2009 September « Dave Stelzl's Blog

Archive for September, 2009

Sep

Your Next Marketing Event

Categories: Demand Generation and Marketing

I’m working on several demand generation events for the fall and thought it might be appropriate to post a few secrets of success. If you’re not doing this type of marketing, you should be…

First, marketing through education is far easier than just pushing your story out through spam, print, and other media. People do want to learn, but it must be relevant to their world. If you are planning an event, make sure the content is educational and relevant to the audience you are targeting.
You should be inviting people who can make a decision. There is a place for customer appreciation, and it’s likely you’ll have close ties with IT administrators, but let’s not confuse marketing with customer boondoggles.
Inviting your local vendor SE to speak is not marketing.
Mail won’t get higher level people to attend, neither will hope. It takes phone calls.
Speaking of phone calls, make sure you have something exciting to say. Chet Holmes, author of The Ultimate Sales Machine recommends a topic such as, “The 5 Biggest Mistakes Law Firms Are Making”. Notice technology is not mentioned here, and the event has a clear focus toward education.
Leverage your friends. Invite a few prominent business leaders from your client base first. Then name drop as you work on new attendees. Executives don’t want to be surrounded by a gaggle of geeks attending a tech fair.
If you plan to continue marketing through this type of event, keep a constant stream of interesting correspondence going out to your prospects. Your first invitation will likely be met with rejection; the 10^th has a better chance.
Figure 2 to 5 percent of your cold calling list will respond. You can’t have a list of 30 people and expect 25 to show up. Take steps to increase your percentages by working out effective messaging before you call. Remember, commercials are run over and over before people start responding, and big dollars are spent to make sure the message works before it airs.
Plan on attrition, but take proactive steps to minimize it. I like to pre-order food, letting responders know that we’ve made arrangements for this meal just like a wedding reception. Put some pressure on those who say yes, to keep their word. These events aren’t cheap!

Sep

Hiring Hackers Made Easy

By Dave Stelzl's Blog Leave a Comment

Categories: Sound Bites
Tags: Cybercrime, Information Security, selling, Sound Bites

If your clients think they’re not at risk, check out the following article. All it takes is an unhappy customer or disgruntled employee and a little creativity online. You don’t have to be a hacker to steal data. In the attached article an unhappy mistress heads for the net to destroy families and discredit names. Remember the House & the Cloud; it’s simple to break in! Read the link below – it’s an attention grabber and a great sound bite for your next security discussion.

(Thank Tim at NEC – this kind of news underscores how easy it is from an amateur to access sensitive data)

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/09/06/AR2009090602238.html

Sep

Objection Handling – People who just don’t believe they need to take action

By Dave Stelzl's Blog 2 Comments

Categories: Sound Bites
Tags: Information Security, liability, selling, Value Proposition

This comes from a recent news bulletin published by Heit – a solution provider in Colorado, thanks Tom! Listen to what’s happening. There’s a trend here that may change the kind of liability business owners have when it comes to their customer’s data. One that demands some attention from the top.

“A couple whose bank account was breached can sue their bank for its alleged failure to implement the latest security measures designed to prevent such compromises. In a ruling issued last month, Judge Rebecca Pallmeyer, of the District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, denied a request by Citizens Financial Bank to dismiss a negligence claim brought against it by Marsha and Michael Shames-Yeakel. The Crown Point, Ind. couple — customers of the bank — alleged that Citizens’ failure to implement up-to-date user authentication measures resulted in the theft of more than $26,000 from their home equity line of credit.” To read more, here is one of several articles online. While IT people generally don’t have any liabilty, the business owners and executive managers do. Once again, it is critical that you find the asset owners if you want to create new business opportunity.

http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9137451/Court_allows_suit_against_bank_for_lax_security

Sep

Lessons from yesterday’s sales training

By Dave Stelzl's Blog Leave a Comment

Categories: Marketing
Tags: Marketing, sales, selling, Technology, Value Proposition

Yesterday I spent my day working with a large systems integrator sales team over Telepresence. Following are a few noteworthy comments from our session.

Working in a virtual environment is like talking to the news team on your TV…it feels like you should be spectating rather than participating. Our success depends on our ability to adapt to these paradigm changes, leveraging technology to bring people together from disparate time zones.
While technology may deliver an ROI, a sales person’s ability to show it rare. Few sales people can dissect a company’s financials to show bottom line return. Especially when faced with an unresponsive CFO sporting the HP-12c.
Related but different, ROI sales tactics invite unwanted financial studies that prolong the sales cycle. Focusing on risk mitigation or operational efficiency offers justification without undue emphasis on cost.
Value must be determined and agreed upon before pricing discussions ensue. And even then, only at the buyer level.
Companies are more likely to adjust budgets in light of risk than to gain operational efficiencies. The risk sale is the easiest and most powerful marketing angle for technology sales in today’s economy.

Sep

The Tent Makers Advantage

By Dave Stelzl's Blog 2 Comments

Categories: Value Proposition

Remember it rained on my recent backpacking trip? Well not only did it rain, but my tent fly ripped on day one. Actually, the seam came apart right at the top, and grew worse over the course of the trip. It’s a fairly new tent and quite expensive at that. This type of thing causes me much aggravation. So upon my return I was winding up for another call to the manufacturer. While I’m irritated with the product failure, I always look at these calls as a chance to practice my own selling skills.

In preparation I hunted for the receipt. You know I have every receipt for every camping accoutrement known to man; with the exception of my tent! So I’m getting ready to make my appeal for some action, but not well equipped. At least I can look up the transaction date on Quicken (which I maintain with extreme diligence).

Here is what Mountain Hardware did…let this be a lesson to all of us who aim to maintain strong account relationships in an overcrowded world of technology solution providers.

First, Mountain Hardware is not the low cost provider. They’re right up there with Northface, MSR, and Sierra Design, and you pay a fortune to have their stuff. And in most cases it’s well designed and exudes quality.
The warranty on my tent is life-time, but you and I know that means almost nothing to some companies.
I called the number in my instruction book (which I did manage to save), and was greeted almost immediately by an upbeat young lady ready to help. I did not have to navigate through 57 automated options to get there!
I explained the problem…and she immediately empathized with me on the misery of having this type of experience while out in the woods, in the rain.
Then she did the most amazing thing. No request for receipt, no need to escalate this issue up to management, and no forms to fill out. “Simply send us the tent and we’ll send you a new one”. They didn’t even offer to fix it. They just replace it.

What can you do that will make your clients love you today? I am a Mountain Hardware customer for life now! What about your clients?