The Salesby5 Blog

Yesterday, Laura Lorek from the San Antonio Express News (@mysa) wrote Recession Spurs Startups, an excellent article about us and a few other local companies, such as IncSpring, Blellow, Pear Analytics and Third Party Code doing cool work in San Antonio.  We’ll let you in on a little secret – reporters want to know you and write about you as badly as you want them.  Here’s how we did it.  We do things a bit differently by working to dramatically increase sales backed by data, not by pretty ads or slick marketing pieces (not that we won’t use these tactics in the overall plan).  As Woody Allen says 80 percent of success is just showing up, so we did just that.  If you’ll notice, many of the companies at the tweetup are also in the article.  In case you don’t know, a tweetup is a twitter meet-up, where people on twitter meet face to face.  Here’s the abbreviated lesson of how to get media coverage:

1. Do remarkable work.
2. Get on twitter and develop relationships with the media, genuinely, by providing them real value
3. Go to or start a tweetup in your town and invite your media friends
4. At the tweetup, talk to your media person and introduce them to all your business friends that are doing interesting work. “You need to meet Ryan, he’s doing really cool work for…, he’d be a great person to know for a write-up.”  Your job is to make your media person’s life easy. Give them substance, something cool.

If you have questions on how to do any of this or how to talk to your media friends, drop us a line.  They’re human just like (most of) the rest of us.

CSO Insights recently conducted surveys of more than 2,000 sales and marketing professionals.  Get this: 85% of company marketers felt they were doing a good job generating quality sales leads. By contrast, only 50% of the sales professionals in those same organization were satisfied with the efforts from Marketing. The result of the disparity is fewer closed deals and less revenue.

In Good to Great, Jim Collins talks about the difference between Wells Fargo and Bank of America.  Wells Fargo consistently grew leaders.  They grew true leaders that would debate issues and ideas.  These leaders moved on to be C-Level Executives in other companies and countries.  Bank of America didn’t follow this pattern and later was internally called Wells of America, due to their hiring of all the execs from Wells Fargo.

John Maxwell’s 21st law of his 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership states that if you want growth, lead followers. If you want to multiply your growth, lead leaders.  Invest time in leaders’ growth because they, in turn, lead others.

Are you developing a culture to lead leaders or are you only running the show yourself with a bunch of people below you completing the tasks?  If you’re trying to leave a lasting legacy, do you feel that this is the right strategy?

“Great sales people wake up and say, God bless the competition ’cause I am going to kick their ass.”

How many companies really use technology to save money or make money or build teams? Salesby5 has a very high standard for hiring, mostly based on individual strengths and capabilities. We look for people who believe in our core values and can represent our brand extremely well. After interviewing here, I (Sarah) felt honored to be chosen. I believe that every member of our team feels proud to be a part of such a special group.

About two months ago, some things in my life changed, and I decided to move away from San Antonio. Rather than fearing for my job, I went straight to Erik and told him about my situation. We chose to put our state of the art technology to the test! With the use of our BlackBerry devices, Dell laptops equipped with shared calendars and contacts by Microsoft Outlook, google talk, a Sprint Air Card during the move, and Foonz conference call service, I have managed to stay an important part of the team. What we do and how well we do it have not changed. Among other responsibilities, Erik and Nan rely on me for all of their scheduling from nearly 1,000 miles away. Great technology is one thing that our team could not afford to sacrifice. This is the future of the work environment. Are you investing in great technology? And if so, are you using it to better your team?

Sales, marketing, and running a company today can all be summed up by one statement: This is the new normal.

Everything has changed. How quickly you can adjust will determine your success or failure. We are constantly running into companies that are doing the same things over and over and expecting a different outcome. It’s time to stop hoping that the economy is temporary and realize that we need to make adjustments.

Jim Collins: How great companies turn crisis into opportunity.

People love it when you do what you say you’ll do.  Even when it isn’t the answer they’re looking for, they’ll respect your consistency.  Integrity means you’ll go the extra mile to do what you’ve agreed upon.  People can often anticipate your responses due to your track record.  Trust increases and teams work better.  Think about the people in your life with true, deep integrity.  What are you willing to do for them?  What will they do for you?  If you’re not living a life of true integrity, start today.  Yeah, it’ll take time.  Like anything else, you’ll build it daily and others will ask you how you got to where you are.  You’ll notice that over time, you’ll become a leader due to this.

I (Erik) had a talk with my 8 year old daughter tonight after she remarked at dinner that she wanted to one day have a go-cart and live in a hotel with room service so she could eat whatever she wanted whenever she wanted, but knew she could never have that. (Yes, we feed her!) I told her she could have both, and she proceeded to argue that no, she could not. So, then I told her she was right. Whether you think you can or you can’t, you are right. I told her that I would never climb to the top of Mount Everest because I have no desire, nor would I become an athletic star, as I have no desire for that. I explained that I have a love for helping companies grow, developing new opportunities for growth and increasing sales, and I am great at it. Desire is powerful! Thinking how, rather than if, can put us in a position of yes, rather than no.

I ask this of you, and of myself: If you want a million dollars or a new car, think how you can get it, not if!

How leads you to stimulus, creative ideas, innovation, DESIRE!

Recently we had a meeting with Alan Weinkrantz, Ryan Kelly and Steve Patti.  During our discussion, we were talking about how important it is for companies to live their brand on the inside of the organization before taking it to the public.  This ensures that everyone is on the same page as far as what’s being sold, what’s been promised and what the experience should feel like.  Steve put it into his words by saying that the gap the customer feels between the brand promise (what the customer expects) and the experience (what the customer actually receives) is what ends up affecting the perception of the brand.  The closer the brand promise and the brand experience are to one other, the better the client feels about having done business with the company and the more likely they are to return.  Conversely, the further the gap, the more damage is done to the brand.

Consider if you went to Wal-Mart (low prices) and you purchased an item, then later found that Target actually had lower prices.  What if you were to go to a Ritz-Carlton Hotel and not experience remarkable, world class service?  These experiences would clearly cause a disconnect between the brand promise and brand experience.

Have you had a similar experience or the complete opposite experience, where you expected less and got more?  Share with us in the comments.

photo by dustin

One of our clients is TMI-The Episcopal School of Texas. We were recently presented with an opportunity to answer a common question that parents, faculty, staff and students have asked. Why would a parent put their high school child in an on-campus program? We started interviewing the students, and it was their answers that SOLD me! The campaign launches today all over campus, and will include the elements in the pictures below along with stickers, banners and posters. Take a look at our internal brand campaign for TMI! Your feedback is welcome.  Also, check out @tmiepiscopal on twitter!