Salespeople should sell less and market more#
I love sales!
I just needed to get that out there. The process of selling is fascinating- meeting new people, listening to how they do things, delivering alternative solutions, adding new customers and cultivating new business through servicing and supporting clients.
Sales is a great position to be in, yet the title on everyone's card is wrong!
Hang in here with me. If you are lucky, I'll get my point across in just a few sentences.
If you work in sales management, you spend a lot of time, reviewing sales reports and funnels. In these spreadsheets, you look at open "opportunities", sales stages, deal age, activity and a bunch of other stuff. You then take this information and talk to the sales team about what they are going to sell this day, week, month or quarter. In doing this the Sales Manger manages sales and teaches the Sales Team to also manage the sale.
When the numbers are up, everyone is happy. When the numbers are down, everyone needs to "Get on the phone!" BINGO.
Do you get it? Too much time is spent managing the sale. When you are deficient in marketing, you'll end up managing a funnel with very few sales to manage.
Please stop focusing your energy and resources managing the wrong thing!
Selling to a prospect that wants to make a change is possibly one of the easiest things to do in the entire world. Selling is a simple act of listening and engagement. If you know how to listen and engage you can sell. However this doesn't mean you will be successful.
If you've ever really looked at how your most successful salespeople make it. What you will see is that they work hard! Good and great salespeople are busy people.
The superstars are never satisfied; they are always working to find the next customer. This focus is on finding good prospects. The simplest way for a salesperson to do this is through a focused commitment to marketing.
At MCC, we view the salesperson job in four areas:
- Qualifying
- Marketing
- Selling
- Cultivating
If a salesperson commits to proactive daily marketing, she will produce big sales results. Salespeople need to focus just 15-20% of the day on marketing actions. By setting aside 90 minutes of your day to market yourself (to prospects) your sales funnel will easily produce $150,000 - $250,000+ in new payroll sales each and every year.
To learn more about our Sales Development & Marketing programs give us a call 800.483.4509
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Local Search is where its at! #
Article by Aaron Weiche of FiveTechnology
Looking for a local business, service or product starts online for close to 3 out of every 4 consumers. I’m guessing that number reported by a recent Local Search Usage Study isn’t alarming to consumers or business owners these days.
Inc. Magazine’s recent write-up on this local search study highlighted many of the statistics compiled from the survey of 4,000 consumers surveyed and over 1 million that had their online searches monitored.
Here are a few numbers that should jump out at a business owner or marketer:
- 70% start looking for a business online, up 7% from 2009
- 33% use Google, Bing or Yahoo – traditional search engines
- 22% use Internet Yellow Pages or directories (Yelp.com included)
- For those using local search sites, Google Places commands 41%, Bing 11% (up 7% from 2009)
- 78% of consumers say reviews and ratings factor into their purchases
- 1 in 6 searchers is frustrated by the lack of reliable & correct information about small businesses on the web
- 33% give up on a business when they can’t find the information they are looking for
So to put numbers into words, what you have online to represent your small business is huge. So what can you do as a small business? Here are just some of the basics:
Be Visible
- Have at least a basic web presence
- Make sure you claim your main local search listings (use GetListed.Org to check)
- Make sure you are listed on directories like Yelp, Citysearch, InfoUSA
- Look into what local sites you can be linked on or listed on – Chambers, orgs, local blogs
- Look into social media: Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and blogging might be a fit for you
- The key here is to have more than a few "entrance points” for information
Be Accurate
- Make sure your info is correct on all platforms – hours, services, products, photos, links
- There might be data on your business, but you should CLAIM your listings & data
- Develop content to build trust, show your expertise and help you win comparisons
Have A Plan
- Even the smallest plan beats hoping you’re getting out there
- Find and attend a small business workshop or seminar on local or online marketing
- Search online! There are numerous great blogs, people on Twitter and more to help you
- Seek out a trusted and recommended small business online marketer
- Research your competition, their website, their social media, their listings
- Network with other business owners
The numbers in this report are only trending higher every year for the importance of an online presence and reputation.
LinkedIn for Salespeople (video)#
At MCC, we are working more and more with video. To get a feeling of how we feel your sales team can leverage LinkedIn for selling please watch this video.
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CRMLink taking the payroll world by storm!#
It seems like only yesterday that HRAnswer link was announcing CRMLink. As a diehard Salesforce.com user, administration and support company, I will openly admit that MCC had more than a few reservations when we first heard about CRMLink. Yet, even in the initial phase we were excited about the potential. Why?
We love the HRAnswer link service. The interface is great for users, the product is an easy sell to payroll customers and the end user receives a ton of value from the HRAnswer link service. On the CRM side, we looked at the fact that Adam and Dennis knew a lot about how a service bureau operates day to day. That was a plus, but pulling a complete CRM application together can be more than a little bit tricky.
Well, the proof is in the customers. Today CRMLink is running in over 65 service bureaus, adding new clients each and every week .
A few months ago, we were very happy to get a call from Dennis about possibly working with CRMlink on certain projects. Since that initial conversation, we've learned a great deal about CRMlink fom Adam Day, and we hope CRMlink has also learned a thing or two from us.
During our conversations, MCC was able to demonstrate our customizations of Salesforce.com for service bureaus and learn more about the future of CRMLink.The future of CRMLink is very bright indeed.
One of the most impressive components of CRMlink is how the application can be used by your payroll customers as a complete HR application. Amazing!
For 2011, we are very excited to announce that we will roll out new services to help existing CRMLink customers maximize their CRM investment. Look for an announcement from us for an Online Video Library in which we will feature short 5-10 minute videos designed to help you easily manage the application in-house.
We'll also begin the process of making our custom Salesforce.com Sales Tools available to CRMLink users.
Congratulations to everyone at HRAnwerlink for creating a wonderful CRM application!
What's all the Chatter about, Salesforce.com?#
As this newsletter is getting ready for delivery Salesforce.com is hosting its annual user conference, Dreamforce.
The biggest announcement so far is the launch of Chatter "freemium". For those unfamiliar with salesforce.com Chatter, it is a Social Networking tool just for your employee base. Think of it as Facebook for your company.
The beauty of the application is how it facilitates communication across your sales and support teams, linking posts and files to existing clients and prospects.
In the Freemium version of Chatter, employees that don't have a salesforce.com license can take part in your company's Chatter. At MCC, we've been lucky to work with many service bureaus running salesforce.com and it is fairly routine for service bureaus to allow each salesperson a salesforce.com license and limit licenses for support, tax and implementation.
Chatter now allows your entire team to get in on the conversation without the cost of additional user licensing.
The best way to understand Chatter is to see it in action. You can do that by watching the video below or you can just look at somebody's Facebook page.
How can you manage what you can't see!#
Salespeople and CRM's can be a bad combination. Yep, I just said the obvious.
Why do salespeople resist CRM?
Most of the time, it's because no one has ever explained or demonstrated the value of working within the application to improve bottom line W2 performance.
It's hard for salespeople to stop and record notes, calls, emails and proposals in a CRM. I mean, most of the time these tasks take, what a minute? Well, in reality most sales actions can be recorded in about 5-20 seconds.
The truth is, most salespeople see CRM as a hassle, not the profit generating machine that it really can be.
Salespeople don't like to record sales actions because the work is tedious. It stops their "flow" of calls. Most business owners and managers eventually hear this,
"Would you rather have me in here taking notes our out selling?"
My thought to this has always been,
"I'd rather have you make so much darn money you were out on a beach somewhere enjoying life!"
(Some of you get my thought; if not I can't help you.)
Salespeople and Service Bureaus need to realize that the basic use of CRM can become a marketing catalyst that generates tremendous profit for everyone. A salesperson that commits to working within her CRM (MS Dynamics, Salesforce.com or CRMLink) will realize an organized marketing process. You cannot work a process until you know what it is that you are managing (for answers to your questions on managing a process go and talk with your service bureaus operations manager).
Marketing is more than just working a tickler call list. Every salesperson making tickler calls will run into the follow conversation on a scheduled call:
Salesperson: "Hi Nicole, this is Chris with ABC payroll. You mentioned I should call you this month."
Prospect: "Sorry, I wish you had called me last month. We just went with ADP."
Salesperson: "But, but, you told me to call THIS MONTH!"
Prospect: "Really. Sorry. PayChex totally messed up and we had to make a change immediately. Feel free to keep me on your call list. :-)"
The challenge isn't in the "art" of selling, it's more in the hard work of effective marketing! To stay top of mind with prospects, you need to be organized. By organized, we are talking about a format that allows you to plan a real marketing effort that encompasses more than just a calling tickler program.
A marketing process requires salespeople to first qualify prospects by type and then record communication by date and type of channel used. Once this is accomplished, your CRM will help everyone make the right decisions on when and who to call, email etc. The few seconds a salesperson uses to record this information in her CRM will actually create time savings!
We have great news.
You can start this process immediately. Start getting organized with your next call to a prospect. Record the information learned and type of communication channel used. In a few short days, you can begin to plan your marketing process to always be top of mind and never be a day late on an opportunity again!
If you want to learn more about how we help payroll service bureaus improve their marketing processes just give us a call 800.473.4509.
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MCC is proud to give back!#
Within the payroll industry it is great to learn about all of the good work service bureaus do within the communities they service. At MCC one of our goals is to give back 1% of our time and/or revenue to a local charity. Sometimes this commitment is easy and other times it can be a lot of hard work.
To finish out 2010 we are very happy to be involved with the Eagle Cancer Telethon in developing, designing and managing their new web site. The Eagles Cancer Telethon has been raising money to fight cancer for over 57 years! Last year this local effort raised close to $800,000 dollars to help fund cancer research at the Mayo Clinic and Hormel Institute.
With the new web site the Eagles Cancer Telethon will
- Capture donations year round
- Stream the telethon performances live
- Manage and coordinate all volunteers
- Coordinate all performance
- Announce local feeder events that take place through out the year
As you can imagine it is with great excitement that we work to deliver the new web site in time for the 57th Eagles Cancer Telethon held January 15th & 16th in sunny Rochester, MN.
You can see a preview of their new website here http://eaglescancer.smcing.com/. The full live site will be launched just after the Christmas Holiday.
Get your next Web site through MCC#
Guess what we've been doing this quarter?
Reviewing each and every web site IPPA Members web site. Oh, you have no idea how much fun this process has been!
So after looking at literally hundreds of payroll web sites what can we say? Um, some service bureaus are doing an outstanding job of leveraging their web site to drive sales and enhance customer support. Unfortunately, as a group, most service bureaus can use a little to a lot of help.
Why do so many service bureau website miss the mark? While we don't know why everyone isn't investing in a good web office we can tell you something very important that everyone needs to know.
A poorly designed or out of date web site will cost you business!
Your business web site has many functions all of them relate to communication. When people look for new services today they do NOT use the yellow pages. They talk to friends and search online. When someone searches online they click on the links and look at your home page.
When they reach your homepage they will spend all of 2 - 8 seconds deciding if its worth there time to click another page or take down your phone number and call you! These same people will go through this process on 2 - 5 other sites.
In our world they will more than likely visit ADP and PayChex websites, spending 2 - 10 seconds. What are they doing here? Deciding if the local company "looks" as good as the big guys. So yes on the web looks matter luckily so does content and substance.
Your web site should never eliminate your from a prospects shopping list.
Going beyond prospects that are searching for help how else do people interact with a web site. A site can be a continuation of a past sales conversation. People are comfortable exploring the web to learn more information. Don't think for a second that when you leave a great sales appointment prospects stop going to your website.
A web site can be a continuation of a great sales meeting. Web sites can house useful information that prospects, clients, and even your own teams can use. What this means is that a web site should be much more than a set it and forget it marketing tool.
If your web site hasn't been through a design upgrade in the last 18 months its behind the curve. If your web site has not had new content added to it in the last 90 days its not telling visitors the complete story of your business.
The first component in developing winning web strategy is good design. The second component is being able to update and add new content to your site in-house whenever YOU see fit. Once you take care of these first two pieces you can than begin looking at way to get more from local search marketing and social media.
Everyone need to understand that your web site is just one part of the entire conversation that your business has with the communities you serve. It can be the one and only place a prospect engages your team, a continuation of a networking or sales conversation, and the beginning of a long and profitable business relationship.
In our experience a well done web site for a service bureau with 1-3 outside sales people should generate $100,000 - $300,000 in business opportunities each year. A good rate of return on these generated opportunities should be $60,000 to $100,000 in signed business.
As your marketing process grows so will these metrics.
Today everyone can put forth a good web site just because your service bureau is 1000 times smaller than PayChex and ADP is no reason for you place your logo on an out of date static site.
To help MCC is now delivering full web site design and management services to IPPA members.
We've partnered with our long time friends at FiveTechnology to handle all of the design, programing and secured hosting of your web site. MCC's experience working within the payroll industry allows you to experience fast and successful project completions without the hassle of trying to explain payroll sales and support like you will if you work with a traditional web design and marketing firm.
If you chose to partner with MCC and FiveTechnology on your next web upgrade your making the right choice in taking complete control of our online office. All of our web solutions are delivered on top of our Site Management Console, the SMC.
The SMC is basically the Easy button for site management. Before doing anything else take a few minutes and what this video in which I show you how simple it is to run your web site working with the SMC.
If you already has a web site with solid design yet want to be in more control we can help you out. We can transition you existing site onto our SMC platform so that you can make page additions and updates a snap.
Custom web sites from MCC can be built from the ground up with a full range of online features for $10,000 - $25,000. For service bureaus just developing their initial marketing programs we offer outstanding payroll specific website templates for as little as $3500.
What we are really trying to say is that if you want to upgrade your service bureau web site and prefer to work with a company that lives and breathes payroll marketing call us!
We really do want to help you be more successful.
Online Video Sales Training Library#
In the next few weeks MCC will be opening up our Video Sales Training library. When completed you will be able to access libraries housing:
- New Hire Sales Workshop Sessions
- Social Media - How to
- Salesforce.com Administration
- CRMLink Administration
To access these libraries customers will subscribe to the series that is of most interest to you at the time. The fees will be weekly or monthly with anticipated costs ranging from free upto around $50.00 per user.
In creating these session and establishing the cost structure our goal is to allow as many people working within the Payroll Service bureau space as possible access. Another way of saying it, we though of charging a lot more for company to access but didn't want cost to limit access. In essence we are looking to recoup our invest through user volume.
You can access a "quick and dirty" sample here. In this session we discuss how salespeople should use LinkedIn when marketing and closing business.
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