Are you a busy professional who wants to create a strong online presence?

Do you write articles to share your expertise, establish credibility and gain online visibility?

Do you blog for your business? Do you read business articles online?

How would you like to win a few cool prizes for business professionals online?

Bloggertone is teaming up with BizSugar to bring you the Sugartone Sweet Business Blogging Contest. This contest helps give your articles extra online visibility and rewards your social networking. The Sugartone Sweet Business Blogging Contest is an opportunity for you to win prizes to help you promote your business.

• It’s free to enter
• Anyone can join the competition including current Bloggertoners and BizSugar members!
• You’ll have lots of chances to win
• Prizes total $6921

Yes, that’s right:

$6921 In Prizes

How You Can Win These Prizes?

There’s more good news: there are 2 ways to win prizes.

#1 Do you write business articles? All you have to do is submit a business article to Bloggertone Between Monday March 15^th and Wednesday March 17^th – but there are a few guidelines you need to follow, so carefully read the Sugartone Guideline.

Click through on the banner to find out more.

All votes and comments for the articles will take place on BizSugar, the social bookmarking site for businesses.

#2 Do you like to read business articles? You too can also win prizes simply by voting and commenting  on the Sugartone articles posted on BizSugar.

Click through on the banner to find out more.

The environment in which salespeople now sell has changed considerably. The process of buying has changed – therefore the process of selling has changed accordingly…. Markets are smaller and more complex – there are less genuine opportunities for salespeople to sell…. Decision makers and the people involved in decision making have changed meaning purchasing decisions are now longer and much more complex. Reality check! The bottom line is that the market will not adapt or return for the salesperson, it is now up to the salesperson to change – so as to meet the needs of this new sales environment. If you are still a salesperson in 2010, firstly congratulations – here are 5 recommended strategies you can employ towards getting on top of your target this year.

1. Start by Moving the Target Up

What? I hear you ask, my target is challenging enough without putting additional target and pressure on top. Wrong! Sales are ultimately about smart averages, so putting your target up a notch means you give yourself more breathing space from the get go. In planning for a higher target, you automatically increase your chances of hitting and exceeding your original target. It’s a simple fact!

2. Analyse Performance and then Plan for Success

It amazes me to this day how many companies continue to use KPIs badly and how many salespeople insist on trying to fudge the figures. Your KPIs are one of the mostly deadly sales tools you have. A proper and realistic analysis of your KPIs will provide you with everything you need to know and do to improve your performance. In short, they provide you with the building blocks for both your long-term and short-term sales planning.

So KPIs provide you with the relevant information and your sales plan decides how and where you intend to spend your time. You will need to plan for long-term (yearly) and short-term (monthly, weekly). It’s critical that you get this right, because your time is your ultimate resource in sales – so ensure that you are spending it wisely. In the words of a famous ex-Manchester united captain “Fail to prepare, prepare to fail”

3. The Trick is to Prospect rather than Close

A key skill for all sales people in this environment is their ability to find genuine prospects. Its takes time and research but it pays to do so. A problem for a great many salespeople right now is that rather invest in prospecting, they are choosing instead to invest in closing. In other words, they are continuing to spend the majority of their time chasing prospects that don’t want to buy rather than finding prospects that do. You could almost call it, a type of sales madness. Remember, research is the key piece when prospecting. The more thorough your research, the better prepared you will be to meet the decision maker and ultimately the greater your chances of success.

4. Selling is Easier when you Embrace Technology

While technology may on one hand threaten the very role of the salesperson, it also assists us to be increasingly more effective and professional. Information is freely and widely available on the organisations and the people that we want to sell to. It is now easier than ever to connect with these people and networking can happen at speeds unimaginable only a few years ago. A salesperson that is not willing or afraid of these new tools will quickly be left behind. Embrace rather fight technology, it just made selling a whole lot easier.

5. Become a Business Person, not a Sales Person

In 2010, being a salesperson alone no longer cuts the mustard. Prospect’s time is increasingly valuable; they are only interested in speaking to people who will bring lots of value to any conversations. The flipside is that you now are expected to know a lot more than merely what you sell. The salespeople that will succeed will be those who bring with them developed and strong business acumen. They will be those who can step behind the desk of the senior managers within organisations and see the world through their eyes.

This means that the role of salesperson is also that of someone who has an aptitude and appetite to constantly better oneself. If your company are lacking in their support in this regard, you must pick up the slack, and consciously devote both your person and time to learning. The wealth of available information means that this is now very easy to do. So whether it is reading a business book a month or subscribing to some top class business blogs, it will not happen unless you make it so.

My Sales Prediction for 2010…..

While 2009 could be considered perhaps survival of the fittest in terms of its effect on professional sales and sales people, it is my prediction, that in 2010 – we may start to see the survival of the most knowledgeable. I am not one who subscribes to the theory that technology is making sales a redundant profession. It is my belief that what we are actually seeing is the start of the true professionalism of sales. It would make me exceedingly happy if this turns out to be the case…. Please be sure to share your strategies towards making target in the comments section below and the very best of luck in 2010.

For the last few months, Bloggertone has been a labour of love and indeed a steep learning curve for me and the guys at Channelship. For those of you that don’t know (the new official explanation), Bloggertone is a business blogging community, a place where business professionals can stand out. You can read the specialists; share opinions and sign up to blog about business!

The site went live on the 23^rd of October 2009 and as it now goes through its first redesign, it feels like a good time to look back and access what I have learned in between.

Identity takes time

I had an idea in my head of what Bloggertone would be before the project got off the ground. In some respects, it now resembles those initial thoughts and in other ways it is completely different. “What Bloggertone is” has changed and is changing. I now realise that this is one definition online community, it is an entity that grows and changes and you as the parent need to support rather than resist. I now realise that it may be some time before Bloggertone acquires it’s grown up persona.

Community means you setting the example

I think most Bloggertoners (what they now like to be called) would agree that the single biggest success of the project so far is the community. It was probably 6-7 wks after the launch that this realisation fully dawned on me. Its easy to talk up community, but to really support a growing community like Bloggertone, you must be prepared to put some work in. You yourself need to become the example of the community member that you are trying to create.

It takes all types

The strengths and levels of involvement differ from member to member. Some people are great bloggers and produce excellent content. Others are wonderful networkers who promote, support and interact effectively - while some members come purely for the advice. The point is that people interact in the way that best suits them, while you might like everyone to do everything; this is not a realistic expectation. A better way is to accept this and find ways to make it easier for members to continue their level of involvement.

Summary:

The strength of any community is down to the people, we are very lucky in that we have great people who have invested themselves in the success of the project. This is really what has set the tone for Bloggertone.

Guest Author

Ronan Gavin

Following on from my last blog post on the role of procurement I wanted to share some insight and strategies to help identify a win-win outcome with procurement.

Procurement Managers are under increasing pressure at present to deliver real cost savings. When positioning a solution make sure you can show a savings benefit that he can position with the business i.e. make him look good amongst his peers. Also try and get a clear view on procurement’s relationship with the business as you could win a useful ally if you can bolster his position internally by arming him with new innovative ways to tackle a problem that he can sell to the business.

Understand the process that procurement go through internally with the business from detailing specifications, assessing the market, going through formal evaluation process and selection and negotiation with preferred supplier. Understanding this is as important for you in setting expectations internally in your own organisation as to the effort involved and timelines of a sales opportunity.

Getting procurement to map out their sourcing process from start to finish will also enable you to identify and plan how and where you can differentiate yourselves from the competition. It is important to remember that evaluations carry a price and non-price element and a good relationship with procurement will enable you to get an indication in some instances how the evaluation is weighted.

My final conclusion is that traditional selling approaches of selling to the business and then defending your position at the very end of the cycle is not effective, particularly in today’s economic climate where the spotlight is on procurement. Be brave – invest the time with procurement as early as possible in the cycle and you can reap the benefits of selling through and not at procurement.

What are your views and experiences on the above? Let’s hear from Procurement people as well!

Ronan Gavin is Business Development Manager with Supplierforce. With over 16 years experience in the technology and financial services industries, Ronan has a unique combination of solution selling and procurement knowledge. With a career which has spanned sales, marketing, consultancy and corporate banking, Ronan has extensive experience in new business development and global account management roles across multiple industries internationally.

Guest Author

Ronan Gavin

Amongst senior sales professionals, the word “procurement” typically brings an emotive response, usually in the negative. There are two reasons for this;

1. Sales professionals do not understand the role of procurement within their organisation and the internal challenges that procurement face with their own business stakeholders.

2. There is a great variance in the professional capability of procurement professionals in the Irish market in particular and a lack of awareness amongst senior sales professionals how to recognise the role procurement managers play within the target organisation. This is a contentious point but a very valid one.

On the first point, it is important to understand that procurement grapple with an ongoing challenge to prove their personal value to the business. From experience I advocate engaging with Procurement at the outset as a very useful strategy. This is because capable procurement managers will always look for new innovative ways from suppliers to bring enhanced value to the business (and budget holders). They are primarily compensated on cost savings but delivering increased value and lower cost on a sustained basis is what maintains and increases their value to the business.

On the second point, bear in mind that procurement managers are not all the same. Some procurement managers are only brought in at the end of the sales cycle as a matter of policy to extract lower pricing from you and it is important to recognise these tactical practices. As a general rule the level of sophistication of procurement usually drives how early the business get them involved. By engaging early in the sales cycle with procurement or even when there is no sales cycle in place, this enables you to decide on the most appropriate sales strategy to adopt with Procurement.

There are different approaches and strategies I have adopted over time to ensure the most successful outcome, but the main advice I would give is to clearly understand the role procurement play within their organisation as early as possible in the sales cycle. You may be surprised to know that procurement can be of assistance in some organisations to position new solutions to the business.

Ronan Gavin is Business Development Manager with Supplierforce. With over 16 years experience in the technology and financial services industries, Ronan has a unique combination of solution selling and procurement knowledge. With a career which has spanned sales, marketing, consultancy and corporate banking, Ronan has extensive experience in new business development and global account management roles across multiple industries internationally.

My last post “50 Ways to get More from Linkedin” got a good response, so I decided to do one about using Twitter for business.  Twitter is perceived in some quarters as a lesser business tool and sometimes suffers from a bad press. I personally have found it to be a very effective tool – provided of course you go about using it in the right way. To date,  Twitter has generated for me – the most return vs. the time that I have put it, when compared to the other social media.

When using Twitter for business, It’s important to have a plan so that you have something to measure your results against. In my experience, the individuals and businesses that fail to leverage Twitter effectively are also those who have employed no strategy and/or have not taken the time to understand how to use it.  So what better way to help you to get off to a great start, than taking advice from some people and businesses that use it well. So from me and some of my Twitter friends here are:

# 50 Tips to Get You STARTED Using Twitter for Business

1. @CindyKing Remember that Twitter is a tool in your social media marketing/communication. It is like a hammer or a telephone… and so are all of the fun apps. If it’s a new medium for you, then don’t go blindly wielding that hammer all over the place. Spend lots of time listening to people on Twitter relevant to your business. Notice the different tactics people use. Start slowly. Give yourself 1-3 months to get a feel for the environment and to figure out the best way you can use Twitter to help your business.

2. @CindyKing If you remember that Twitter is just a tool, once you understand the environment it is easy to see how you can use it best to fit in with your business needs. And this approach also helps you to see how to integrate your Twitter activities into an overall social media marketing plan.

3. @whatswhat_sian It’s free and simple to sign up to Twitter. To make your listing look good ensure you have a catchy bio with a link to your website. This way someone can find out more info about you or your business if they need or want to.  Ensure you add an avatar (Picture), preferably of yourself, as lots of people don’t like to interact with someone hiding their identity. If you are on Twitter to market a brand name then make sure your twitter name is your brand.

4. @whatswhat_sian Don’t protect your tweets if you’re aim is to converse with people.

5. @whatswhat_sian To speak to someone directly, type their twitter name preceded by the @ sign – eg. @whatswhat_sian Anyone following both of you can see those tweets. If you wish to say something to someone without anyone else seeing then you send a Direct Message (DM).

6. @davidabrock If you want, you can lurk for a while to get a feel for Twitter and what’s going on.  Both look at interesting people, figure out the etiquette, etc.

7. @davidabrock Know who you are and how you want to be perceived in Twitter.  Stated differently, know your personal brand and be true to it.

8. @skipanderson Post several dozen tweets over a period of several days (or more) before starting to follow people. Many visitors want to know what you’re all about before they follow you, and your tweets do that better than even your profile.

9. @whatswhat_sian It’s great if you already know someone on Twitter and look at who they are following or who is following them – it’s simple to click to follow them then. And the majority of the time they will follow you back.

10. @rbconsulting Plan on how you going to use the service. For me, I don’t really use it for chat, but more for circulating interesting info / links in relation to my areas of expertise or interest.

11. @Barros_Isabel Although there are many applications to back up Tweets I think the easiest and more reliable way is to create a RSS feed of your own Twitter account to yourself (email account). This should be done as soon as possible (ideally when you create your Twitter account).

12. @calebgardner It’s OK to start small. Follow some people that interest you, some that you want to network with – and be sure to upload your email contacts and follow the people you already know. Gradually you will start to build your network.

13. @calebgardner Don’t sign on to a service that guarantees you tons of followers in a short amount of time, and don’t immediately start following tons of people. Both are frowned upon in the Twitter community and will make lessen the quality of the medium for you.

14. @emmattdigital Don’t simply just self promote, but join in on conversations. Establish yourself as an expert.

15. @fredchannel ensure not to go mad with the “integration” fever. If you integrate everything you’ll annoy your audience. I would strongly suggest that you DO NOT integrate anything until you understand what’s going on, what message is coming from “here” and going “there”…

16. @fredchannel After launching a blog post for example, make sure that you use Twitter to spread the word. First, use tools like Hootsuite.com or any Twitter client that allows you to schedule tweets. Depending on the frequency of your posts, you’ll go ahead and schedule tweets for the following days (e.g. if you posts only once a week on Mondays, then schedule tweets for the rest of the week), so you post gets exposure to your Twitter audience AM and PM. You only have 140 characters so keep it short. What I suggest is that you first announce that you have a new post, then include the title (tell people what you wrote about!), then include the LINK to your post (extremely important) Finally include an engaging question that makes people want to learn more about your post.

17. @whatswhat_sian Follow people that are in the same location as you, or the same industry as you, and the businesses that you could benefit – there are several different apps for finding these.

18. @whatswhat_sian Put your twitter address on your website, emails, correspondence and your business card.

19. @rbconsulting I use twitter to circulate links to my blogs and articles of interest or discussions that I have started in LinkedIn etc.

20. @calebgardner Be careful just using Twitter as a way to continually blast out your own content. This is a sure-fire way to get ignored at best and unfollowed at worst. Instead start responding to people and having conversations. Share other people’s content. Then, when people come to know and trust you, you can share your own content.

21. @careerscoacheu Your tweets should be relevant and add value to your audience. Ask yourself does this tweet add value for my followers.

22. @careerscoacheu If tweeting a link – tell your followers the subject of the link so they know what they are clicking on.

23. @nialldevitt Twitter allows you to use up to 140 characters when creating a tweet. When tweeting a link, It’s a good idea to use a URL shortener to save space.  Also, if you are planning to get RTed, you will need to leave space for the person/s doing the RTing.

24. @fredchannel I use Tweetdeck as my primary way to handle Twitter. It is a fantastic tool. When you’re actively looking to network, besides the chit-chat, there’s nothing better than look for people asking questions and try to hello them! Go to the very lower left (First column showing the people you follow) and click on the option below: you’ll find a space where you can search for keywords in order to filter the information in the stream of tweets. The best way to find people asking questions is very simple: just insert into that space “?” and everybody asking a question will pop up

25. @whatswhat_sian I believe networking on Twitter is basically done by chatting to people and getting retweeted (RT’d). Using tweetdeck it is simple to see other people talking and there could be something you are interested in chatting about too or maybe someone is asking a question and you know the answer to.  If you are able to see the conversation then you are following them so it should not be a problem if you speak to that person.  Getting something you say RT’d is huge networking as someone with perhaps 1,000 followers will RT you and there’s a possibility of those 1,000 followers seeing your tweet. Even if you think 10% are online at that time you’re still reaching 100 more people that maybe hadn’t heard of you before.  This is much quicker than face to face networking.  I look at it as follows – imagine you are stood on a stage in front of your 500 followers and you say what you want to say (in 140 characters of course lol). Of that 500 only 50 people are actually listening to you and only 5 of them decide to tell other people what you have said (i.e. an RT). Those 5 have a total of maybe 2000 followers between them and working off that 10% your tweet may have reached 200 people who aren’t even in the same place as you are on a stage and have never heard of you.  Of course if your tweet is interesting enough it could be RT’d again and again – growing awareness of you. Don’t know about you but I’d never stand on a stage and talk to people so it’s a perfect way to network for people like myself.

26. @davidabrock Use Twitter as the starting point to build relationships.  Reach out and touch them, get to know them over the phone, in person, via something more than 140.  Some of my most valued relationships started in Twitter.

27. @rbconsulting Find out who tweeting on areas of interest to me and RT their tweets ts or reply with a response/question to their tweet.

28. @ganeca I’d suggest finding those local people & businesses using Twitter. Connect with them, and join in on their conversations that you can add to. You can use these sites to do that:

Twitter Advanced Search
ChirpCity
Nearby Tweets
Tweepz
Twellow Pages

29. @calebgardner Add yourself to services like Twellow and WeFollow. Start following people in your field and have conversations with them. See when others are posting their content and comment on it. Twitter is a fantastic networking tool when used that way.

30. @nialldevitt Its easy to get sucked in and waste a lot of time on twitter. At the start just spend a few hours a week seeking real results such as making X number of introductions etc.

31. @careerscoacheu Be disciplined about your time. Don’t get distracted with idol chit chat – that is if that is not your objective.

32. @calebgardner I’ve found that turning off Twitter completely for a period of time is the best ways to get things done that absolutely need to be done. There are also programs like Concentrate for Mac that will actually close programs for you and not allow them to open until a certain amount of time has passed.

33. @davidabrock Find good tools and leverage them.  For example, Hootsuite is fantastic.  It allows me to have a great twitter presence without actually spending a lot of time on Twitter.

34. @davidabrock Don’t let Twitter consume you.  You can be seduced into spending all your time on Twitter.  Set specific time for tweeting, stick with it, and again use the tools to leverage your presence.  While I have a pretty good Twitter presence, I actually spent less than an hour —spread through the day—on Twitter.

35. @skipanderson Be real. Be yourself. Find your “Twitter Voice.” Authenticity will set you apart from all the Twitter noise and make you attractive to potential followers.

36. @careerscoacheu Follow mentors and competitors as well as targeted customers.

37. @whatswhat_sian Start building up your Twitter friends by following people – use friends that you already know or follow and look through their followers and followers.  It’s likely you’ll have the same interests if they are friends of your friends.

38. @calebgardner the most important thing to remember on Twitter is: be a human. No one wants to follow a robot, and more importantly, robots don’t gain loyalty or get RTs (unless you’re a Dell or NYTimes, which you’re probably not.

39. @davidabrock Follow who you want, don’t feel obligated to follow everyone who follows you.

40. @davidabrock It’s about quality, not quantity.  It’s actually very easy to get 1000’s of followers very quickly.  But who cares if they are never paying attention to what you say.  Focus on developing a strong, loyal following.  Be loyal to them.

41. @davidabrock Be generous in your RT’s and in crediting others.  Twitter is about sharing, RT’s are a great indicator about sharing.

42. @rbconsulting A great way to engage on Twitter is to place a short question at the end of your tweet – e.g. “Windows7 provides great performance – are you seeing this improvement on your pc?”

43. @calebgardner two keys to getting RTed are loyalty and quality of tweet. If people are loyal to the person behind the account, they’ll RT you just out of that loyalty. The more compelling your message, the more interested your followers will be and more likely to get RTed.

44. @skipanderson If you must directly self-promote yourself on Twitter (“Read about my new affiliate program that makes me money while I sleep!”), make sure you submit 50 non-promotional tweets for every self-promotional tweet. Blatant self-promotion makes me exercise my unfollow finger.

45. @careerscoacheu Be polite – Always acknowledge new followers and thank for RTs and Mentions.

46. @elainerogers Use the Pareto Principle – 80-20 rule – 80% of your tweets should be interactive and informative (including RTs), No more than 20% should be self promoting and declarative (without replying to anyone)

47. @davidabrock If Twitter is a part of your business strategy, then you got to be there.  You can’t come in and out. You have to build relationships and results over time.  Too many tweet for a few weeks, are disappointed in the results and give up.  It takes time and building a presence and reputation. Related to the previous point, be clear about how/if twitter fits your business strategy.  If twitter fits your strategy, there is not an excuse for not tweeting on a regular basis.

48. @nialldevitt Remember Twitter is like any other business tool, it’s possibly to use it effectively and it’s possible to use it poorly. Ultimately all social media is really about people and not technology. Always try to keep that in mind!

49. @careerscoacheu Engage, Engage, Engage – You have no visibility unless you contribute.

50. @davidabrock Have fun and don’t take yourself too seriously.

Please share your Twitter Tips in the comments section below.

Related links:

The Beginner’s Guide to Twitter

137 Small Business Twitter Tips

13 Twitter Tips and Tutorials for Beginners

35 Twitter Tips from 35 Twitter Users

Twittering Tips for Beginners

Twenty-One Top Twitter Tips

The Ultimate Guide To Twitter

Salesjobs.ie recently surveyed over 14,000 sales professionals surveyed on the their current economic status, attitudes to work, remuneration, through to sales targets, to key motivators, to work-life balance and everything in-between.

Key findings of Survey

Helping their employers get through the current economic crisis is high on their priorities

• 40% would take on additional responsibilities without additional pay to help their company get through the economic crisis.
• 36% of respondents had been asked to take a cut and a further 40% noted they had been asked to take a pay freeze.
• 71% state they work over 40-60 hours a week with one third of the total working in excess of 50 hours.
• 25% work at weekends, only 12% of sales people surveyed have answered that they never work weekends.
• The sales sector is not immune to the recession by any means with 40% of sales professionals stating they felt their current role is under threat of redundancy in 2009

The survey revealed One third of sales people when asked if the current economic climate has impacted on their sales performance replied they were either on or above target, encouragingly there are some healthy sales out there and it is not all doom and gloom

Only 10% of people are happy with how their companies are dealing with the financial crisis. The majority thought investment in sales and marketing should be increased in order to deal with the crisis.

Of the many options which we gave for how employees within the ‘sales industry’ would measure their success, a huge 24% responded that they would measure their success on ‘peace of mind’ and how fulfilled they were. This compares to only 8% who value material wealth and money as an indicator of success.

A full PDF sales report on findings can be accessed here