The Funnelholic

Wow, I had no idea how many personal “thank yous” I would get on my last post on Adam Needles book.  It just proves that b2b marketing is hard to learn and people are craving recommendations.  So, people asked me for a couple more recommendations.  We just moved to a new office, so I pulled out my box of books here at work.  There are probably more in my home shelf so anticipate another “5 more books for the aspiring Funnelholic” post in a couple weeks. I am both a sales and marketing guy, so the books cross both boundaries AND I believe sales and marketing should read them all (remember sales and marketing alignment!).  Here I go:

1. Content Rules by Ann Handley and CC Chapman — Great stuff and written in fun, engaging way.  I honestly didn’t think I would like it, but ended up REALLY liking it.  Content marketing is “the joint” right now, and this book helps understand it and provide tangible actions to take right now.

2.  Ogilvy on Advertising by David Ogilvy — It was my first book and I have kept it close by.  He was one of the original masters and there is so much to learn in there. Another fun read that takes you one day at the beach to get through.

3.  Crossing the Chasm by Geoffrey Moore — It is cliche to even include it on my list, but I had to.  If you are in b2b technology — you have to read it. Period.

4.  Sales Mastery A Novel by Barry Trailer — Ready for this: First interview out of college, I find a dude who was in my fraternity who was a VP at Oracle.  I go in to see him.  10 minutes in he says: “Ok, get a better suit because what you have on is terrible and read this book”.  He handed me Sales Mastery.  The book is cool because it is a fictional story with important points about complex selling. My first sales book!! Count it!

5.  The Greatest Salesman in the World by Og Mandino — It was a recommendation from my buddy Lars Nilsson.  I bought it, looked at the ancient storyline and put it on my shelf for 10 years.  I just read it and now I get it.  Inspiring and important is how I would describe it -read it.

Note: I have no commercial relationship with these people.

July 25 through July 29 is Social Business week on Focus.com. If you’ve read my blog, you know that I’m a fan of the Social CRM movement, but I am not an expert - so I’m leaving that to the pros. I am sticking to my expertise, hosting a couple of events about social and sales and marketing. I am hosting a webinar with the master of content/inbound/social media marketing, Mike Volpe, on Friday, July 29, at 1 pm PT. Before that, I am hosting a social selling roundtable at 11 am PT with Nigel Edelshain, Miles Austin and Koka Sexton. It’s fun trading ideas for using social for a lot of things. Sales is definitely a favorite of mine.

One of the biggest complaints I hear from folks is not having enough time for social endeavors. I usually tell people I wouldn’t recommend it if it’s a time-suck. So I’ve compiled a list of easy things that salespeople can do, none of which seems too scary or daunting - and it can all be done right away. Let me know what you would add to the following list.

1. Create a LinkedIn profile.
2. Fill it out completely, including a picture.
3. Upgrade your account.
4. Watch every day from your upgraded LinkedIn account to see who clicked on your profile.
5. Connect with as many of your business and personal contacts as you can.
6. Move beyond business cards - get in the habit of connecting with people immediately after you meet them.
7. Spend some time seeing if your prospects are connected to any of your contacts and ask for a referral.
8. Join LinkedIn groups relevant to your industry. Not just so you can see the conversations happening in your space, but so you can join the same “clubs” that your prospects are in.
9. Figure out where your prospects are on the Internet (with only a few cases, everyone is). Is it Twitter, LinkedIn, focus.com, etc.? It could even be a message board somewhere.
10. Watch them. Remember the title of this post is “easy.” Don’t worry about doing much; you can just watch. You will gain insight into your prospects that you’ve never had before.
11. Recognize their good works. If they write an insightful blog post or answer a question really well, send them a note.
12. Find the top influencers in your space (they will be on Twitter or Google if they are influencers) and follow them.
13. Create a social relationship with the influencers. This is akin to being friends with the cool kids at school.
14. Before a sales call, look up your prospect’s or customer’s recent social “works” - posts, tweets, Q&A. Mention it to them; they will love it.

There - was that hard? Let’s just start with that. There’s more…but you gotta start somewhere.

My first very important announcement is: Focus.com, my employer, created the infographic below.

My second very important announcement is: I like it and I hope you do too. Mad props to Carlos Hidalgo, who helped curate the information. For me, following the marketing automation space has been the first time I have been able to watch a market from start to finish and really understand it. Yes, I have been alive in Silicon Valley during the rise of all the other technologies du jour, but this one I know. I love being a fan.

I hope you find the infographic interesting — we’ll have to see how much it changes next year!

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I am currently trying to buy a couple pieces of technology (true story). I won’t tell you what kind of technology (to protect the innocent). But I will tell you that I am learning how much it sucks to be a b2b buyer. I wrote a little about my experiences and recommendations on the Savvy b2b marketing blog.

It’s really eye-opening to go through the process of trying to buy something in a comparable industry. As I live through my pain, I will chronicle our experiences. (I am including my partner-in-crime Lori Janjigian as she helps me in the buying process and is supplying me with her observations, aka complaints, about the process.)

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