This blog post is about three things:

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.

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:

• 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 – 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.

This blog post contains three items:

1. The #5 Sales 2.0 tool (EchoQuote) & $1,500 giveaway
2. Rethinking Sales Radio Show – Thursday night @ 7:00PM Pacific
3. Trigger Buzz #5 – Tonight @ 6:00PM Pacific

The #5 Sales 2.0 tool & $1,500 giveaway

This is the third month of my countdown towards the #1 Sales 2.0 tool. Each month I feature a tool  and invite the over 6,500 subscribers of this blog to provide ideas on how to use the tool and get votes for their ideas.

The person with the most votes by 12:01AM on the last Tuesday of the month wins $1,500 worth of Trigger Event Selling services. Details of the $1,500 giveaway can be found at http://www.shiftselling.com/free-sales-training/

This month’s Sales 2.0 tool is EchoQuote. One of the biggest complaints prospects have when they visit a web site is the lack of pricing information.

According to Dr. Jakob Nielson a Web Usability Expert, “Price is the most specific piece of information customers use to understand the nature of an offering, and not providing it makes people feel lost and reduces their understanding of a product line. We have miles of videotape of users asking ‘Where’s the price?’ while tearing their hair out.”

I am amazed that in today’s 7 day a week, 24 hour a day, Sales 2.0 world that some companies still force customers to fill in a pricing request form and then wait for someone manually get back to them.

I am an EchoQuote customer and I love the fact that it’s a self-service pricing tool empowers my prospects and customers 24 hours a day, 365 days a year.

When a buyer has some time to move a purchase forward and they can’t find pricing information on your web site you force them to check out your competition and you lose any chance of getting a decent price for your products or services.

Win $1,500 worth of Trigger Event services by suggesting follow up strategies that companies can implement to understand the level of interest someone has in actually purchasing a product or what qualification questions can be asked to understand if the pricing request is someone who is genuinely interested in purchasing your product or just comparison shopping to get a better price from the current supplier. 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 – December 28^th – so voting ends at Midnight (MST) on Monday December 27^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.

Rethinking Sales Radio Show

This Thursday I will be on the Rethinking Sales Radio Show with host Marco Giunto. We’ll tackle the topics of lead generation and opportunity qualification.

The call in number is 646-478-0368.

You will find more about the show at http://www.rethinkingsales.com/radio

TriggerBuzz #5

Today – Tuesday December 14th – from 9:00PM-9:30PM Eastern (6:00PM-6:30PM Pacific) is the fifth edition of TriggerBuzz.

Get your prospecting questions answered by following @TriggerBuzz on Twitter. To submit your questions, once I follow you back, you need to send a direct message to @TriggerBuzz.

Details and instructions can be found at ShiftSelling.com/TriggerBuzz

Have an eventful week!

Craig

This blog post contains two items:

1. The #6 Sales 2.0 tool – Feedblitz
2. TriggerBuzz #3 – How to get your prospecting questions answered
3. $1,500 give away – Free advice, speaking, training or coaching

The #6 Sales 2.0 tool

This is the second month of my countdown towards the #1 Sales 2.0 tool. Each month I feature a tool I think makes it easier for sales people and organizations to harness the Trigger Events that TURN PROSPECTS INTO CUSTOMERS and invite the over 4,200 subscribers of this blog to provide ideas on ways to use each months tool and get votes for their ideas.

The person with the most votes by 12:10AM on the last Tuesday of the month wins $1,500 worth of Trigger Event Selling services (advice, training, speaking, or coaching). Details of the $1,500 giveaway can be found at http://www.shiftselling.com/free-sales-training/

This month’s tool – #6 in my countdown – is FeedBlitz. Feedblitz allows you to monitor any web page (aka URL) and to be notified a number of different ways when the content of that web page changes.

The list of ways you can be notified by includes email, Skype, Twitter (Direct message and post for your followers to see), Facebook Wall Post and LinkedIn Status Update.

All you have to do is:

• Provide the URL you want watched
• Enter your email address (so they can create an account for you if it’s your first time or add the URL to your subscription list if you are a repeat users)
• Select the notification method
• Enter the characters of the spam preventer image
• Click on the subscribe button

See below for this months questions and details on how you can win the $1,500 giveaway.

TriggerBuzz #3

Today – Tuesday November 2nd – from 9:00PM-9:30PM Eastern (6:00PM-6:30PM Pacific) is the third edition of TriggerBuzz.

Get your prospecting questions answered by following @TriggerBuzz on Twitter. To submit your questions, once I follow you back, you need to send a direct message to @TriggerBuzz.

Details and instructions can be found at ShiftSelling.com/TriggerBuzz

This blog post has three items:

1. The #7 Sales 2.0 tool: IntroMojo
2. Another $1,500 give away
3. The inaugural TriggerBuzz event

The #7 Sales 2.0 tool

In my last blog post I asked for tools that should be considered for list of top seven Sales 2.0  tools. One of the tools suggested was IntroMojo. The value of IntroMojo can be summed up in one word ‘Rapport’: The ability to have something in common with a decision maker you have never spoken to before, so you can start the relationship building process.

The  Trigger Event book SHiFT! has an entire chapter on how get called first when a decision maker experiences a Trigger Event and starts the process of Searching for Alternatives. In that chapter we talk about the need for a “Psychographic Fit”: Having the similar interests, values, or aspirations as a decision maker. The challenge is how do you know the interests, values, and aspirations of a decision maker y0u have never talked to?

That’s were IntroMojo comes to the rescue. The brainchild of Daniel Waldschmidt and Colin A Martin, it allows you to:

1. Identify the right people with the names you are looking for. IntroMojo asks you a few simple questions to help you zoom in from a name to the person you need to engage with.  Things like location, company, job title, industry are all clues that IntroMojo presents in helping you find the person that you want to reach.
2. Learn all about them. Learn a decision makers background, education, and work experience.  More importantly you can learn what your prospect is talking about, what books, videos, and music they enjoy, and what they like.  You find out who they’re friends with, what videos and blogs they are writing, and where they engage on the web.
3. Stay informed about what they are doing. Each time you need to engage a decision maker, check IntroMojo and it will serve up the most recent  information on them.  It’s new each day you check so your sales pitch can stay relevant.

$1,500 Give Away

This blog post has three items:

1. The coolest use of social media I have ever experienced
2. The recording of the webinar 5 Ways to Close Deals Faster
3. My countdown of the top seven Sales 2.0 tools

Buzz: The Coolest use of Social Media

Back in July I had the chance to participate in the coolest use of social media I have ever experienced: Small Business Buzz.

Months ago I subscribed to their tweets SBBUZZ and I have watched their weekly events via my iPhone but I never participated in a conversation until July – when the topic was sales. Then I found myself contributing to the conversation and that got me thinking…

How can I do something similar so that so practitioners of Trigger Event Selling^â„¢ can have their questions answered by anyone who wants to participate and provide answers. It’s called TriggerBuzz. It will be held the first and last Tuesday of every month so you can learn new things to get a healthy start and have a strong close your month. So starting next Tuesday October 5th – from  9:00-9:30 Eastern – each month you have two opportunities to have your questions about Trigger Event Sellingâ„¢ answered.

If you have questions you would like to have answered you simply need to  follow TriggerBuzz and send a direct message to TriggerBuzz. I have SocialOoomph – the #5 way to sell more by using social media – set up to auto-follow those who follow TriggerBuzz so you should be able to send me a direct message as soon as you follow TriggerBuzz.

If you have any questions or suggestions for TriggerBuzz you can contact me by phone (North America: 866.744.7904 | International: +1.403.313.0412) text (+1403.874.2998) Skype (Craig.Elias), email (Craig.Elias@ShiftSelling.com) or this contact form.

Biz: Recording of 5 Ways to Close Deals Faster

The recording of the recent webinar “5 Ways To Close Deals Faster by Using Industry and Market Triggers” is now available. In this webinar Tibor Shanto and I share information on the industry and market triggers that shorten sales cycles and five ways you can harness them to close deals faster.

Best: Countdown of the top 7 Sales 2.0 tools

Next Tuesday I will continue my series of Top 7 countdowns – Top 7 Sales Mistakes & Top 7 Social Media Tools – and list what I think are the top 7 Sales 2.0 tools. This is done David Letterman style – starting with number seven and working my way up to number 1.

The first Tuesday of every month I will share the next tool in the list and offer a $1,500 prize to the person who submits a creative way to use the tool and gets the most votes for their answer.

Contact me if you know of a tool you think should be considered.

Have an eventful week!

Craig

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

There has been a ton of hype about why everyone should be using Social Media and Sales 2.0 tools to sell more. What I think is lacking is ideas and examples on how everyone could be using social media and sales 2.0 tools to sell more .

I believe that using social media is one way to harness the Trigger Events that turn prospects into customers so I’m going to list what I believe are the “Top Seven Ways to Sell More Using Social Media”.

As I did with the Top Seven Mistakes That Sales People Make, I’ll be going this David Letterman style – Starting with #7 and working my way to #1. Once this list is done I’ll be doing the list of Top Seven Ways to Sell More Using Sales 2.0 Tools.

The intent of making this list is not to tell you how social media can make a difference but to have you start ‘seeing’ the different ways that Trigger Events combined with social media can TURN PROSPECTS INTO CUSTOMERS.

So starting next Tuesday and then the first Tuesday of every month I’ll post one of the Top Seven Ways To Use Social Media To Sell More.

Every post will offer readers the opportunity to win $1,500 worth of Trigger Event services by submitting either a great example of, or great idea on, using the social media I list to harness Trigger Events and turn prospects into customers.

The last Tuesday of every month I’ll announce the winner of the $1,500 worth of Trigger Event Services.

So if you have a sales team that you want to benefit from Trigger Event Selling but you don’t have the budget at this time, get members of your sales team to submit ideas and then get votes for their submissions.

Submissions are voted on by clicking on the button that appears at the end of each submission.

I suggest people Tweet, Stumble!, Digg, and email their friends and co-workers because the voting system I use does not allow anyone to vote for their own answers.

Have an EVENTFUL week!

Craig

The number one mistake sales people make is… they make it too hard to become a customer.

Think of all the sales opportunities that started out strong only to have the prospect decide to stay with their current supplier. The #1 reason they stayed with their current supplier is: it was not worth the effort of becoming your customer.

One of the keys to turning prospects into customers understanding the level of emotion a decision maker has and matching the effort of becoming your customer to this level of emotion.

When you get to decision makers after they experience a Trigger Event they have a certain amount of emotion related to solving the problem. As long as the level of effort required to become your customer is less than the level of emotion they have they are likely to become your customer.

BUT when decision maker’s perceive it to be too much effort to become your customer they typically stay with their current solution/supplier – aka the Status Quo.

Here is a personal example… I am a customer of ActiveConversion.com a Sales 2.0 service that lets you know who visits your site and how often they visit and I recently became aware of their autoresponder offering, for those who fill in a form on my web site. An autoresponder allows me to set up a number of emails that go out a specified number of days, weeks, or months after a form has been completed.

The reason I want an autoresponder system, beyond the traditional reason of drip/nurture marketing, is that I want to know when a prospect’s/customer’s email address starts to bounce. This signals the Trigger Event of a change in decision makers and typically means three opportunities:

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

After doing some initial investigation I learned that I needed an account with VerticalResponse.com in order for my autoresponder emails to go out.

Because I am currently satisfied with my current email marketing solution, if Vertical Response had only sold a monthly subscription plan, based upon how many people are on my mailing list, I would have stayed with the Status Quo – no auto responders. BUT Vertical Response has a pay as you go plan that I could take advantage of.  For as little as $15 I could buy 1,000 autoresponder emails that can be used any time and keep my current email marketing solution.

Because the level of effort of becoming a customer was less than the amount of emotion I had about solving the problem I spent $15 and bought the 1,000 autoresponder email, package.

Now Vertical Response has me as a customer and I am learning how to use their systems. When I experience a Trigger Event and become dissatisfied with my current email marketing solution who do you think I am most likely to buy from. You guessed it Vertical Response.

Too often sales people are so focused on getting the big sale that they miss the opportunity to make a smaller initial sale with those who recently experienced a Trigger Event and then harness the future Trigger Events that create larger follow-on opportunities in the same account.

My question, to be answered by commenting below, is “What can you do to match the effort it takes to become your customer to the level of emotion the prospect has?”

Win $1,500 worth of Trigger Event services by getting the most votes for your answer.

Answers are voted on by clicking on the button that appears at the end of each answer and voting ends on Monday June 29^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 me (Craig.Elias), or this contact form, if you don’t see your comment approved within a few minutes of posting it.

Stumble!, Digg, Tweet, 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.

Have an EVENTFUL week!

Craig