Selling Power Blog

Fine-Tune Your Incentive Plans to Deliver More Next Quarter

Today's blog post is by Christopher Cabrera, CEO of Xactly Corporation, the industry leader in sales compensation automation.

 

Now that Q1 has come to a close—let’s pause for a collective sigh of relief from sales manager and sales rep alike—it’s time to give your incentive plans a good look.

Last year, only about half of sales teams met quota (CSO Insights). Here’s a 4-step action plan to make sure your company’s commission plans deliver the results you want in 2012.

1. See What Worked:

• Clear half a day in your schedule. It’s never too early to start analyzing the impact of different content special incentive funds (SPIFs) and incentive compensation plan rules.
• Get all the right people in the room. Too many people means too many agendas—but if too few people are involved, you won’t have enough information to gauge your plans’ success.
• Generate customized sales performance reports for a holistic view of your sales team’s performance across each territory, product, and channel. Look at your margins. Delve into each bonus plan and commission structure.
• Get granular. What elements of your compensation plans are doing the best? Are you leveraging all elements of your incentive plan? Look at your highest performers. What behaviors have they put into practice that you could incent others to emulate? What about your lowest performers—Would some 1:1 training help them perform better, or is it time to pull the plug?

Above all, you want to make sure profits are aligned for your company and your salespeople. Don’t stress if your sales reps are taking home big checks. This is what your sales compensation strategy is created to do: Create incentive plans that generously reward high-performing sales people.

However, if your cost per sale is too high, you probably didn’t have right analytics and modeling before you implemented your incentive plan.

2. Change What Didn’t Work:

The next step is to change or get rid of the elements that haven’t worked in your compensation strategy:

• Pull up your incentive dashboards to instantly see which sales reps most need your help. Make sure your team’s quota attainment approximates its incentive plan attainment. If, for example, your team averages 60% quota attainment and 150% target incentive payout, you need to rethink your commission plan. 

• Ask the right questions. Did you start a SPIF that only paid two people? Are all your sales people struggling to sell one particular product? Use your analytics reports here.

• Use only metrics that matter. Some of the most popular sales metrics aren’t actually meaningful or truly actionable. You can find out which 6 key metrics to watch on this quick-tip webinar with Sibson Consulting: Test Your Sales Comp – Is This Thing Working?
• Immediately correct what needs to be corrected. Don’t wait until it is too late. If you don’t fix what you can now, you may not be at the table when your team writes incentive plans for next year.

Step #3: Communicate Changes

Securing everyone’s support for incentive compensation is no walk in the park – especially when it involves tweaking the original. To effectively communicate the redesign and get your company on board:

• Assemble a killer communications team.
• Be as transparent as possible.
• Make sure your reps see what’s in it for them.

Step #4: Plan for Q2

After you’ve refined your plans, it’s time to look ahead at where you want to go next. In Q2, your sales teams should:

• Test your initial results – How much are you spending? How much is your team selling? How does that compare your goals?
• Ask salespeople for feedback – Are there more disputes? Does the team understand the new plan?
• Ask operations for feedback – How much time is the system taking? Do they have the data they need?

The key in each of these steps is good, clean data. You’re dead in the water if your company’s post-sales information is scattered across a variety of systems—including ERP, HR and payroll—so make sure all of your pre-sales and post-sales data is centralized in one place.

So, how did your commission plans deliver in Q1?

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The Anatomy of a Setback and a Comeback

Rick McDaniel is an expert in helping people make a comeback in their lives and is the author of the new book Comeback: Overcoming the Setbacks in Your Life (WestBowPress, 2012).  Rick has earned three degrees, including an advanced degree from Duke University.  He has traveled and spoken on five continents and authored three previous books.  If you have experienced a setback and are ready for a comeback, find out more about Rick at www.comeback-thebook.com.

 

Life is full of setbacks.  You cannot avoid them, no matter who you are.  The good news is that comebacks are possible; in fact, they happen all the time.  The challenge: how do you overcome your setback and have an incredible comeback?

Walt Disney is a personal hero of mine.  He fascinates me because of his creative energy and visionary leadership.  What you might not know is that he experienced seven very disappointing setbacks in his life.  He had several comebacks, and now the Disney name is the gold standard for creativity and excellence.

Warren Buffet is another person who has experienced setbacks. His latest setback is prostate cancer.  Early in his life, he had a setback when he was not accepted to Harvard.  Yet Buffet has had such a comeback that he is one of the richest people in the world. I have no doubt that he will tackle his latest setback with the same energy he has used throughout his life.

There are steps you can take to turn a setback into a comeback.     

Learn the Lesson

Too many try to push the setback behind them as quickly as possible, which is precisely why so many go from setback to setback.  If you want to have a comeback, you must look for the lessons in the setback to avoid making the same mistake again.  

Not every setback is the result of a direct action on your part; you can do all the right things for your health, for instance, and still end up sick.  But if you look deep enough, there are possibly decisions that you made that could have resulted in the setback.  Even if you discover something that seems to have had very little impact on the setback, this discovery will help you in the future from having a setback.    

Make the Change

A comeback will always begin with change.  If you want a comeback, you are going to have to change.  Unless you change what you presently are doing or not doing, things are going to remain the same; there will be no comeback.  You have to be willing to do things differently from how you’ve done them up to this point.

Change happens when you receive new information or gain new knowledge.  Change happens when you get a new attitude.  Change happens when you choose to be committed to your comeback.  

Exit Survival Mode
 
Some have been in survival mode for far too long.  It can be hard to decide to actually do it – to exit survival mode.  But there comes a time when you have to get past licking your wounds and get your bearings.

Believe it or not, many people become comfortable in survival mode because it can be quite a pity party, where they dwell on how they’ve been wronged, how things are not fair, or how things haven’t gone their way.  For your comeback to begin, you can’t be in survival mode.  There is no growth, progress, impact, or comeback in survival mode. 

Restart Your Dream Engine 

Setbacks do not control your life; you control your life.  You decide you are going to dream again. Think back to when you were a kid, and you thought, “One day I’m going to be a professional baseball player,” or “When I grow up, I’m going to go to the moon.”  Kids have the wildest imaginations and very vivid dreams.  Don’t let those old dreams fade away; turn them into reality.  

No matter what has happened, don’t allow your setbacks to define you anymore.  Become determined to move forward into your dream.  Ask yourself what it is you want more than anything.  Then ask yourself how you’re going to make it happen.  To make the dream a reality, the desire must match the discipline.  

Develop Momentum 

Momentum is your best friend because it makes you better than you are.  Slowly begin capturing the momentum by regaining control of one thing at a time.  A little momentum turns into a lot of momentum, which produces emerging energy and limitless passion that positively fuel a comeback.

It can be hard to get going if you don’t know where you need to begin.  Figure out the first step and start doing it; that will put you back on the road to success.  Each hurdle you successfully get over will build the momentum that will lead you to your comeback.  

A comeback takes work; however, it is possible, and everyone from ordinary people to celebrities to professional sports teams have proven that it’s possible.  You, too, have the potential to write a great comeback story.  

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Capture & Use Social Insights to Gain a Competitive Selling Edge

I'm convinced that social insights are the key competitive differentiator for impacting revenue cycles today. 

Today we get social insights from information and data shared on social networks. But really social insights are nothing new to any experienced sales leader. Many sales professionals remember walking into a prospect's or customer's office and looking around to get a sense of what kind of person they'd be talking to. Were there photos of family on the desk? Sports trophies on shelves? Degrees on the wall? 

People carry their accomplishments, hopes, fears, and dreams around with them. These are the kinds of things that great salespeople excel at uncovering. Context clues -- what the person wears, how the person talks, etc. -- can help you figure out what is most important to this individual. These clues can help you establish trust and rapport. 

Today all of this information and more is readily available to you via a simple LinkedIn search. Your prospects and customers might be on Twitter right now, sharing details about themselves and their lives that can help you create a meaningful connection.

Reps who use social insights to uncover business concerns, personal interests, career history, common acquaintances, and more are better equipped to make connections with prospects that ultimately lead to more sales. Sales teams that can access a deeper level of knowledge beyond names, titles, and contact information automatically become more competitive by collapsing the sales cycle. The thing that amazes me is that many sales leaders and their teams have yet to tap into the rich resource of social insights to learn and listen to uncover opportunities.

I believe that sales leaders who act immediately to capture and use social insights will gain an automatic edge over the competition. Tomorrow I'll be discussing the power of social insights in more detail during my webinar, "How to Impact Revenue Cycles" with Ralf VonSosen, Vice President of Marketing at InsideView. He'll be sharing the compelling results that companies have been getting by incorporating social intelligence into their lead-to-revenue process, including explosive growth in call-to-opportunity ratios, true sales opportunities, and close rates.

Register now to join us and learn how your team can start seeing similar benefits today. 

 

How Important is it for Your Salespeople to Practice?

Dave Kurlan is the bestselling author of Baseline Selling, a top-rated speaker, and a sales thought leader. His blog, Understanding the Sales Force, was a Gold Medal winner for Top Sales & Marketing Blog of 2011. He is the CEO of Objective Management Group, the global leader in sales assessments, and Kurlan Associates, a global sales development firm. 

 

 

When I was much younger, I was a pretty good trumpet player, playing professionally for nearly 10 years. I took weekly lessons from the age of 9, played in multiple bands and orchestras, and when I wasn’t taking lessons or performing, I practiced. And I felt I should have practiced more; a lot more. I could have been so much better...

Although baseball was my favorite, I spent most summers on the tennis courts, playing with anyone and everyone, until I entered college as the #2 on the school’s tennis team. It wasn't good enough though, and I felt like I should have practiced more; a lot more.

I was not going to be a star in music or tennis.  But what if I was?  Would I have been finished with all of that practicing? No way. The greatest athletes and musicians still hire the best coaches in the world and practice harder and even more frequently! I would have done the same because that’s exactly what I did when I started my sales development business 27 years ago.

By contrast, I am a terrible golfer. Why? I never practice. It’s not very different from the sales profession. Salespeople are very much like me, the golfer. The typical salesperson receives, on average, 3 days of sales training -- in their entire career. I've interviewed thousands of salespeople and most have never had a single day of professional sales training. And practice? There has not been a single client whose salespeople had been practicing the art and science of selling before I required them to begin practicing.

Why aren't salespeople getting enough professional training? In most companies, ego, fear and money are the three biggest reasons. Sales leadership, although completely lacking in the skills required, believe it’s their job to train their salespeople. Upper management is frequently afraid of change, even when it will bring about a change in results. And many companies simply won’t invest money to develop their salespeople.

Why aren't they coached the way they need to be? Although coaching is the number 1 job of sales managers today, most have never learned the proper way to coach, instead using a home grown approach and applying it on an as needed basis.

Why aren't they practicing? Believe it or not, most sales managers are afraid of upsetting the apple cart. They believe that if they required their veteran salespeople to practice they will have a rebellion on their hands.

Are your salespeople practicing each day? 

Objective Management Group has assessed more than 550,000 salespeople and according to their data 74% of all salespeople are completely ineffective and many of them shouldn't even be in sales. They get by for a variety of reasons, among them:

• Low Expectations from management
• They are no worse than the other ineffective salespeople at their company
• Some are order takers and they take enough orders
• Some are major account managers and the accounts were previously established
• Some possess intangibles and have simply developed strong relationships over decades of work
• Many work for industry leading companies - lowest price, best reputation, highest quality product, lowest risk - and they don't have to sell, as much as show up and quote
• Some bounce from company to company never staying long enough to actually fail

Are your underperforming salespeople getting by? Can any of them become performers?  You can find out with a sales force evaluation. Even better, why not join me for my annual Sales Leadership Summit?

 

Seven Ways to Improve Your Email Response

Nicole Merrett is vice president of CRM marketing for Sage North America, a supplier of business management software and services for small and midsize businesses.

 

 

Here are seven suggestions to help you craft more effective email campaigns and get better response rates.

1. Subject Line
   First impressions are critical in any form of communication. When people receive an email, the first thing they see is the subject line, which has the potential to either gain or lose their interest. Subject lines that include your company’s name as a reference and provide specifics supporting your email topic will typically gain higher open rates. 
2. “From” Line
   To understand how important this is, think about your own inbox. Would you be more likely to open an email sent from advertising@xyzcorp.com or nicole.merrett@sage.com? People don’t want to open an automated email.
3. Personalization
   People love seeing their own name. It makes them feel is if the email was written to them personally and not sent to thousands. Online services have simple options to directly insert names from your contact database using a template editor.
4. Variety
   How often do you send out newsletters, event invites, and updates that aren’t just soliciting a purchase? Are you getting an active response from recipients? If not, try something new. Be conscious about how many emails you send out each week or month. How are individuals interacting with your emails? Are you following up accordingly? How are you engaging the people who seem uninterested? Some email services include click-through analytics that monitor which readers spend time with your emails and forward them along to colleagues.
5. Quality Content
   When you provide your contacts with quality content, they’re more inclined to read your emails and even forward them to friends. Gain your contacts’ trust by emphasizing quality of communication over quantity. One option is providing information they can use immediately. A seller of gardening supplies might offer a series of horticulture tips; and when a prospect is in need of planting materials, he or she would likely think of the insightful supply-marketer first. The best sources for good content are the questions you get from your customers.
6. Testing…
   Test the way your email appears, not only through your own email service provider, but through several providers. Test all links in your message to make sure they work. Test your graphics. Pictures are a great way to grab someone’s attention. Remember, however, that pictures don’t always show up in email messages, so test the effectiveness of your email by viewing it in an email client with images turned off and making sure your message remains easy to understand and the call to action is clear. Finally, test your email with a spam check tool before sending. Spam check services review email content to see what might get caught in spam filters.
7. …And More Testing
   Your email has passed all the tests: it looks good, the Web links work, the images are properly placed, there’s a clear call to action, and it’s made it through the spam check…but it’s not getting the open rates you expected. How come? There are many reasons, including the time of day you send your email, the day of the week on which it’s sent, the frequency with which you send emails, etc.
   
   So why not test it?
   
   Test one change at a time. For example, explore what days your recipients are more likely to open your email. Split up your recipient list, and send each set of recipients the same email on different days. Does the open rate stand out more on one day than another?
   
   A next step could be to determine the time of a particular day people are more willing to open and interact with your email. Again, divide your list and send out the same email at different times of the day. A good starting point is the start of the day and middle of the afternoon. Studies have shown that these are the best times of day to send emails. See if your tests concur.
   
   When you have a specific day and time recipients are most responsive, examine your content. What sort of subject line gains the highest response? Do your recipients react more to graphics or text? Consider the placement of your call to action. Is one position more effective than another? Do your recipients appreciate lengthy, informational emails, or do they prefer a quick read? Test each element one at a time.

With email marketing, you never need to settle for one formula because you will often have the flexibility to make improvements as you go. So make taking advantage of trends and technology the constant in your digital marketing programs. This will help you achieve more tangible results.

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Here's How to Expand Your Selling AREA

Today I received a letter from Paul Pease, president of the Pease Group. He shared a letter his father wrote to his sister when she entered the sales field on November 25, 1988. What makes this letter so special is that it contains time-tested sales wisdom that hasn't changed to this day.

Dear Daughter,

Now that you are firmly entrenched in the sales profession, I am submitting the following for you to chew on and digest. I was fortunate enough to work for a man (John A. Sexauer) who was tough, demanding, commanding, and sincere. I worked for him – straight commission – from 1947 to 1979. He had a formula for hiring people, and the formula was reduced to an acronym: AREA.

"A" is for Adaptability – using your talent to rectify errors that occur to the customer through no fault of your own (wrong merchandise shipped, poor quality, or a billing error). The ability to cope personally with the situation, without help from your superiors, is adaptability. While you must be consistent in your selling discipline, you must adapt your selling tactics as times change; experience molds you, and you learn from others. Adaptability on the call and over your career is a prime selling fundamental.

"R" is for responsibility – to yourself, to your company, and to your clientele. "To yourself" is probably the most difficult, since it requires self-discipline. Get up and get out every day. Make commitments (appointments), honor them (show up on time), and offer the customer something of value (to them) that is profitable to your business (sell). "To your company" simply means giving a productive effort for your wages. "To your clientele" is usually reflected by the results of the "to yourself" discipline, because it proves that you are reliable; hence, customer rapport that challenges the competition is established. You can serve a client without being subservient. There is a great distinction between the two: stand 10 feet tall, but remember, you are there to serve and not to surrender.

"E" is for enthusiasm – for which there is no substitute! Without this element, life is an abyss. No salesperson can afford to ignore it. It is the spark that ignites attention faster than any other medium of salesmanship. You cannot expect to sell something unless you are sold on it yourself, hence the reason for genuine sincerity in your presentation. When you have convinced the client that you are providing value, then price becomes secondary.

Like a good cook, add ingredients to boost the flavor, such as consideration and integrity. Consideration is necessary when you are about to close the deal and the client suddenly has an emergency that delays the order. You have to be considerate of the circumstances. Integrity can come only with time – time for the client to judge your character for honesty. Integrity is a priceless ingredient for any transaction. Your word is your bond, and never forget it.

"A" is for ambition – not only for the money, but it certainly does not discount it. Ambition seems to be inherent; either you have it or you don't. It cannot be taught. If it must be taught, then it is no longer ambition but simply obedience to the teacher. Salespeople who lack ambition are merely order takers because they have no spark.

Hope this helps you out. Nothing moves in the entire world until a sale is made. And if the day comes that you think you know it all, shoot yourself.

Love you,

Dad 

 

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How to Be Great at Sales (and Enjoy Yourself)

Today's guest post is by Ryan C. Lowe, author of Get off Your Attitude! 

Sales can be frustrating and complicated, or it can be very simple. Now when I say “simple,” I don’t mean that it is not difficult. Selling is difficult. However, once we take out some of the complications you’ll be able to sell more, and, hopefully, enjoy yourself.

I know the frustrations. I remember when I first got into sales, I thought it was going to be easy. I thought that all I had to do is be a good talker, have a nice smile, knock on doors, and the sales would start coming in. I learned the hard way -- after being fired from one of my sales jobs -- that success in sales required much more. I learned that it is an art; to be great at sales, you have to work on yourself as much as you work on the job.

First, you must have a positive attitude. If you wake up dreading your job and hate what you do, it will be almost impossible to sell anything and your potential customers will see right through you. You must carry yourself in a positive way, and have the confidence in yourself, product and the company you work for.

Second, develop personal and production goals. The important step to achieving any type of goal is to write it down. If you don’t write the goal down, I consider it a wish, not a goal. You must know what you’re aiming for. You can wish for how many sales you will have for the year, or how much money you will make. After writing them down, you must look at them on a daily basis.

Third, prospect. This is the time you must go out and add qualified customers to your inventory. There are several ways to prospect. You can do it the hard way -- by going out and cold calling -- or you can be smarter about it. Ask the customers you already have, and the people you know, for referrals. Did you catch that last phrase? You not only can ask, but you should ask for referrals. A woman once told me, after one of my seminars, that cold calling is a way of God punishing us for not asking for referrals. I loved that comment! Referrals are the best way to get business.

Fourth, know your presentation. Do you know that 76% of all sales people wing their presentation? That is why those same salespeople fail. They don’t present their product in a professional manner. They are simply all over the place and the customer gets confused and gets scared … and doesn’t buy! Your goal is to know your presentation backwards and forwards. The only way you can do this is practice. Practice!

Fifth, ask for the sale. The number one reason sales professionals fail is because they never ask for the business, or they get to the end of their presentation, and ask a question, such as, “What do you think?” The customer will reply, “Let me think it over.” You don’t want to ever get that answer. This is one of the most -- if not the -- most important steps, because this where you either go back to the office with a sale or with nothing. Learn several closing techniques and make them part of your presentation. I promise, you will see great results.

If you follow these five tips and build on them, you’ll be more confident and successful, and you’ll enjoy your life in sales much more. 

 

Are Profits for Your Company and Salespeople Aligned?

Today's blog post is by Christopher Cabrera, CEO of Xactly Corporation, the industry leader in sales compensation automation.

 

Many sales organizations get challenged when it comes to mergers and acquisitions. Some do well; others do not. Regardless, significant growth events—mergers, gigantic new accounts or game-changing product releases—almost always jolt companies into making major process changes.

When a major supplier to the Orthotics & Prosthetics (O&P) industry acquired another company, it doubled its sales force overnight. Because the leadership decided to make one radical change, they increased sales performance and greatly reduced their administrative burden—while increasing Salesforce user adoption. (Read Cascade’s story.)

Another company made a similar decision following a multi-billion dollar acquisition. It now motivates strategic sales behaviors based on revenues, margins and units across 8 regions and 500 sales people. Sales leaders assess the effectiveness of their sophisticated sales plan with valuable analytics and reports, generated in minutes. (Read Carestream Health’s story.)

What did Cascade and Carestream Health knew that some others don’t is that sales performance hinges on the tenets of human behavioral science—that humans instinctively behave in certain ways when they have the right incentive to do so. This is why the radical change that both companies made was to automate their incentive compensation management processes.

To further illustrate the concept of motivation, think about what happens when a well-known high roller visits a swanky club. Why does the staff treat him so well? Because they know his black AmEx means he’s likely to spend more and leave a generous tip.

Salepeople are no different. They do more of what they know will benefit them and less of what doesn’t. That’s why real-time access to performance data improves employee behaviors and performance.

When sales data is easy to access and easy to use, sales reps can see in real-time how they will be compensated for selling the things the company wants them to sell, such as higher-margin products.

They can even run “what-if” scenarios to determine how to structure a sale for maximum payout of commissions, bonuses and special incentives.

Meanwhile, sales leaders can break down what their teams’ success is made of and achieve detailed visibility into what’s working in their sales compensation and what’s not—what has been sold, to whom, at what margins, through which channels, in which regions and at what price.

The key here is good, clean data. For many, post-sales information is scattered across a variety of systems, including ERP, HR and payroll. Often, it’s bound up in spreadsheets.

More and more companies retire those error-laden spreadsheets and centralize post-sales data into a single sales compensation management system. Xactly’s customers pull this information from as many as 30 places and everything is still seamless.

This radically changes the landscape for post-sales data, just as CRM optimized the sales pipeline.

Data allows companies to target incentives to get more of what they want from reps. Just ask Cascade and Carestream Health.

To learn more about The Science of Motivating Reps, join Christopher Cabrera at the Sales 2.0 Conference in San Francisco on Monday, April 2.

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My Thoughts from the Sales Management 2.0 Conference

At the Sales Management 2.0 Conference in Philadelphia, I talked a lot about how automating the sales process can drive higher revenues faster and more efficiently. In fact, I continue to be amazed at the number of Sales 2.0 tools and solutions that continue to emerge to make life easier for B2B sales teams. 

I firmly believe that, to succeed, sales leaders need to constantly be experimenting with and adopting new tools for their sales teams. But do tools alone create better sales teams? Of course not. Why? Because salespeople continue to fall into the same old traps:

• They talk all about themselves and their products and fail to uncover customer needs. 
• They run from one opportunity to the next without consulting with their sales manager or tapping intelligence that already exists within the sales organization. 
• They reinvent the wheel every time they need to write a proposal or reach out to a prospect. 

Inevitably the sales organizations that provide the best sales tools to make teams more effective are the ones that win more. They continually train their salespeople and help them seamlessly integrate process with technology.

At the same time, these sales leaders never lose sight of the need to train and coach sales reps on the ground-level selling skills.

No other department in any company can do what sales does; the value of its function is unique. The sales team has the rare ability to build rapport, to create relationships where none existed, and to persuade executives to make the changes and decisions that will help them run a better business.

All paths related to the sales cycle -- technology, process, selling skills -- lead to one final destination: the customer. The customer is the reason we are in business. They dictate our actions and reactions. They drive the conversation and tell us where we need to go next. 

Yet, as I told the audience on Monday at the Sales Management 2.0 Conference, only 13% of customers believe a typical salesperson can demonstrate an understanding of their business issues and solve them. This number should make every sales leader sit up and take notice. What is the level of customer understanding at your company? And what actions will you take to make sure you're in synch with their needs? 

This Thursday during a live webinar, I'll be talking about one area sales leaders can leverage to build a better sales organization: CRM. I'm excited to share ideas that can help you put the customer back where they belong: at the heart of your selling strategy. I invite you to register now for this webinar and join the conversation.

And I hope you'll consider joining me on April 2-3 in San Francisco, where I'll host the next Sales 2.0 Conference. For my money, there is no better investment of your time than to take the time to network with other sales leaders. Everyone needs consistent exposure to new ideas that can help them meet the challenges and realities of selling to today's customer. That is why I continue to dedicate my time to these events -- there's nothing I enjoy more than bouncing ideas off of other top-notch sales leaders and industry experts. There is always something new to learn about how to make a better customer experience in a digital age. 

Revamp Your Sales Pitch Today (You Might Win Big)

If you've recently attended a Sales 2.0 Event, you might remember me saying that salespeople need to "ditch the pitch!"

This is my shorthand way of saying that the audience for your sales pitch (or elevator pitch) has changed. We are currently living in a conversation economy. Buyers today don't want to talk with someone who knows nothing about their needs. The challenge for sales professionals is to find engaging ways to explain who they are, what they do, and how they can help customers and prospects -- without launching into a dull monologue or overenthusiastic babbling. 

The world of selling is moving toward collaboration and co-creation. It's time to ditch the flat, scripted sales pitch. Just as you routinely update technology, hire new and better sales reps, and renovate your sales process, you also want to give attention to your personal and professional messaging.

If you think you've got a strong sales pitch, put it to the test. Record a 60-second video in the next two days and enter to win the 2012 iMeet/Sales 2.0 Sales Pitch Contest. Winners will be announced live on Monday at the Sales Management 2.0 Conference in Philadelphia (which I'll be hosting). Prizes include an iPad2, and more.

Revamp your sales pitch today and get ready to join the conversation economy. 

BONUS: Watch this video for some of my quick tips on how you can use emotion to captivate and persuade your audience.