Have you noticed that the best marketers and salespeople regularly seem to do what others don’t? They are willing to pay the price to get ahead.

In my seminars I talk about what works and how to achieve success with Relationship Farming. Here are some traits I’ve found by studying for those seminars that top professionals practice regardless of their industry. These advanced-level strategies will give you a decisive advantage in achieving your goals.

Study the Market

This is critical for relationship farming. Know what is working today, where pain exists and how you can best implement solutions. Don’t assume. … Read the rest

A perfect complement to Terry Brock’s words of wisdom on the importance of using social media appeared in one of MANA’s very popular MANA/SalesWise teleforums last fall. Speaking on the topic of “Connecting With Customers in the Digital Age,” Rhonda Sher, a successful author, speaker, entrepreneur and LinkedIn trainer, emphasized how important LinkedIn can be for an agency’s marketing efforts.

According to Sher, “One of the keys to successfully navigate in the digital age is to have a strong LinkedIn presence. Keep in mind that every second two new professionals join LinkedIn.” That’s why it’s so important to keep several … Read the rest

It’s been rainy and cool, so the leaves are dropping from the trees, the peak color has passed and it’s time to focus on something else.

Speaking of focus, this morning I was watching three squirrels each doing their thing.

Squirrel #1, who I named Ernest, was finding lots of nuts and burying them. His nest was full and he will reap the benefits of his hard work over the winter.

Squirrels #2 and #3, who I named MT and LayZ, were playing. They were running up and down tree trunks, jumping from limb to limb, running in circles and … Read the rest

Competition is all over the place these days! Whatever field you’re in, there are competing forces offering your product or service, or a good substitute. Price competition is often the way many choose to beat the competition. That is not the best way to compete. There is a much better, and more profitable way to do business.

It wasn’t that long ago that many would joke about their “crackberries.” These were the ubiquitous Blackberry cell phones that many joked they were addicted to like a crack addict. Many felt that the Blackberry brand, for texting and calling, would always be … Read the rest

The evolution of IT technology is advancing at breakneck speed. This evolution not only keeps the IT department in a constant state of change, but also dramatically changes the way the overall business must adapt to stay competitive.

IT technologies have rapidly morphed, including the way users consume them. Companies slow or hesitant to adapt will quickly fall from market leaders to laggards depending upon how effectively they embrace digital transformation.

But how does a leader know if the company is leading or lagging, and if its IT is out of date? While there are numerous ways to evaluate, let’s … Read the rest

When you stop and think about it — most of us don’t know what we know — or at least we can’t recall it on command. Sure, we can remember what we need to know when a specific challenge arises. But how will we transfer our knowledge to a generation of employees who come to work with different attitudes and expectations about getting the job done?

On-the-job training will not be enough. Besides, emerging workers have learned to learn in ways that didn’t exist even 10 years ago. So how will you and your management team prepare for this critical … Read the rest

There’s no time like the present to set new goals. Accompanying growth goals is the desire to increase efficiencies, and one prominent way to do that is by following proven practices from other industries and making the shift from paper and spreadsheets to a customer relationship management (CRM) system. This move to cloud-based digital data provides reps easy access to historical information, current project status, and contact details anytime, anywhere via their mobile devices.

Because independent manufacturers’ rep agencies typically don’t have an IT resource, implementing a software solution can seem overwhelming. Fortunately, there are now plug-and-play solutions for optimizing … Read the rest

Technology enhanced meetings can be a wonderful thing when the technology drives attendee engagement and learning enablement. Doing more with less and increasing the attendees’ return on travel and lodging investment (ROI) serves everyone. However, when technology becomes the controller and the audience becomes the controlled, the value of technology quickly diminishes.

Why We Meet

My research has exposed the fact that networking, first, and education, second, are the primary reasons for live meeting attendance. Additionally this research, conducted across a wide assortment of trade associations and professional societies, has revealed the yearly sustainable real-dollar value of networking to be … Read the rest

There is an important ingredient you can use in building lasting relationships. Many people talk about building relationships in business, but they often focus more on a transactional nature. This is short-sighted and doesn’t bring about the best results.

We have to plan for what is coming long before it arrives. This time-honored Aesop Fable about the “Wild Boar and the Fox” illustrates the point.

The Wild Boar and the Fox

A Wild Boar was sharpening his tusks busily against the stump of a tree, when a Fox happened by. Now the Fox was always looking for a chance to … Read the rest

It wasn’t all that long ago when the bane of our collective existence was the proliferation of “spam” e-mail. At the time, there seemed to be nothing worse than the hundreds if not thousands of unsolicited e-mail messages would clog our personal and business e-mail boxes. Now that that annoyance has a diminished profile it seemed natural that something would take its place. Sure enough — now we have “robocalls.”

In its simplest form a robocall is a phone call using a computerized autodialer that delivers a pre-recorded message. Based on experience, it’s probably a pre-recorded message we don’t want … Read the rest

A while back I was attending an annual opening meeting for a marketing group in Orlando, Florida. I love meetings like this where I get to learn about new ideas, listen to great speakers and connect with friends and new acquaintances.

But then, there was “that guy.”

You know the type. This is the kind of guy who thinks a business gathering is all about “getting the word out” about his stuff, what he is doing and what is important to him. Ugh! This guy I met only talked about what he did in his work as a graphic artist. … Read the rest

In today’s workplace employees spend less time talking and more time e-mailing, texting, and engaging on social media. Ever consider how those messages are perceived by your customers, coworkers, and even by your employer? To ensure your electronic image reflects your best self, take this mini quiz.

1. There’s a big difference in what you officially write at work, vs. comments you post online on your own time.

a) True.
b) False.

Answer: b). While theoretically there may be some anonymity in what you post “privately,” in reality your online presence makes no distinction between your personal and professional image. … Read the rest

If you’re young enough, some of the questions in the first few paragraphs that follow won’t apply because you haven’t experienced the world without the innovations mentioned below. Don’t let that prevent you from reading this, because after the milestones, we’ll get to the good selling stuff.

For those of you who are my age or older, do you remember the first time you saw color TV? For me it was the Tonight Show with Johnny Carson in the early 1960s. Or the first time you watched cable with more than six channels and without snow? Wireless remote controls? OK, … Read the rest

[Any number of times Agency Sales magazine has cited the benefits of MANA’s LinkedIn discussion page. What follows is another example of how valuable that resource is for association members. The following article on choosing a CRM system was recently posted there by MANA member Rick Campo.]

In 1992 when I started West-Tech Materials, the only thing people knew about a cloud was that it was in the sky. Working out of my house, as a single-rep operation, monthly I was calculating commissions by hand on a tablet, writing my trip reports on paper and faxing them to principals. I … Read the rest

I don’t get stressed anymore when I’m driving.
All it took was for me to not exceed the speed limit. I’m not sure whether it was my navigation system repeatedly telling me to “obey all traffic laws” each time I started the car, or my wife reminding me that I needed to be a good role model for our soon‑to-be driving 16-year-old son. I admit that this was much easier for me to do after I gave up my Jaguar for a Lincoln Navigator. It holds much more baseball equipment!

There is an exception to not exceeding the speed limit. … Read the rest

There’s never been a shortage of books that come across the Agency Sales editorial desk. In a given month there will be any number of books, periodicals and articles devoted to entrepreneurship, salesmanship or the daily travails of the independent sales rep. That’s why it was so unusual when some of the contents of one book recently caught our eye.

Ostensibly, Eat Their Lunch: Winning Customers Away From Your Competition, by Anthony Iannarino, published late last fall by Portfolio/Penguin Random House (221 pp., $27), emphasizes the need for sales professionals to create and offer more value to their customers. … Read the rest

When it comes to the importance of taking your sales team mobile, the numbers speak for themselves. Did you know that outside sales reps are now spending 89 percent of their time selling remotely? And it’s no wonder why. Studies show that mobile customer relationship management (CRM) tools can increase productivity by nearly 15 percent.

Mobile CRM technology can certainly work magic — but not without a magician at the helm. After all, implementing a mobile sales strategy is no easy task. It requires planning, proper execution, and the right mobile sales tools.

Growing your business through mobile sales can … Read the rest

Technology does a lot, but it can’t do everything. Sometimes we forget that. We can get so dependent on e-mail and social media that we lose sight of what people really need from us — especially in business. Yes, clients expect to connect with us in various high-tech ways, but they also crave the deep and meaningful connections that can only come from face-to-face (or at least voice-to-voice) connections. It can be tricky to walk that line.

Too little tech and you’ll seem out of touch, too much and you’ll lose the personal touch that keeps customers loyal and engaged. … Read the rest

Stop it already! I don’t have time for yet another blog, news story, article, podcast, video on the Net, social networking meeting, blah, blah, blah. Yikes! I am inundated with so many choices that it drives me nuts.

Maybe you can relate.

We’re all swamped with so many things going on. Your customers are in the same place. They are swamped and can’t keep up with all the new information. Then you, as an aspiring new vendor of theirs, come bouncing in the door with your new Wonder Widget and they can’t handle any more. You call it rejection. They … Read the rest

What the Data Tells Us

I can’t remember a spring where the pollen was worse than in 2018. You go to the car wash and an hour later your beautiful car is covered in yellow crud and you’re out $20. A waste.

Perhaps you have an irrigation system with a rain sensor that tells the controller that your lawn and flower beds don’t need to be watered today because it is pouring outside. Yet, when you look out the window you see that the sprinklers are running despite the existence of a rain sensor. A waste.

Did you ever spend … Read the rest

I don’t know about you but for every benefit I get from LinkedIn, I get an equal amount of frustration. Some people, like me, have criteria for who they will invite and whose invitation they will accept on LinkedIn. How many times has this happened to you?

Someone invites you to join their LinkedIn network or asks if they can join yours. You accept. And then it happens….

In the first example, I received this message a week after I accepted this individual’s invitation:

“Hello Dave, I noticed we haven’t had a chance to talk yet having been connected now … Read the rest

Creating highly engaged customers is forcing companies to provide their customers with a consistent experience whenever and wherever they need it — digitally.

Did you know that highly engaged customers buy 90 percent more frequently, spend 60 percent more per purchase, and have three times the annual value (compared to the average customer). That’s a huge revenue opportunity you could be taking advantage of by digitally transforming your business!

But, in order to deliver on a better customer experience, you first need to understand who this new kind of digital customer is and what they want. It’s clear that the … Read the rest

Several recent LinkedIn posts have urged readers to pick up the phone instead of trying to find new opportunities by using social media. I wrote a very popular article about using the phone three years ago called “The Next Can’t Miss Game Changer for Sales.”

I have data that show that the very people who don’t score well at hunting (reluctant, ineffective or both) also score poorly at social selling while those who score the highest for hunting score higher for social selling too. Check out this data:

• The weakest 10% of all salespeople own the lowest average scores for

Most entrepreneurs and salespeople today are regularly on the road. Being on the road gives you the advantage to be with clients and important decision-makers.

On the road, however, you need the tech tools that let you get the job done under any circumstance. The tools that I describe in the following could help give you a competitive advantage.

Recently I had the chance to see a few tools that I want to share with you — mobile professional to mobile professional. Here are four that I’ve experienced lately that can help give you a competitive advantage — and perhaps … Read the rest

Three books issue especially compelling warnings about the consequences of the careless use of social media. So You’ve Been Publicly Shamed, by Jon Ronson, Influence Redefined, by Stacey Hanke, and Got Social Mediology?, by Jay Izso, point out that social media practitioners should be aware that even the most offhand comments or critical views can cause lasting damage to a business.

Ronson relies heavily on real-world examples of mistakes individuals have made that have had a lasting impact on their lives and careers. Everything from a passing Twitter comment that was deemed racist, an insensitive joke transmitted … Read the rest

Too often businesses fail to recognize and embrace the use of social media based on the mistaken belief that their customers don’t use it. That’s something that author Jay Izso maintains is a myth.

Izso, also known as “The Internet Doctor,” says this belief is based on something called “illusory correlation.” He defines that term as occurring when “…we take note of specific instances, pair them with other instances, and then arrive at the conclusion that one instance is related to another when, in fact, it is not the case.”

In his book Got Social Mediology? Using Psychology to Master … Read the rest

It didn’t take long for authors Mike Lieberman and Eric Keiles to get your attention when they began describing how the Internet has impacted sales organizations. In their book, Fire Your Sales Team Today; Revolutionizing Your Company’s Sales & Marketing Strategy, they only take the reader to the first page of the first chapter before they describe how today’s buyer has leveraged the power of the Internet to change the dynamics that define the relationship between buyer and seller.

According to the authors, “Buyers have access to more information from more sources than ever before. They ask questions, get … Read the rest

Late last fall a lunch with a MANA member brought the following request: “If you see something wrong with my website, please let me know about it.” The request was made when conversation turned to the subject of web page content and presentation. The concerns that surfaced during that lunch recalled an article that appeared in Agency Sales more than a decade ago entitled “Your Website Bites!”

That article pointed out that with some notable exceptions, independent manufacturers’ representatives haven’t harnessed the potential of the Internet to serve the interests of individual firms — nor have many steered visitors to … Read the rest

There is a constant flow of sales and business self-improvement books that come across the desk for Agency Sales. A look back at two of those works found worthwhile tips on how to effectively communicate with clients in this rapidly changing technological world.

In the first, The Only Sales Guide You’ll Ever Need, by Anthony Iannarino (Penguin Random House, 224 pp.), the author describes how one of his clients became a believer in the effectiveness of text messaging.

As the book details it: “In sales, as in life, the most important conversations should always take place face-to-face. That’s … Read the rest

What does it take to be a successful entrepreneur in today’s white-hot environment? It seems it gets tougher and tougher as more people are competing for the same scarce resource called time from prospective buyers. It used to be easy. You could produce an article, or better yet, a video, and it would grab attention.

A while back I had the opportunity to meet and introduce former heavyweight champion of the world, George Foreman, as he spoke before 2,100 people attending live and about 50,000 via the Internet. He is an entrepreneur who teaches people to overcome problems and keep … Read the rest