Networking

Your Brand | Your Career | Your Journey with Lindsay Zwart

July 19, 2017 By Barbara Giamanco Leave a Comment

I love this topic because it is a reminder that we are the owners of our plan for work and life! My guest in this segment was Lindsay Zwart, Microsoft General Manager of the US SM&SP National Sales Organization (NSO).

Lindsay is an advocate for women in leadership roles. She told me why that advocacy is so important to her.

We also talked about:

Why Lindsay believes women need to put more emphasis on building their brand and why she believes that it is important for career success.

To be successful, we certainly cannot go it alone. I asked Lindsay to share her advice for networking effectively – inside and outside of any organization where you work.

How Lindsay’s international experience has been of value to her working for Microsoft and how she leverages experience that in her career.

Lindsay also shared her suggestions for women to help them identify their next roles and once those roles are identified, how to create a plan to get there.

Finally, we talked about work/life balance because Lindsay is an extremely busy executive, as all the women in this leadership series are. Lindsay talked about how she maintains the balance between work and her home life. Good stuff!

Enjoy the interview!

This episode is sponsored by Hubspot.

HubSpot CRM makes it easy to organize, track, and grow your pipeline. And it’s free. Forever! You should give it a try right NOW!

About Lindsay:

Lindsay Zwart is General Manager of the US SM&SP National Sales Organization (NSO) at Microsoft. Lindsay’s team manages Corporate Accounts Licensing and in SMS&P, Software Asset Management, Sales Excellence and CTM Strategy. Lindsay previously led the U.S. Dynamics Partner, Industry and SMB Sales organization, the Dynamics Country Lead for New Zealand, and led the consulting team within the Microsoft Services organization. Lindsay worked for IBM before joining Microsoft. She enjoys working in a vibrant, collaborative environment, and is an advocate for supporting women in leadership roles and empowering people through trust and accountability. When not working, Lindsay enjoys time with her husband and two girls, ages 12 and 9, keeping busy with sporting activities and adventures.

Connect with Lindsay on LinkedIn and Twitter

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Go Fish! Turning Blah Blah Blah into Bling

August 20, 2015 By Barbara Giamanco 2 Comments

Convincing people to buy from you is sort of like fishing. To catch those fish you need a product or service that someone else needs, a process you work consistently, a hook with the right kind of bait, patience and great timing. When it gets right down to it, your ability to attract clients and close sales is not that much different.

Ditch the pitch.

If you stop and think about it for a minute, it’s pretty obvious that Mr. or Ms. Fish isn’t likely to swim right up to you and jump on that hook the moment you throw it in the water. Why then would you expect your potential client to pry open their wallet the moment you throw something at them? Call me old fashioned, but I do believe that you don’t get a second chance to make a great first impression. The quality of that first interaction, whether it is email, the phone or a social media conversation, matters.

And that’s the problem.

Blah Blah Blah

Salespeople and marketers continue to complain that decision makers are harder to reach. It’s true, they are. There is a reason why less than 10% of those emails and phone calls are ignored. Sellers and marketers only have themselves to blame. Don’t think so? In a Digital Marketing Digest released by Silverpop, they say that “Buyers, fed up with crowded inboxes and irrelevant advertising noise, are shutting out content that isn’t relevant to them and using search and social to control their own buyer journeys.”

Though I am a huge proponent of using social media as part of your sales game plan, I also don’t believe that email and email marketing is going away any time soon. To stand out, your message must be relevant to the person you are sending it too.

It is NOT about you.

Most sales messages (AKA sales spam) that I see or receive are overly “me” centric. It’s all about the company, the product or that last infusion of cash they received from a major investor. These messages are focused on your sales agenda when it should focus on the buyers agenda. If you don’t communicate your message from the buyers point of view, you lose. Buyers want answers to their business problems. If you can show them that you solve those problems, you have a shot at a customer for life. But a word of caution… when I say, “show them how you solve their problem”, I do not mean rolling into your pitch and demo.

Your potential customers do not care about the process of how you get things done. Nor do they really care about the technical details, at least not at the beginning of their decision making journey. Of course, at some point the technical details, or the process of how you get things done will matter, but that isn’t what you lead with in your early stage sales conversations. What buyers care about is the actual RESULT they receive when they buy from you. Demonstrate that you’ve done your homework, understand their business and the competitive challenges they are likely facing. Show them how, working together, you not only are positioned to help solve business problems, but that you can help them create an adoption roadmap that will ensure the success of their purchase and deliver the return on their investment.

Message matters.

In more ways than one. Whether you know it or not, the random, pitchy emails you are sending are either uplifting your brand or slowly killing it over time. If expanded networks (with the right targeted buyer) and more leads in the pipeline is the goal, now would be a good time to do a complete overhaul of the sales message strategy you are using.

Forget the process and all the jargon. Talk about the problems you solve and the tangible results you deliver. That’s how you turn blah blah blah into BLING!

Numbers Don’t Equal Influence

July 7, 2014 By Barbara Giamanco 3 Comments

A seller’s most important asset is her network. Prior to the internet and social networks, we cultivated our networks slowly, over time.

Salespeople certainly had larger than average networks, since knowing a lot of people opened more doors, which led to more deals, but unless you were a super connector, your network would mostly be comprised of people in your local geography. Typically where you lived and the sales territory you supported were often one and same.

The introduction of business networking sites like LinkedIn blew all that up.

Now our networks span the globe. Think “pen pal” on steroids. Using Skype, it is not uncommon for me to talk to four or five people each week who live outside the United States. As an example, last week I talked to people in London, Sweden, Germany, Belgium and Israel. The ability to be globally connected also presents us with unique opportunities to team up with others to conduct business. I personally think that’s incredibly cool.

There’s a dark side.

Early in the history of social media’s evolution, it was not uncommon for people to publicly brag about their number of Twitter followers, email subscribers or LinkedIn network connections. I imagine many still do. On the surface, large numbers sound impressive and certainly bolsters the braggart’s ego when people gasp or applaud admiringly. Me? I’m not impressed.

I’m not impressed because…

• If you find it necessary to blatantly self-promote at every opportunity, I have to wonder why.
• Numbers on their own do not drive ROI – Return on Influence, Impact and Investment.

When I was writing The New Handshake: Sales Meet Social Media in 2009, I believed then, as I have my entire career that it is the mashup of quality plus quantity that matters. Collecting numbers is not the same as developing the interpersonal relationships that lead to the influence you need to be a successful seller.

Yeah, I’m sure I’ll get some flak on this one, but it is my opinion based on my own experience.

Number collectors are why I’ve never been a fan of the LinkedIn LION (LinkedIn Open Networker) concept. These folks will connect with anyone that breathes. With rare exception, there is only one reason they do it. They want bragging rights.

Let’s set aside LinkedIn’s policy for a moment, which says that you connect only with people you actually know, how can you have a relationship with 20,000 individual or more people? Call me a cynic, but my answer is that you can’t.

Words are words and numbers are numbers.

When I think about the ROI of selling, I think a lot about whether or not I’m having a positive impact that influences someone in a good way. Having a large number of connections or followers, does not necessarily make anyone influential. It is easy to talk about “paying it forward” or “giving first”, but in the end, it is the action behind the words and numbers that tell the real story. The question is are you able to discern the difference?

LinkedIn Taking a Cue from Twitter?

May 8, 2013 By Barbara Giamanco Leave a Comment

Interesting that LinkedIn is becoming more Twitter like every day. They are now rolling out the Mentions feature, which is a nifty way to engage people in viewing and contributing their comments to your updates. Think @barbaragiamanco on Twitter and now you can do something similar on LinkedIn.

The feature also lets you mention companies and when you do your message is then linked to their LinkedIn company page from your update or comment.

Here’s how it works:

Go to your homepage share box to post your update or click “comment” on someone else’s update.
Type “@” and then begin typing a name in the box. You’ll then see a list of potential people or companies you can mention.
Click a name you want from the list and continue typing your message.

Note: LinkedIn members outside your network can also be mentioned if they’ve commented on the same update.

After you select someone from the list and finish your update, that person will receive an email that lets them know that you’ve mentioned them. The name will also be linked to a profile or Company Page from your update.

Maria mentioned me in her Status Update, and I received an email notification. Not only is it clear she is giving me visibility with her network of connections, but I have the opportunity to respond and thank her for doing so.

LinkedIn has certainly progressed since back in the day. As one of the first 1 million members using LinkedIn – number 874,098 to be exact, much has changed. In case you weren’t aware of it, LinkedIn celebrated its 10^th anniversary on Cinco de Mayo (that’s May 5 for you gringo’s). In 10 years’ time, I’ve seen the platform evolve into a powerhouse sales tool. From the beginning, I believed that if LinkedIn could help someone secure that next career gig by harnessing the power of their LinkedIn network, it seemed obvious that the same principle would apply to sales.

Check out the new Mentions feature and keep me posted on how it is improving the engagement in your LinkedIn network. And remember that this feature is just the next in a wave of more to come. In an upcoming post, I’ll write about what’s coming with Contacts. You will be wowed!

P.S. Ask me how I know my LinkedIn member number. Do you know yours?

Sales Spam at a New Level

May 15, 2012 By Barbara Giamanco Leave a Comment

Wow, just when you thought that salespeople couldn’t get more desperate or sink any lower…along comes this spam mail through our website contact page. Forget how crazy time consuming this must be jumping around to people’s websites, but what is truly ironic is that this unenlightened salesperson (and I’m being nice here) apparently didn’t bother to notice that I had just written a blog post about the inappropriateness of sales spam. Talk about not knowing your audience!

So…here’s the message:

“Good Afternoon, I am getting in touch with training companies from a variety of backgrounds who all currently deliver face to face and material lead courses. My question is have you converted any of your training content to be served online and sold to your current client base? The reason for such a questions is simply that there are many training companies unaware of the additional revenue that can be achieved quickly and easily by converting present content and methods to an online version, this in turn can supplement or create a completely new revenue stream from clients both incumbent and previously unobtainable. In order to do this you need to source an appropriate learning management system (LMS) provider. The XYZ LMS platform is ideal for those who have developed or are looking to develop online training content and want to organize, distribute, track and report on all content across multiple user populations. We let clients focus on their core competencies and creation of quality content without worrying about the ongoing delivery to customers. We also provide industry advice on the most common tools and methods to use in the content development stage and would be happy to answer any questions and provide insight on this. I will follow up shortly but if you can advise on the above or indicate the correct person to speak to please get in touch. All the best, Sales Idiot (ok, not the real name but hey, it’s my post).”

Seriously, your thoughts? The truth is that I might have actually been interested in talking to this guy, but I won’t give him the time of day now, because he is clearly clueless. The message isn’t personalized…same message apparently to every other “training” company. He spent zero time understanding who we are and what we believe in, which is inexcusable given he was on our website. How could you miss it? And, follow up shortly? Does he plan to keep reaching out to us via our website contact form? Who knows how long it will take to get rid of him.

There are so many things I want to help change about the profession of sales, but for now, sales spam tops the list! What tops your list?

Managing Your Social Time

April 30, 2012 By Barbara Giamanco Leave a Comment

As long as I’ve got the subject of time on the brain, I thought I’d write a post about the biggest objection that I hear from salespeople with respect to using social media as part of their sales routine.

“I don’t have time”.

That always gets me a little riled, because it says to me three things. One, they haven’t accepted that social media is as critical to their sales business, as email and smart phones have become. Two, these reps still believe that running around to lots of networking events is what gets them the greatest return on their effort even though, at most of those events, their buyer isn’t even in the room. Three, they don’t understand how to use technology to their advantage.

Adapt or fall further behind.

Whether you like it or not, buyer behavior has changed. Your sales approach needs to change too. Buyers do a significant amount of research online before ever engaging with a salesperson. Can they find you? And, if they do find you, is the information that you’ve shared on your LinkedIn profile (as an example) compelling enough for them to want to talk to you at all?

I know, I know. You never thought we’d do business over email either. Well, you were wrong. You are wrong about social media too! Every day business is being transacted over social sites. Unless you want your competitors to step up and kick your bootie, it’s time to move.

Ok, so let’s talk about those networking events.

When is the last time you carefully evaluated if the events that you are attending is netting you any sort of sales return? In general, you can choose to attend events for two reasons. One, you want the education, because you think the speaker is going to be awesome. Two, you are going to make connections with people who can buy your products and services. Let’s hope that most of you are using your networking time focused on #2. But here’s the problem. Buyers aren’t spending time at networking events like they used to. A friend of mine – he’s the decision maker for the technology providers who get in at his company – tells me that not only does he not spend much time at networking events anymore, he also doesn’t carry business cards to the ones he does attend. Buyers aren’t showing up, because they are tired of being pitched by sellers. Why are you spending so much time there?

What to do?

Free up some time by cutting out events you know aren’t getting you connected to sales opportunities. Spread that time throughout the week and use it to share content, post updates, research your target list of prospects, etc. using LinkedIn, Focus, InsideView, Facebook, Twitter, blogs, whatever. You can create some serious opportunities working social just 30-minutes a day. I know, because I do it. The key is to have a plan and know exactly what you want to accomplish.

Finally, use technology to your advantage. Unless you enjoy posting on LinkedIn, then jumping over to Twitter or your Facebook page, use Hootsuite as your social media dashboard and content organizer. Hootsuite’s free version lets you connect to five social media sites and/or RSS feeds. Got a blog you like to follow? Curate the content by setting up the blog RSS feed in your Hootsuite account. Every time a new post is published, a message shoots out from your account to your various social media sites. From your Hootsuite dashboard, you can send messages to LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, etc. and you can monitor the conversations from there as well. And, you have the ability to schedule messages in advance.

So, stop making excuses.

You do have time to integrate social media into your sales activities and like any change to the way that you do things, you have to decide if you will spend time on the activities that actually lead to sales – or not.

29 Ways to Leverage LinkedIn for Social Selling

September 18, 2011 By Barbara Giamanco Leave a Comment

Establish your LinkedIn profile if you haven’t already. Duh. LinkedIn is the premier B2B (business to business) networking tool out there. Get LinkedIn or get locked out is my motto.

Create compelling content that tells people the value that they receive when working with you.
Make sure your profile is 100% complete.

Include a professional headshot…not one of the kids or from your last fishing vacation!

Improve your search rankings by adding applicable keywords in the headline area underneath your name. Sorry, but nobody searches for CEO of anything. Sprinkle those keywords (where it makes sense) throughout your summary information.

Customize your website links. Instead of leaving the standard “company website” title, edit it and include the name of your company, product, service or last radio interview you conducted. It’s all about branding folks.

Post a status update with information relevant to your network on a daily basis. Connect your Twitter account using the Twitter app and your LinkedIn updates will feed Twitter and vice versa.

Share an article from LinkedIn Today, which you’ll find under the News tab.

Peruse the network home page to see who’s connected to whom – maybe they are a good connection for you too.

Make a point to like and comment on updates from people in your network.

Secure recommendations. Make sure that they are relevant and authentic.

Look to see “who’s viewed your profile”…is there an opportunity to reach out to them to say hello?

After every networking meeting, sales meeting or speaking event, invite appropriate people to connect with you.

Personalize your invitation requests to let people know how they know you and why connecting with you create a win/win for you both.

When accepting the invitations of others, immediately click on “send email” and thank them for reaching out to invite you to connect on LinkedIn. Everybody loves a thank you!

Share the profile of colleagues with people you know who might be a good prospect for they offer. Take a moment to tell them why meeting with your colleague is a good idea.

View the connections of your 1-1 connections regularly and ask for a personal introduction to people that you want to meet. Don’t forget to ask them how you can help them with something in return!

Export your contacts and invite a few colleagues to a contact sharing meet-up. Each of you brings your list and you find ways to help each other get to new prospects.

Join LinkedIn groups that your potential buyer is likely to join. Participating in discussions gives you an opportunity to demonstrate the credibility you bring to the table.

Promote other people in your network. Share their events, good news, presentations or company page.

Follow companies that you’d like to do business with and keep tabs on the people and changes in the organization.

Set up your own company page. This becomes a mini-website within the LinkedIn platform.
Set up a FREE Slideshare account and share a presentation about your capabilities or a business topic relevant to your industry.

Host a video clip on your profile using Google Presentations.

Post your upcoming events using the Events application. Once set up, you can share the event with 50 members in your network and ask them to pass on to people in their networks. Copy the event link and use it to post as a status update for your entire network to see.

Conduct sales research using Company Pages or the Answers section. In today’s sales world, decision makers expect that you’ve done your homework. Don’t ask them lame questions during that all important sales meeting that you could have easily uncovered on the web.

Connect your blog to your profile using Blog Link or the WordPress application. Every time you post, your profile is automatically updated.

Earned a certification, speak several languages or have published a book? Use the “Add Sections” feature to include them. When in edit mode, you’ll find the feature just before your summary information.

Finally, and maybe most importantly, set up a “Saved Search” using the Advanced Search capability. Set up your search using the keywords or titles that best describe your sales target. Break it down by industry and geographic location based on zip code. Once you run the search – SAVE IT! You can save 3 with the free version of LinkedIn. Why save? Because every Monday morning LinkedIn sends you an email telling you what people matching your criteria have just joined your network. A most incredible and FREE lead generation list. Oh, but it does mean that you need quality and quantity of connections for the data to have any value.

Whew, well there you have it. Twenty-nine ways to better leverage LinkedIn to drive sales activities and results. Have fun and happy selling!

Hum, Do I Know You?

July 22, 2011 By Barbara Giamanco 4 Comments

Today marks seven years since I first began using LinkedIn. As a raving fan, I use the networking tool daily for making connections, sharing referrals, prospecting, conducting pre-sales call research and more. It is an amazing sales tool with power far greater than what most people realize, which is why salespeople need to to invest the time to learn how to use LinkedIn effectively.

Making and accepting invitations is the first step in building your network, so I’d like to share 3 brief tips about how to do it the right way. Before I do, I need to tell you that I do not subscribe to the “open networker” philosophy, and I do not say yes to everyone who asks me to connect with them. Our networks are business assets and should be treated as such. If I’m going to allow someone access to my connections, I need to know that I can trust them to behave professionally. I’m about the quality of connections not the sheer number of them.

Ok, now that I’ve set the stage with my feelings about building my network, here are 3 tips for making and accepting LinkedIn invitations.

1. Invite people that you know. LinkedIn’s official policy is that you connect with people that you know. Daily, I receive invitations from people that I’ve never heard of, never met and never conversed with in a LinkedIn group. These invitations usually indicate that we are friends when we aren’t. Or, they suggest that we’ve done business together, which we haven’t. I keep an open mind about connecting with people that I do not know yet, but you have to give me a compelling reason to do so. What’s the benefit to me? That leads me to point number two.

2. Personalize your invitations. I’m pretty much over the standard “I’d like to add you to my LinkedIn network.” Really, why? Why am I a good connection for you and vice versa? The “you are a person that I trust” message also gets under my skin. These invitations are especially irritating when I have no idea who you are. How do you know that you can trust me? The way I see it, if the connection is important to you – stop and take a moment to customize your message. Guess what, I don’t have the time to look up your profile and figure out if we’d be good connections for each other. Other people don’t either. Your job is to make it clear why connecting makes sense for both parties.

3. When you accept a connection, send a personalized message saying “thank you”. It’s a small, but very important way to stand out. In fact, I conducted social media training for a group of salespeople on Wednesday, and one gal in the room said that it bugged her when people never responded to her after connecting. All it takes is a minute to click on “send a message” once you’ve accepted the invite. It lets the other person know that you actually care about being connected.

People buy from people that they know, like and trust. Sales referrals are shared with other professionals for the same reasons. Relationships matter. Remembering that you never get a second chance to make a first impression, make your first LinkedIn interaction count!

Where’s My Atta-Girl?

January 24, 2011 By Barbara Giamanco 2 Comments

Last Thursday was one superfantastic day! At Atlanta Women in Business, we held the 7th Annual “Results Count” award luncheon at one of my fave restaurants, Maggiano’s. What an amazingly good time! The room was packed and the networking took on a fever frenzy. It was clear that people were not only enjoying the opportunity to network with other like minded professionals, but they were in celebration mode. Think Oscars but smaller:).

And the winner is…

Eleanor Morgan, President/CEO of MD&E. An absolutely amazing business woman with grace, charm and humility to boot, Eleanor embodies the true spirit and meaning of the annual award. Congrats Eleanor!

While Eleanor was speaking, I was fondly remembering back to last year when I was honored with the award, and it occurred to me that as an entrepreneur, I don’t receive accolades like I used to back in my corporate sales days. I mean, who’s gonna pat me on the back and give me that sales award anyway? Me? During Eleanor’s comments, she also mentioned how nice it was to be recognized by her peers. I couldn’t agree more!

To all of you who own your own businesses, I am giving you the high 5 right now! If you came from the corporate world, you know what it really takes to make your own rain every single day. “Success is an inside job” takes on new meaning, doesn’t it? It isn’t always easy, but you do it day in and day out. For that, I salute you all!

By the way…that’s Eleanor on the left and Lya Sorano, Founder and CEO of Atlanta Women in Business on the right.

Your Brand | Your Career | Your Journey with Lindsay Zwart

Sales Spam at a New Level

Where’s My Atta-Girl?

Best Sales Blogger

Top Blogger

Innovation

Sales Efficiency