| Level | Category | Term | Explanation |
|---|---|---|---|
| A and B the C of D | Above and beyond the call of duty. Whilst sili features are systematically designed, and implemented to show stakeholders how important they are to you, ABCD behaviour is the same but on in an ad hoc way. Its more of a mentality than anything else: going the extra mile for your stakeholders. If you see something that needs doing or a way you can help ABCD behaviour will dictate that you will do it. | ||
| Account Management | The process of maximising the ethical revenue from the client whilst at the same time minimising the risk of loss to a competitor. Most account management is a combination of keeping in touch on a regular basis; identifying and then satisfying needs and doing things that arent actually necessary but add value to the client. Almost impossible to do without a CRM system. Also see deployment plan. | ||
| Active Pipeline | Contains those targets who are actively being converted into clients and therefore relieve the most investment of time and money. Active pipelines are made up of Suspects, Prospects and Clients. | ||
| Active Sales Environment | A purpose built combination of people, processes, tools, techniques and management reports specifically designed to put the organisation that adopts it in control of how it grows. Relies less on traditional marketing and much more on identifying the right prospects and then converting them into clients in a controlled and consistent way. | ||
| ASE | See Active Sales Environment. | ||
| B2B | Business to business. Those organisations that sell their offerings to other businesses. | ||
| B2C | Business to consumer. Those organisations that sell their offerings to the general public. | ||
| BBQ Speech | BBQ speeches are used to begin a conversation and the objective is quite simply to get the interest of the person that you are speaking to. From that point onwards you would engage in conversation in the normal way. These are very useful networking events or when you have only a very small amount of time to introduce yourself. | ||
| BD | Business development. The activity of winning new clients, maximising client returns from existing clients and keeping the competition at bay. | ||
| Background | External stakeholders who for whatever reason you cannot move forward in the conversion process or at this time are not good ICP matches. We mainly interact with them through mass marketing and events with little or no 121 time involved. | ||
| Blog-Based Communications Strategy | Is based on the premise that almost all factual content produced by the firm starts its life as a blog post. From there they can be promoted through your chosen social media channels (because each post has its own URL), emailed to people or included in blog digests. This approach gives some huge benefits in SEO; perception on your stakeholder community and the ability to get more of your work published as guest blogs and in suitable publications. Its much easier to get an article published if you can email the link to the appropriate blog post to an editor where they can read it and see how many people shared/liked/retweeted it. | ||
| Blog Digest | Is a form of e-newsletter made up of a series of enticing paragraphs each describing a blog post in a way that will encourage the reader to click the link provided and switch through to the blog post itself. Blog-digests are used as part of a blog-based communication strategy to enable the communications team to see a) which stakeholders are interacting with the firm and b) by examining the topics of the blogs clicked through to see what subjects are resonating with your readership. This latter point will help when deciding what currencies to build such as seminars and white papers. | ||
| CSM | See Client Service Matrix | ||
| CRM | Customer Relationship Management Often used as a term for a computer system to track client information, but is actually a combination of a tool (usually a computer system these days) and a set of processes and management controls. CRM enables three broad business activities: relationship management; targeting coordination and control and sales management. Its impossible to run an Active Sales Environment with CRM. Also see fat CRM data and thin CRM data. | ||
| Capability | See sales collateral. | ||
| Capture | The process of locating and connecting with new target clients. | ||
| Case Study | Is a more detailed description of a piece of work you completed for a client. The most powerful case studies list the name of the client but blind case studies that do not name the client are also useful. Case studies have 4 sections and usually fit on one side of A4: background; the challenge; our solution and the outcome. | ||
| Client | Stakeholder who we do business with on a relatively frequent basis. That will mean different things to different people but as an approximate idea you should have done business with them during the last 3 sales frequency periods. | ||
| Client Care | See account managemet. | ||
| Client Portfolio Balance | The mix of large, medium and small clients. It is vital to get a balanced client portfolio because too many large companies, although easier to manage, open you up to significant losses if you lose one of them. Likewise too many small clients are a safer option but are more expensive to manage and sell to. It is important to monitor and adjust your client portfolio balance on an on-going basis. | ||
| Client Service Matrix | Is a table which has the rows as your clients and the columns as your product/service offering. There is then a method which allows you to make sure that all offerings have been presented to all appropriate clients. Used extensively in account management. | ||
| Competitive Knockout | The situation where to become a new supplier to a potential client you need to replace one of the existing suppliers. Knockout a competitor! | ||
| Composite Product | A product that brings together several service streams to benefit one group or clients. The starting point is understanding the needs of the client before devising a combination that services them. The combination usually also creates and offering that is more likely to be unique too. | ||
| Composite USP | Is a collection of USPs designed to make the company, offering or person unique. E.g. I have a proven track record of quantum company growth; my background is in IT which is crucial at a time when IT is increasingly being used in business development to differentiate and deliver more for less; I have a proven sales methodology backed up by an extensive online facility for my clients and I am happy to work on a 100% paid on results basis. Any one of these may not be unique but added together they single me out. | ||
| Contact Regime | The way of making sure that each of your external stakeholders is given the appropriate amount of attention. This ensures people are neither neglected nor given more time/investment than they warrant. Typically implemented through a CRM system and Outlook Tasks and is just a series of planned future connections. | ||
| Conversion | The activity of progressing prospects to become clients or if this is not the case removed from your active pipeline. The conversion stages help us to maintain a good sales momentum and identify and, hopefully fix, any blockages. | ||
| Conversion Dialogue | When a prospect is actually engaged with you. That is to say they are answering your emails, taking your calls and agreeing to see you on a 121 meeting or an event. It means they are engaged with you. | ||
| Conversion Stages | These are a way of ensuring good sales momentum is maintained during the conversion process and that all prospects are moving closer to becoming clients. They are essentially tests for your developing relationship but are also a great way to work with less experienced sales people to ensure they have a practical next step for each of their prospects. | ||
| Cross-Selling | Also referred to as leverage or matrix selling. If you supply a range of offerings cross selling simply means taking one client that buys one offering and introducing them to another offering usually controlled by a client service matrix. This enables a sale to be made on the strength of an existing relationship and is very useful in circumstances where certain individuals within the firm own a client relationship and other people within the firm dont get access to that client. Its also a very good idea to run trigger sessions where sales people are told what signs to look for in their clients and report back rather than expecting them to promote somebody elses offering themselves. | ||
| Credibility | See Sales Collateral. | ||
| Cultivation | A range of activities used to ensure you get the maximum amount of ethical revenue from a client whilst protecting them from competitor attack. Is undertaken as part of account management and is controlled by a contact regime. | ||
| Currency | A way of adding value to a stakeholder by meeting one or more of their needs: reduce risk, provide opportunity, improve convenience, reduce cost, increase revenues, improve effectiveness/efficiency. E.g. Introduce a valued third party, provide know-how or information. Strong currencies tend to be original and unique. | ||
| Decision Drivers (DDs) | These are the reasons why all of us decide for one option over another whenever we are making a choice. The priority of each driver will vary according to whats being bought, the personality of the buyer and the importance of the acquisition. The main drivers presented in the most common priority are: risk, cost, quality, convenience, speed, image, match, flexibility and competitive edge. Knowing the decision drivers of the person you are selling to is crucial and will dictate the shape of your value proposition and your pitch. | ||
| Decision Maker | An external stakeholder who will have the final decision on whether you are engaged or not. This could be the appointment to a panel of approved suppliers or to actually undertake a piece of work. Often you will not get access to the decision makers themselves dealing instead with key influencers who will then either make your case the to the decision maker or recommend youre used or not. | ||
| Deployment Plan | When appointed as a new supplier, whether as part of a wider list or not, a deployment plan ensures that the client is assimilated as soon as possible. Typically it will control the capture of key data such as the decision makers, key influencers, gatekeepers, guides and users and have a plan to establish a relationships with the ones deemed to be important. See account management. | ||
| Differentiator | See USP | ||
| Domestic Currency | A currency that you or somebody in your organisation has developed. | ||
| Dormant | Stakeholders who no longer figure in our plans. They may have retired, passed away or moved into a completely different profession. | ||
| Drop By Coffee (DBC) | A staple part of most sales peoples professional diet why dont we meet up for a coffee? A DBC certainly is a useful tool in account management and is also part of the conversion process but its very easy to get trapped there without being able to move the prospect closer to becoming a client. Make sure that you ask for a formal fact finding meeting as soon as you feel it is appropriate to do so. | ||
| E-Newsletters | An email that is sent to a list of stakeholders designed to add value to them. Normally they are managed through mailers such as Mailchimp or ConstantContact that manage your legal requirements around unsubscribes and allow you to see how has been reading your email and clicking on any imbedded links. One form of e-newsletter is a blog digest which is an integral part of a winder blog-based communications strategy. | ||
| Elevator Speech | An elevator speech is a longer version of a BBQ Speech for when you have more time. It brings together five key aspects in any business development discussion. These are: Who is likely to buy your offering. What it is that you sell. What problems it cures. How it is different. The outcome of the client buying your product. This is important because those people that can produce an elevator speech, whether they use it or not, are fully equipped to represent their firm to the outside world. E.g. I work with professional service firms and SMEs who are either not growing at the speed they know they can or experiencing rapid growth but with a sales function that is not keeping pace. Clients can engage me as a consultant; join one of my business growth programmes or simply sign up for our many online courses. I have over 25 years proven sales experience creating quantum growth; a practical sales methodology; massive online knowledge base and the willingness to work on a paid by results basis. The outcome of engaging with us is a clear, consistent and controlled and approach to business growth that puts you in firmly in control. |
||
| Exposers | These are stakeholders who control access to large groups of potential clients who you would like exposure to. Typically they will be editors of a magazine your target market reads; owner of a popular blog; organisers of an event frequented by your clients etc. It is important to establish a good relationship with these people as it can make the capture of large numbers of new prospects much easier. | ||
| FASE | Flair Active Sales Environment is the Flair version of an active sales environment. | ||
| Fat CRM Data | Information kept about a stakeholder on CRM that has been gathered to either strengthen the relationship or relates to ICP or trigger information and is there to help in the conversion process. Relationship data is typically: preferences, aspirations, challenges, interests, family, incidentals and circumstances. This is crucial and should be systematically collected, recorded and used to build and maintain the stakeholder relationship. Also see thin CRM data. | ||
| Feeders | These are stakeholders who can feed you with work opportunities or introduce you to other important stakeholders. You must ensure that you can add value to them in return to ensure that you dont fall into the red in the relationship bank account. They should have an appropriate contact regime and be treated like valuable clients. | ||
| Flex Screen | When delivering a talk or a showcase timing is important. If you overshoot, especially if youre on a tightly controlled panel, you can look amateurish, unprepared and out of control. Not very attractive at all. A flex screen usually contains a diagram, picture, graph or a whole selection of data that you can either talk about for a few seconds or several minutes without the audience being aware that you have chosen one option over the other according to the amount of time you have left. I would suggest a Flex screen every 10 to 15 minutes which will enable you to control your timings exactly. If you use flex screens you should time your presentation to fill approximately 80% of the allotted presentation time. | ||
| Foreign Currency | A currency that has been built or provided by a third part; although it can add value to your stakeholders you did not create it. E.g a particularly useful or interesting TED video. | ||
| Formal Fact Finding Meeting | Is the 4th conversion stage and is a meeting usually at your prospects office, or better yet at your offices, with the stated intention to learn more about them and for them to learn more about you. A FFFM is in contrast to a Drop By Coffee which does not send out the same message to the prospect we want to move the relationships closer to doing some business together. People will usually avoid or put off a FFFM if they are not serious about using you or are not a decision maker or key influencer. | ||
| FFFM | See Formal Fact Finding Meeting | ||
| Game Changer | An offering that is so different that targets will welcome you in despite the arrangements and relationships they have with other suppliers. This kind of innovative offering will not remain a game-changer for long because as soon as the competition see whats happening they will rush out their own version so the key driver here is speed: hit as many prospects as you can before your competitors can work out whats happening. | ||
| Gate Keeper | A secretary or personal assistant who controls access to an important stakeholder. It is vital that either you or your PA should establish a good relationship with this person as usually they have enormous power and influence over the person they serve. | ||
| Guides | These are people who are working in an organisation who you are targeting, are not decision makers, key influencers or gate-keepers but are willing to help you by providing key ICP data and perhaps even introducing you to more powerful colleagues. On the whole these tend to be more junior people in the target organisation and so are usually best tracked by the same level of person in your own firm. Guides can speed up the conversion process and help you to avoid investing in the wrong stakeholders. | ||
| Hooks | These are small offers inserted into a showcase to encourage the audience to give you their business card at the end of the talk. E.g. an electronic copy of the notes; access to some restricted but valuable area of your website or another useful currency. | ||
| ICP | See Ideal Client Profile | ||
| Ideal Client Profile | Each of the major offerings that your firm sells should possess its own ICP which profiles the ideal client in detail and highlights the various characteristics that you should look for when targeting new clients. Typically they will be things like location, size, number of employees, problems they are experiencing, how they buy their services, access to decision makers, attitude to price and so on. Anything that when you see it in a prospect you think would make them more likely to be a good client. ICPs are very useful in cross-selling, client service matrices and the capture stage. | ||
| Incremental Growth | The sort of revenue growth that most organisations enjoy by simply selling more of what they make to new and existing clients. Its possible to accelerate incremental growth but to achieve quantum growth a new strategy will be required. | ||
| Interaction | Any kind of contact with a stakeholder. This could be a telephone call, email, contact through social media, drop by coffee, meeting etc. Relationships are actually made up of a number of interactions so it is not possible to create and maintain a relationship without them. They should be managed through an appropriate contact regime. | ||
| Intermediaries | See Feeders. | ||
| Key Influencer | A stakeholder who can help to promote your offering to the Decision Maker or certainly sway their opinion however they do not have direct authority over the decision to use you. | ||
| KIT | Keep In Touch. A notation used in a next action note to indicate that the next interaction should just be a hi, Im still here rather than anything more substantial. Typically used with long-range prospects or some background stakeholders. | ||
| Latch Key | Is a very large currency that appears to all intents and purposes as a standard offering but in actual fact is meant to be a door opener with a potential client. Typically they will be home-grown and original and are best if offered on a risk and reward basis. These are immensely powerful tools to attract and enter into a conversion dialogue with a prospect. Because of their unique nature they can also be a useful USP and currency. | ||
| Easily the most powerful business development tool available at the moment. Consider it as being your own personal webpage where you can publicise what your firm does and why you in particular are different or special. Extremely useful for bringing out your specialist skills, knowledge and experience. These days in business many people will check your LinkedIn page before an arranged visit. You can also connect with people (if they agree to do so) so that you can see their contacts and they can see yours. Follow the link to see Mike Ames profile as an example http://uk.linkedin.com/in/mspames. | |||
| Long-range Prospect | A stakeholder who you are in a conversion dialogue with but cannot move forward at this stage. Typically you have a good rapport with them and all the signs are good but there is a pressing reason why they cannot be converted. E.g. They have a strict supplier panel and it is not up for review for some time. | ||
| Networking | This is a generic term for meeting and talking to people at some kind of event. Originally the network was a noun meaning a group of like-minded people bought together by their desire and ability to add value to each other. The ubiquitous old boys club was a true network. These days it is a verb and is a form of commercial lucky-dipping that for B2B organisations is rarely effective and is probably best avoided as a new-business creating tool. However, they are useful for catching up with established stakeholders. See real network. | ||
| Offering | An offering is a product or service or combination of the two that is sold by an organisation to their clients. This can also include latch-keys. | ||
| Personal Brand | Like it or not everybody has a personal brand in simple terms it is your reputation. When people think of your name what emotion does that conjure up for them? A personal brand is a sort of a short-hand version of you that elicits an emotional response. Brands are made up how you appear (in person and online); what/how you communicate and what you do and how you do it. Over time your personal brand will also be associated with your values and beliefs. These days your online presence is a crucial element of your personal brand because in many cases its the first impression a new person will get of you. | ||
| Pipeline | There are two kinds of pipeline: relationship and revenue. A relationship pipeline is one that tracks all the business relationships you are currently developing and maintaining by using contact regimes. A revenue pipeline is one that tracks opportunities to win a piece of business from your established clients and well advanced prospects. Both are important but in a relationship selling environment the former is more important than the latter. | ||
| Pitch | The point at which you present your value proposition to the client or prospect. This is best done face to face either in a presentation style or by sitting around a table and talking through your written proposal. | ||
| Precon | Preconditions that mean its likely your offerings will be needed; sort of a portent of future need and a very powerful way to get ahead of the competition. E.g. in IT contract recruitment a precon might be the implementation of new technology. Usually this will create a need for experts in this new technology or in the old technology (if they move the existing staff onto the new project) after about 3 to 4 months from the start of the project giving plenty of time to find suitable people and submit their CVs on spec to the decision makers. Precons are hard to identify and can never be more than 80% accurate but it will give a massive edge to those who possess them. Also see triggers. | ||
| Preferred Supplier Agreement (PSA) | See supplier panel. | ||
| Preferred Supplier Agreement (PSL) | See supplier panel. | ||
| Proactive Referral System | Is a combination of small changes to your sales collateral and the way you interact with your stakeholders that will increase the number of referrals you get. | ||
| Productisation | The activity of taking a set of products and/or services and combining them with currencies and an original delivery method to create a product. Packaging and pricing are both crucial elements of the productisation process which when done properly can create a game-changer resulting in real quantum growth within your business. | ||
| Prospect | A person you are currently in a conversion dialogue with moving them closer to becoming a client. Each prospect will be in one of the 8 conversion stages. | ||
| Proxy Currency | A currency that is going to be of value to the stakeholders of your stakeholders and so is particularly strong. You provide the currency to your stakeholder who can then use it to add value to their stakeholders which is obviously very powerful and, since most people don't even think about it, very rare. | ||
| Proxy Stakeholder | The stakeholder of your stakeholder. Somebody who is important to your stakeholders and so an opportunity to add value on your pard. | ||
| Qualified Target | A target who has a strong alignment to one or more of your ICPs and who should be focused on. Conversely a suspect or prospect who is a poor ICP match should probably be eliminated from your active pipeline. | ||
| Qualified Volume | If you think of an active sales environment as a factory built to generate clients and revenue than it would make sense to be able to feed as much high quality raw material into it as possible. This is qualified volume: seeking out a consistent stream of well ICP matched suspects and using a currency and latch-key to begin a conversion dialogue with. | ||
| Quantum Growth | A form of growth in revenue that is exponential. There have to be exceptional circumstances to create this kind of growth such as the emergence of a new market (mobile phones when they first came out) or a game-changer product (the iPod) which nobody else has. See productisation. | ||
| Real Networking | The activity of building a group of people around you who can help you achieve your business and personal objectives and who you can do the same for them in return. This means having a clear understanding of what your objectives are and then identifying people who can help you achieve them. These people would have a contact regime and be somewhere in your active pipeline. Its also crucial to ensure that you add more value to them than they add to you to avoid being a taker. Attending networking events is purely optional. | ||
| Reason to Connect (RTC) | Having a reason to make contact with a stakeholder which is going to be of interest to them. Usually involving a currency. | ||
| Reason to Engage | Having a reason to do something with clients preferably which involves being paid. This is normally based around a latch-key. | ||
| Referral | A recommendation made by a stakeholder to a third party that they may benefit from using your services. See proactive referral system. | ||
| Relationship Bank Account (RBA) | A metaphoric device to help you avoid becoming yourself or being a victim of a taker. If you have done more for one of your stakeholders than they have done for you then youre in the black and theyre in the red and of course the reverse is also true. Ideally you will be in the black or the blue (about evens). Remember: success in life is not down to what you know or even who you know but rather who you know that owes you something! | ||
| Relationship Selling | People do tend to buy from people who they like and trust. This type of selling methodology builds on shared values and the salespersons credibility and their ability to develop rapport and a level of trust with the external stakeholders, this has a bearing in the final decision making process. | ||
| Risk and Reward | Effectively you undertake a piece of work that has a cost attached to it but when completed you allow the client to decide how much to pay. It is very effective when used with a good latch-key or as a means of getting past the so-what test. Obviously use with care. | ||
| ROI Events | Most corporate events are either habitual (we always have our monthly breakfast seminar) and have no real way of being measured (profile building is not a good enough reason to consistently hold events). A ROI event has a distinct purpose is measure on a number of quantifiable metrics which means a ROI Summary sheet can be produced after the event to show what was gained. Implementing ROI events is a great way to reduce marketing spend by removing low-return providing events and get more from the events you continue with. | ||
| Sales Collateral | Sales collateral is anything that can be used during the conversion process to convey what you sell, why you are different, why you are credible and what it all costs. Typical sales collateral items are: a website; a sales hand-out (capability collateral); case studies and testimonials (credibility collateral); brochures; blog; Twitter feed; LinkedIn; video presentations; podcasts and PowerPoint presentations. All of these are used during the sales process and are classed as collateral. | ||
| Sales Frequency Period | Is the period at which a client will purchase your offerings. E.g. If you are a recruiter the SFP for one client could be every month but for another it might be once a year. | ||
| Sales Momentum | The speed at which a prospect is converted into a client. It is a useful way of identifying the effectiveness of your conversion process. | ||
| SCOPE | Simple code of professional ethics. It is an integral part of your personal brand represents your 4 or 5 core values that your stakeholders can always expect from you. By consistently keeping to you SCOPE you will strengthen your personal brand which is a key foundation for relationship building and maintenance. | ||
| SEO | Search engine optimisation is a way of getting you/your firm/your offerings to come out towards the top of the list produced by internet search engines such as Google or Yahoo. Not really that important in an active sales environment but very important in traditional marketing. | ||
| SFP | |||
| Showcase | The main purpose of a showcase is to capture the contact details of an audience by using hooks. To do this the speaker must present an appropriate topic that resonates with the audience and establish their capability and credibility as they do so. Showcases are very effective way of capturing a batch of suspects in one go. | ||
| Sili Feature | Small Item, Large Impact. This is a small feature added onto your offering or the way in which you deliver your offering that is not necessary but shows the stakeholder that they are important to you. E.g. when somebody comes for a planned appointment to your offices you put their name on their car-parking space. Silis are small currencies really but they can be very powerful relationship builders. | ||
| Social Media | A collection of internet based programmes that enable people to interact with each other. Most social media platforms such as LinkedIn, Twitter, WordPress, Instagram, Facebook are built to do the following: - Help you meet and connect with new people. Promote your values, brand, offerings, opinions. Demonstrate your capability and credibility. Broadcast your USPs to show how you are different. Enable you to communicate and interact. Allow you to research and learn about people and topics. | ||
| So What Test | When you first meet a new suspect unless they are in the market for something that you are selling their initial reaction to you will be to keep you at arms length who wants another supplier when they already have some good ones in place? In other words when you unveil your elevator speech their unspoken response will be so what? Your challenge is to overcome this by either using your USPs or an appropriate currency or latch-key. Only when youve passed the so-what test can you enter into a conversion dialogue. | ||
| Sources | The places you can go to find new suspects. The most popular sources are: referrals, LinkedIn, Twitter, Showcases, purchased lists or databases and events. An active sales environment encourages a blend of the above with the success of each source measured through CRM. | ||
| Stakeholder | A person who is of value to you such as clients, prospects, suspects, intermediaries and exposers. In relationship selling the overall objective is to establish and maintain strong relationships with as many stakeholders as you can. | ||
| Super Currency | See latch-key | ||
| Supplier Panel | A list of authorised suppliers appointed by the client to provide one or more offerings. Usually this will be for a set period after which it will be reviewed and normally involves specified rates and margins by the suppliers. Panels can be rigidly adhered to or sometimes they can act as more of a guideline. | ||
| Suspect | A person you have identified as somebody you would like a relationship with but have not entered into a conversion dialogue with at this time. The key objectives with all suspects are: gather the necessary data to make an ICP match and for those that are strong matches establish a conversion dialogue. | ||
| Taker | One of your stakeholders who is happy to take off you (lunches, DBCs, invitations, etc.) but is not willing, or perhaps able, to reciprocate. Takers are a drain on your time and resources and should be identified and eradicated from your active pipeline as soon as possible. The best way to do this is ask for something you might want to give people a couple of chances but usually once a taker, always a taker. | ||
| Targets | Somebody you want to do business with: suspect, prospects and long-range prospects. | ||
| Testimonial | A few sentences produced by a client or other external stakeholder aimed at strengthening your credibility by attesting your abilities and or USPs. Typically there will a short and long version of each testimonial which will be used in your sales collateral. | ||
| Thin CRM Data | This is general information kept about a stakeholder on CRM. Typically this will be their telephone numbers, addresses, job title, email addresses, activity history, links to their LinkedIn profiles etc. In short its the mundane but necessary working data you need to collect about a stakeholder. Also see fat CRM data. | ||
| Traps | Traps are marketing tools that can be used when you are communicating with a large group of targets so that only people of interest to you will take the bait and therefore become known to you. Traps are a form of self-selection really. They are particularly useful if you find yourself with an excessive number of suspects to process or want to revisit your background contacts. E.g. offering a free briefing document on the 10 most important things to consider before you press the sale button on your business would only likely be requested by those people beginning to consider selling their business. | ||
| Triggers | Are usually part of the ICP data that you would collect and represent the conditions that usually apply in an organisation that would suggest they are in need of your offering. E.g. in my case I look for B2B firms that are ambitious to grow but are not achieving the growth they want; dont have (or dont use) a CRM system and are more marketing than sales led. Perfect! Triggers are also useful in cross-selling because it is much more effective to run trigger sessions to train people to look for certain tell-tale signs in one of their clients and report back than it is to train them in all aspects of somebody elses offering and expect them to promote it themselves (which they wont do). Also see precons. | ||
| Value Proposition | Is used when making a pitch. It is the proposal or presentation of your offering which includes the price but emphasizes the USPs and associated benefits that will be delivered if the client chooses your option. A good value proposition will also subtly acknowledge and overcome any anticipated blockers the client could conceivably have to selecting you. | ||
| Up-selling | Is the activity of selling more to the client when they have just agreed to a purchase. At a drive-thru burger bar they might try and sell you some fries with your burger or perhaps ask if you want to supersize any of your purchases or perhaps the suit salesman tries to sell you a shirt and tie to go with your new suit. In the corporate world a client might have just agreed to a 6 month contract but you try and sell them a 7 month contract instead. Upselling has to make sense to the client either because it meets a need (to eat more in the case of your trip to the drive-thru) or avoid a risk (the price might go up at the end of six months). In any event it is a habit that should be encouraged in all sales people. | ||
| USP | Unique selling point. If a potential client needed to choose between two suppliers for a piece of work, but they were unable to find a difference between the two, then inevitably the selection criteria will come down to price. Added to that if a client already has a supplier that they are happy with why should they switch across to you? USPs are simply characteristics of your offering or the way in which you deliver which are different and provide the client with a benefit. USPs can include niche knowledge or experience, access to techniques or tools that others do not have and can even come down to the way in which your people interface with the client. Commercial enterprises spend billions of pounds a year developing and promoting their USPs. See composite USP. | ||
| Users | Users are stakeholders within an organisation who actually use your offering but have no say in the selection of you as a supplier. In many cases, however, they can decide which of the authorised suppliers will get the business so it is vital that these people are identified, assigned to an account manager and properly cultivated. Failure to do this is the most common reason why no work comes from an organisation where you have been added to the list as a new supplier. See deployment plan | ||
| SM - Twitter | A social networking site that allows you to send out 140-character messages all over the world | ||
| SM - Twitter | #FollowFriday | This is used by tweeters on a Friday to suggest others you may wish to follow, sometimes written as #FF | |
| SM - Twitter | #FF | A shorterned version of #FollowFriday | |
| SM - Twitter | Bio | A short personal description of 160 characters or less that defines who you are and what you tweet about | |
| SM - Twitter | Apps | This is an applications tab found in your settings that shows all of the third party websites you have allowed access to your public Twitter profile. | |
| SM - Twitter | Direct Message | These are private Tweets that only the sender and recipient can see. Sometimes referred to as a DM | |
| SM - Twitter | DM | A shorterned version of Direct Message | |
| SM - Twitter | Connect | The Connect tab lets you view any interactions, mentions, recent follows and Retweets relevant to you. You're able to view who has favorited or retweeted your Tweets, who has recently followed you, and all of your @replies and @mentions. | |
| SM - Twitter | Discover | The Discover tab shows you top Tweets, Who to Follow, Activites, potential new Friends, and Categories that Twitter think are relevant to you. |
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| SM - Twitter | Favourite | You can favourite a Tweet by clicking the yellow star next to the message. This means you can view them by going to your profile page and selecting 'Favourites'. | |
| SM - Twitter | Feed | A feed is a list of constantly updating tweets and other | |
| SM - Twitter | Followers | A follower is another Twitter user who has chosen to follow you. This means that your tweets will appear in their feed. | |
| SM - Twitter | Following | You can follow other users on Twitter which means theirs tweets will appear in your feed. You can see the number of users you follow by going to your profile page. | |
| SM - Twitter | Handle | A user's "Twitter handle" is the username they have selected and the accompanying URL, for example: http://twitter.com/mike_ames_flair or @mike_ames_flair | |
| SM - Twitter | Hashtag (#) | The # symbol allows users to mark keywords or topics in a tweet. | |
| SM - Twitter | Lists | Lists are where you curate various other users into a saved list in order to see their tweets in one place. You can have both public and private lists. | |
| SM - Twitter | @Mention | You can mention other users in your tweet by including the @ directly before their username. | |
| SM - Twitter | @Reply | You can reply to another tweet by hovering over it and selecting reply. It will automatically add in the @username of the author of the tweet so that they will be alerted. | |
| SM - Twitter | Retweet | Retweeting is where you forward another users tweet to your followers by selecting Retweet. They will appear in your followers timeline with the original users name and image and 'Retweeted by (Yourname) underneath. | |
| SM - Twitter | RT | Shorterned version of Retweet | |
| SM - Twitter | Timeline | A list of tweets on twitter that is constantly update. | |
| Home Timeline | Your home Timeline is a list of all the tweets from those you follow. | ||
| SM - Twitter | Trend | A subject that is algorithmically determined to be one of the most popular on twitter. It can be worldwide or regional and it can be a word, phrase or hashtag. | |
| SM - Twitter | Tweet | A message of 140 characters posted to twitter. | |
| SM - Twitter | Unfollow | When you unfollow someone their tweets no longer appear in your home timeline | |
| SM - Twitter | Username | Also know as your 'Handle'. It is unique to each user and is your username. If you wish to reply or mention someone you must use @username | |
| SM - Twitter | Verified Account | A Twitter account is stamped to show that a legitimate source is authoring the account's Tweets - usually used for celebrities | |
| SM - LinkedIn | |||
| SM - LinkedIn | 1st level connection | Other LinkedIn users that you are directly Linked to | |
| SM - LinkedIn | 2nd level connection | A contact of a 1st level connection. | |
| SM - LinkedIn | 3rd level connection | A contact of a 2nd level connection. | |
| SM - LinkedIn | Activity Feed | A continually updated list of activity from your network including status updates, profile changes, groups and much more | |
| SM - LinkedIn | Company Page | A company page allows you to put the focus on your organisation. You can list products and services whilst posting news about the company. Anyone can follow your company page to receive updates in their activity feed | |
| SM - LinkedIn | Endorsement | You can now add individual skills to your profile that your connections endorse you for. All it takes is one simple click fand they can endorse you for skills that you havent put on your profile. | |
| SM - LinkedIn | Groups | LinkedIn Groups allow you to connect with like-minded professionals and discuss topics relevant to you. | |
| SM - LinkedIn | Inbox | Inbox allows you to send messages to those within your network | |
| SM - LinkedIn | Influencers | Influencer is an invite-only program that features notable leaders from a vast range of industries including Richard Branson, Arianna Huffington and Bill Gates posting blogs around their area of expertise. | |
| SM - LinkedIn | Inmail | Inmails allow you to send messages to someone on LinkedIn you are not directly connected to. | |
| SM - LinkedIn | Introduction | If you want to get in contact with a 2nd level or 3rd level connection you can use your network to request an introduction from a mutual connection | |
| SM - LinkedIn | Invitation | You must send or accept a LinkedIn invitiation to make someone a 1st level connection | |
| SM - LinkedIn | Mention | Similarly to twitter and Facebook you can now directly mention a 1st level connection in your status updates which they will in turn be alerted to | |
| SM - LinkedIn | Message | You can send LinkedIn Messages from your Inbox. You can send them to all 1st level connections and it is free. | |
| SM - LinkedIn | Multimedia | You can now add multimedia to your LinkedIn Profile, this includes videos, PDF's, presentations, podcasts and much more. | |
| SM - LinkedIn | Network | All of your connections, which include 1st, 2nd and 3rd level connections | |
| SM - LinkedIn | Profile | Your LinkedIn profile is to be thought of as your own personal website. It shouldrelavant information about you professionally and personal that you feel current and futurte clients would like to know. | |
| SM - LinkedIn | Pulse | Pulse is the LinkedIn integrated news app | |
| SM - LinkedIn | Recommendation | A written testimonial about a colleague/friend regarding their professional experience that is published on their profile. | |
| SM - LinkedIn | Share | You can Share other users LinkedIn Updates which allows your connections to see it. | |
| SM - LinkedIn | Update | A LinkedIn Status update allows you to use 689 characters to write and share news and links, ask questions and generally keep your network up to date with you | |
| SM - Google+ | Google+ | Google+ is Googles own social network that allows you to see and share updates with circles | |
| SM - Google+ | +1 Button | This is how you alert others to the face you like or relate to their post | |
| SM - Google+ | Circles | This is the way of arranging other users into groups, for example around a specific theme or location. You can then share information with specific circles. | |
| SM - Google+ | Extended Circles | Extended Circles mean everyone in your Circles as well as everybody in their Circles. - | |
| SM - Google+ | Hangout | These are video conferences for up to 10 devices on the normal account. | |
| SM - Google+ | Page | You can create a page around a group, interest or business, they interact in a similar way to a regular google+ profile owner. | |
| SM - Google+ | Profile | A profile is almost your Google+ Homepage, but you have control over who sees what. | |
| SM - Google+ | Stream | This is the regularly updated list of posts from all of your circles | |
| SM - Blogging | Blogging | Writing posts on a topic or subject for publishing on the internet. | |
| SM - Blogging | Article | Another term for 'Post' | |
| SM - Blogging | Author | The individual who wrote the post | |
| SM - Blogging | Avatar | An image or graphic that represents the author across the blogosphere | |
| Blog | A blog is made up of a collection of posts | ||
| SM - Blogging | Blargon | Blogging slang | |
| SM - Blogging | Blogosphere | Is the common term given to the blogging community | |
| SM - Blogging | Blogroll | A list of other blogs that another recommends by posting a list of links | |
| SM - Blogging | Category | A way of categorising posts usually using keywords. | |
| SM - Blogging | Comments | Opinions on the post that your readers have left. | |
| SM - Blogging | Hyperlink | Clickable content with a post that takes you to another webpage. | |
| SM - Blogging | Permalink | This is the URL that is unique to each invidivual post | |
| SM - Blogging | Ping | The alert sent to an author of a trackback | |
| SM - Blogging | Pingback | Another term for a trackback | |
| SM - Blogging | Plugin | Additional itnes to add to your sidebar that can add a little extra to your website. All widgets are plugins but not all plugins are widgets | |
| SM - Blogging | Podcasting | An audio clip that can be downloaded to MP3 players. | |
| SM - Blogging | Post | A single entry on a blog usually consisting of text and images. | |
| SM - Blogging | RSS | RSS stands for 'Really Simple Syndication' It is essentially a group of Web feed formats used to publish frequently updated content such as blog entries, news headlines or podcasts. | |
| SM - Blogging | RSS Feed | The latest posts form a blog - it usually contains an image from the post, the title and one or two lines from the post | |
| SM - Blogging | Sidebar | A collumn found to the side of most blogs, usually containg extra details such a other social media sites, blogroll, authors bios etc. | |
| SM - Blogging | Spambot | A program designed to collect, or harvest, e-mail addresses from the Internet in order to build mailing lists for sending unsolicited e-mail, also known as spam | |
| SM - Blogging | Subject | The title of your post | |
| SM - Blogging | Subscribe | When you subscribe you will then receive the blogs directly to an email account or feed reader. | |
| SM - Blogging | Tag | Keywords that are used to organise and collate posts | |
| SM - Blogging | Title | The subject of your post | |
| SM - Blogging | Trackback | When a blogger refers to other blog posts within a blog. | |
| SM - Blogging | Vlog | A video blog | |
| SM - Blogging | Widget | These are additions to your site that commonly sit in the sidebar. The usuyally provide call to actions, links or other helpful functions |
