Selling success: An idea guide for simple marketing with success stories
It takes a big effort to establish yourself as a thought leader with the articles, insights and ideas that show your targets how smart you are, and it works. But how can you easily bring prospects from knowing you’re smart…to knowing you’re good. Telling them you’re good is silly, everyone says that…so show them. Nothing […]
Man, you guys are old: How the “graying” of the commercial finance business is impacting business development.
In our recent joint survey of 3,540 Financial Decision makers and more than 500 Commercial finance companies we found: The average age of a financial decision maker is 48 and has been reducing by 3 months per year, every year since 2006 while the average age of a commercial finance senior sales leader is 55 […]
65% of the sales process is over before prospects talk to one of your salespeople.
Actually depending on your B2B market and the survey it could be as high as 72%. This should make you think pretty hard about the state of business development affairs in your company. It forces you to ask some pretty important questions “What is the market doing to get that far along in the decision […]
How a little bad customer data is costing you big money.
Most of you sell equipment and technology that has a relatively well-defined life cycle. But we find dealer after dealer not using the data from their existing customers to drive their sales volume. Let me explain. If the equipment has a 5 year useful life as an asset for the customer’s organization, as the asset […]
The sales rep “quick start” program that you don’t have…but need.
How do your salespeople tell your company’s story? Inconsistently? Make it up as they go? You don’t know? What kind of training do you give new salespeople in your company’s story and the important ways to differentiate themselves and win. What is your 30-60-90 day sales plan for their start and how is the company […]
Ignoring data is keeping you from hitting origination goals.
Spend time on data, increases enterprise wide sales and marketing efficiency. Common sense, right? Nope. 33% of our new clients in the Commercial Finance space cannot easily produce a simple database of targets for email, direct mail, etc. 43%: The average invalid contact data percentage of a database we start working with 60% of our […]
Is middle market a real thing?
Growing up a deal guy, I’ve often been astounded at the brave new levels of “finance geek” we can speak to each other. I’ve managed a ton of relationships in the middle market, smaller business and large corporate space and the one thing I have found is that rarely do the actual companies identify with […]
2 ways to waste money on a marketing firm.
1. Pick a firm with no experience in your business Oh we know, they all say their in-depth, up-front consultative approach (that you pay for in an in-depth, up-front kind of way) gives them the learning foundation they need to sell your stuff. Would you hire a senior salesperson with little experience in your business […]
Scary Equipment Dealer Websites – Do you have one?
Just because you don’t have the marketing bucks that the manufacturers you sell have, doesn’t mean you can’t look at least as sharp and be as effective. The big difference is that you don’t have lots of paid people paying attention daily to the effort. And you don’t have to, just a little effort can […]
B2B: Top 3 ways to sell relationship, before you’re in a relationship.
“I feel ya man”. Love that phrase. Often we hear people in the business utter phrases like, “What we do is really a commodity. Our people are what make the difference”. “Or, it’s the relationships that set us apart not an offering or capability.” I feel ya man. But it’s kinda hard for a prospect […]