How often have you been in the end stages of a sales cycle, you think you’ve laid out a great case against the competition, only to find the prospect goes dark? The first step to beating the competition is to … Read More
proposals
Finding the Soul of Your Brand with Justin Foster
What does your brand mean? Does it have a soul? And how does finding the soul of your brand improve your results, in business and in life? Planning your sales and marketing for 2020? Don’t miss the forest for the … Read More
The red/yellow/green copy critique: improve your copy in 15 minutes
Writing copy can be hard and frustrating. Like anything else, getting good takes practice. But here’s a simple exercise you can do in 15 minutes that will have a dramatic impact on your copywriting. I call it the “red-yellow-green” copy … Read More
Why Sales Training Doesn’t Work (for You)
What do you do when you start your own business and realize that you have actually do sales (and marketing)? That being invited on technical sales calls or the occasional account review is not the same thing as running the … Read More
Client Intake Forms
Client Intake Forms let you bring on new clients and (dis)qualify prospects faster. The traditional client intake form is a printed PDF on a clipboard– think doctor’s office. This works, but it’s slow, requires lots of data reentry, it’s often … Read More
Don’t “Market”, “Teach” — marketing for consultants
Last week, I discussed how to “help” instead of “sell”. This is a powerful paradigm shift, especially if you find “selling” uncomfortable, unnatural, and/or unethical. But what about marketing? What about lead generation and business development? Another paradigm shift can … Read More
The Sales for Nerds Signed Bookshelf Giveway
I’ve been lucky enough to have a bunch of awesome authors come on Sales for Nerds, and Aaron Ross recently recorded his 2nd interview, for the new edition of From Impossible to Inevitable. I asked if he had any signed … Read More
Call Mode: An easier way to make sales calls
Most people don’t really enjoy making sales calls. I’ve found that if I’m doing a good job helping prospects, not just selling them, the conversations are easier, more fun, and more productive. But knowing who to call next can be … Read More
90 Second Video Experiment
I’ve been playing around with a really cool tool called Lumen5, which makes it easy to turn blog posts into video. So I took one of the more popular posts on this blog, How Your High School English Class is … Read More
Creating the Right Lead Magnets for each Stage in the Buyer’s Journey
Your buyers’ journey will determine how you should offer Lead Magnets (pieces of content offered in exchange for email and/or other contact information) to lay out stepping stones to make the journey easier. Put the wrong stone in the wrong … Read More