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What Is Direct Mail and Is It Right for Your Business?

Posted: 13 May 2020 03:03 PM PDT

Businesses of all sizes are always searching for innovative marketing strategies to elevate their business and to beat out their competitors.  Recent growth trends have been linked to online marketing methods including SEO, Google Ads, and email marketing. However, businesses often look past a solution that has always existed in the marketing universe, direct mail. Direct mail is far from outdated as businesses rely on direct mail to drive a constant flow of new leads, educate and inform recipients, and to offer new services and products. Don't make the mistake of overlooking the potential of direct mail!

Don't take my word for it. Statistics show that advertisers spent $38.5 billion in direct mail last year, making this method the largest expenditure for US local advertising. If you aren't marketing with direct mail, it is very likely your competitors are already doing so. In addition, studies have shown that direct mail open rates can rise up to 90% with the average response rate of 4.9% last year  for direct mail marketing campaigns.

If you need more convincing, a recent study demonstrated that physical advertisements were proven to have more influence than digital ads. For instance, participants of this study spent more time, more easily remembered them, and had a stronger emotional response towards physical ads. Furthermore, this same study showed participants showed a stronger valuation and longing for products and services that were physically advertised. 

However, not every business is right for direct mail marketing. Through this article, I hope I can help you decipher whether your business should be taking advantage of direct mail for your next marketing campaign. 

Do you have a new or established local business looking to build brand awareness?

Whether you are a pizzeria, dentistry, orthodontistry, after-school program, mechanic, and more, direct mail is an excellent marketing tool to build brand awareness and to educate your community about your services. Direct mail companies offer services such as Every Door Direct Mail (EDDM) which allows you to distribute your postcard to certain postal carrier routes for a fraction of the cost, without a name or address on each mailer . Another great service is Saturation Mailing which mimics EDDM by blanketing a postal carrier route with your mailing, but Saturation Mailing adds a hint of personalization by including the name and address on each mailer. 

For example, you recently opened a beauty salon and would like to advertise a grand opening. EDDM would be a fantastic solution to send out postcards with a discounted offer and inform neighboring communities. With EDDM, you can determine the amount you'd like to send and the radius of recipients from your beauty salon.

Do you have a substantial database of existing customers? 

The ideal situation for direct mail advertising is when you have a list of recipients that are aware of your company and may have previously purchased your products and services. With familiar recipients, a direct mail campaign would not only boost your response rates but also it can serve as a friendly reminder of "Hey, remember our business? We are offering this new service or coupon! Come check us out again!"

If this is not the case for your business, direct mail companies often offer a fantastic alternative to purchase targeted mailing lists that you can customize to mirror past customers. Targeted mailing lists are customizable by demographics such as age, household size, income and any industry you'd like to reach, such as automotive mailing lists, mortgage mailing lists, and more. The scope of specificity for data drive mailing lists is impressive and accurate, but unfortunately, this will be an additional cost that can range from $0.05 to $0.30 per recipient. 

Is your business looking to target a specific and niche audience?

One of the most well-known fundamentals of a marketing campaign is the more targeted your campaign is to your audience, the better success it will have. In other words, would you rather send your direct mail to random recipients or to prospects that are highly likely to be interested in your products/services. 

Thankfully, direct mail and mailing lists can help you reach that niche audience that most marketing channels have difficulty accessing. The specificity of mailing lists gets your company directly in the hands of prospects that are most likely to purchase your products and services.

If your business does not look for a particular audience, sending direct mail at random could be a waste of your company's valuable time and money. Better results could be achieved through other channels such as online marketing. 

Do you sell high-priced or big ticket products and services? 

Direct mail is not FREE. In fact, the cost per sale for direct mail can range between $100 to $1,000. In order to produce a convincing Return on Investment (R.O.I), you need to sell big ticket items such as a car, house, tech products, and more. Big ticket services include roofing, remodeling, mortgage plans, and more. Because response rates for direct mail average around 4.9%, it is very difficult to determine the effectiveness of direct mail by just sending a hundred postcards, so a company's first direct mail budget should average around $2,000 to $5,000 in order to generate a direct mail test and to plan out a successful campaign. 

However, businesses who sell small ticket or low-priced items and services can still actively send out direct mail campaigns in order to generate awareness and to establish creating life-time, repeated customers. For instance, if you opened up a pizzeria in a neighborhood, offer a coupon on a postcard to convince recipients to try your restaurant. Offering this discount, you convince new prospects to try your pizza in hopes that they will return again, creating a lifetime customer. In addition, satisfied customers can go on to tell others about the experience. Lifetime customers are valuable for any business, and direct mail is a tremendous method to attract lifetime customers and to let others know your pizza company exists. 

What are the advantages of direct mail?

Mentioned above, $38.5 billion was spent in one year on direct mail advertising alone, and there are reasons why companies of all sizes spend their entire marketing budget on direct mail campaigns. To begin with, direct mail has one of the highest response rates at 4.9% amongst marketing channels because it is customizable and personalized. Furthermore, it is a highly targeted strategy that gets your company straight to potential customers. Direct mail is trackable, educational, and demonstrates importance and value to receivers. With the growth of online marketing prices and competition, diversification is necessary, and direct mail provides an alternative, effective marketing channel. 

The final advantage of direct mail that will be discussed is the existence of full-service direct mail companies. From the initial design to the final send off of your marketing campaign, the best direct mail companies in the industry can seamlessly do it all at the lowest prices. Let direct mail companies save you valuable time and money! 

As an expert in the direct mail industry for over 30 years, I believe direct mail is an efficient marketing opportunity that most companies should take full advantage of. Thankfully, there are direct mail companies that will walk you through your first successful direct mail campaign and get you ahead of your competitors!

Recovery Scenarios for Business Leaders Impacted by COVID-19

Posted: 13 May 2020 02:48 PM PDT

The global pandemic has disrupted almost everything we do in business, government and our own lives. We are still reeling and looking for answers about what it is and how to fix it. But well before things settle down and the crisis subsides, entrepreneurs should be asking, "What will things look like when we emerge from the crisis phase and begin to recover?"

With this crisis descending upon us with lightning speed and bringing about catastrophic changes, it is hard to fathom what will happen next. In situations like this, when uncertainty clouds traditional forecasting methods, experienced planners turn to scenario planning. Scenarios are stories built around a structured framework describing alternate, plausible futures. Scenario thinking helps you select the best path forward by shining light on newly arrived opportunities and risks, while exploring what it will take to survive and thrive.

In response to the crisis, Santa Clara University's Miller Center for Social Entrepreneurship, which has accelerated more than 1,000 enterprises since 2003, developed a COVID-19 response team to support its global network during these challenging times. 

How recovery from COVID-19 might look

The Miller Center COVID-19 response team also created four scenarios to understand how we should prepare to accomplish our own vision and mission in the post-crisis recovery. We developed an understanding of how existing programs and teams would change, what new ones would be needed and how we would access key resources and funding.

We've modified our scenarios to be used as a starting point for other enterprises to get a better sense of the preparations needed to succeed in the new business environment.  

Constructing the coronavirus recovery scenarios

The scenario framework is built on two forces. The first is the strength of the short-term economic recovery. This includes the robustness of supply chains to deliver products and services, level of demand for products and services and the overall financial strength of companies and organizations.

The second force is the amount of damage done to your business ecosystem. This includes the enterprise morbidity and mortality in your sector; the degree that direct and indirect competitors have folded or are barely surviving. The ecosystem damage also includes consideration of the funding amount available for enterprise recovery and growth.

These two forces frame four scenarios, including: Difficult Domain; Unchartered Lands; Terra Incognita; and Grueling Terrain. Each of the scenarios is possible, they are all different from one another and each requires distinctive strategic and operational responses.

The scenarios describe different recovery environments roughly six to nine months from now. The exact timing is not critical. The key is that the scenarios describe the point you have come out of survival mode and are ready to get back to business and make the crucial shift from "a play not to lose" strategy to a "play to win" strategy.

Envisioning your business's recovery from COVID-19

As you read the following scenarios, keep in mind that they are not meant to be the perfect picture of what will happen. They are useful models of what could happen and what it would mean if they did. The scenarios should challenge your expectations and stimulate constructive conversations. To get the full value, immerse yourself in all the scenarios and avoid focusing on one that matches your expectation of what will happen. Use the scenarios to imagine how the things you were sure would happen could now be on a different course. Ask yourself, "How will I rebuild to meet the new challenges and opportunities?"

Scenario 1: Difficult domain

A very challenging landscape to traverse, but one that is not wildly unfamiliar. The ecosystem is intact, but damaged. There has been a low to medium mortality of enterprises in your ecosystem. Surviving enterprises are in recovery mode and seeking help; some to survive, many others to recover and grow. Most of your key resources (the critical things you need such as materials or people) are available, but constrained. Most supply chains are intact, but fragile. Internal and external funding is available, but acquiring funds to rebuild is tougher and takes longer. Employment and financial strength are beginning to return in many but not all business sectors. Innovation is alive and well and entrepreneurs are launching businesses.

Scenario 2: Uncharted Lands

Managing a recovery feels like steering through an unfamiliar terrain without a map.  Your ecosystem is damaged but recuperating, yet some areas are significantly diminished. Many organizations have disappeared and the survivors are weak and moving into a cautious recovery mode. Funding availability is very limited, slow,and usually has strings attached. Most key resources you require are available, but supply chains are in disarray and sketchy. The weak overall economy and significant unemployment has decreased demand for many types of products and services creating an unbalanced recovery.

Scenario 3: Terra Incognita

A strange and unfamiliar environment to work in. There is major damage to your ecosystem with a high mortality rate of enterprises and partners in it. Surviving enterprises are struggling. Traditional supply chains are in complete disarray and some have been nearly obliterated.  Products and services flow unevenly if at all. The economy has been hammered; funding sources are in shambles and demand for many types of products and services remains weak. The mood is gloomy, double-digit unemployment persists and the timing and strength of recovery remain uncertain. Undeterred, some entrepreneurs use the situation to launch new businesses.

Scenario 4: Grueling Terrain

An uneven, difficult topography to maneuver in. There has been significant mortality of businesses in the ecosystem and survivors are in recovery mode. Funding is limited and comes with strings attached. Supply chains are generally intact and able to deliver products and services. The overall economy appears to be recovering slowly. Unemployment begins to recede as financial strength returns in most but not all sectors. Significant entrepreneurial activity is resurfacing.

Creating your post-coronavirus recovery plans

Describe a mode of operation in each scenario consistent with your vision, mission, and values.  Have your team explore these critical questions:

  • What major elements of your business stay the same?
  • What are the three most important things you will do differently?
  • What do you need to stop doing?
  • What are the new needs and major opportunities for you?
  • What are the most important partnerships?

Capture the descriptions of the different operating realities across the scenarios. Then have your team review them for important similarities; organizational and operational themes that are present in some or all of the scenarios. They could include:

  • Creating new offerings to meet new customer needs
  • Forming new partnerships and improved ways of collaborating
  • Finding new sources of key materials
  • Accessing new funds

Before you leave the scenarios, identify several leading indicators that will signal which one is emerging— things like unemployment, number of company closures in your ecosystem, and availability of funds. At this point you are ready to embark on the next step.

Then, track the indicators and revisit the scenarios every month and determine if there's a clearer picture on which scenario is most likely to emerge. Once the uncertainties have decreased and you can discern the emerging scenario, it's time to focus on your planning and preparation.

Becoming resilient in the face of coronavirus and future emergencies

Traditional planning approaches don't work well in times like this. They lead you to choose an approach prematurely. That can be a costly mistake; the probabilities of being right are extremely low and a wrong choice could be fatal.  Alternately, waiting to act until there is a clear picture guarantees you will be ill-prepared for what emerges. In this chaotic and unsure time, looking at scenarios and preparing for the most likely one to emerge is the best approach to shifting into a 'play to win' operating mode and thrive during recovery.

10 Ways to Track Employee Productivity in the Workplace

Posted: 13 May 2020 02:34 PM PDT

Productivity is an important variable in your organization's overall performance, and you'll need a way to measure and analyze it if you want to improve it.

In this article, we'll explore what "productivity" truly is (and what it means to you as an employer), how to measure employee productivity and a bit about how to improve productivity once you have a baseline measurement for your team.

Establishing your definition of "employee productivity" in the workplace

How do you define productivity? Depending on who you ask, you might get a few different answers.

Consider:

  • Hours and effort. Everyone claims to be busy all the time, but are they really? One way to consider productivity is by evaluating how your employees are spending their raw hours. Assuming each of your team members is working for you eight hours a day, five days a week, how many of those hours are being spent doing something worthwhile? And how much effort are your employees really putting into those hours? For example, if they spend three hours a day goofing off on social media, and another two aimlessly wading through email threads, you can't exactly say they're "productive."
  • Bottom-line production. Rather than evaluating based on hours spent not goofing off, you could also evaluate productivity in terms of actual results, or bottom-line production. Just like charging by the hour is often a mistake, evaluating employees by hours spent often is a mistake  as well. What really is usually bottom-line results. Depending on your roles and your industry, this could be measured in terms of number of sales made, number of logos designed, or number of bikes repaired. Freelancers, for example, often work more efficiently and productively when paid on a project-basis rather than an hourly basis. In some ways, this is the opposite of the preceding approach; instead of focusing on the number of hours spent or the amount of effort spent, it focuses on how much value an employee is bringing to the organization.

  • Employee efficiency. There's also a hybrid approach to productivity that focuses more on efficiency. Here, we can define efficiency as the amount of value created or number of tasks completed in a certain amount of time—or an employee's ability to achieve something for the least amount of invested time or effort. Maximizing productivity in this dimension is all about a higher per-hour return.

There isn't a single, right, concise answer here, but you should take the time to define what productivity means for you and your team. It can and should influence which tools you use to measure your team's productivity, and will dictate the strategies you use to improve it.

High-Level employee productivity evaluation tips

Before we move onto the strategies that can help you evaluate employee productivity, we need to cover some important high-level tips:

  • Consider both individual and team productivity. Focusing exclusively on individual productivity will blind you to the failings of the group, like inefficient processes or poor collaboration. Focusing exclusively on team productivity will blind you to the unique individual strengths and weaknesses that need to be exploited and mitigated, respectively. The only real solution is to measure both "team" and "individual" productivity, using both to improve different aspects of your organization.

  • Measure and report consistently. Assuming your end goal is to improve employee productivity, it's important to measure productivity and report on it consistently. Depending on the size of your organization and how much you care, weekly, bi-weekly, or monthly reports may be warranted. Regardless of timeframe, objective measurements will ensure that you're making an accurate analysis, and checking in regularly will help you see if all those productivity tips are actually making a difference.

  • Incorporate the cost of your investments. It's easy to get lost in new investments to improve your productivity, such as new devices, new apps and software, and even employee training. However, it's important that you don't lose sight of these costs. When experimenting with something new, consider its role in your budget, and try to translate its productivity improvements into a bottom-line ROI (return on investment).

  • Start with goals in mind. What are you really trying to achieve here? If you aren't focused, you may find it hard to make measurable progress. After taking an initial measurement, work up some goals for your team to target, such as improving daily ticket closures by 15 percent, or reducing "wasted time" (however you define it) by 10 percent within a month. Regardless of whether you succeed or fail, these goals will help motivate your team—and give you a concrete picture of whether your tactics are working.

How to monitor employee workload

With those high-level tips in mind, you can begin your foray into employee productivity analysis by keeping an eye on your employees' workloads. Determining how much your employees have to do, at any given point, can clue you into which team members are outperforming the others, and help you determine how those workloads can and should be rebalanced.

1. Monitor employee email activity. One of the best ways to get perspective on an employee's workload is by monitoring their email. More than ever, email plays a role in almost everything we do, from assigning tasks and clarifying scope to collaborating with the team. With an email monitoring system in place, you can see how busy each of your employees are, where they're struggling, and how they're wasting time (if, indeed, they're wasting it).

2. Use a project management system. You could also go a more conventional route and rely on a project management system to organize and track your employee workloads. Project management systems will allow you and your project managers to split all your high-level projects into digestible tasks and sub-tasks. Assuming those tasks bear somewhat equal weight, you'll be able to tell, at a glance, how the workload is split between your employees, and whether any individual isn't pulling their load.

3. Encourage self-reporting. As a general rule, employees are eager to prove how busy they are, or may go out of their way to seem like they're busier than they actually are. This is counterproductive for several reasons; pretending to be busier than you are prevents managers from assigning an appropriate number of additional tasks to you. It also gives you a skewed perspective on how productive your employees truly are. You can fight against this by making your employees feel comfortable about expressing a lack of available work, or a smaller workload than usual. Reward employees for voicing this perspective, and don't treat it as something to be ashamed of.

4. Perfect your system of task distribution. Productivity is much easier to measure when you have a system that splits action items or responsibilities into relatively equal groups. As a simple example, restaurants frequently assign tables to servers on a rotating basis, adding new tables to servers one at a time so no one server is ever over- or underworked. You could do the same with assigning prospects, tickets, or other tasks related to your employee roles. That way, you'll intrinsically know that all employees in a given group will have a nearly equal workload at any point in time.  

Tracking employee performance

Okay, so your employees might have workloads that are perfectly balanced. But how can you tell how quickly they're getting the work done, or whether they're using their time at work effectively?

This becomes a measure of employee performance, and some of the strategies in the preceding section can also apply to this system of measurement. However, these strategies may be more appropriate, and can stand on their own or as a complement to your workload management:

5. Implement a time tracking system. Time tracking tools are designed to keep tabs on how your employees are spending their working hours. Assuming your employees are using the system as intended (i.e., using timers instead of manual entries and being honest about their reports), it's a great way to determine which of your tasks and projects are the biggest time hogs and where your employees might be falling short.

6. Chart task completion. If you're using a project management or task assignment system already, it should be easy to measure how many tasks your employees are actually completing, and when they're completing them. For example, if you notice an employee closes 25 tickets during morning hours, on average, but only 10 in the afternoon hours, it could be a sign of a massive drop in energy and motivation after lunch. Of course, this system could potentially be fooled, but it should serve as a useful indicator—especially if you use it in combination with time tracking.

7. Quantify your productive work. If you're looking for a bigger-picture perspective on how your employees are working, you could find a way to quantify productive work beyond just tasks, projects, or hours spent. This will work for some professions and some industries far better than others. For example, you may evaluate your employees in terms of how many calls they take, how many words they write, how many lines of code they produce, or how many sales they close. The biggest weakness with this strategy is that it runs the risk of encouraging your employees to focus on quantity instead of quality.

8. Use digital activity monitoring software. Many of the options on this list involve monitoring your employees' activities, but installed computer monitoring software can take things to the next level, avoiding potential problems like self-reporting bias entirely by determining what your employees are doing at any given moment. Depending on the service you use, you can see which sites your employees are visiting, which apps they're using, and generally whether they're being "productive" at any given point during the day. ActivTrak is one such example here.

9. Call for daily check-ins. If you trust your employees to report their performance accurately, establish a system that calls for them to submit a daily report of what they've done. You can set this up simply by asking for a concise email from each of your team members with a short bulleted list of what projects they've finished, what tasks they've done, and what, if anything, stopped them from doing their best work. There are also apps that can help you automate and manage this system, like iDoneThis.

10. Trust and empower your managers. If you're looking for a more hands-off approach, you can empower your managers and supervisors to track productivity however they see fit. For some, that might mean installing monitoring software and generating automatic reports. For others, it might just mean sitting back and observing how employees are working in the office. As long as there's some objective method to establish a baseline of performance and measure how it improves, there isn't really a "wrong" approach.

Employee productivity improvement

Having the data on employee productivity is valuable, but you have to make those data actionable if you're going to make an improvement to employee productivity.

Improving employee productivity is a complex topic that far exceeds the introduction of mere measurement. Here are a few tips on how to act on the data you've managed to gather.

  • Employee productivity questions. Most of the advice in this article encourages you to observe and measure employee productivity from your own perspective, but don't forget that your employees' perspectives matter too—in fact, they may be even more inclined to know how productive they're being and why. Ask them if there's anything in your environment or workplace policies, or even their environment (particularly if they're working from home) that is preventing them from doing their best, and ask what they think could help improve their performance.

  • Employee happiness vs. productivity. Satisfied and happy employees are almost always more productive. However, there's a distinct difference between these concepts, so you can't treat them synonymously; measuring both employee morale and employee productivity will help you make improvements in both complementary areas.

  • Identifying distractions. One of the biggest challenges to overcome when improving productivity is finding (and eliminating) distractions. Distractions like amusing websites, social media, phone notifications, excessive office conversation, and annoying noise can negatively impact employee focus and pull them away from work that matters. Use your productivity data to determine if there is a root cause for your team's distractions.

  • Investing in new tools. In many cases, employee potential is capped by the devices and tools they use one a regular basis. Upgrading computers, providing them with more efficient software, and teaching them how to maintain their equipment properly can all help them become more productive.

  • Investing in employee education and training. If productivity is a factor of the value your employees bring to your organization, you can objectively increase that value by providing them with more education and training. Employees with more skills, more experience, and more education will be able to perform better and cover a wider range of skills.

  • Experimentation. It's hard to tell what factors will or won't impact your employees' productivity, and even the best, most experienced managers can't come up with all-consuming solutions that work for literally everybody. The only way forward is to experiment, trying many different strategies and approaches and using your objective measurements to see what works and what doesn't.

Measuring employee productivity in the workplace is crucial, because what gets measured gets managed. Especially in current times, monitoring and maximizing productivity is more important than ever.

5 Tips for Delivering a Remote Sales Demo That Converts

Posted: 13 May 2020 11:11 AM PDT

Sales demos are your big chance to finally reel in your fish. You've invested a lot of time to get here – nurtured the relationship, researched the company, spoken to your leads and now you're approaching demo time.

It's your opportunity to show off all of your digital product's bells and whistles, and close the sale. But to do so, you'll need to create an environment that allows you to showcase exactly how your sales prospect is likely to use your product, as this is what will allow them to gain a powerful sense of the value that you have to offer.

In this sense, today's sales demos can reach a new high in terms of customized experiences, thanks to virtual labs. A combination of cloud-based virtual machines and environments that can be accessed anywhere, virtual labs are extremely versatile. Businesses have been using them for training and testing for a while, but now virtual labs are expanding the potential of sales demos since they cost a lot less in terms of hardware and travel. And in the age of social distancing due to COVID-19 fears, remote sales demos are a must.

Remote sales demos effectively speed up sales cycles while improving your ability to capture insights and follow up on a lead's demo experience. And video conferencing demos are pivotal for driving sales, with webinar platform ClickMeeting reporting that 66% of B2B buyers watch product presentations before making purchase decisions.

Even with cutting-edge demo solutions, not every sales demo ends in success. But you can definitely increase your demos' conversion rates, simply by following the tips below.

Be hyper-relevant.

In 2020, successful marketing is personalized marketing, so your demo should never be generic or vague. By this point, you should already know plenty about your lead (if you don't, well, then that means it's too early for a sales demo, so go back and do some more homework), giving you the data you need to customize your demo around their specific pain points and use case.

Make it as tailored as possible, including details like

  • What makes your product suitable for a small/large team
  • Why it's ideally suited for businesses in their vertical
  • Other products your lead already uses which integrate with your solution
  • The specific ways in which it is better than other solutions that you know they have already tried

If possible, use real data in your demos instead of just plugging placeholder values into the data fields.

Although you'll be tempted to show off every trick your solution can perform, rein yourself in to only reference those features that are most relevant to the lead. Information overload is real; if you overwhelm decision-makers, they are liable to short-circuit and choose your simpler competitor instead.

Be customer-centric.

You know this already, but it bears repeating: Keep your demo customer-centric, not product-centric. You'll highlight the same features and capabilities in your solution, but frame how you talk about those features to show how they address the specific pain points that this lead is contending with.

This means using language that puts the lead at the center of the narrative, encouraging them to ask questions, and doing all you can to make your demo an interactive dialogue rather than a one-way monologue. Recent research has found that top sales reps make sure to create an engaging moment at least once every 8 minutes, placing the focus on the customer to draw them into the demo experience, rather than pitching "at" the lead.

In the same vein, it's important to relate to all of the stakeholders present, not just the VP or CEO. The "buyer's committee" model means that every one of them is likely to be proactively involved in the purchase decision.

Be engaging.

There's never an excuse for boring, not even in a B2B sales demo. Make your demo engaging by using compelling storytelling. Share use cases that are similar to those that affect your lead, and illustrate features with examples of users in a similar role.

In 2020, your demo shouldn't be just a PowerPoint presentation of bullets on slides. Using tech-like, screen-shared virtual labs and digital whiteboards allow you to share ROI calculations, and walk your lead through the process of using your product. You should also avoid monotonous delivery by changing up the speed and pitch at which you speak throughout, and remember to ask plenty of questions.

The demo should be interactive, compelling, and as close to real as possible so that your prospects can truly get a taste of the value they'll gain once they start using your solution.

Be prepared, organized and structured.

Many sales reps have fallen into the trap of assuming they can "wing it" for a great demo. Don't join them. Rehearse your demo many times so that you can cover all the content confidently, without sounding like a robot. Structure it so that you share the good stuff early on, to grab leads' attention and avoid boring everyone while they wait for you to get to the point. If there are specific features that you want to share, preload them in a separate tab so that everything is ready and you don't face an awkward wait for something to buffer.

It's just as important to start and end on time. There's no single "ideal length" for a sales demo; it should be long enough for you to cover all the relevant points and allow time for questions but not so long that everyone will get bored. What matters is that you stick to the time frame you've provided.

It's equally important to test all your features in advance. A demo that goes wrong can be worse than no demo at all, because it creates the impression that your company is inefficient and unreliable. However, when something goes wrong, don't let it throw you off.

Be in touch.

Finally, your sales demo is only as good as your follow-up. You're doing all this to close a sale, so make sure to end the pitch with a strong call to action that clarifies the next step, whether that's sending a pitch deck to other members of the organization or getting user numbers so you can send a final price.

Whatever your closing CTA, remember to follow up on the demo within 24 hours, ideally by sending a thoughtful email to ask what they thought about your solution.

Don't be pushy, but do stay in contact. Some 80% of sales require between five and 12 rounds of correspondence, according to sales engagement platform Xant. Just make sure that when you follow up, you have something new to say – share a valuable piece of content or simply refer to something totally unrelated to your product, like a favorite movie or sports team that came up in small talk with your prospect during the demo. You don't have to always talk about your product to stay top of mind.

Potent sales demos don't arise in a vacuum.

The final takeaway is that you can't make a good, effective sales demo without hard work. You need to invest your efforts in advance to research the lead and the organization, as well as spending time making sure that your demo is hyper-relevant, engaging, customer-focused, well-organized, and ends in a clear CTA. With this preparation, you'll be setting yourself up for sales demo success.

Minimalism in Business: Why It Works for Me and How to Implement It in Your Organization

Posted: 13 May 2020 10:54 AM PDT

When we imagine the business world at large, we tend to think of the hustle and bustle of the daily grind: crowded work commutes, quick breakfasts of coffee and pastries, messy desks piled with documents and notes, and last-minute scrambles for materials needed in important presentations. It is a vision more synonymous with stress than productivity. But what if the vision could be different – a calmer, more effective take on business?

As an entrepreneur who prioritizes efficiency, my business vision is one rooted in minimalism. My minimalism journey began in 2009 while prepping my family for an international move. I discovered that working with my family to free us of physical possessions before moving abroad was not only a practical, money-saving strategy but also one part of a lifestyle change I could integrate into my business practices as well.

Minimalist principles have helped me modernize and streamline my virtual business, and they can do the same for your organization.

This article will define minimalism and its benefits, outline three core minimalist principles to incorporate into your business model, discuss seven ways to practice minimalism as a business owner, and provide a six-step action plan to help you begin your minimalism transition within your business.

Minimalism defined

"Reduce the complexity of life by eliminating the needless wants of life, and the labors of life reduce themselves."  – Edwin Way Teale

Especially as it relates to business, minimalism is about more than simply decluttering tangible items from your space. It is a process centered on conscious, deliberate choices, self-assessment, and the elimination of distractions. The result means we focus only on what we need and truly value, leading to business benefits like the following:

  • Greater resourcefulness and creativity
  • Improved clarity and confidence in decision making
  • Reduced stress throughout the business hierarchy
  • Lowered operating costs
  • Fewer interruptions impeding goals
  • Better time management
  • Enhanced workflows and task prioritization

 

With minimalism and its benefits defined, it is time to evaluate your curiosity about minimalism and the objectives you have for its application within your organization. As you learn more about minimalism and how its principles can advance your business, consider these questions:

  • What do you love about your business?
  • Which parts of your business arouse negative thoughts or energy?
  • What motivated you to explore minimalism as a business philosophy?
  • What do you hope to achieve by using minimalist ideas in your business?
  • Are your goals realistic or are they daydreams that cannot ultimately apply to your business model?

3 core minimalist principles for businesses

"Truth is ever to be found in simplicity, and not in the multiplicity and confusion of things."  – Isaac Newton

Adopting new business ideas can feel burdensome, particularly if the concepts are unfamiliar. Fortunately, minimalism should be included progressively into your business model. A gradual introduction of minimalist business practices will do more to ensure the long-term application and success of your ideals, which should include the following core minimalist principles for improving your organization's functionality, efficiency, and productivity.

1. Mindfulness

Mindfulness is awareness. Within your business, mindfulness is evident by having an umbrella understanding of all organization divisions; implementing reporting processes that funnel high-level division and department news up to you; thinking of failures as opportunities to learn, grow, and improve; accepting and acting on feedback from customers and employees; being present in the face of both achievements and challenges; and responding to those tests with maturity and forward thinking.

2. Intention

Intention is purpose. Businesses that operate with intention embody the company's mission at all levels. Business owners must understand how this mission affects their products and services, staff, customers, economy, local communities and broader professional networks. Through intention as a minimalist principle, the goal is to remove obstacles and disruptions so that the business's purpose never becomes diluted and is always at the heart of every action.

3. Freedom

Freedom is flexibility. With minimalist emphasis on value and need, rather than superficiality and accumulation, businesses gain greater financial independence. Reduced debt and overhead costs leave more money available for improving products and services, in addition to providing perks and benefits to staff. Business freedom through minimalism can also translate to flexibility with scheduling, time and work locations.

7 Ways to Practice Minimalism as a Business Owner

"In order to seek one's own direction, one must simplify the mechanics of ordinary, everyday life."  – Plato

The core principles of mindfulness, intention and freedom are meant to facilitate an individualized relationship with minimalism. This is also true for how you choose to integrate minimalist strategies within your business, in that no business owner's experience will be like another's. But where to begin?

When designing minimalist strategies for your business, start with these seven practices that can be tailored to suit your business.  

1. Use a remote business model.

I am proud to be the CEO and co-founder of a 100% virtual business. While a fully online business structure will not work for every company, most businesses can embrace at least some telecommuting elements like flex time and hybrid remote work policies that allow qualifying staff to work from home at least a couple of days per week. Remote-enabled businesses save money on physical office space, recruiting and equipment. In addition, remote workers spend less on traditional onsite work expenditures like clothing, takeout food orders and transportation.

2. Evaluate what you have to get done, and do that.

If you are a business owner easily overwhelmed by to-do lists, applying minimalist theories to your business goal-setting strategies allows you to focus your mental energies and valuable time on only the most important responsibilities. This type of evaluation means taking a realistic survey of immediate needs and completing those items before moving on to other to-dos that are not as pressing. As you prioritize urgent items, you may even discover that additional tasks are entirely unnecessary.

3. Simplify and automate processes.

Respective of your industry and business structure, minimalist business owners should simplify or automate as many regular processes as possible. These are examples of areas within your business that could be reviewed for streamlining and reduced human involvement:

  • Payments for monthly bills, rentals, and/or software subscriptions
  • SMS notifications for project updates
  • Help desk tickets
  • Data report generation
  • Management reporting
  • Order entry or frequent customer support questions
  • Scheduling or event reminders
  • Applicant screening
  • Invoice processing
  • Sales and/or CRM processes
  • New hire or client onboarding
  • Customer satisfaction surveys and/or reviews
  • Email lists

 

4. Utilize productivity and collaboration tools.

To assist in simplifying and automating frequent procedures like those above, rely on technology. It may be cliche, but we are privileged to live and work in the "there's an app for that" age. Software programs and applications can aid business owners in streamlining processes for sales, accountability, hiring, customer service, email marketing, social media, and more.

5. Focus on results.

Quality over quantity should be the objective. Your business can be more productive if you prioritize the outcome of a task or project rather than the time it takes to achieve the goal. Figure out the metrics that work for your business, and measure your company's success against those criteria rather than another business's standards, which may not work for you. This practice combines all the core principles essential to minimalism in business: mindfulness, intention, and freedom.

6. Hire experts.

Hiring the right people for the right jobs is essential to not only practicing minimalism as a business owner but also helping your business be successful. When you enlist the right staff the first time, you reduce redundancy and save time and money associated with revolving-door recruiting. This also gives you the freedom to delegate tasks when appropriate. When you trust your staff to shoulder responsibilities appropriate to their job descriptions, you have the freedom to abandon the work-obsessed mindset fueled by daily grind culture.

7. Recognize that you are separate from your business.

Making sound hiring decisions and appointing responsibilities to your staff are both essential steps toward the seventh way to practice minimalism as a business owner. Although the nature of entrepreneurship means work-life integration is unavoidable at times, it is essential to separate yourself, the individual, from your business, which is an entity. This is especially important if your business is incorporated or licensed with your name or face as part of the branding. Your business is part of you, but you are not your business. It is important for business owners to protect their time, mental health, and identity by honoring this minimalist component to business ownership.

6-Step minimalism action plan for business owners

"Minimalism is the pursuit of the essence of things, not the appearance." – Claudio Silvestrin

If the philosophies and tenets of minimalism outlined in this article appeal to you as a business owner, then you should act. This six-step minimalism action plan will aid your journey of operating a lean and cohesive company.

  • Step 1: Declutter and simplify your personal workspace. This will help put you in a minimalist mindset and inspire additional positive steps. If you work onsite, this step sets an example for the rest of your staff. If you work remotely, share a photo of your updated work area with your distributed team. As the business owner, you must embody the changes you want to witness in others and within your organization.
  • Step 2: Now that you are in a minimalist space and mindset, determine the key goals for your new minimalism plan. Answering the five questions in the "minimalism defined" section of this article will assist you in deciding your aims.
  • Step 3: Set rules for your minimalism business strategies. Your rules should be based on the three core minimalist principles for businesses discussed above: mindfulness, intention and freedom. They should also incorporate the seven suggested methods for practicing minimalism in your business, as applicable within your industry and business structure.
  • Step 4: Establish a timeline for the phased implementation of the minimalism rules for your business. Break out your timeline to personal goals that you have for your business, long-term changes you want to make to your organization and minimalist strategies you also expect your staff to follow.
  • Step 5: On your calendar, set reminders for periodic check-ins on your timeline and implementation of your minimalism plan. Your check-ins should include self-reflection, an evaluation of elements that are working and how others can be improved, as well as constructive feedback from your staff. Remember, minimalism is a process, not an exact science. It is organic, and should adjust to meet your changing needs and those of your business.
  • Step 6: Continue learning and growing. In addition to gaining insights from the experiences and feedback of the staff working within your minimalist business, it is important to further your own understanding of minimalism and how it relates to your organization. I encourage you to explore the writings and teachings of minimalist thinkers, network with other business leaders and entrepreneurs of a similar mindset, and document your minimalist growth journey in a personal diary or even a business blog to help other business owners along their paths.

Final thoughts

Minimalism is not a cure-all to remedy business woes. It will not act as an antidote if there are serious internal issues within your organization. What minimalism can do, however, is provide a source of simplicity, intelligibility and uniqueness to your business that will translate to tangible improvements in your company's finances, culture and endurance.

Through the mindfulness, intention and freedom of minimalism, you will set your business on course to be the best version of the vision you have for it and, in turn, make your own entrepreneurial journey more meaningful and rewarding.

Increase Organic Site Traffic by 10,000 Site Visitors in 30 Days With These 4 SEO Strategies

Posted: 13 May 2020 06:21 AM PDT

For e-commerce entrepreneurs and marketers alike, generating quality organic site traffic through content marketing, guest posting and social sharing is one of the most important search engine optimization (SEO) activities a marketer can undertake. If done right, generating quality organic traffic can be more impactful, and less costly, than procuring paid traffic because according to Search Engine Journal, a staggering 70% of links online searchers click on, come from organic content such as blog posts, images, infographics and videos. People trust ranked organic content over paid content when delivered on search engines. High-quality SEO tactics like content marketing can help e-commerce entrepreneurs and marketers reach more qualified buyers (and leads) at a fraction of paid SEM costs. 

Paid traffic can be extremely effective in reaching potential customers and at times even more effective than nonpaid SEO traffic. On the flip side, it can be costly and very risky. For budget-strapped, novice SEO marketers and e-commerce entrepreneurs looking for the highest return on SEO, organic may be the best option to consider.

Setting goals

If you're an e-commerce marketer just getting started, establishing a monthly threshold of 1,000 site visitors a day, or 10,000 site visitors a day, can seem like a far fetched reality. The good news is people ARE online, every day, and in North America alone, well over 350 million people were on the web at the end of 2019. 

Here's the thing. Reaching a benchmark of 10,000 site visitors is indeed doable and anyone can do it. Most people fail at reaching these monthly site traffic goals because they fail to establish and follow a road map of consistent SEM activity. They also fail because they have no road map. Without a roadmap, they lose hope and spiral into a space of inaction, settling into a pool of fear that they can't take the numbers to the next level. 

If you break down 10,000 site visitors a month on a website, it equates to a bit over 300 (333 to be exact) consistent site visitors a day visiting a website. These numbers don't seem too overwhelming, do they? When breaking it down, it seems doable. 

Taking your website from zero to 10,000 visitors a month is a journey. It requires a roadmap, focus, and commitment, and we're here to provide a roadmap for you, an e-commerce marketer, to increase your website traffic to 10,000 visitors a month. Here are some time-tested-tactics e-commerce marketers and entrepreneurs are using to generate high quality, organic site traffic to an e-commerce website: 

1. Build keyword variable collection pages

E-commerce websites are websites that sell stuff. Collections are curated product pages of sales items. If you've ever visited an e-commerce site before (i.e., Amazon.com), one of the first things you might do is search for a particular item using relevant keywords. The search results may bring you to a page of items with a similar makeup, description and pricing. The items shown on this page are likely a collection of items related to the keywords you searched. Another option for identifying items you're looking for on an e-commerce site is to navigate to a menu link, where you'll then be directed to a dropdown menu of curated product items. These can be defined as collection pages.  

Please note: Collection pages are specific to e-commerce websites because collection pages don't necessarily exist on blog sites or content sites

For example, if you have a website that sells t-shirts, a collection page that you might want to consider creating is "men's T-shirts" or "women's T-shirts." One rationale for considering these additional keywords is that these are keywords that closely related to the quality of a search engine results page or SERP. Another rationale for building collection pages around the keywords above is that these meta keywords often show up when conducting keyword research using tools like SEMRush or Aherps. 

Creating collection pages is advantageous for increasing search engine optimization because when you build pages, specifically with Shopify websites, keyword density increases when the products on the collection page are populated. Additional SEO value is created with collection page building, because when building more variable pages, you build targeted keyword phrases that ultimately increases the organic keywords that are embedded on your site. 

2. Focus social media content development on people

People love seeing people. We're social animals! In the vain of creating, developing, and promoting content on your social media platforms, focus on promoting content that includes people at the center focus of the content. 

People-focused content

The people-loving, social animal in all of us also loves cat videos. Don't you? 

We love them because they endear us with a unique sense of warmth, they also entertain us with the same sense of endearment. Cat videos are awesome and the cutest ones that touch us the most, often go viral. Pictures of baby blue oceans and picturesque hotel brochures also capture our attention pretty markedly. 

But there's nothing more qualified, as far as online content, to get a human's attention, and take action, than baby pictures, beautiful smiles and Beyonce! Yes, Beyonce.

When you're developing and planning content, especially graphic and video content, focus your content creation on people, and you'll increase your engagement among your followers accordingly. If you sell T-shirts on your website, post more pictures of people in T-shirts rather than pictures or videos of just the product. If you sell a service on your website, include people using your service, if possible, in your video or graphic promotional content.

People engage with social content by clicking to a destination, sharing content to a social platform or opting in with an email. These engagement actions ultimately increase your site's overall reach and add to the number of website visitors your website tracks over time.

3. Seek out guest posts on highly leveraged websites

Guest posts are content pieces typically written or developed by a third party. For example, I am a guest contributor for business.com. This piece of content you're reading right now is a guest post. 

One of the hopes I have as a guest contributor to business.com is for you to read and find some value in the content I'm creating. This content sources key data to back up SEO claims that are made. In doing so, this guest post also refers traffic back to other websites with well-placed hyperlinks, better known in the SEO worlds as backlinks. Backlinks have also been proven to help increase SERP ranking as well. Essentially, the rationale underscores the fact that the more referral backlinks a site has, the more it signals to Google that the site has a certain level of authority, therefore demonstrating a unique level of 'digital, artificially intelligent' trust.

Guest posts add value to the contributor, like myself, and to the platform for many reasons. 

For the contributor and e-commerce marketer, like myself, it's an opportunity to develop and promote content on a different platform that reaches different audiences. Assuming website visitors engage with the content, I can expect an increase of website visits to my web properties through social shares and backlink clicks. 

For the platform, guest contributing provides audiences with a new voice, fresh ideas and an added perspective to the overall focus of content that already exists on the website. Assuming a guest contributor like myself has a unique, separate social following different from the platform, any sort of traffic I can bring to the website adds value on their end. 
  

4. Promote an audience-relevant giveaway 

People love free stuff. It's in our human nature.

Close your eyes and think for second about Oprah's memorable giveaways on her famous daytime television show, "The Oprah Winfrey Show."

Remember how excited audience members were when they heard Oprah scream, "You get a free car, you get a free car, you get a free car"'?

Wouldn't you want a free car? Wouldn't you get excited?

Free giveaways can translate to increased website traffic if done right. One great way to boost website traffic with a free giveaway is to attach the giveaway to a website related action, such as paying for the shipping cost of the free item. 

For example, I once won a free book that I discovered from a social post. The post communicated that I was the recipient of a limited number of books available for free, if the recipient claimed the prize and offered to pay a nominal shipping and handling fee for the book. I paid $9.95 for the book, which I thought was a reasonable price. 

The upside for the seller: They converted me as a site visitor from the social post and as a customer for the book. When I paid for shipping, they got my customer details, such as name, email, and phone number to later remarket and upsell other items to me.  

The giveaway strategy has worked for all. From the novice e-commerce marketer to the most sophisticated brand marketers of all time. You can find success with giveaways as well.

Figure out a relevant giveaway item (i.e., a free T-shirt, a free seven-day service subscription) that appeals most to your target audience, and offer it in a way that is seamless and doesn't require too much thinking or doing.

Bottom line

Finding SEO success takes time, focus and commitment. The short and costlier, riskier way to achieve your website traffic goals is to pay for it via digital advertising. This will undoubtedly balloon any novice e-commerce marketer's budget to the brim. The longer and more sustainable way for generating 10,000 website visitors a month is to do it organically, through the tactics mentioned above. 

Follow the road map, and you'll be building a stronger foundation for your e-commerce website and equip yourself for long term success.

SPONSORED: How to Support a Remote Workforce Effectively

Posted: 13 May 2020 01:00 AM PDT

A decade ago, the idea of a remote workforce seemed impossible. With today's technology, though, it has never been easier for people to work remotely and for employers to offer flexibility to their employees.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, many businesses pivoted to a primarily remote workforce to continue operating without risking workplace exposure to the novel coronavirus. This emergency measure served as proof positive that remote work is an effective and realistic method of doing business, and many businesses could end up maintaining remote arrangements with many employees.  

Research shows that remote workers are typically more productive and healthier. Moreover, remote work reduces business expenses associated with office rentals. The key challenge of implementing and managing a remote workforce, then, becomes staying in regular communication with remote employees and establishing transparency and accountability. Luckily, an effective video conferencing solution can give any employer the tools they need to ensure remote workers remain productive on company time.

How to implement a remote workforce

Whether you are hoping to have a fully remote team or allow employees to work remotely as needed, here are some tips for implementing a remote workforce.

Get staff and management on board.

While it might seem like every employee would be excited about working from home, sometimes that's not the case. The first step to implementing a remote workforce is getting everyone on board.

Send out surveys and ask employees who would want to work from home what their biggest concerns are and the type of technology they need for their home offices. Once you have the results of the surveys, hold town halls and other meetings to address concerns, roll out a plan and make sure every team member feels heard.

Also, hold meetings and explain the benefits of remote work, such as saving money and time, increased productivity and the opportunity to attract top talent.

Find the right tools and software.

Once you hear your team's concerns and input, determine the tools they need to be successful and to create a physical workspace in their homes. Equip each employee with a powerful laptop, a monitor and any other tools they might need to effectively do their jobs.

The next step is to consider what technology and software your team needs to communicate. Instant messaging tools, video conferencing and project management tools are a must.

Check out tools like Vast Conference, which includes unlimited conference calling, video meetings that can be joined with just one click and scheduling integrations with major calendar tools like Microsoft Outlook or Google Calendar. Vast also offers screen-sharing features, which are ideal for presentations that include geographically dispersed teams. Meeting hosts can also assign presentation capabilities to other attendees if a presentation requires more than one speaker.

Whatever tools you choose, be sure they have all the features you need to emulate an in-person office environment. Further, any software you use to accommodate remote workers should be easy to use and understand; the fewer issues a remote employee needs to troubleshoot, the better.

Establish a timeline, rules and core hours.

You shouldn't roll out a remote workforce overnight; it takes time and coordination. Create a timeline. Have employees work from home part time, and slowly increase the number of work-from-home days. With each step, consider what worked, what didn't, and how to pivot based on feedback from employees and managers.

Along with having reliable communication solutions, employees need to know when and how to connect with one another. When you're implementing a remote workforce, it's critical to establish core hours so that all team members are online and available. It's also important to train each employee on the tools and software your team uses.

Design a virtual workspace.

According to a 2019 study on remote work performed by Buffer, remote workers report that loneliness is one of the biggest challenges of working from home. To combat loneliness among your remote employees, create a virtual workspace were employees can openly communicate with each other and their managers.

This should be a consideration when you're researching software and technology. One way to implement a virtual workspace is holding frequent video conferences or conference calls that build team trust and friendships. Technologies such as instant messaging or video conferencing help create camaraderie and imitate water-cooler conversations.

Vast Conference, for example, offers a chat tool within video conferences that is useful for private messaging individual users or sending files to the group or individuals.

How to manage a remote workforce

Implementing a remote workforce is only half the battle. Managing a remote team comes with a set of unique challenges, such as communication and tracking productivity. Here's how to effectively manage a deskless workforce.

Communicate often.

It's a manager's job to keep their employees in the know. When you're working in the same building, it's easy to communicate face to face. Communication is still key when you're miles apart.

For many remote workers, unplugging after work and communication are some of the biggest struggles of working from home. Managers should have regular scheduled check-ins with remote employees. Whether that is messaging employees when they clock in and out or having a daily online meeting, it's critical that remote workers feel like they're part of the team.

Moreover, it is critical that managers establish a company culture that encourages taking time away from work. Many workers will go above and beyond when they have around-the-clock access to their workstation in their home. While this might seem like a benefit at first, it is a sure way for your hardest-working employees to develop burnout, which ultimately hampers productivity. Be sure your employees are taking time to focus on themselves and their personal lives instead of logging on to work at all hours of the day.

Track productivity.

It's necessary to have ways of tracking productivity. Most remote workers are motivated self-starters who are hoping to prove themselves. However, some people may take advantage of the freedom.

You should track a remote worker's productivity the same way you would with in-office employees. Establish goals or metrics that the workers should hit. Whether remote or in-office, today's managers should judge work performances based on output rather than how long they stay at their desks or seem busy.

Bottom line

While communicating with your team often and tracking productivity are components of a successful remote workforce, it all comes down to trust. If you don't trust your employees (or they don't trust you), it's almost impossible to have an effective team.

In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, many businesses that never considered remote work arrangements before are now well versed in how to manage a remote workforce. As those arrangements, in many cases, continue into the future, it is essential businesses put the right tools in place to keep up with the unique demands of a remote workforce.

With the right technology, employees can reach each other and their managers at any time. In addition to holding remote meetings, conducting frequent check-ins, and asking employees to ensure their workday abides by your company's core hours, consider scheduling work retreats once a year where all employees can meet in person. In-person meetings once a quarter also help establish camaraderie and trust.

While implementing and managing a remote workforce is the responsible choice to protect the health and well-being of both your employees and the general public, there are many benefits of operating on a remote-first model. With the right tools in place, your team will be able to remain productive and nimble wherever they might be.
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