Avoid Getting Your E-mails Deleted From the E-Business Newsletter It's easy to fall into bad e-mailing habits because the whole format can begin to feel casual. By now everyone knows to avoid writing in all caps and using emoticons, but people often make the mistake of shooting off overly chummy professional e-mails and forming a devil-may-care disregard for grammar and punctuation. Simple rule of thumb: treat e-mail the same way you'd treat phoning someone. Get to the point, but be polite about it. Here is a look at some of the subtler nuances of the written word to help get your message across with style and grace: 1) Do An Introduction Launching right into your request is the same as bursting into someone's office and making demands. "Please send me this report" is a cold opener, and it may lead someone to brush it off until they're good and ready to help. "Good morning, I hope you had a nice weekend" will ease your reader into a much more cooperative state. 2) Conduct a Read-Through The software world has yet to invent a "Does This Sound Curt and Snippy?" check. This means your spelling and grammar may be perfect, but your tone may not be. ...

Why it's time to rethink one of the most derided marketing tactics. Most marketing pros would say that Samantha Ettus is going about it all wrong. That's because the CEO of Ettus Media Management, a New York City public relations and branding agency, spends a big chunk of her time working the phones, pitching herself and her clients to people she's never met. According to the conventional wisdom, that's a big waste of time. Cold calling, the experts agree, is annoying and irritating, an unwanted imposition on busy people. What's more, they say, it's inefficient and doesn't bring in much business. Far better to work through word of mouth, networking, and established customer contacts. It's the mantra of selling: Spend time building relationships and the deals will follow. Ettus begs to differ. She's been a cold caller ever since she started her business three years ago. Far from being a waste of time, the tactic has helped her six-person firm land some of its biggest clients, including the popular New York City restaurant Ida Mae Kitchen-n-Lounge and the gift and home products catalog Lillian Vernon. Sure, Ettus spends plenty of time networking with current customers and attending events to prospect new ones. But, ...

Missing the target with your customer relationship management strategy? Follow these five steps to success By Julia Chang In his work in CRM consulting, Yacov Wrocherinsky has seen some disasters. One of the most recent was a large manufacturing company that spent millions on a high-end CRM system, only to realize two years later that it wasn't providing accurate forecasts. "In the old days, people used to select a system based on a decision by the higher-ups, invest millions, and if the project didn't meet expectations, they would write it off," says Wrocherinsky, founder and CEO of Infinity Info Systems, a New York–based sales technology consulting firm. "Today, expectations are different." That's because companies now are much smarter about CRM. They want faster implementation that produces value more quickly. And vendors have done a good job of mastering the basic features and making their offerings available at price points for companies of all sizes. But that doesn't make the process of implementing a CRM strategy any easier—especially since CRM is now expected to be part of broader business strategy. One thing's for sure: CRM is at the top of managers' minds. In a survey of S&MM readers conducted by consulting firm The Alexander Group, ...

"Start seeing your customers through their eyes instead of having a one-size-fits-all strategy," says Debbie Allen, international professional speaker, author and president of Allen and Associates Consulting. "People like to be treated differently." How do you diversify your selling strategies? Allen provides some tips. Develop a stronger customer focus. What are the buying influences of different genders or age groups? Before you speak with your next customer, do some research. Learn the buying triggers by reading their publications and watching their TV shows. Then listen and pay attention to them. Develop a strong understanding of different genders. What's important to women versus men? "Women want to build trust and a relationship first," says Allen. "Trigger things that touch women's emotions. Make a connection. Take it slow and nurture the sale. Don't go for the close too soon." On the other hand, says Allen, men want to know that you're the expert. "Men want the details so talk about features," says Allen. "Men are also very mission oriented." Develop a strong understanding of different generations. "If you are communicating with different generations, you've got to know how they communicate," says Allen. "There's nothing wrong with asking them. For example, doing business with the senior market ...

I was invited to use an email tool called Xobni. The application is still in Beta so using the application is by invitation only (See invite below). It was recommended to me by an engineer and I figured if someone more geeky than me uses this tool, then it is worth taking a deeper look at. Xobni Insight is an add-on for Microsoft Outlook that offers effortless email management and provides instant access to the most important information in your email. After a quick install, you'll see the new Xobni toolbar appear in Outlook - and suddenly your Outlook productivity will burst to life with blazing fast email search, automatic phone number discovery, threaded conversations, and more. The program adds a toolbar to the Outlook window. If you have a small monitor or are using a laptop then this may seem like a problem but Xobni allows you to collapse the bar into a minimal state and still lets you see relevant information. At first I was thinking this would be a toolbar that I added, wrote a quick post on then removed after a couple of days. I have had Xobni running on my computer for the past week and it is making ...

We use e-mail every day, but how many of us really know how to write a good e-mail? You'll lose a lot in translation if you aren't careful. The new book Send is the Elements of Style for e-mail. Here are some tips to keep your e-mail communication accurate. 1. Subject lines Don't leave them blank, and don't let them be ambiguous. A subject line is like a headline, and should act as a summary to the body of the e-mail. If the subject of the e-mail changes, update the subject line accordingly. This will help the recipient determine whether the e-mail needs immediate attention. 2. Attachments No one likes opening an attachment when they have ten other things on their agenda. When possible, paste the information to the body of the e-mail instead. 3. Urgent Tagging your e-mail as urgent is a nuisance to the sender. The importance of your e-mail should be made clear without such tags. Save the "high importance" tags for very rare occasions. You don't want to cry wolf. 4. Introductions When addressing e-mails to people you don't know, use Mr. and Ms. (never Mrs.). But don't include their first name, ...

One of the biggest challenges in sales is getting that first appointment. Many a rep has lamented, “If I could just get in to see the guy, I can make the sale!” As a result, reps spend a lot of time trying to craft that perfect, compelling message that will get total strangers to agree to spend some time with them. Yet all they really need to do, says one expert, is just ask for the appointment.“The reason prospects agree to talk to our clients is we ask them to,” says Mike Scher, president of Frontline Selling, a company that helps reps improve their pipeline through training and as an outsourced service provider (www.frontlineselling.com). “We ask them to meet with us a number of times in a number of ways.” There’s no pitch, no stop-‘em-in-their-tracks insights, just a simple request for an appointment.Here’s an example. Say you’re calling a prospect for the first time and, not surprisingly, you get his voice mail. Instead of trying to wow the person by telling him how you can solve his problems, just say something like this: “Hi Joe. This is John Allen from ABC Corp. I was hoping to get 20 to 30 ...

Building lasting business relationships and effectively marketing your brand is important to maintaining a loyal client base. But with so many new communication media out there, your company will never reach its full growth potential if you rely on a single lead-generation technique. That's why most of today's fastest growing b-to-b companies have a complete arsenal of tools at their fingertips to use at any given time.Here are eight proven b-to-b lead-generation techniques gleaned from the strategies of more than 170 successful companies: 1. Relationship Marketing Relationship marketing underlies all the "sales-lead-generation-success" methods. It specifically refers to cultivating a personal, sales-winning relationship with your prospects. By creating a personalized relationship with your clients from the onset, you can develop long-term relationships rather than individual transactions. Make sure to always keep in touch with your prospects via a series of ongoing communications throughout your prospective customers' consideration process. It will help you win sales on the first try—and you'll also pick up the leads the competition dropped on the table. 2. Complementary Partner Referrals Seek out non-competing companies who interact with the same target clients and join forces with them. Teaming up with complementary partners will instantly increase your ...

As a business owner, you're going to have to deliver bad news every once in a while. Here's how to approach sensitive subjects without offending people. What's so great about good news? Simple--everyone likes it. Employers don't dread telling a worker they've done a great job. They don't fret over finding a tactful way to tell an employee that everyone in the office enjoys working with them. But we all know the news isn't always good. Perhaps you have an employee who wears clothes that are too tight, one who constantly discusses a sensitive medical condition that makes other employees feel uncomfortable, or one who simply smells bad. Upsetting employees can set in motion a negative cycle. They may begin to feel bad about themselves, question their ability to do the job or resent the person who delivered the news. Hearing bad news can also cause defensiveness that protects the recipient, yet prevents him or her from truly hearing the gist of the message. Feeling bad and not focusing on the point prevents them from turning something they don't want to hear into a positive outcome. So how can you frame the news so that ...

By Bryan Neale On the eve of March 1st, it suddenly dawned on me that the world’s greatest sales force is once again in full force in their mission to dominate their market. Oreo’s sales people-take not. Archway sales support-time to step up. Keebler-all elves on deck………THE GIRLSCOUTS ARE HERE. I believe the world’s greatest, most efficient sales force doesn’t use Salesforce.com, never makes PowerPoint presentations and can’t even find the power switch on a Blackberry. No, the Girl Scout’s do it the old fashioned way. They hit the street, use pure and honest techniques, find our pain and sweetly barter thousands of calories in exchange for even more thousands of dollars. So what can we mature, seasoned, professional sales people learn from these Punky Brewster clones. More than you probably think: 1-Be Real, Don’t Fake It: I’ve yet to have a Girl Scout ask me transparent, contrived and often hokey rapport building questions. They never come to the door and say, “Hi Mr. Neale, how are the wife and kids?” when really all they want is a sale to meet their quota. No, they get right down to business. “I’m with the Girl Scout’s ...