New: Start Using Video Marketing To Gain and Close More Prospects

Unless you’ve been hiding under a rock, or in the event you are totally out of the loop, you should know video is the hottest form of communication we have right now. Facebook, SnapChat, Instagram, Skype, Google Hangouts, FaceTime, Periscope and YouTube have come up and dominated the lines of communication in the last few years. The Live streaming platforms have gained some serious momentum over the past two years and will continue to do so.

There’s some pretty heavy, behind the scenes, psychology going on with videos too, that you probably haven’t even considered. Well for your consideration I’m going to break it all down for you into simple terms so you can implement immediately.

Most of us were born after television was invented. Most of us grew up with a TV set in our homes. I grew up with most of my friends & relatives who had black and white TVs. I grew up thinking The General Lee on the Dukes of Hazard was grey. No way in my young mind was that car bright Orange until I got my first lunchbox. We grew up getting our entertainment, and information from TV.

I learned to count from Sesame Street. (Thanks Big Bird) I learned what animals were what from the Zoo and some books at school. And as I got older, I learned that the news anchors were authorities on information. In my mind, from childhood on it was programmed that whoever is on TV is very important.

Also, I think it’s important to add that the #1 fear in Americans is public speaking. That’s right! We've got Lions, Tigers and Bears (Oh My) but people are more afraid to talk in public than they are any of that. For those of us that communicate with the public on a daily basis, it seems almost weird.

Anyways, getting on video is a form of public speaking. Only to most people, it’s much worse! They are more scared of video than they are a room full of people. Matter of fact, I know public speakers who won’t do video. They hate video. People have a fear of watching themselves. They think it makes them look older, less attractive or even fat. You are almost always your toughest critic.

Meanwhile, that can become a HUGE advantage for those of us who aren’t afraid to get on video! Right?

If you’re like me and you think FEAR is only a four letter word, then video is wide open. You may not know this, but right now, Facebook and YouTube are going at it for video views. They are both trying to consume and host as much video content as possible. We are talking a battle of the Titans and it's happening now.

This means you can take advantage of their competition, in multiple ways, by using video.

1. Way number one is influence. When they see you on video they think of you as a person on TV who conquered their fear and is important.

2. Way number two is getting YouTube and Facebook to help promote your content for FREE.

3. Way three is a video sales pitch that works for you 24/7 without you having to do a thing. It's like having a clone of yourself who works 24 hours each day. You don't have to feed them, pay them and they don't sleep. It's a win-win.

Now, you might think; okay but I don’t know what to make videos about or how to make them. That’s ok! That’s why I’m here and you’re reading this. I’m going to share with you an easy 5 step process to make cool videos. Because, after all, everything revolves around a 5 step process doesn’t it?

You Can Do This with a smartphone and a Free Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, Periscope, Skype or YouTube account!

Step One: Ask An Innovative Question

This question needs to let them know, you know. Meaning this question let’s them know that you’re one of them, and that you understand their problem. It needs to repel the people who you DON’T want to watch your video and draw in those perfect prospects you’re making the video for.

Step Two: Become Their Friend

No matter the length of your video you need to bond with them before they will buy from you. The way to do this is to identify one problem (per video) and talk about how you, or better yet, one of your recent clients over came it using your stuff. Hopefully you made a video testimonial of that happy client.

It’s likely, that if you did the research and know your market, there will be people watching the video who have the problem you address. They’ll trust you more if they can hear your voice and see you.

Step Three: Show Them It Works

This is the part where you show them how you or your recent client overcame what you mentioned in the previous step. Now, don’t confuse them with too much information. Give them the short version which should peak their interest.

Step Four: Call To Action

This is the simplest part of the whole process, and at the same time, the one most people screw up on. All you have to do with your call to action is simply ask if they’d like to get the results you got for you or your recent client, for themselves, with your help.

If you’ve done all three previous steps correctly, this part should be a breeze. Make sure, that in your call to action you give them very specific (like you would for a Child) instructions on what to do and expect when they take action.

Step 5: Ask Them To Share

You know how you’re supposed to ask for referrals from everyone, every chance you get? This is that part. After you’ve asked them for their business, you need to ask if they know anyone else you can help. After all, you are their best possible option, Right?

So why wouldn’t they send referrals. All you have to do is end the video with “Please share this video via email or social media with coworkers and friends you know need to see it. Thanks in advance.”

A call to action request for referral combo, Boom! I’ve been making videos forever and I wasn’t always as good as I am now (Still Not Great) and I didn’t have a fancy, internet marketing, 5 step process back then. All that aside, I still took action, it worked for me, it works for my clients, and it will work for you too.

Thanks for reading. I really appreciate it and please share it with anyone you know it can help. Please leave questions or comments below and I will answer in a timely manner. Thanks again!

Are your salespeople truly ready for Social Selling?

If I could give salespeople training in one thing and one thing only, I would pick any one of the ten things on this list before I would train them on "social selling." GASP.. I know, I know.. Let Me Explain! That does not mean I don't believe in "social selling", because I absolutely do, but todays salespeople need to master the basics of selling before advancing to the Expert Level. Here are ten important things sales professionals need to train on in no particular order.

1. How to Set Appointments: There isn’t anything higher on this list because answering sales calls / cold calling and prospecting is what would improve most salespeople’s results faster than anything else. Phone Skills must be Great! Good will no longer suffice. Dialing for dollars says it all.

2. Overcoming Objections: No matter how good you are, without the language and experience to deal with objections, you aren’t creating a win for your customer. If you let them win, they give you an opportunity. That's a win-win! Master your craft and approach each objection in an open manner. Help your customer and they will be happy.

3. How to Differentiate Yourself From Others: I’ve never asked a salesperson what makes their company different and gotten an exact response, even when their manager believes they know. They don't. We cannot blame our sales team for not knowing, because we didn't properly train them. I think this is an easy one. Think about the things customers complain about, and do the exaxct opposite. It is okay to have fun. Be different.

4. How to Negotiate: Most salespeople crumble at the first question about price. I’d teach them to negotiate based on value. Price is what something costs, Value is the products perceived worth, and these numbers are rarely the same. I have always lived by a simple rule of thumb that works well. If the product costs ten thousand dollars, build twenty thousand dollars in value. The customer perceives it's a good deal when value exceeds price.

5. How to Understand What Makes an Opportunity: Unless your client agrees to pursue change with you, you don’t have an opportunity. We must learn to treat every opportunity with the same urgency as we treat a fresh up with a truckload of Cash!

6. How to Follow The Process: Most companies don’t follow a process, and neither do their salespeople. I’d teach them why they should follow it and how it helps them win. If they follow the process and their paycheck grows larger as a result, they will buy in.

7. How to Nurture Their Clients: Too little time, too many prospects. You have to focus on the clients for whom you create the most value. You need to nurture those relationships. Give your customers the VIP treatment, if you don't your competition will. 

8. How to Plan a Sales Call: Honestly, most salespeople don’t plan their sales calls at all. They end up winging it, and stuttering a lot. It’s a mistake to waste a client interaction. Those cost real monery, not monopoly.

9. How to Qualify a Customer: Without understanding your client’s true needs, forget wants, it’s difficult to even present your case when negotiating, and it’s even more difficult to arrive at an acceptable solution.

10. How to Gain Commitments: Most salespeople don’t know the commitments they need, and when they do, they don’t have the skill to gain those commitments. Once again, it's most always a lack of proper training. I’d teach them to close and watch them flourish.  A-B-C

I could add a couple dozen more examples to this list about where most salespeople struggle the most during the buying process. It is unfortunate, but from what I see on a daily basis, we as an industry are still not training our salespeople. They should be capable oh handling every step from answering the sales call to setting the appointment, and finally closing the deal. Yes they can!

I think it's safe to say that each thing on this list will benefit the salespeople more than "social selling". If you want to build a personal brand try being very good at what you do to gain recognition. That will get people to notice you for all of the right reasons. Add the topics you would train on in the comments. Thanks for reading. 

Social Media Marketing Budgets Are No Longer Optional For Online Success

It wasn’t that long ago that budgeting for social media marketing was pretty much nonexistent. Since the rise of the internet driven business model, a strong social media presence is essential to online sales success. In the past the bulk of internet marketing went to banner ads, PPC and email, however the overwhelming popularity of social media has caused a large portion of it to shift to that medium. In fact, four out of five companies increased their social media marketing budgets in 2015 and again in 2016. If you’re trying to figure out how much of your budget to invest in social media marketing, there are many factors to consider, but following the lead of successful companies as outlined below is one way to get a general idea of the numbers.

Step One: Set Your Total Marketing Budget

Because businesses vary so much in terms of costs and profits, marketing budgets vary greatly as well. Your marketing budget may depend on the size of your business, how long you’ve been up and running, what kind of expenses you have, and your overall profit margins. Your budget will also depend on needs. You need to consider the development of your brand in terms of websites, e-brochures, logos, email campaigns, sales presentations, and of course, ads. When starting your business, your marketing budget will need to be much higher in order to get your brand established as quickly as possible. Many small businesses set a starting marketing budget of about 20% of sales. However, once your brand has been established, this number can decrease over time. While you will still need to consider the ongoing expenses of promotions and advertising, you will likely be able to use many of the initial start-up materials you had created for a long time and you can take those out of the budget. In general, with businesses bringing in less than $1 million per year (net), they normally have a marketing budget between 10% and 15%. As the revenue increases, the marketing budget percentage can decrease. It all depends on how competitive your industry or local market is.

Step Two: Devote a Percentage to Internet Marketing

The next step in creating your budget is devoting a percentage of it to internet marketing. This includes online ads, email marketing, social media marketing, landing pages, blogs, and more. Really, any kind of business exposure done online can be considered internet marketing. Again, depending on your type of business, your internet marketing budget will likely differ from others. For instance, if your business is run solely through a website, you will probably need to dedicate most, if not all of your marketing budget to online marketing. However, if you are a local walk-in store with a small website online just for local customers or company image purposes, then you might want to dedicate only a quarter of your marketing budget to internet marketing, specifically to local search optimization.

Just to give you an idea though, in 2015, businesses dedicated an average of 35% of their marketing budgets to digital marketing. However, the forecast for 2017 shows that digital marketing budgets will be increasing as businesses dedicate less to other forms of marketing, such as print and radio ads. This increase could make digital marketing budgets well over 50% by the end of this year. Business owners say they are seeing a much higher return on their investment when investing in digital marketing versus more traditional means, which is likely spurring the change.

Step Three: Determine the Social Media Marketing Portion of Your Budget

While much of digital marketing budgets go to SEO in the way of content marketing, another major part of it should go to social media marketing as well. In fact, between SEO and social media marketing, businesses spent about 50% of their digital budgets on those two categories alone. In the coming years, businesses are expected to increase their digital budgets in the areas of social media, content, and SEO. This is because of the high rate of return on those investments. Marketers found a whopping 42% to 57% lead generation due to their efforts in content and social media marketing last year.

In 2017, the average business would be smart to allocate about 25% of their internet marketing budget to a great social media marketing plan. Remember though, this should be backed by a strong content marketing strategy, so your company has great content to share and discuss on social media, and so there is a reason for the customer to go from your social media page to your website for conversion.

Step Four: Monitor Closely and Adjust Accordingly

As previously mentioned, every business is different and so every business needs to do the work to determine the best possible budget for them. Once you set your budget and start executing your marketing plans, be sure to monitor the results often and carefully. When it comes to social media marketing for business, the potential rewards can be great. However, there can be changes in the market, in internet trends, and in the effectiveness of your campaigns in general. If you find your budget isn’t working, analyze why and make changes. If you find it to be more than successful, you can always decrease it and put those funds where they are most needed. It’s a good idea to keep an eye on marketing trends and costs to evaluate where you stand at least once per month if not more often.

If you’re not sure how to go about setting a budget for social media marketing, or if you’re not sure how best to allocate the money you have budgeted for it, please contact me. I will be happy to take a look at your business and budget and let you know what I think would work best for your specific business and how our Designers, Social Media Marketers, Content Creators and SEO experts can help you make it happen.

The 3 Biggest Differences Between a Sales Leader and a Sales Manager

Effective sales management can be the difference between a company that thrives and a mediocre one that barely stays afloat. Yet, many of the best sales managers still mistake the description in their job title for something that is even more crucial to sales success - leadership. If anyone thinks for even one second that just because someone is given the job title of sales manager that they naturally become a leader, you need to think again. Sales Managers manager things, Sales Leaders lead people.

Leadership may seem like a simple concept, but it is in fact so complicated that it perplexes many of us. After all, leadership is so much more than just endless positivity, pick me up speeches and a charming disposition, just as sales management is more than simply assigning tasks, overseeing those tasks and reviewing performance reports.

One of the best definitions of leadership, as applied to sales, comes from former president Dwight D. Eisenhower. Eisenhower described leadership specifically as “the art of getting someone else to do something you want done because HE wants to do it.” Another famous definition comes from Peter Drucker, considered by many to be the foremost authority of modern management. Drucker was quoted saying that “Effective leadership is not about making speeches or being liked; leadership is defined by results, not attributes.”

Let’s tackle the first definition. Any sales manager worth his or her weight in water can simply use their authority to get their reps and underlings to perform their required tasks. I think we would all agree on that, but do we really want to lead a group of professional adults through the use of fear? I would say No.

What that would do is create a sense of obligation, rather than ambition. Constantly asking reps to do things can create a culture of resentment. Additionally, it is unlikely that tasks performed in such a negative setting will be executed at a maximum level of quality. Therefore, true leadership must entail getting your followers to buy-in and fully commit. They must believe in you, respect you, and in the best cases they feel a desire to impress you.

On the second point, sales success is mainly a function of results - how much product did you sell? Was it more than predicted? Are your book of business, the company and its revenue growing? All your sales leadership means little to nothing if the results aren’t there. That’s exactly why the best sales managers and sales leaders are also numbers-driven, relying on the end results as evidence of their effectiveness. Running their organizations analytically and by the numbers allows them to make stronger decisions based on real data, not assumptions or instinct.

Sales Leadership requires more of a long-term vision, while sales management largely occurs on the front lines, or the down-in-the-trenches level, sales leadership is more about setting a higher-level, big-picture vision and direction. Sales leadership is about being strategic as you lead your organization and comes about as a result of the sales leader setting their vision into motion while defining the culture of the sales organization. After all, they do author the sales plans, define, implement and communicate sales processes and sales effectiveness drivers, and author the sales playbook that communicates vision, strategy, processes and tactics.

Lastly, sales leaders must empower their sales managers and sales reps in order for them to succeed. Many times the GM - considered the upper tier of sales leadership in most organizations will often step on the toes of their sales managers, preventing them from properly executing tactics. As the great Ronald Reagan once said, “Surround yourself with the best people you can find, delegate authority, and don’t interfere as long as the policy you’ve decided upon is being carried out.”

Sales management is more about day-to-day execution and coaching teams to sell more effectively than actually leading the team. Sales leadership must be the one who extracts full buy-in and commitment from all members of the sales team below him or her, to the point where everyone sincerely wants to follow this leader and they have the utmost confidence in his or her vision.

Sales leadership is very critical to both the short term and long term success of your business. Without great sales leaders, businesses would suffer or even fail. The greatest thing a true leader can do is to produce more leaders. While the sales managers are not as powerful, or as important to the overall success of your business, according to the experts, developing your sales managers into great sales leaders should be your ultimate goal.

Thank you for reading. Feel free to comment or add anything to the story. I look forward to getting others feedback. 

Thank you,

Dennis Wagner

President & CEO
TheDennisWagner.com

www.thedenniswagner.com

https://about.me/dennis_wagner

Here Are 10 Ways Weak Managers Try To Bully You

1. A weak manager will tell you that your education and training is sub-par. Even though it was more than adequate when they hired you.

2. A weak manager will remind you that no matter how reasonable your ideas are, they are not in line with the company’s direction and therefore should be squelched. Even though upper management has never seen or heard anything about your wonderful ideas.

3. A weak manager will warn you that if you share your opinions with other people in the company, you’ll embarrass yourself. 

4. A weak manager will tell you that you must funnel all communication through them, rather than directly to your intended recipient.

5. They’ll tell you not to speak at cross-departmental meetings, but to let them represent your department and its views.

6. A weak manager will rewrite your report or presentation and put their own name on it.

7. A weak manager will assign someone to train you on a subject you could teach, yourself.

8. They will swoop in and second-guess your work, making tiny corrections to everything you do so you’ll remember who’s the boss and who isn’t.

9. A weak manager will tell you that other managers have said negative things about you, to keep you off-balance.

10. Lastly, a weak manager will criticize you at every opportunity and never, ever praise your work – but when you succeed, they’ll praise themselves for hiring you!

These types of behavior results directly in uncommonly high employee turnover. That costs the company a lot of money once you consider recruiting, interviewing, screening and training. The cost is huge. If you are an owner or in upper management, and you have noticed an uncommon amount of turnover within a certain department I would start looking at the department as a whole from the top down. There is no place in any workforce for this type of behavior. 

If your employer refuses to fix the problem and you consider yourself a valuable asset, start your job search immediately. If they give you grief over taking a couple hours off so you can interview with other companies, Quit! Don't allow them to drag you down, and stop wasting your time trying to lift them up. 

Wagner Training Technologies is Your Hometown Consulting, Training and Marketing Solution

A snapshot of professional services we offer:

We specialize in building a nearly automated sales system that is proven to drive massive traffic to your Facebook page and/or to your website for conversions. 

It Just Works!

Organic lead creation

Video Marketing

Personal Branding

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Digital Marketing

Geo-fencing

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F&I Training

Sub-Prime Finance Training

From the road to the sale to proper Follow-up

Prospecting for new business

Creating inbound leads through the use of social media

Closing techniques for winners

Proper walk-around techniques

Advanced negotiating skills

The proper presentation of numbers

Winning the customer over

And much, MUCH more

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