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Why traditional sales training is a waste of time and money

A clock shows seven o'clock

Sales enablement expert Mauricio Garza believes closing deals takes more than classic sales training sessions. It means changing the way you work with your people.

So, why is traditional sales training a waste of money? And what can you do to ensure a highly-engaged sales team? Mauricio provides his top four tips to help you on your way.

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How to create affordable testimonial videos for employer branding

Employee testimonial videos

Most marketing or HR directors would love to have several high-quality employee testimonial videos to support the company’s employer branding efforts – particularly when it comes to recruitment. They also say, however, that it’s one of those difficult and expensive tasks that they just don’t seem to be able to manage with available resources. Frankly, I disagree that producing testimonial videos for employer branding is difficult – or expensive. Continue reading

What’s a B2B visual identity worth?

Recently, an industrial client asked a question I had never considered before: What is the value of a company’s visual identity? The request came as part of an acquisition process, and he was involved in discussions aimed at determining this value, partly as a component of the acquisition price, and partly to assess whether to continue with or drop the acquired company’s visual identity.

While coming up with a definitive answer to the question is probably beyond any consultant’s capability, I was able to help him think about the issue – and some of those insights are shared below… Continue reading

Powering up your value proposition

Is it time to get clearer on exactly why customers should prefer your company?There can be many attributes for which a product, service or entire company wants to be known: Fastest, cheapest, best quality, most features, most reliable, perfect for a specific situation, trusted, great customer service and more – the list of possibilities is endless.  Continue reading

Build a great B2B corporate website: a model for aligning strategy with content (part 1)

Align your website and company strategy

How often do your colleagues complain about your company’s website? Like many website managers of B2B companies, you’ve probably had conversations with people who are reluctant to use it in their daily business. It could be that it doesn’t truly reflect the company today. Or maybe the content doesn’t support the negotiations salespeople have with customers and the conversations Executive Management have with key stakeholders.

But that’s not how it’s meant to be. At the very least, the website needs to support the business; at best, it should drive business opportunities. So how can you achieve that?

As with any marketing or communications initiative, website planning involves some level of strategic planning. But rather than being an academic exercise, it must be a targeted, pragmatic approach that aligns your online presence with the company’s strategy, brand, offerings and value propositions – what I’ll call the four strategic pillars of the B2B company website.

Long before even beginning to consider a website structure and content, these four strategic pillars need to be defined and documented. Don’t leave a strategic stone unturned until you’re sure. Not only will you save time creating and building your website, but you’ll be confident that you’re making good decisions about architecture, design, usability and content. Indeed, this strategic planning will be the foundation for the website’s success.

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Hit the snooze button on your brain’s alarm system

When we’re exposed to change, our individual behavior is often challenged due to the reactions and influences we are exposed to. Does the changing environment determine our actions and behaviors, where feelings and experiences are internal states that accompany congenital and acquired response patterns? Or do people navigate themselves through their own will and their freedom to choose when exposed to situations and circumstances they want to avoid? Continue reading