A Guide To Marketing Your Startup on Linkedin

Like  Comment  Share  Interact  Disqus  Delicious   Instagram  LinkedIn  Google+  YouTube  MySpace Press   Stumble  Tumblr  Pinterest

I often find myself talking to friends about Linkedin, a lot of these friends work at startups or are trying to build their own. Startups are always thinking about ways to leverage social networks to find new marketing and distribution channels.

 These conversations inspired me to write about why startups need to be on Linkedin and how they can make use of all the great features and capabilities available.

Why Linkedin

Linkedin has a lot to offer, for one it's the world's largest platform for professionals to interact, network, share, learn and grow. LinkedIn users are highly educated professionals that are working to create economic opportunities, build companies and create new businesses. If you are a startup looking to sell your product or create awareness this is your audience.

Below are some of the key features and tools that can help your startup reach a relevant audience at scale on Linkedin

Connections

Not all marketing is paid, building a strong network of connections on LinkedIn does not need a marketing budget but can help spread the word about your products. By regularly sharing content about your product and industry you can organically get their attention. Often your connections will be people working in the market that you are selling into and their "Likes" and "Shares" will help virally propel your content to their connections many of whom might also be in your target audience. Its important to remember your connections are a valuable asset and you should only share content that is useful and relevant.

Be proactive about growing your network, connect with all your current customers and everyone you are currently or previously worked with and have known in your professional life. Don’t hesitate to establish new connections through introductions or InMails. It helps to have a personalized reason for why you want to connect, you will find that often people are happy to connect through introductions or with people in their industry.

Linkedin Groups are another great way to build valuable relationships on Linkedin. There are a lot of very active groups out there find the ones that are related to your industry and aim to be helpful. Leverage your expertise to answer questions and point people in the right direction. Linkedin Groups is designed to award engaged user and you might just find your profile surfaced to other group members as a top contributor.

Company Pages

Be sure to setup a Company Page for your startup. LinkedIn company pages allow you to gain followers and keep them updated about your product. By following your company page they have expressed interest in your startup and are open to learning more.

Company pages have great features such as Analytics which lets you learn about your followers, Sponsored Updates that can help you promote posts that resonate with your current followers to a wider audience and Showcase Pages that lets you create beautiful highly focused pages, one for every product or target market segment if you wish.

In addition, LinkedIn will also actively surface your company page to the relevant audience as “Companies you may want to follow” displayed on the homepage which will help you gain new followers.

Linkedin Ads

LinkedIn Ads are a great way to advertise your company to the right audience. One of the biggest advantages of using LinkedIn Ads over others is the sophisticated targeting which allows you to target users of specific groups and companies, users with specific skills, in specific industries or with specific job titles like VPs. In addition to all this LinkedIn also leverages its own data to only show your ads to the most relevant users.

You can have text ads or video ads and you can use these ads to either direct traffic to your LinkedIn company page or your own website.

Sponsored Updates

Sponsored updates is the latest in LinkedIn’s collection of marketing tools and already one of the most popular. Any status update or link posted on your company page can be promoted and targeted to a wider audience. The sponsored update shows up in the users feed just like any other update. If the user likes the post, all of his connections will automatically see it and their "Likes" can help the post go viral - organically increasing your audience and exposure.

Sponsored Updates are also a great way to gain followers for your company page as a ‘follow company’ button is visible directly on the update in the users feed. Similar to LinkedIn Ads, Sponsored Updates also provides you with detailed analytics about who liked or engaged with your post.

A large percent of Linkedin users access Linkedin using their smart-phones or tablets and Sponsored Updates are visible to them on those devices so its important to make sure that the content you promote is accessible and readable on mobile devices.

Content Marketing @cyrustmybjaz29

LinkedIn is slowly opening up their publishing platform to everyone. While so far you may have enjoyed only reading posts from Linkedin influencers, now as you get the opportunity to blog on LinkedIn, you can project your own expertise and knowledge through your writings.

Content Marketing is an excellent way to influence and educate a wide audience, over time gaining a followership who trusts your expertise. Linkedin automatically catalogs posts into relevant channels such as Marketing Strategies, Healthcare, Professional Women which have millions of followers, thus instantly giving your writing massive exposure and engagement.

A recent post “Data For Social Good: A Beginners Guide For Nonprofits and Social Ventures” from a LinkedIn member got 10,000 views on a single day, 300 likes and was re-shared over 500 times which in my opinion is jaw dropping reach.

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>  Post A Comment>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

Rockford Hunt Sharepoint, .net, Lead generation, Data Analytics, Multicultural, Business Development, SAAS, Sales Don't forget about Linkedin groups! A great way to meet liked minded contacts.

Like  Comment  Share  Interact  Disqus  Delicious   Instagram  LinkedIn  Google+  YouTube  MySpace Press   Stumble  Tumblr  Pinterest

How to Think Like an Entrepreneur

Like  Comment   Share   Interact  Google+  LinkedIn  Stumble  WordPress  Disqus  Instagram YouTube   



If you ask me, I think everyone has an entrepreneur inside of them. It’s just about whether you bring it out and showcase it to the world.


Over the years, I have been asked about how an entrepreneur thinks. It’s not a science - it’s part intuition, part logic. But, below are some the most key factors one should embrace

It’s Not About the Money

It’s never the right move to take a job based solely on salary and perks or become an entrepreneur because you want to chase the headlines. Ultimately, that’s not going to bring you happiness or genuine success. Don’t take a job that pays more if it’s going to mean a soul-less existence plodding away doing something that’s not meaningful and fulfilling. It will eat away at you. You won’t perform like a rock star. Whatever ambition you had will become less and less over time and a slow clock will become your best friend. That is not what life is about. Life should be about leaping out of bed every morning knowing the difference you are going to make.

Of course, money satiates material desires. Stuff you don’t necessarily need. But where is the happiness and drive in that? As, I mentioned before, success may allow you to acquire material things, but true happiness does not exist there.

Freedom of Choice

If you’re not happy at your job, it’s your choice and your choice alone to change it and find something you do like. No one else is going to do it for you. It’s up to you. It’s the same kind of freedom an entrepreneur has. You just need to execute on it. Baby steps are ok. Nothing worthwhile and authentic happens overnight. Don’t chase the headlines for success, be your own headline.

If you value your job, you will see the impact you are making without the need of outside recognition. If you don’t value your job, you are just doing a disservice to yourself. Watching the clock waiting for 5:00 p.m. to roll around, then you’re definitely at the wrong place. You the have freedom of choice. Exercise it. Life is too short to be worried about simply clocking out. Make a difference instead.

Emotional and Spiritual Journey

The real questions are these: Are you emotionally and spiritually fulfilled, not just financially? If money is the name of the game you may never be financially fulfilled because you will realize – it’s never enough. When you're emotionally and spiritually connected with yourself, you will begin to understand what your inner purpose is. That’s where comfort meets reality.

Always Learning

An entrepreneur never stops learning. Think about the key characteristics of an entrepreneur:

Related For This  Read

• A willingness to take risks and fail
• The ability to be a creative thinker; become a genuine problem solver. Where others see obstacles, you see opportunity.
• Persistence, drive, and a never-ending ambition.
• Understanding you're contributing to something greater than yourself.
• Never giving up. You fall down 7 times, you get up 8.

Put those skills into effect in your career and you will soar to great heights. Be the chess player, not the chess piece. Ask questions. Challenge authority. Don’t be a yes man. Be a breakthrough person. Whatever you do, enjoy it because it has purpose behind it.

Purpose

As someone once said, “the journey of a thousand miles begins with one step.” And it’s OK to take baby steps. As long as they are in the right direction. Nothing worthwhile and authentic happens overnight. The journey to success and genuine accomplishment is a never-ending series of steps. Start each day thinking of the things you can do that will move you forward. Forward movement is everything. Before long those baby steps will turn into sprints and you’ll realize the marathon is attainable.

Some may question whether the American Dream is still alive. But, let me be the first to say, "when you come from nothing, everything becomes limitless." Never lose that child-like wonder. Never let your fears become a reality. Calculate vulnerabilities. And, always remember that passion will lead you to the path of your own dreams.

Chase something greater than yourself, something immeasurable, something that has purpose. And, only then you'll become limitless.

Like   Comment  Share  Interact  IN @ Social Way

BY: GURBAKSH CHAHAL
Like  Comment   Share   Interact  Google+  LinkedIn  Stumble  WordPress  Disqus  Instagram YouTube   

If You Don't Prioritize Your Life, Someone Else Will

Tweet   Share   Comment  Google+  LinkedIn  Tumblr  Disqus  Instagram   Stumble

Read  More  Learn More

“A ‘no’ uttered from the deepest conviction is better than a ‘yes’ merely uttered to please, or worse, to avoid trouble.” So said Mahatma Gandhi, and we all know how his conviction played out on the world stage. But what is less well known is how this same discipline played out privately with his own grandson, Arun Gandhi.

Arun grew up in South Africa. When he was a young boy, he was beaten up twice: once for being too white and once for being too black. Still angry, Arun was sent to spend time with his grandfather. In an interview with Arun, he told me that his grandfather was in demand from many important people, yet he still prioritized his grandson, spending an hour a day for 18 months just listening to Arun. It proved to be a turning point in Arun’s life.

I had the opportunity to apply Gandhi’s example of prioritization to my own life, hours before one of my daughters was born. I felt pressure to go to a client meeting the next day. But on this occasion, I knew what to do. It was clearly a time to be there for my wife and child. So, when asked to attend the meeting, I said with all the conviction I could muster…

“Yes.”

To my shame, while my wife lay in the hospital with my hours-old baby, I went to the meeting. Afterward, my manager said, “The client will respect you for making the decision to be here.” But the look on the clients’ faces mirrored how I felt. What was I doing there?! I had not lived true to Gandhi’s saying. I had said “yes” to please.

As it turned out, exactly nothing came of the client meeting. And even if the client hadrespected my choice, and key business opportunities had resulted, I would still have struck a fool’s bargain. My wife supported me and trusted me to make the right choice under the circumstances, and I had opted to deprioritize her and my child.

Why did I do it? I have two confessions:

First, I allowed social awkwardness to trump making the right decision. I wasn’t forced to attend the meeting. Instead, I was so anxious to please that even awkward silent pauses on the phone were too much for me. In order to stop the social pain, I said “yes” when I knew the answer should be “no.”

Second, I believed that “I had to make this work.” Logically, I knew I had a choice, but emotionally, I felt that I had no choice. That one corrupted assumption psychologically removed many of the actual choices available to me.

What can you do to avoid the mistake of saying “yes” when you know the answer should be “no”?

First, separate the decision from the relationship. Sometimes these seem so interconnected, we forget there are two different questions we need to answer. By deliberately dividing these questions, we can make a more conscious choice. Answer the question, “What is the right decision?” and then “How can I communicate this as kindly as possible?”

Second, watch your language. Every time we say, “I have to take this call” or “I have to send this piece of work off” or “I have to go to this client meeting,” we are assuming that previous commitments are nonnegotiable. Every time you use the phrase “I have to” over the next week, stop and replace it with “I choose to.” It can feel a little odd at first — and in some cases it can even be gut-wrenching (if we are choosing the wrong priority). But ultimately, using this language reminds us that we are making choices, which enables us to make adifferent choice.

Third, avoid working for or with people who don’t respect your priorities. It may sound simplistic, but this is a truly liberating rule! There are people who share your values and as a result make it natural to live your priorities. It may take a while to find an employment situation like this, but you can set your course to that destination immediately.

Saying “yes” when we should be saying “no” can seem like a small thing in the moment. But over time, such compromises can create a life of regrets. Indeed, an Australian nurse named Bronnie Ware, who cared for people in the last 12 weeks of their lives, recorded the most often-discussed regrets. At the top of the list: “I wish I’d had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me.”

I have a vision of people everywhere having the courage to live a life true to themselves instead of the life others expect of them.

To harness the courage we need to get on the right path, it pays to reflect on how short life really is, and what we want to accomplish in the little time we have left. As poet Mary Oliver wrote: “Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?”

I challenge you to be wiser than I was on the day of my daughter’s birth. I have great confidence in the good that can come from such a decision.

Years from now when you are on your death bed you may still have regrets. But seeking the way of the Essentialist is unlikely to be one of them. What would you trade then to be back here now for one chance—this chance—to be true to yourself? On that day what will you hope you decided to do on this one?

Like   Comment   Share  Interact

BY: GREG MCKEOWN
Tweet   Share   Comment  Google+  LinkedIn  Tumblr  Disqus  Instagram   Stumble YouTube  

Can You Afford Privacy?

Tweet   Share   Comment  Google+  LinkedIn  Tumblr  Disqus  Instagram   Stumble

Read  More  Here

Last month, my friend and noted author Julia Angwin published an op-ed piece in The New York Times asking whether privacy had become an expensive good. The article details, in part, the wide array of privacy software and hardware she’s tried. From $230 data encryption services to a $420 Internet security subscription, Julia notes that privacy may be becoming a luxury only the wealthier can afford.

She raises a very powerful question. If privacy is a luxury available only to the few, what does that mean for the average user?

First, you have to understand the sheer scale of the personal data market, its pernicious enormity. I’ve previously written about the concept of the Big Data profile, which links users like you and me to a collection of our preferences, behaviors, and tendencies – without our knowledge or consent, for purposes we probably will never know. Whether you’re trying to get pregnant or have arthritis, if you lean Democrat or Republican, if you wear a Rolex or a Swatch – online advertisers pay big money for this kind of information, which allows them to more effectively target us. Companies like Google and Facebook are happy to oblige – they make billions every year by collecting personal information and selling it to advertisers. Make no mistake, Big Data equals Big Business.

Online advertising represents the lion’s share of demand for personal information today – but it’s already so much more than that. Health care companies have begun using Big Data profiles to recruit patients for pharmaceutical studies, for example. Instead of cold calling and recruiting at hospitals, drug industry contractors now sift through personal data to look at people’s dining, spending, and entertainment preferences, which actually give them a pretty good idea of what diseases a person might have. That’s one example of how the details that Big Data traps in its net reveal intimate aspects of you and me. Big Data is already influencing and impacting your life – and there’s no going back.

Fortunately, I’m the bearer of what I believe will be good news: privacy technologies may be limited and expensive right now, but I think that won’t be the case forever.

Here’s my prediction: eventually privacy protection technologies will be subsidized and embedded in the Internet’s permafrost. Think of it like the protection for your credit card. Credit card protection wasn’t always ubiquitous. That’s no longer true. Right now, a mom in Michigan, a CEO in New York City, a janitor in Des Moines all have something in common: their credit cards have multiple layers of protection, from SSL encryption to authentication to credit card fraud detection and credit card protection.

That same development arc happened with another industry: anti-virus software. When was the last time you, as an individual, paid for anti-virus protection for your laptop, home computer, or mobile phone? I think it was about six years ago for me. Why? It’s now a standard part of what we get when we purchase hardware – they’re all equipped. The protection is now embedded. Indeed, it's such a big shift that many of the biggest anti-virus companies are busily exploring other lines of business.

I think we are going to see the same thing with privacy. Will there be differences in the protections? Of course. The wealthy will always be able to buy premium versions of everything -- privacy included – that most people can't. But privacy protections -- at least for privacy problems that we know about today -- for everyone will be increasingly strong, standardized and universal.

The real question is – how fast can that happen and why aren’t you clamoring for it right now?

Like  Comment   Share 

BY: MICHAEL FERTIK

Tweet   Share   Comment  Google+  LinkedIn  Tumblr  Disqus  Instagram   Stumble

Anyone, Anywhere Can Now Build The Next WhatsApp or Oculus

Like  Comment  Share  Tweet  Google+  LinkedIn   YouTube  Press   Stumble    Disqus

Oculus, the latest technology startup to be acquired for billions of dollars, was based not in Silicon Valley but in Irvine, Calif. Snapchat, which is rumored to be worth billions, is based in Los Angeles. The Los Angeles area is a good place to live and has great weather, but it has no real advantage as a technology center. These companies could have been based anywhere with equal success. You can’t predict which technology hub the next Oculus will come from—or whether it will be a hub at all. Anyone anywhere—whether in an incubator, garage or tent—can now build world-changing technology.

Read More Here >>>>>>>

It used to be that venture capital was a prerequisite for starting a technology company. The software, hardware and disk storage needed cost millions of dollars. Entrepreneurs therefore had to begin their journey by writing a detailed business plan and pitching it to investors. Silicon Valley had a big advantage because of the concentration of venture capitalists on Sand Hill Road. But that is no longer the case, because the cost of technology has dropped exponentially. Entrepreneurs can beg or borrow the relatively small amounts of money they need from their friends and relatives. Or they can crowd-fund their startup, in the way in which Oculus did on Kickstarter.

U.S. technology hubs such as Silicon Valley also had a huge advantage in the past because of the concentration of specialized knowledge there. University towns such as Boston and Stanford are home to leading research scientists and entrepreneurs could listen to their lectures or meet them to ask questions. But an ocean of knowledge is now available on the Internet for free. In fact, more knowledge is available today on the Internet than was available to leading scientists and researchers as recently as 15 years ago, and nowincludes lectures by Stanford, Harvard and MIT faculty. Science and technology blogs provide more-timely and more-relevant information than scientific journals did because the journals were restricted to those who could afford subscriptions or who had access to libraries that did.

Hardware requirements have also gone down for businesses due to the relatively cheap cost of tablet computers and laptops and access to cloud service providers. That’s why Oculus’s Kickstarter goal was only $250,000 when it launched. In other countries, it could have been started for a lot less—especially if the entrepreneurs had been working from their homes and not taking salaries.

A lack of mentorship and networking holds back entrepreneurs in distant parts of the world. But they can learn from the experiences of CEOs, venture capitalists and domain experts on hundreds of specialized discussion boards that are open to all—sites such as StackOverflow, Slashdot, Hacker News, PoetsandQuants and Quora. Additionally, anyone can follow global thought leaders on social media and learn from them. They can email or tweet to people they read about.

Distributing a product is also easier than it has ever been because it is largely done over the Internet. People typically don’t even know the headquarters of the software or hardware companies they are buying technologies from. WhatsApp—which was the most expensive technology acquisition ever—was started in Mountain View, California, but it could just as well have been located in Ukraine, where its founder is from, or in Estonia, where Skype was developed, or in Finland, where the Angry Birds were hatched.


So entrepreneurs around the world have advantages today that a few years ago were specific to geographic location, meaning that the playing field is becoming level. There is no longer a need to find a way in to Silicon Valley or to the next Valley. Successful entrepreneurship still necessitates a prudent mix of wisdom, foresight, empathy, caution, balance, daring, toughness, knowledge and skill. But the external constraints are far looser than they used to be and an entrepreneur’s success is only impeded by her own limitations.

Comment  Interact Your Thoughts  Counts !!!!

Like  Comment  Share  Tweet  Google+  LinkedIn   YouTube  Press   Stumble    Disqus

Author : Influencer : VIVEK WADHWA
You can follow me on Twitter and read more of my articles on my website: www.wadhwa.com.

Social Media Trends Every Entrepreneur Must Know

Like  Comment  Share  Tweet  Google+  LinkedIn   YouTube  Press   Stumble    Disqus

Social media has transformed how entrepreneurs stay connected to their business, their team, their customers and their industry.

Read  More Here

With an ever-changing social media landscape, your social media marketing plan must continue to be dynamic.

By being cognisant of the latest trends, it will help you design better strategies, use the most effective tactics and spend more efficiently. Here are the top 5 trend you should be very aware of:

1. SEO, Content Creation and Social Media Must Happen Together

No way around this one. These three are the cornerstones of online marketing. They must happen in tandem for a strategy to work properly.

Content drives SEO. Social media drives content. Social media aids in SEO. These really are the fundamentals of brand strategy online.

2. Photos and Videos are King

Many would have said this, but it is still worth mentioning. Nearly 70% of social media contains imagery. Pinterest, for many businesses, has created such brand loyalty and recognition. It's been found that 29% of people that see something on the social media network and re-pin it, end up purchasing the product! Incredible!

3. The Rise of Google+

I've said this to many of my clients and also in my Social Media Matters sessions, Google+ is the next big thing in social media.

Why?

For one, Google's algorithm for organic search listings has put increasing weight on Google+ content. I don't see this slowing down as the San Francisco tech giant strives for total domination.

It's pretty well-known that Twitter and Facebook's accessibility issues cause issues when it comes to SEO rankings. In fact, they have no impact on those scores at all. Google+ can be crawled freely, therefore having a strong impact on your brands' page rank.

Google+ also provides access to Google Authorship, which, by years end should have big time weight in organic search results.

4. Facebook's Algorithm Will Hurt Strategies that Rely Solely on Facebook Marketing

As you may have already heard, Facebook's algorithm for brand pages is causing a significant drop in content views. This study goes as far as defining that number at 94% (meaning only 6% of your followers are even seeing your content on their newsfeed).

As the old adage goes "don't put all your eggs in one basket". This has never rang truer in terms of social media strategy. Facebook is looking to bolster a revenue stream that has, until know, been lackluster. What this means is that depending on one social media channel can, ultimately, kill your business.

5. Consistent Branding Across Networks is Vital

As with traditional methods, consistent messaging is so important. Making sure that content is constantly filtered and branded to be in line with your overall culture or strategy is what sets one brand apart from another.

Many take the approach of "build it and they will come".

Sorry to say, but that does not work with online marketing. Engagement is an art form and must be perfected. Companies such as Buffer have done an amazing job internally with their culture, that they value the engagement of each and every user of their product.

If there is anything we have learned in social media and online marketing, it's that, those who remain flexible are the ones to prevail. Don't be afraid to step out of the box when devising a strategy and don't be afraid to experiment.

Agree? Disagree? What are your thoughts on social media trends for 2014?

Like  Comment  Share  Tweet  Google+  LinkedIn   YouTube  Press   Stumble    Disqus

Author: Community Manager:VINCENZO M. LANDINO

Related Reads For You>>>>>

The Easiest Way to See if You're Spending Your Time Right

How I Got Started In Social Selling

Read  More

When I had my first real sales job about 10 years ago, there certainly was sales process and there certainly was not social media. About 3 years ago I got hired by a tiny startup of about 60-ish people called HootSuite in Vancouver, BC as the corporate sales trainer. What a perfect place to blend solid sales process with social media! Around that same time, the only remnants of anything called social selling was an educational site called Social Selling University by spearheaded by a now good friend Koka Sexton. Koka’s thoughts and concepts of building twitter lists of prospects, customers, influencers, competitors and more was a revolutionary approach to organizing Twitter into a social selling dashboard for a busy sales person to monitor and listen for industry information and for potential buyer signals.

I began adopting a lot of these Twitter tricks and supercharging them by using the HootSuite dashboard to organize these lists and other searches all in one view. During this same time there were other tools emerging as pioneers of the social selling space like Nimble, Socedo, Trendspottr, NeedTagger and others. As partners of HootSuite, I got to interact with these great minds and became particularly good friends with Jon Ferrara who is easily one of my favorite people and pioneers of social selling.

Enter 2012 and social selling was actually returning some serious page results on Google but it wasn’t quite yet defined. I had been experimenting and trying to prove out certain concepts. It was during this period that I encountered two people that I absolutely adore: Jill Rowley and Jamie Shanks. Both of whom I spoke to either online or offline to discuss what was happening in the industry or who I sought for advice on social selling training.

Time flies and now in 2014, social selling is on everyone’s mind because it has such a profound impact on sales success and through empowering salespeople marketers could put a face to their brand and humanize it. And just as social selling is evolving, I find myself in the forefront of a field that is moving so fast and is changing so rapidly and thankful that I can share my knowledge and expertise to clients all over the world with NexLevel Sales. But I have to admit, it’s sometimes nice to take a break, and that’s precisely what happened this week.

About 2 weeks ago I was approached by Evolve! and kitedesk to participate in a list - fast forward 2 weeks and it turns out the list is actually called the Top 30 Social Salespeople in the World and would be appearing in Forbes. Koka pointed out that in 2 days the article had been shared over 5K times. For the first time in my life I couldn’t respond to the flood social messages, texts, and emails. It was a surreal time and a time that a group of people who have worked very hard together to shape a concept and an industry got to kick back and admire the body of work that has shaped. Below is the infographic they put together which culminates my social selling journey to where I am today.

Click  Here To View In Full








Like  Comment  Share  Tweet  Google+  LinkedIn

Author: JULIO VISKOVICH

You May Also Like To Learn the CODE:

Sir: Derek  Banas

Learn PC Online For Free

Blog Tools Ideas

Woman Talk

Are You A Vendor Or Consultant?

What do you think of when you hear the word "Vendor"? Personally, when I hear the word vendor, I immediately think of hot dogs (aka "dirty water dogs") from a NYC street corner and my mouth starts to water like Homer Simpson. Load it up...ketchup, mustard, onions, relish...mmmm.

Let's be honest, many executive leaders and buyers in today's business world have a negative reaction to the word "vendor". And yes, I agree, this perception or labeling has been brought on by years of the quota hunting sales rep pushing product onto these seasoned buyers.

Here is the reality as I see it; The inexperienced, un-coached sales rep looks at her territory as a commission check. It takes experience and patience to step back and understand that if you want true success as a sales professional, you need to evaluate your approach. The first sale you make to the prospect: Prove that you are to be trusted. Sell yourself, your experience, why they should trust your guidance. Your buyer and their team need to see you as their coach in the process. They are spending the company's money and want assurance that they are making the right decision.

Remember...they've already done their research online and through their network to understand how they should make their purchase decision. It's now your job to help them see through the noise of the market landscape to convince them that your solution is the right choice for them not only now, but for the long term growth of the relationship. Become a consultant, partner, and adviser to them. Want some evidence that they are already close to a decision? Take a look at these experts:

What does this data above tell me? I need to understand that they are already coming into the discussion armed with information. My approach better take that into account!

My boss hates vendors!" and "Be careful, she hates sales people!" (I literally heard both of these quotes this week prompting this post).

I love hearing this! It gives a skilled sales person the opportunity to earn her salt and transform the perception that she is not just a seals rep or vendor, but a trusted consultant. Look at this as an opportunity to strategically figure out their areas of pain or gaps in your buyers process that you can fill. Show them that you were listening to their challenges and thinking creatively and compassionately to how to provide a solution that really works for them.
Be in the game for the long haul. Prove that you are listening to them.


A quote that I keep in mind helps to remind me of my strategy to be the adviser...not the vendor:



Like  Comment  Share  Tweet  Instagram  LinkedIn 

Author : PETER STRID


You May Also Interested IN:


Latest  in  Mashable

Latest in BusinessInsider

Latest in   Forbes