shortly after that when I went to Google and searched for the term “sales analysis” – the importance of the quotes is that the results must contain both words in that order. In the summer of 2002 I found about 500,000 pages that talked about “sales analysis”.

I then did a search for what my sales managers had always taught me – “Lost Sales Analysis” – and I found around 2,500 pages that talked about how to win more business by conducting a sales analysis after you lose a sale. Do you want to guess how many pages I found when did a search for the term “Won Sales Analysis” in the summer of 2002? TWO!

Of all the pages that talked about “sales analysis only .0004% talked about how to replicate your wins by analyzing the business you have already won. Even in the summer of 2008 there were only 34 results. Today you”ll find about 3,500 pages that talk about the value of  conducting a “Won Sales Analysis”.

Here are the four best questions to ask a customer when you win the business:

1. What events lead 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?

One of the most important things about this analysis is that its’ not something you just send a survey link to a new customer or outsource to someone else. In order for your sales teams to start seeing “Trigger Events” all over the place they need to ask new customers these questions in person – either on the phone or face to face.

If you want to learn more you can view the  brief video at http://TriggerStrategy.com.

Skip to slide:

• #10 if you want to learn more about the impact of getting to decision makers at EXACTLY the right time
• #14 if you want to learn more about the Trigger Events that cause people to buy
• #26 if you just want to learn more about how to best conduct a Won Sales Analysis

I could talk all day about the power of this analysis and what you can do with insights you can learn from this process. Feel free to call (+1.403.874.2998), Skype (Craig.Elias) or email me if you have ANY questions.

Save the date: 12:00 Eastern | 9:00AM Pacific on Wednesday March 16^th.

On that day Keith Ferrazzi, myself, and T.A. McCann – the founder and CEO of the company that makes the coolest relationship management tool on the planet: Gist – will share the what, why, and how of building powerful relationships that will help you grow business faster.

Titled “3 Ways to FIND HIDDEN OPPORTUNITIES” during this 60 minute web event you will learn:

• How to connect with those you want
• Who you want to connect with and why
• How to leverage technology to make it happen

Gist was recently acquired by the makers of the Blackberry – Research in Motion (RIM) – so we need a few more days to implement the registration page. I’ll be sure to write another blog post once the registration page is up.

Date: Wednesday March 16^th
Time: 9:00AM Pacific | 12:00 Eastern

UPDATE: Here is the registration link: http://bit.ly/FindHiddenOpportunities

Trigger Buzz #9 – Closing

Tonight’s Trigger Buzz (6:00PM PST | 9:00PM EST) is on you can harness Trigger Events to close more business.

Details on TriggerBuzz and how it works can be found at http://ShiftSelling.com/TriggerBuzz.

Have an eventful week!

Craig

This blog post is about three things:

1. The #3 Sales 2.0 tool – Survey Analytics
2. Next Two Webinars – Social media data & deal closing relationships
3. Trigger Buzz #8 – Tonight: Cold Calling

This blog post is about three things:

• My Trigger Event Sellingâ„¢ session at the Sales 2.0 Conference in Boston on June 28^th
• The upcoming book launch for the Trigger Event Sellingâ„¢ book SHiFT!
• A three-part,  no-charge, webinar series on how to harness Trigger Events to turn prospects into customers

Boston

I will be speaking at the Sales 2.0 Conference East on June 28^th in the Renaissance Boston Waterfront Hotel.

I speak from 3:15 to 4:15 on how to Find Hidden Opportunities & Shorten Sales Cycles by Harnessing Triggers Events.

During that session I will:

1. Detail some of my latest Trigger Event Sellingâ„¢ strategies
2. Provide information on a number of creative Trigger Event alert options
3. Give away 80 copies of the preview version of my upcoming Trigger Event Sellingâ„¢ book SHiFT! Harness The Trigger Events That TURN PROSPECTS INTO CUSTOMERS
4. Share information of my upcoming three-part,  no-charge, webinar series with Tibor Shanto, the co-author of my book.

Call or text my cell phone number (+1.403.874.2998) if you are attending the Sales 2.0 Conference and would like to connect in person at the conference.

Book Launch

Now that my Trigger Event book SHiFT! has gone through the final approval processes with the publisher and the logistics company, it should be added to all the major online and offline book stores by late August or early September.

With endorsements from Steven M.R. Covey, Keith Ferrazzi, Dr. Ivan Misner, Gerhard Gschwandtner, Tim Draper we look forward to helping forward thinking sales and marketing professionals grow sales faster by harnessing Trigger Events to get in front of highly motivated decision makers at EXACTLY the right time.

Not wanting to wait until September to launch the book, 80 copies of the preview version of the book will be available to participants of the Trigger Event session at the Sales 2.0 Conference in Boston and the first five people who call and share a success story about how they used Trigger Events to close a big sale. If you get my voice mail be sure to leave a message.

Three Part Webinar Series

On Tuesday July 13^th Tibor Shanto and I will be delivering the first of three webinars (one each on the three major types of Business-To-Business Trigger Events).

The first webinar “Exploiting Untapped Opportunities: 3 Strategies for Using Executive Sales Triggers” will share insights into the many Business-To-Business sales opportunities created by a single executive change and discuss unique strategies to gain an unfair advantage over your competition when executive changes happen.

Each one-hour webinar starts at 1:00PM Eastern / 10:00AM Pacific on the 2nd Tuesday of every month – July 13^th, August 10^th, September 14^th.

Stay tuned for registration links for the other two on webinars.

Have an Eventful week!

Craig

I am giving away four tickets to The Art of Sales, where I will be introducing Jeffrey Gitomer.

If you or anyone you know will be in, or near, Calgary on Thursday September 25th, simply complete, or have them complete the registration form for a chance to win.

From the of those who enter, I will draw one name for two tickets and two other names for an individual ticket.

At The Art of Sales you’ll hear two of the speakers I respect the most:

• Jeffrey Gitomer who understands the impact of emotion on sales
• Keith Ferrazzi understands the power of relationships

…plus see

• Frances Cole Jones talk about Presenting & Persuading
• Les Hewitt talk about Focus & Productivity
• Richard Robbins talk about Strategic Influence

Remember to complete the entry form for a chance to win.

Have an eventful week!

Craig