Make Your Business 1st Choice at Four Decisive Customer Moments

/in /by

Throughout the history of buying and selling, purchase has been a challenging experience for both buyers and sellers because purchase is a lengthy progression with three phases: consideration, negotiation, and transaction.

Buyers have always been in control of their consideration phase and sellers have always been in control of negotiation and transaction because they “owned” every bit of valuable information relevant to the purchase. Today’s buyers, no longer dependent on sellers’ information, have taken control of the entire selling progression including negotiation and transaction.

Hi there! This article is available for free. Login or register as a StrategyDriven Personal Business Advisor Self-Guided Client by:

Subscribing to the Self Guided Program - It's Free!


 

About the Author

Robert H. Bloom is the author of The New Experts: Win Today’s Newly Empowered Customers at Their 4 Decisive Moments (Greenleaf). For more information or to contact Robert Bloom, please visit www.TheNewExperts.com.

Conquering the Communication Challenge with a Whiteboard

/in /by

One of the greatest challenges managers and CEOs face is effectively communicating with their employees, clients and stakeholders. Whether by email, phone call or conference room presentation, the corporate world is inundated with more communication input than ever before. We’ve all become complacent to the noise. We’ve all heard it before, but it bears repeating: a key player in the communications challenge is the PowerPoint presentation. This presentation go-to is often a crutch that leads to glazed eyes, big yawns and undeniable apathy. Let’s look at how we got to this point.

Hi there! This article is available for free. Login or register as a StrategyDriven Personal Business Advisor Self-Guided Client by:

Subscribing to the Self Guided Program - It's Free!


 

About the Author

Corey Sommers is Co-Founder and Chief Marketing Officer of WhiteboardSelling, a provider of tools, best practices and technologies that enable field personnel to communicate and demonstrate core business value propositions to C-level buyers in a confident, compelling and consistent fashion… all without slides. Corey has more than 15 years experience in sales and channel enablement, account manager certification and training, and competitive intelligence. He is passionate about bridging the gap between marketing and sales within large organizations. Prior to founding WhiteboardSelling, he developed and executed VMware’s channel enablement strategy globally, across VARs, OEMs, Distributors, ISVs, and Corporate Reseller channel segments. He had shared responsibility for sales enablement and training for BMC Software’s world-wide direct sales organization. Corey also founded Ventaso, a leading provider of sales-ready messaging software and tools. To read Corey’s complete biography, click here.

Leveraging “Fifth Screen” Affordability To Improve Customer Engagement

/in /by

It started with the silver screen, over a century ago. And while the advent of TV, personal computers and mobile devices as the second, third and fourth major screen technologies have clearly changed life as we know it, Digital Out Of Home (DOOH) technology – the “fifth screen”, as it’s known – has created amazingly influential opportunities of its own.

Today’s digital networks are easier to design, present and deploy than ever before, in part because of the price drop in flat panel displays and Content Management Systems (CMS). We’re also seeing an increase in education and technology advancements, as well as manufacturers and suppliers taking a more holistic approach in supporting those who want to get into the DOOH business.

Hi there! This article is available for free. Login or register as a StrategyDriven Personal Business Advisor Self-Guided Client by:

Subscribing to the Self Guided Program - It's Free!


 

About the Author

Steve Acquista – CTS ([email protected]) is a 20-year industry veteran and the Director of Digital Signage at Black Box, a world leader and provider of comprehensive communications and data infrastructure solutions. In addition to designing, installing and maintaining unified communications networks throughout the world, the company offers more than 118,000 networking and infrastructure products. To learn more about Black Box, visit: www.blackbox.com/go/icompel.

StrategyDriven Podcast Special Edition 39b – An Interview with Sharon Drew Morgen, author of Dirty Little Secrets, part 2 of 2

/in , , /by

StrategyDriven Podcasts focus on the tools and techniques executives and managers can use to improve their organization’s alignment and accountability to ultimately achieve superior results. These podcasts elaborate on the best practice and warning flag articles on the StrategyDriven website.

Special Edition 39b – An Interview with Sharon Drew Morgen, author of Dirty Little Secrets, part 2 of 2 explores a new decision facilitation model that helps buyers (and those seeking change) manage the behind-the-scenes decision issues they have to handle privately before they get internal agreement to make a purchase. Sharon Drew also explains why the traditional sales model – that only handles needs assessment and solution placement – creates overly long sales cycles and loses such a high percentage of sales. During our discussion, she shares with us her insights and illustrative examples regarding:

  • what sales professionals need to understand about the internal changes buyers deal with as a part of the buying decision
  • business systems and how they fit into the buyer’s decision-making process
  • how sales professionals should deal with buyer’s assertions that a lower price is needed before the sale can be closed

Additional Information

In addition to the invaluable insights Sharon Drew shares in Dirty Little Secrets and this special edition podcast are the resources accessible from her websites, www.NewSalesParadigm.com and www.BuyingFacilitation.com.   Sharon Drew’s book, Dirty Little Secrets, can be purchased by clicking here.

COMING SOON!
Look for our upcoming six-part StrategyDriven Podcast series on Making Change Work. These insightful podcasts will help you and your team understand the steps to gaining the buy-in and committed effort needed to implement change successfully. We’ll cover topics including:

  • What is change? and Why is change so hard?
  • What are systems, and how do they influence change?
  • The Problems of Change Management: bias, resistance, and push
  • If decisions are always rational, why are changees resisting?
  • Why is buy-in necessary and how to achieve it?
  • Putting it all together, a radical approach to change management: real leadership

Final Request…

The strength of our community grows with the additional insights brought by our expanding member base. Please consider rating us on iTunes by clicking here. Rating the StrategyDriven Podcast and providing your comments online improves our ranking and helps us attract new listeners which, in turn, helps us grow our community.

Thank you again for listening to the StrategyDriven Podcast!

About the Author

Sharon Drew Morgen, author of Dirty Little Secrets, is the Founder of Morgen Facilitations, a sales training, consulting, and decision facilitation firm. Sharon Drew is the visionary and thought leader behind Buying Facilitation®, the new sales paradigm that focuses on helping buyers manage their behind-the-scenes, offline, buying decisions. She has served many well known companies including: KPMG, Unisys, IBM, Wachovia, and Bose. Sharon Drew is the author of The New York Times Business Bestseller, Selling with Integrity, and the new bestseller, Dirty Little Secrets, as well as five other books and hundreds of articles that explain different aspects of the decision facilitation model that teaches buyers how to buy. To read Sharon Drew’s complete biography, click here.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 33:00 — 45.4MB)

Subscribe: RSS

StrategyDriven Podcast Special Edition 39a – An Interview with Sharon Drew Morgen, author of Dirty Little Secrets, part 1 of 2

/in , , /by

StrategyDriven Podcasts focus on the tools and techniques executives and managers can use to improve their organization’s alignment and accountability to ultimately achieve superior results. These podcasts elaborate on the best practice and warning flag articles on the StrategyDriven website.

Special Edition 39a – An Interview with Sharon Drew Morgen, author of Dirty Little Secrets, part 1 of 2 explores a new decision facilitation model that helps buyers (and those seeking change) manage the behind-the-scenes decision issues they have to handle privately before they get internal agreement to make a purchase. Sharon Drew also explains why the traditional sales model – that only handles needs assessment and solution placement – creates overly long sales cycles and loses such a high percentage of sales. During our discussion, she shares with us her insights and illustrative examples regarding:

  • why the typical sales model is broken and the problems it causes
  • why buyers don’t buy even when the offered solution is a perfect fit
  • how adding a change management model as a front end skill will help close over 400% more sales as it teaches buyers how to get the needed buy-in and agreement to make a purchase

Additional Information

In addition to the invaluable insights Sharon Drew shares in Dirty Little Secrets and this special edition podcast are the resources accessible from her websites, www.NewSalesParadigm.com and www.BuyingFacilitation.com.   Sharon Drew’s book, Dirty Little Secrets, can be purchased by clicking here.

COMING SOON!
Look for our upcoming six-part StrategyDriven Podcast series on Making Change Work. These insightful podcasts will help you and your team understand the steps to gaining the buy-in and committed effort needed to implement change successfully. We’ll cover topics including:

  • What is change? and Why is change so hard?
  • What are systems, and how do they influence change?
  • The Problems of Change Management: bias, resistance, and push
  • If decisions are always rational, why are changees resisting?
  • Why is buy-in necessary and how to achieve it?
  • Putting it all together, a radical approach to change management: real leadership

Final Request…

The strength of our community grows with the additional insights brought by our expanding member base. Please consider rating us on iTunes by clicking here. Rating the StrategyDriven Podcast and providing your comments online improves our ranking and helps us attract new listeners which, in turn, helps us grow our community.

Thank you again for listening to the StrategyDriven Podcast!

About the Author

Sharon Drew Morgen, author of Dirty Little Secrets, is the Founder of Morgen Facilitations, a sales training, consulting, and decision facilitation firm. Sharon Drew is the visionary and thought leader behind Buying Facilitation®, the new sales paradigm that focuses on helping buyers manage their behind-the-scenes, offline, buying decisions. She has served many well known companies including: KPMG, Unisys, IBM, Wachovia, and Bose. Sharon Drew is the author of The New York Times Business Bestseller, Selling with Integrity, and the new bestseller, Dirty Little Secrets, as well as five other books and hundreds of articles that explain different aspects of the decision facilitation model that teaches buyers how to buy. To read Sharon Drew’s complete biography, click here.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 1:08 — 1.6MB)

Subscribe: RSS