Because many companies have large amounts of time and money invested in their CRM applications, they understandably blame the technology when sales managers and representatives don’t readily adopt the software. Yet a myriad of other factors contribute to the lack of employee engagement in using CRM systems. Watch this video by BNET & Oracle to gain a rapid overview of some of the most critical actions you can take in your organization to increase CRM user adoption..

Great article in Inc. Magazine on what makes great salespeople tick, click here. One of my favorite motivations:

“If 95 percent of the time you are rejected, you have to ask yourself, “Why did I choose this kind of life?” The happy loser likes it because 5 percent of the time, he wins. And all those times he loses, he sees as getting to the win.”

I just titled my last blog, “It’s all about the brand.” Well, it’s a complicated issue. While I maintain brand marketing (whether individually or for a business) plays a role in the marketing mix, it is ultimately determined by the customer experience. In other words, while you can tell everyone your products are great and your service is stellar, ultimately people will learn the truth—and fast. Social media, CNET and Amazon User Ratings all provide consumers with immediate feedback on you and your products.

It’s common sense. Spend your dollars on creating exceptional customer experiences and your brand will follow. Read more.

Valuable lessons can be drawn from successful product and political branding. Angela T, shared this interesting article on how we can leverage our personal brand to get jobs and enhance our dating prospects! Got your interest?  Read on.

BNET just published a great article on the value of trade shows. In their article they compare the ROI of a face-to-face customer site meeting (where $17.50 is generated for every dollar spent) with that of a trade show. Trade shows generate $5 for every $1 spent. Ouch!

While I agree that trade shows are not the most effective use of money, I also contend that the $5 of ROI would be significantly higher if participants spent more time before the show scheduling appointments, and (most importantly) after the show following-up on leads. While I’m well aware that most marketing professionals are exhausted from their efforts post show, when leads are simply tossed over to Sales, they are typically simply tossed out.

Make a Referral Week is an entrepreneurial approach to stimulating the small business economy one referred business at a time. The goal of the event is simple: To provide 1,000 referrals to 1,000 deserving small businesses in an effort to highlight the impact of a simple action that could blossom into millions of dollars in new business. And yes, the event hit its goal last year.

Here’s how it works: Click here and refer whoever you think could use the business. That’s it. One referral story will be chosen as “best of the day” and both the referred business and its source will win signed books from marketing experts.

Small business is the lifeblood and job-creating engine of the economy and merits the positive attention so often saved for corporate bailout stories.

Client: You want answers?

CFO: I think I’m entitled.

Client: *You want answers?*

CFO: *I want the truth!*

Client: *You can’t handle the truth!*

Client: Son, we live in a world where companies need to make money, and that money has to be made by salesmen with phones. Whose gonna do it? You? You, CFO? I have a greater responsibility than you could possibly fathom. You weep for Purchasing and Accounting, and you curse the demand generation soldiers. You have that luxury. You have the luxury of not knowing what I know. That going around your rules and process, while tragic, probably makes money. And my existence, while grotesque and incomprehensible to you, makes money. You don’t want the truth because deep down in places you don’t talk about in boardrooms, you want me on those phones, you need me on those phones. We use words like sales, revenue, profit. We use these words as the backbone of a life spent driving revenue. You use them as a punchline. I have neither the time nor the inclination to explain myself to a man who rises and sleeps under the blanket of the very income that I provide, and then questions the manner in which I provide it. I would rather you just said thank you, and went on your way, Otherwise, I suggest you pick up a phone, and talk to a customer. Either way, I don’t give a damn what you think you are entitled to.

Over a decade ago, one of the largest players in the demand generation space began touting integrated sales and marketing programs. They claimed they had List Acquisition, Creative, Call Center, Event Management—literally everything to do with marketing—under one roof. The reality was that they were a multi-billion dollar conglomerate with a bunch of companies working completely independent of each other.

Pipeline sells integrated services and delivers on this commitment. Our Account Executives and Account Managers are consultative and must understand all components of an integrated sales and marketing program, from developing a strategy to tracking leads through the entire sales funnel.

My point? We’ve bolstered our team with Peter Gum who will be responsible for Strategic Accounts and continuing our tradition of selling integrated programs. Pete is an experienced sales and marketing executive familiar with working for Fortune 500 Enterprises and comes with a strong rolodex. He joins us from Connect Direct (a San Francisco-based full service interactive agency specializing in analytics-based lead generation for B2B technology companies) where he spent 8 years managing accounts like BEA, Borland, Cisco, Covad, HP, Juniper, Pillar Data Systems & SUN.

To the untrained eye, not much has changed to the look and feel of Pipelinenow.com—maybe a little touch-up paint and shiny new rims—but under the hood our development team has dropped in an entirely new engine.

• CMS Drupal. Thousands of websites including WhiteHouse.gov leverage Drupal, which enables keyword search and makes it easy for any administrative user to update and post content.
• SEO. The site is optimized with keyword-rich page URLs, relevant Meta tags on every page and more search-engine accessible HTML source code.
• Usability. Access has improved with the addition of breadcrumbs, the blog now matches the look and feel of the other sections, and code is now Section 508 Compliant HTML Code.
  

With regard to our “shiny new rims,” our Multimedia Director re-architected a few areas to ensure visitors are viewing a consistent brand and accessing collateral quickly and easily.

We say it until we’re blue in the face, so, let me share the comments of our Partner, WaveLength. Is it better to send 500 general interest leads to a partner to follow-up on, or 10 with a high probability of closing? I’ll let them explain.