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Best Sales Intelligence Software

February 4, 2021/in Marketing & Sales/by StrategyDriven

Before sales intelligence software, sales reps would have to manually collect information on their accounts, reach out individually, and schedule follow ups. All this meant a lot of detective work (and not a lot of sales work) which can be automated with sales intelligence software.

Sales software is helpful to collect data and insights for companies by using external or internal data to expand sales and increase sales processes. Data collected by sales intelligence software is used to discover opportunities and inform reps of important insights into their accounts. Once salespeople have identified an opportunity they can then create strategies and improve ROI.

A good sales intelligence software must be able to merge with other sales software, business intelligence, and analytics or data management solutions. It should also be functional to search lists of companies, find potential customers, and use contact information to reach them.

Some of the best sales intelligence software include:

Vainu

Vainu provides company information whenever it is needed hence keeping the sales team relevant. The software collects data, reads, and analyses any company information that exists making it easy for the sales team to interpret and layout a strategy for their customers.

Adapt

Adapt gives users access to business contacts to build competent leads and interact with new customers faster. It offers B2B company data and contacts across various industries. The software is built for sales teams and marketers to meet goals faster.

Clearbit

Clearbit is a data engine focused on marketing for interactions of customers. It enriches customer data allowing for more personalized marketing and sales outreach as well as prequalifying and scoring leads.. The software updates sales records automatically and gets you alerts when specific contacts interact with your site.

Datanyze

Datanyze focuses on website technology. It provides technographic insights to salespersons based on data science to target their sales at scale. They offer multiple ways to access their data with ease which in turn creates campaign segments and deploys triggers and workflows.

Insideview

Insideview aims to place itself as a company database that integrates with CRM. It has an AI B2B data platform combined with data expertise from Insideview and customer support that makes it trusted by the best-performing companies. It also adds social media feeds of various companies as well as providing news mentions.

LinkedIn Sales Navigator

Sales Navigator makes prospecting easy. Reps can target accounts by industry, company size, location, as well as find contacts based on job title, seniority, and skills. Unlike LinkedIn, Sales Navigator is a paid sales intelligence application.

With Sales Navigator, reps can engage in a meaningful way with their accounts. It also allows reps to stay updated on activities in their accounts and even be able to connect with new contacts without necessarily having their contact information.

ZoomInfo Powered by DiscoverOrg

ZoomInfo collects data by researching and interviewing companies analytically each year. This software solution is used for B2B sales teams for IT departments. It also includes data on new initiatives and projects enabling the sales team to deliver more personalized and relevant outreach. The software also assists in targeting companies that visit your website, therefore, increasing sales success and productivity

Obviously, there are more types of software such as HubSpot Sales Hub, Owler, D&B Hoovers, and Leadfeeder. Although what is important is to utilize sales intelligence software that will enable you to find accurate possibilities. And that you find software that makes it all easy to analyze the data.

Starting a Business for the Post-Pandemic World

February 4, 2021/in Starting Your Business/by StrategyDriven

The world has changed. That is what everyone is saying as we are in the midst of a once in a generation global crisis. Change can be daunting. Whether you are a potential new business owner or someone who has been in the game for years, you knew how your industry operated before, and you at least had an idea of how to navigate within that system. Now you have to figure out a whole new way to play.

Change Is the Name of the Game

The pandemic has caused a massive change and forced many businesses to fold. However, companies that have been around for decades and make it through the crisis will recognize that change is nothing new when it comes to business. While some industries may face more frequent and drastic changes, every business needs to adapt sometimes.

Restaurants may seem like an industry that hasn’t faced much disruption overall. However, even they have to monitor the latest dietary trends. Then, of course, one of the largest shakeups came with the rise of fast food.

Some industries face change at a greater rate, but all industries change over time. Some of the most successful companies don’t just change how they operate within an industry but switch industries altogether. Many of the largest companies now operating today started out doing something completely different. Some companies that started out doing something entirely different include:

Nintendo – This video game manufacture began as a playing card company and also ran a taxi company, food company, TV network, and hotel chain.
Nokia – This popular mobile phone brand started as a paper mill.
Wrigley – One of the biggest chewing gum companies started out selling soap and baking powder.
Marriot Hotels – Began as a street-side root beer stand.
Samsung – This electronics king got started by exporting noodles and dried fish.
American Express – The credit card company that originally delivered parcels across the country.

The point is that businesses have to learn to adapt to survive and thrive. Sometimes a change in business comes from forced outside conditions, and other times it comes from inspiration from within. Inescapably, though, it always comes eventually. Starting a business in the current climate is a great way to prepare yourself for success because you can’t rely on following an already laid out way of doing things. You need to innovate immediately.

Filling a Gap or Flooding the Market?

If you are planning on creating a new business that you will hope to launch as the world opens back up again, it is important to recognize the market you will be entering.

Once the world returns to normal, some industries will operate in much the same way as they did before. However, others will operate in a vastly different fashion. There are also going to be a number of industries that don’t recover to pre-virus levels, while others will be bigger than ever before.

You need to figure out where your proposed business lies along these spectrums so that you can fully understand the risks of your endeavor.

Many businesses were forced to close down during the pandemic, but the industry need will return to pre-pandemic levels. That means there will be a lot of holes to be filled, and you could be stepping in at the perfect time to provide the service that people need. Many other services that boomed during the pandemic are likely to drop off dramatically as the disaster recedes.

Basically, opening a new restaurant where you have half the competition you would have had if you had opened your doors in 2019 will be a much safer bet than starting a business that sells medical masks.

The Importance of Insurance

One thing that the pandemic has certainly shown is the importance of insurance. Health insurance, cancellation insurance, and business insurance that covered disruption are three prominent insurance options that many people who had them were very grateful for once the pandemic hit. While hopefully, we will not face another crisis of this level anytime soon, these are still great safety nets to have.

Whenever you invest a lot of money in anything, like your business, home, car, wedding, or self, purchasing insurance is a good option. People planning to get married in early to mid-2020 who had to postpone may not have benefited from buying wedding liability insurance. However, if they bought wedding cancel or postponement insurance, they were certainly breathing a sigh of relief.

The same goes for business owners. Those who left business disruption insurance off their coverage plan were left out in the cold when forced to shutter their doors due to lockdowns.

The Digital Age Has Truly Grown Up

The world has been transitioning to digital more and more over the past few decades, and the pandemic pushed that movement forward even further. Many businesses who adopted a more digital approach with things like having employees work from home don’t plan to go back to the old way of doing things. Many former office jobs have switched to being fully remote and will stay that way while others will keep a partially remote aspect.

There are many benefits to having your employees work from home. Your good employees are often more productive because by cutting out their commute, they are less tired and more able to focus. At the same time, it is easier to identify your bad employees and demand improvement or part ways. You can also rent smaller offices or have no main office at all. Either option can save a lot of overhead costs.

Due to this and other factors, you may find that this is the perfect time to start your new business. With many industries, you won’t find yourself at a big disadvantage to your more experienced competitors, since they will be learning the new way of doing business right alongside you.

What Are Some Of The Ways To Increase Traffic To Your Blog?

February 4, 2021/in Online Marketing and Website Development/by StrategyDriven

There are many different reasons why people set-up blogs today. Some people establish blogs as a way of facilitating their business website and driving more traffic to their online store. There are then people who start blogs because they are passionate about certain subjects and a blog enables them to share their voice and opinions. You can also monetise your blog. However, you are only going to be able to achieve your goals if you get a lot of traffic to your blog. Keeping that in mind, we are going to take a look at some of the different ways that you can drive blog traffic.

Make the most of social media

When it comes to online marketing, all of the different channels are very much integrated. SEO, social media marketing, and blog writing all work together to help you to build your online presence. Therefore, it makes sense to build an effective social media presence for your blog in order to attract more traffic and followers.

However, one of the biggest mistakes that people make when it comes to social media is trying to establish a presence on every social network site. When you consider the wealth of social media sites that are available today, this is simply not possible. Your efforts will be diluted because it will not be possible to give every platform the amount of effort and attention that is required. As a consequence, one of the most important things that you need to do is determine what social media networks you should focus on.

This means that you need to figure out where your target audience is. What sort of social media networks are blog readers most likely to use? For example, if your blog readership is predominately females who are of college age, Pinterest would be a wise social media network to integrate into your strategy. This is because the Pinterest demographic matches up with this. You can grow blog traffic with Pinterest if it is the right social media platform for your audience.

Focus on delivering quality content

Not only should you think about your approach to social media, but quality really is everything when running a blog. You cannot expect to put out poor quality content and have a successful blog. Your content needs to be original, exciting, and informative.

If you do a quick search on the web, you will see that there are so many different blogs out there today. Competition is fierce. What is going to make people choose your blog over other blogs? The answer lies within the content you create. If you create high-quality content that is different from the norm, you are more likely to have people following your blog. However, if your content is low quality and it does not provide anything new or helpful, no one is going to read your blog. It is as simple as that.

Make sure you have a consistent posting schedule

Yes, your content needs to be of a high quality. However, it also needs to be consistent. Posting several times in one week and then disappearing for a few weeks is no good. It is much better to post once or twice per week than it is to have an erratic posting schedule.

People like to know what to expect. They want to know when they are going to receive new content from your blog. This is the only way you are going to build up a following. If you post on an erratic basis, people will lose interest when you do not post on your blog for quite some time. The best thing to do is create a calendar for your blog so that you can schedule content.

Create guest posts that link back to your blog

To boost the power of your own blog, you need to post content on other blogs! If you have other websites that point back to your own, it can help to boost your social media ranking. This will give you more visibility online, which can result in more viewers for your blog.

However, we must stress that it is imperative to only link up with premium quality blogs that are relevant to your blog. If you were to run a sports blog, for example, linking to a blog about unicorns wouldn’t help you to climb up the search engine rankings. There is no relevance. This is why you need to make sure that you carefully consider the blogs that you post guest posts onto. Make sure you check their domain ranking so you can be sure that the site has high authority.

Be patient

We know that it can be hard to be patient when you are desperate to build your blog. However, we are sure you have heard the saying that Rome was not built in a day. You cannot expect any blog or website to be a smash hit overnight. It just does not happen. Instead, it takes a lot of hard work and dedication.

Slow and steady truly is the best approach when building your presence online because it will help you to create a natural and organic ranking, which is much more likely to last. If you try to take shortcuts, you will only end up hurting your blog in the long run.

So there you have it: an insight into some of the different ways that you can drive more traffic to your blog. If you try the different strategies and techniques that we have discussed above, you can give yourself the best chance of increasing the traffic to your blog. From focusing on your social media marketing efforts to ensuring that your content is original and engaging, there are lots of different tactics that are important when it comes to increasing the visibility of your blog. Try out the approaches above and remember that you need to be patient to see results.

How To Choose The Right Premises For Your Business

February 4, 2021/in Starting Your Business/by StrategyDriven

The (growing) trend right now is for people to work from home, and for entrepreneurs to start businesses from their spare bedrooms or garages. Although this can certainly work for some, and it does have a vast number of benefits, it’s not going to be ideal for everyone, and sometimes an office space or storefront is essential to the success of the business. If you need to work away from your home either because you don’t have enough space or because the business calls for it, then you are going to need to think carefully about the premises you choose.

The issue with business premises is that they can be expensive, and this is why you need to choose the right one so that you don’t waste any money, and so that you can maximize your business as much as possible. Read on to find out more.

Location

Anyone who works in property will tell you that location is extremely important. It could be the difference between happiness and misery when it comes to your own home, and when related to a business premises, it could be the difference between success and failure.

Although you might be able to spend less in one location compared to another, there could be a big reason for this. Make sure you research all the potential areas for your business thoroughly first. Some things to consider include:

Footfall– will many people pass by (assuming this is important, of course)?
Public transport and parking – how will you or your employees get to the office, warehouse, or store? Will it be easy, or will it be a chore? If it’s the latter, you might have trouble attracting the right people to work for you.
Competitors – are you close to your competitors? It can often be best to be a little further away.

Price

Of course, once you have determined where you want to have your business premises, you’ll need to consider how much you can pay for it. Whether you are buying or renting, there is the monthly cost to think about, as well as a potential down payment. You will also need to factor in costs like heating, electricity, and broadband. How much is it really going to cost you each month to run your premises? Can you afford it?

In some cases, especially if the location you are looking at is a more expensive one, you will need to look at smaller properties or those that need more work than others. This can be a good thing; it allows you to put your stamp on things and design the layout just how you want it; glass polishing for the windows and floor polishing for the tiles and a fresh coat of paint could transform a run-down building into a beautiful one, for a bargain price.

Usage

Finally, it’s wise to determine what the property you are considering paying for is allowed to be used for. Some will have restrictions on them that mean, no matter how perfect they might be for you, you can’t turn them into a store, or they have to remain a store and you can’t use them for offices.

There are dozens of clauses like this, which is why when searching for a business premises it is best to use a professional; you won’t find somewhere only to be disappointed, and they will know just what will work for you.

Talent Acquisition In Crisis – How BPM Can Ease The Recruitment Process

February 4, 2021/in Talent Management/by Mariela Kashukeeva

Recruitment has always been one of the more problematic aspects of a business. On the one hand, it’s not one of a company’s primary functions, and therefore often gets pushed to the back of the tasks priority queue. On the other hand, it is vitally important for a business’ continued existence, as both expanding and compensating for turnover necessitate the acquisition of new talent.

2020 has put recruiters in an awkward position. With so many companies going under, unemployment reaching record levels, one would expect that a recruiter’s job would be easier. After all, the larger potential applicant pool should increase the possibility to gain access to heretofore unavailable high-quality workers.

While that may be the case in theory, the situation on the ground is it’s never that simple.

Workers becoming unavailable for unknown amounts of time at a moment’s notice is an ever-present danger to companies in these times of crisis. This state of events pretty much means that companies can’t afford to halt or wind down their recruitment and networking efforts – but they now need to do that on a tighter budget because they are also likely suffering the repercussions of the current crisis.

In order to make this possible, companies need to streamline and optimize their business process as much as possible. BPM software is uniquely positioned to help companies do that in a variety of ways.

Be a Good Company

The first step toward making your recruitment easier is making sure your company is appealing to work at.

Being commercially successful is helpful in this regard, but not necessarily enough to attract employees. Suppose your success is achieved through exploitative practices or toxic company culture, turnover rates will be horrendous, and you will create a bad image of the company sooner rather than later.

Conversely, if you implement good business practices, such as openness, transparency, honesty, effective communications, responsibility, initiative, etc., you will boost both productivity and employee satisfaction.

Naturally, every individual business will have to figure out how to do this on their own and judge which good corporate practices are right for their unique situation. However, regardless of your scale or craft, employing a BPM solution can help you implement those practices, and thus improve your business and make your company a more welcoming and preferable place.

Update Your Hiring Practices

Updating your hiring practices to accommodate the new normal is a must if you want to improve your recruitment process.

The current set of crises may well require serious evaluation of your preferences regarding new employee qualifications. If you’re hiring remote workers, you might want to prioritize those with sound technical, time management, and communication skills. Furthermore, online interviews and recruitment, in general, are fast becoming the norm rather than the exception – so you may want to account for that as well.

Reimagining is already an arduous business process – but it is more manageable if you have the right communication tools to do the job. A good BPM solution does wonders when it comes to this sort of thing and can be invaluable in various other situations when business processes need to be updated or even reimagined in their entirety.

Whether you need to figure out how to reduce the number of decision makers, skip unnecessary steps or just organize communications better, a BPM solution can be a great help to you.

Look for In-house Solutions to Your Recruitment Issues

Companies need to keep in mind the fact that they don’t always need a new hire to fill out newly emergent or freshly vacated positions. If you examine your organization and business processes carefully, you may well find that a current employee is already qualified for the job and can just be re-hired at a new position.

This is especially useful if the vacant spot requires a particular set of skills that are hard to acquire, or if the new job requires the worker to hit the ground running. If you can manage to hire someone from your own company to fill that role, at least you’ll spare yourself the bother of having to train them from step one, and they’ll already be familiar with company culture and practices.

Failing that, another great way to make your recruiters’ jobs a lot easier is to get other employees involved as well. Incentivizing workers to recommend suitable candidates for vacant positions should not be underestimated because it has proved to be a viable method for finding new talent.

While a BPM software is not the only way to go about performing the previously discussed steps, it speeds up discussions and promotes transparency, which smooths out any bumps in communication. Communication, in turn, is key to putting the above mentioned efficient practices into action, which is why BPM is invaluable when it comes to recruitment.

Make Sure Everyone is on the Same Page

Devising and introducing new practices when it comes to recruitment on paper is one thing. Making sure that everyone who’s involved in the process in any capacity is committed to following those practices and up to snuff is another.

Clarifying essential details, both when it comes to policy and to logistics and organizational issues, is crucial for recruitment. Failure to do so may result in delays that discourage prospective employees and lose the company valuable human resources that could have proved invaluable for the business.

The fact is that in times of high unemployment, people looking for a job can grow desperate very quickly. Even if they aren’t strapped for cash at the moment, the overall mindset in a crisis is that you can’t afford to wait around for unreasonable amounts of time for an interview. Competition is fierce, after all.

This is why companies need to be as expeditious and decisive as possible when making assessments and scheduling interviews, which makes effective communication between HR and management crucial. Implementing a good BPM solution can go a long way towards helping you with that, as it speeds up the back and forth between departments or teams dramatically.

About the Author

Mariela Kashukeeva is a Marketing Executive at SaaS BPM, a productivity process management system solution designed to manage the recurring activities of teams and entire organizations. With over 2-year experience in SEO, she is responsible for establishing collaboration opportunities with high-authority websites and creating amazing content.

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