Techie prospects like industry standards

Selling to engineers and other technical people can be adversarial, as they don't consider a salesperson as a peer. Being technically proficient (and listening) can bridge that gap, but its not necessarily enough to close the sale. You still need to be a salesperson (or marketer) that enables their decision.

That's where this week's newsletter from SalesDog.com, titled How to sell to Techies picks up. The article is much more detailed than these key points I culled here:

1. Technical types prefer to have an authority set the rules, and then they can do the right thing. They prefer to use standards whenever possible.

2. Understand their centers of influence. Their purchase decisions often come from consulting with others.

3. Establish and prove that what you sell is an industry standard.

7. If anything at all smacks of manipulation, eliminate it from your discussion. Techies prefer to draw their own conclusions, thank you.

8. Give them all the data they need to make a decision.

The author, Mark Smith, was hammering on the 'industry standard' idea. Being 'standard' eliminates risk, justifies pricing, and removes the sense of manipulation. It's a powerful concept.

Nuf said

Without a long, embarrassing story, I post this link:

eBay Guides - BEWARE of FAKE USB Flash Drives on eBay

"CAVEAT EMPTOR, BEWARE of Counterfeit USB Flash Drives. Millions of eBayers have been deceived by fake, low quality, unpopular cheap drives!"

He's smart, not stupid or stubborn

I talk a lot about business directories here. Their kissing-cousin, the Yellow Pages, aren't relative to my kind of marketing. But they struggle a lot with the same changes caused by the internet.

The Yellow Pages & Small Business Commandos Blog is a bit infrequent, but Dick Larkin's posts are good stuff. His latest post tells about one yellow page publisher that is ignoring the internet. But its really a business lesson. Here's the sum of his post titled Zig vs. Zag:

"The print strategy will probably not carry Seig for the next two decades, but by that time, a company with an Internet strategy will have paid through the nose for the deep market penetration that Valley has achieved.

See, it's all about picking a strategy and sticking to it.

That is one of the toughest business strategies of all."

Well said Dick! Looks like Seig is being business-smart and market-savvy.

Collateral for the 21st Century

I hate 'webinars'. They just seem to promise too much while reeking of sales pitch. Then there is all the technology required to 'log-in'. Often they are just talking heads and PowerPoint slides. And you've got to sit thru the whole thing to get to the good stuff, if there is any.

All the classic collateral tools work well enough, but is there a way to make them better, leveraging the web? MarketingSherpa posted a new report that may be an answer:

Marketing Collateral Adored by Reps & Prospects Alike -- PowerPoint-Style Libraries With Audio

Malvern Instruments found a service that provides such presentations over the web, giving them great usage data and flexibility to let their folks put together their own presentations. You can see a sample 'On Demand Training' presentation here.

Because of its slide-by-slide navigation, the user has control to skip slides or browse around to find if the presentation is really worth it. Malvern says they try to keep each 'training' to less than five minutes. They are requiring registration to see most of the presentations.

In the comments to the article, other services besides Brainshark (that Malvern uses) are listed. Very cool stuff!

Why are they clicking?

If you missed my post a couple months ago, I've come to the opinion that Adsense ads aren't a particularly good value for B2B advertisers. To ad to your thinking about what each of those clicks represents, up-and-coming blog Caffiene Marketing posts Google Adsense Clicking Rationale Explained:

"There is a new topic titled “The Behavior Behind Users Clicking On Google Adsense Ads” on the WebmasterWorld discussion forum the I recommend checking out. The discussion covers the rationale behind internet users decision making process involved in clicking on a Google Ad. Some of the possible explanations are below:

1. “Compelling on topic or relevant supplemental information”
2. “They don’t know it’s an ad (well “blended”)”
3. “They know it’s an ad but want to get the hell out (of the page they are on)”
4. “Just boredom”"

...and on to number 11. While WebmasterWorld is $150 a year, this list gives a good summary of what webmasters think is going on. Not sure if these opinions come more from those running AdSense on their websites or those looking for click-thrus. The sad part is less than half of the reasons have to do with actually being genuinely interested in seeing where the ad-link goes.

(I hope its not too much 'inside baseball' for me to assume you understand the difference between Adsense and Adwords ads. Adwords run strictly on Google search pages.)

Cruise control off...to go faster...or slower?

I thought the beginning of the school year and the resulting schedule change with be a demarcation that would allow me to raise my energy and productivity, both in my work and personal life. Having the kids in bed an hour earlier and getting to work a half-hour early would seem to open up my day at bit, plus no soccer on Saturdays this fall. A chance to get off cruise-control and crank things up a notch.

And I do feel a bit freer, but nothing dramatic.

But instead of thinking just of me, I've found myself thinking about friends and acquaintances in challenging situations. Some situations I've been involved in, and others just a witness. Regardless, their combined struggles so closely grouped in time becomes greater than the whole.

When my son was in the hospital (twice in the last year), the people who came to visit him/us, or offer help really taught me a lesson about the value of reaching out in a time of need. And the pained regret of missing someone's funeral last year was uncovered last night, making the realization that 'cruise control' is something that needs to be turned off sometimes...to slow down, not speed up.

When did it happen that we went our separate ways, that we stopped looking after each other? How is it that we forgot the still true warning of revolutionist pamphleteer Thomas Paine: "If we do not hang together, we shall surely hang separately"? --Big Picture Guy

Tonight I need to make a phone call.

Quotes worth savoring

Here's a few quotes to savor for the weekend.

This first two come from Big Picture Guy. These came up in conversation this week.

• "We are what we do. This should frighten many of us."

• "Procrastination is seldom about not wanting to do something; it is most often about not knowing what to do."

This one I ran across this week, but forgot where...(anyone know the source?).

• "I can work with ignorant people or arrogant people, but not those who are both."

And finally, from Weird Al, I just find this line hysterical no matter how many times I hear it (and as a father of twin 9yo boys, its been a few times):

• " You're just about as useless as jpegs to Hellen Keller"

From It's All About the Pentiums (sorry, pop-ups at this lyrics site) or watch the video at Yahoo.

Enjoy the long weekend, my US readers!