MSP Marketing Blog

10 Questions You Should Ask Of Any Sales Person You Interview

FIRST and foremost: you hunt and constantly look. They are out there, although scarce; and when they DO start to look, you need to be present and findable.

That means you ought to be running ads 24/7/365. You don’t have to hire everyone. BE selective. Only hire the “HELL YES,” not the maybes. A productive salesperson puts money in your pocket, so they aren’t a risk.

NEXT: Build systems and processes that can make a good salesperson GREAT, so you don’t need to find the rare superstar but can have a very profitable and productive business on good people.

THIRD: Interview well to avoid wasting time and money on duds. To this last point, I recently shared the following list with a Rapid Implementation class that was asking me about how to interview a great salesperson. It’s 10 questions I’ll send to a candidate after reviewing their résumé and determining that, on paper, they look like someone I’d like to interview.

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Don’t Finalize Your 2020 Plan… Or Your Christmas Shopping Without These 2 Marketing Fundamentals

Raise your hand if you’ve ever bought a gift, confident that the recipient would absolutely love it, and totally missed the mark. As in, sleeping on the couch or in the doghouse, missed the mark.

You probably based your gift buying decision on your own opinion or something you thought the recipient might need, but not what they actually want. It’s also easy to make this mistake with your marketing.

‘Tis the season for both holiday shopping and annual planning, so I’m here to give you some advice that could make your Christmas a little brighter and your New Year more profitable. Believe it or not, the principle is very similar.

The CORE of what I teach is summed up in a favorite quote from my long-term mentor Nido Qubein: “Who your customer is today is a piece of data; who your customer should be is a piece of strategy.” Read full article and comment →

The Power Of Giving Thanks To Your Prospects And Clients

It’s a short week for many of us as we prepare to spend time with our families and celebrate Thanksgiving. So this week I’m going to share a brief, but powerful lesson: USE HANDWRITTEN THANK-YOU NOTES!

We send Jamie and Emily (my eight- and five-year-old kiddies) to Roots Academy for singing lessons. I recently received a handwritten note after Emily had her first trial lesson. Very, very well done. Even included some stickers Emily had mentioned were her favorite.

I’ve spent 100X the money with other companies and never got so much as a thank-you e-mail. LOTS to learn from this.

Jack Daly, international expert in sales and sales management, has spoken at several of my events. A few years back, he talked about his “money bag” idea. It was a simple bag he carried around with note cards, envelopes and stamps. When he met with a new prospect, regardless of the outcome, he’d write a handwritten thank-you note and drop it in the mailbox closest to their office to ensure it was delivered within the next 48 hours. Read full article and comment →

How To Get Appointments With Big Check Writers (A Muffin Story)

Whoever is going around teaching people to use “grab a coffee” as a reason for getting entrance to a meeting with them needs to stop. Worse yet, “I’ll buy you lunch,” as if they’re doing me a HUGE favor. Last month I received multiple SPAM e-mails similar to the one below:

Hi Robin, my CTO and I will be in your area in August so how about we grab a coffee or sync up for lunch if the timing is good?

During 2018 we helped dozens of companies like Technology Marketing Toolkit to speed up their development process and accelerate revenue flow with the help of team extension of exceptional software engineers that were working closely with head office.

Want to jump for a quick 10-15 minutes intro call this week so either I or my CTO could share the idea with you?

Johan

PS: Oh, please let me know if you don’t want to hear from me ever again and I’ll make sure that it never happens.

No one, and I do mean no one, is going to take time out of their insanely busy day to have coffee with a complete stranger who wants to sell them something. Further, e-mail is one of the lowest-trust ways to communicate with a prospect.

But you know this, right? Me hopes so… Read full article and comment →

These Costly Mistakes Will Tank Your Direct Mail Results

Most dabble and sloppily, hastily put their campaigns together – but direct mail is NOT a media you want to be careless about due to the work and costs you’ll put in. Better to invest the time in getting it really, really right and dialed in before you launch. Read full article and comment →

An Often Overlooked Marketing Method That Can Make You Millions

This week and next, we’re taking a look at a marketing topic I know really well AND have made millions from: direct mail.

Yeah, I know. Pfui. I just lost about 80% of the readers who saw “direct mail” and went back to scrolling Facebook or Instagram. So sad. If only cat memes put money in the bank…

I consider myself extremely fortunate to have learned direct marketing for prospecting and making sales early in my career, when social media, paid searches and even e-mail weren’t what they are today because direct mail is an excellent disciplinarian.

Get it wrong, and you can lose a considerable chunk of money fast; but, of course, if you get it RIGHT, you’ll have a media to play in that your competitors are too cheap, too lazy and too shortsighted to use.

So first, a SHORT list of the primary reasons why you want to use direct mail in your marketing mix: Read full article and comment →

When Is It Good To Scare Your Customers And Prospects?

Halloween is upon is, as is my final installment of scary business stories. This week is a lesson in spooking your own clients. Because the need for IT services can be easy to shrug off until you’re faced with disaster.

A force of nature hits and they’re not properly backed up. A “ghost” clicks a link in a phishing e-mail (because no one ever wants to admit they did it).  Michael Myers goes digital and hacks their network. Read on the for the “Tale Of The Sales Call Coming From Inside Your Business.”

People who think opportunistically get a bad rap – but EVERY tragedy carries with it big opportunity, and there are two sides to every coin.

As an IT firm, YOU benefit every time a new ransomware attack makes headlines, a new regulation goes into effect for data protection or a vendor announces they’ll discontinue support for their software (Windows 7).

But do you quickly do everything you can to capitalize on the opportunity such tragedies and problems may present? Read full article and comment →

4 Ways To Keep Your Marketing Out Of The Graveyard

What does every SMART marketer dream of? An offer so good it brings in quality clients in droves.

I recently received a piece of mail that came SO CLOSE, but, alas, their campaign fell short of what it could have produced. This week I share with you the “Tale Of The Dead Marketing Campaign.”

The postcard was mailed in an “invitation”-type envelope from our local Bentley dealer. I’m assuming they got my name from a visit to the dealership a few years ago, or perhaps targeted by zip code for high-end homes. The offer is a good one: they’ll give you a Bentley to test-drive for two days. VERY smart.

However, I called and left a voice mail and e-mailed them my interest but never received ANY follow-up, as in ZERO.

This is such a waste, it’s painful. As a marketer, I know all too well how damned difficult it is to get prospects to respond, so you HAVE to be ready with fast, aggressive sales folks who will take those calls and follow up, follow up, follow up. Inbound leads are tiny sparks of interest that need to be fanned, nurtured and fueled carefully like smoldering kindling when building a fire. Read full article and comment →