Barbara Giamanco

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Starting a Business and Lessons Learned Along the Way with Kate Bradley Chernis, Lately

By Barbara Giamanco Leave a Comment

 Kate Bradley Chernis is the Founder & CEO of Lately, which uses Artificial Intelligence to automatically turn blogs, videos and podcasts into dozens of amazing social posts, which is then syndicated across unlimited channels. Lately customers use the platform for personal branding communications, brand marketing management, executive thought leadership, employee advocacy and social selling.

Kate knows a thing or two about marketing and brand building. Prior to founding Lately, Kate served 20 million listeners as Music Director and on-air host at Sirius/XM. She’s also an award-winning radio producer, engineer and voice talent with 25 years of national broadcast communications, brand-building, sales and marketing expertise.

I’m often asked what it is like to be a business owner. Many people tired of corporate life think owning their own business is the key that opens the door to nirvana. The perfect life.

While running your own show has MANY benefits, there are downsides too. Things completely out of your control. Challenges are part of the package, so if you are severely risk averse or afraid of selling, working for yourself is NOT the best choice for you. In no way do I want to discourage you from pursuing a dream to own your business, but I do want you to go into the endeavor with your eyes wide open!

Want to be a biz owner? Go for it. I wouldn’t change my path in any way. Doubtful that Kate would either. Kate shares her rather incredible and serendipitous journey to success with her newest company Lately that is quite inspiring. My biggest takeaway…pay attention. Opportunity for the next big thing in your life could be staring you right in the face!

Here are the topics I covered with Kate in the interview.

How she went from radio to becoming a tech startup CEO.

How Lately came to life.

Kate’s advice for female entrepreneurs.

Why “checkout” is the absolute worst phrase you can possibly use in marketing and sales messaging. Yes. Really!

How radio influences the way that Kate and Lately market their business.

The importance of human touch and connection in sales and marketing and why H2H wins against over reliance on automation every time.

Being a rock and roller myself, I had to know if during her radio years, Kate ever had the opportunity to meet any famous rock stars. Indeed she did. She met Keith Richards of The Rolling Stones along with other band members, including Mick Jagger himself. The story is quite amazing! And funny.

Listen and enjoy the interview!

Subscribe on iTunes and never miss a podcast episode! If you are enjoying the podcast, please leave us a review and a 5-star rating. Also listen on Spotify, Stitcher

Or listen to the interview on the podcast page.

About Kate – Connect with her on Twitter, LinkedIn or via email.

Kate Bradley Chernis is the Founder & CEO of Lately, which uses Artificial Intelligence to automatically turn blogs, videos and podcasts into dozens of amazing social posts. Lately then automatically syndicates that content across unlimited channel, franchisee, location or stakeholder accounts. Customers small, medium and large span a horizontal market across multiple industries, using Lately for personal branding communications, brand marketing management, executive thought leadership, employee advocacy and social selling.

As a former marketing agency owner, Kate initially created the idea for Lately out of spreadsheets for then-client, Walmart, and got them a 130% ROI, year-over-year for three years.

Prior to founding Lately, Kate served 20 million listeners as Music Director and on-air host at Sirius/XM. She’s also an award-winning radio producer, engineer and voice talent with 25 years of national broadcast communications, brand-building, sales and marketing expertise.

Feature header blog post photo by Andrew Neel on Unsplash

Filed Under: blog, Women In Sales Tagged With: artificial intelligence, blog, digital marketing, digital selling, employee advocacy, podcast, sales, social media, social media marketing, social selling, video

Should Salespeople Create Their Own Content?

By Barbara Giamanco 2 Comments

Content ConceptYou’ve probably heard that content is king (I say queen). Content is the way to start wooing your prospects in advance of sales opportunities. Every conversation related to social selling includes a focus on using content to boost your credibility as a thought leader in your field. I don’t disagree with that premise. Buyers are doing early stage research, and the use of content that is relevant and educational can certainly work to your advantage. Buyers turn a deaf ear to the pitch, but they do pay attention when what you do, say and share makes it clear to them that you understand what is important to them.

The right content used strategically at the right time definitely, helps you stand apart from your competitors. But the big question is – should salespeople be the ones creating their content?

Many in the social selling space will insist that the answer is yes. Others say, absolutely not. After all, isn’t that marketing’s job? Me? I say it depends on your personal situation.

When you think about how to use content as part of your sales process, there are three ways you can approach it:

  1. Share the content of others.
  2. Share the content your marketing team produces.
  3. Create your own.

Let’s talk about each one.

Share the Content of Others

This can work to your advantage PROVIDED the content is relevant to your audience and offers them specific insights that can help them improve their business. This assumes something really important – you have to know what your buyer cares about.

Some investigative work is required. Your marketing department may have done buyer persona work you can use, and you can use social media to do your validation about what your targeted buyers are interested in. How? Ask yourself these questions about your target buyers:

-What content do they share on LinkedIn? Not just the topics, but the medium. Do they tend to share more articles or it is video or podcasts?

-What content topics do they comment on? Could be in tweets, LinkedIn status updates or on posts others are publishing.

-What LinkedIn influencers are they following?

-Do they publish LinkedIn posts? If so, what topics do they write about?

-Who do they follow on Twitter and what kind of content do they share there? Is it business, more personal or a little of both?

– What about groups they have joined on LinkedIn, what types of questions do they answer or like?

The point is that online social behavior will provide clues to help you determine how to structure your thinking around the type of content to share. Then you can study your industry to determine who produces content that you believe your customers and potential customers will find of real benefit. Could be top bloggers, publications like Forbes, Harvard Business Review or Inc. Magazine. If you are appealing to folks in the sales world, perhaps you are sharing daily doses of content from Top Sales World. Might be a well-respected publication in your specific industry.

Will this take a little sweat equity to figure out and plan for? Yes. But, honestly, it isn’t too much and if your end game is to secure opportunities to have a sales conversation with buyers, well then, put in the effort.

Share Company Produced Content

Now that you’ve done the digging and have a good idea of what content will appeal to your prospective buyer, you can match those interests to the content your marketing team has worked hard to create. I’m thinking white papers, research reports, informative blog posts, interviews with industry leaders, etc. Be careful, though. If the content isn’t much more than dressed up sales pitches, I’d rethink how much company produced content you share. If the content is simply pitching products or services, that will turn buyers off.

Make a point to share relevant content once a day through the network of your choice. The platform where your prospective buyers are most likely to see it. Add a comment before sharing to bring attention to why your buyer should read the article. Tell them what you believe will be valuable to them.

Posting once a day doesn’t take a lot of time. What it requires though is knowing where the content is so that you get to it easily. Could be your company’s LinkedIn page, a content sharing portal that your marketing team has created and so on.

Produce Your Own Content

This one is tricky because there are only so many hours in the day. The main job of those of us in sales is to, well, you know, sell. The zealots will insist that no matter what, you have to make time to create content. Well, I don’t know about that. If you have a family you go home to that includes a spouse and kids; I’m not sure how much they’d appreciate you getting right to work on content once they finally have time with you. Okay, sure, you can get up an hour earlier. Maybe stay up after the kiddos have gone to bed. The point is you have to figure out what rhythm you can commit yourself to in this area.

If you don’t have a lot of experience creating content, it won’t be quite as easy as some experts would have you believe. You’ll need a content plan that includes topics, what type of content you will create, and where and how you’ll distribute the content. Questions have to be answered. If you blindly jump in, you will likely flounder and feel frustrated.

I know a few folks in the social selling space who INSIST salespeople WRITE their own content. I vehemently disagree! This is just another example of trying to force a one-size-fits-all approach onto everyone.

First, you must like writing. It isn’t easy.

Second, the goal is to create content that backs up your professional brand promise, demonstrates your expertise, and paints a picture of how you think and what working with you might be like. You want your words to lead buyers to think – hey, I want to talk to that person, I think they can help us.

Third, you need to do it well. I’ve read some of the most poorly written posts on LinkedIn ever. Words missing, capitalizing every word in a sentence, grammar way off, run on sentences and the like. Same goes for blog posts. Everyone makes mistakes but it is clear that some folks are writing stream of consciousness and don’t go back to edit themselves. Did I say that the content is representing you? If it looks like you are unable to string a few sentences together coherently, what message are you communicating to a potential buyer?

Writing is only one way to create content. There are many great ways to create content that is yours and here are 17 ideas to get those juices flowing. Maybe it is a presentation you create. How about conducting podcast interviews. What about a webinar you host with a panel of leaders in your industry that you invite prospects to attend, which you record and repurpose later. You might like creating short little video clips.

What I’m saying is that you need to figure out what you are most comfortable creating on your own and start there.

About that original question.

The answer isn’t yes or no. Most things are not black and white.

The answer is that salespeople need a content strategy that works for them. That much is true, and I believe it will be a mashup of the three approaches I shared in this post. It is probably a mix of 70% (other), 20% (company), and 10% (yours) in the beginning. You have to determine for yourself what will work best for you. Don’t listen to anyone insisting it has to be one way – as in you must write your own content – just because they said so. This is about your brand – not theirs! Never forget that!

 

Filed Under: blog, content strategy Tagged With: content marketing, lead generation, Prospecting, social media marketing, social selling

It’s 2016. What Will You Do Differently?

By Barbara Giamanco Leave a Comment

Buyers want and expect more. They drive the decision making process and expect salespeople to align their approach to match their process for making a purchase. If you keep trying to force them into your sales process, you will have difficulty getting to a successful sales outcome.
The buyer’s journey looks like this…
buyersjourney2016

AWARENESS

57% of buyers start the sales process without engaging sales. -CEB

Why is this important?

Buyers begin their early stage research when they have a problem to solve or an opportunity they want to capitalize on. In this awareness phase, they can easily gather plenty of data to get them moving in the right direction. The question is twofold: can you be easily found on the web, in LinkedIn, on Twitter? And, once buyers find you, does your story make it clear to the prospective buyer what they can expect to benefit from if they work with you?

It is in this phase that you want to leverage a content sharing/creation strategy that helps you stay visible and top of mind with prospective buyers.

CONSIDERATION

72% of B2B buyers used social media to research their purchase decision. -DemandGen

57% of executives browsed discussions to learn more about the topic. -Dell

What are the implications?

In the consideration phase, the problem or opportunity is now clearly defined. Research begins to understand the available options, approaches or methods to help them solve the problem. In other words, they are then looking at the products, people and companies they feel can deliver on what they need. This is exactly why you need to continue to share content that educates, provides fresh insights and value to buyers, knowing that they are now digging deeper into what is available. The more you demonstrate your thought leadership, credibility and capability, the higher the likelihood that prospects will want to talk to you.

DECISION

53% of buyers said that they rely on peer recommendations before making a purchase decision – a number that was just 19% in 2012. -DemandGen

What does this mean for you as a salesperson?

Peer recommendations influence the decision to invite you to a buying conversation. By the time the buyer enter’s the third stage of their journey – decision – they have vetted a short list of the vendors they want meet. How much focus  do you put on building a network of influencers? Who do you know that is connected to your prospective buyers? Can you enlist their help in recommending you? Peer influence and introductions/referrals made by people your prospective buyer trusts goes a long way toward helping you get in the door.

Change can be a challenge.

That is especially true when you’ve been successful doing things in a particular way, but times have changed and if you are not adapting your sales and marketing approach to address it, you have a problem.

This is where social selling strategies come into the picture.

Success in sales today requires your ability to educate, inform and engage with prospect buyers at the early stages of the buying journey. Using social media, you can do just that. With an ability to network, generate leads and gather rich insights that allow you to better inform the sales conversation, leveraging social channels is a must. But, don’t forget that tactical, front-end social selling activities only get you so far. To the meeting. After that, your consultative sales, listening and problem solving skills must be top notch.

 

Filed Under: blog Tagged With: buyer journey, sales, social media, social media marketing, social selling

It's 2016. What Will You Do Differently?

By Barbara Giamanco Leave a Comment

Buyers want and expect more. They drive the decision making process and expect salespeople to align their approach to match their process for making a purchase. If you keep trying to force them into your sales process, you will have difficulty getting to a successful sales outcome.
The buyer’s journey looks like this…
buyersjourney2016
AWARENESS

57% of buyers start the sales process without engaging sales. -CEB

Why is this important?
Buyers begin their early stage research when they have a problem to solve or an opportunity they want to capitalize on. In this awareness phase, they can easily gather plenty of data to get them moving in the right direction. The question is twofold: can you be easily found on the web, in LinkedIn, on Twitter? And, once buyers find you, does your story make it clear to the prospective buyer what they can expect to benefit from if they work with you?
It is in this phase that you want to leverage a content sharing/creation strategy that helps you stay visible and top of mind with prospective buyers.
CONSIDERATION

72% of B2B buyers used social media to research their purchase decision. -DemandGen
57% of executives browsed discussions to learn more about the topic. -Dell

What are the implications?
In the consideration phase, the problem or opportunity is now clearly defined. Research begins to understand the available options, approaches or methods to help them solve the problem. In other words, they are then looking at the products, people and companies they feel can deliver on what they need. This is exactly why you need to continue to share content that educates, provides fresh insights and value to buyers, knowing that they are now digging deeper into what is available. The more you demonstrate your thought leadership, credibility and capability, the higher the likelihood that prospects will want to talk to you.
DECISION

53% of buyers said that they rely on peer recommendations before making a purchase decision – a number that was just 19% in 2012. -DemandGen

What does this mean for you as a salesperson?
Peer recommendations influence the decision to invite you to a buying conversation. By the time the buyer enter’s the third stage of their journey – decision – they have vetted a short list of the vendors they want meet. How much focus  do you put on building a network of influencers? Who do you know that is connected to your prospective buyers? Can you enlist their help in recommending you? Peer influence and introductions/referrals made by people your prospective buyer trusts goes a long way toward helping you get in the door.
Change can be a challenge.
That is especially true when you’ve been successful doing things in a particular way, but times have changed and if you are not adapting your sales and marketing approach to address it, you have a problem.
This is where social selling strategies come into the picture.
Success in sales today requires your ability to educate, inform and engage with prospect buyers at the early stages of the buying journey. Using social media, you can do just that. With an ability to network, generate leads and gather rich insights that allow you to better inform the sales conversation, leveraging social channels is a must. But, don’t forget that tactical, front-end social selling activities only get you so far. To the meeting. After that, your consultative sales, listening and problem solving skills must be top notch.

 

Filed Under: blog Tagged With: buyer journey, sales, social media, social media marketing, social selling

Tech Talk: What I Like this Week

By Barbara Giamanco Leave a Comment

I decided to change up my format a little bit to give more visibility to each technology company I interview. This week, learn all about Bundle Post. And, for those of you who don’t want to read the post, in under 4-minutes you can listen to my podcast review.

bundlepostOne of the cornerstones of success in social selling and social media marketing is to share engaging, informative, relevant content that your audience will find valuable. But the other piece of the equation is being able to personally engage with people also. Sounds easy to do, but actually isn’t unless you use a platform like Bundle Post, a social media curation and content marketing tool.

I talked with CEO and Founder, Robert Caruso (@fondalo on Twitter) about his concept and how Bundle Post came to life. I discovered that Robert’s company used to be a social media agency. To help their clients be successful using social media to build brand awareness, engage with customers and cultivate new relationships was a pretty time and people intensive process. Robert did some careful analysis of the work they were doing for clients and realized that 80% of a social media managers time was spent searching for content, editing the content and adding hashtags to content leaving only 20% of their time to focus on the real revenue generating opportunities that come from building authentic relationships and participating in real-time conversations. And so Bundle Post was born.

Bundle Post is a patented, complete content management platform. After being taken through the demo, I have to admit that I was blown away. Being able to consistently share the most unique, recent and relevant content in your social streams helps to rapidly increase the social media results you want. Send out scheduled, hashtagged and engaging posts, while also including your own marketing messages in your streams. Now you can flip the time you spend managing social media posts and marketing messages on its head. Your time is now freed up to concentrate on real-time engagement, relationships and interpersonal conversations. You know…the stuff that drive ROI.

Bundle Post’s distinctive scheduling engine will save you 80% of your time managing social media content. It does that by helping you find, schedule, hashtag and post your curated content quickly. Select up to 100 unique social media posts from various sources, merge them with your customized schedule and automatically hashtag them all in just minutes. The end result – a 20 minute investment of time results in 3-5 days of consistent, unique content to share socially.

What I’ve covered here barely scratches the surface of how impressive the Bundle Post platform really is. I’d like to suggest you sign yourself up for a free trial and see Bundle Post in action for yourself!

Filed Under: blog Tagged With: bundle post, content marketing, social media marketing, social selling

Social Media Marketing Applies to B2B

By Barbara Giamanco Leave a Comment

Even as social media use in B2B marketing continues to grow—57% of B2B marketers are currently using some form of social media in their business, up from 15% in 2007¹–many in the C-suite continue to have their doubts. —360 Digital Influence

For several years now, I’ve spoken to thousands of people about the value of using social media to transform business, and more specifically, the sales process. Along the way, I’ve listened to the various reasons why this “social media thing” doesn’t apply to business people in this or that industry. I hear things like “social media is for the kids”, “I can’t measure it”, “my customers aren’t using social media”, “my competition isn’t there so why should I worry about it”, “there are too many risks – it’s not worth it”, “it’s all a big time waster”, “there’s no ROI”, and finally, “social media doesn’t apply to B2B.”

Seriously? There is doubt that social media has appliciability to the B2B sales process? Given that your business is likely operating against a much small customer pool than companies that focus on the consumer, and given that as a B2B company you are most certainly selling products and services at a higher price point, you must be tuned in to the customers who base the majority of their buying decisions on the advice of peers and colleagues.

“Forrester Research reports 84% of respondents to a recent survey listed Peers and Colleagues (WOM) as the main source for purchasing decisions, compared to 69% from Vendor Web sites and 66% from traditional media.” —360 Digital Influence

The risks associated with social media usage are minor compared to the overall benefits. You may believe that today you/your company has control of your brand. As such, why risk opening yourself up to attacks, criticism and crazies with an axe to grind? The truth is that your brand is already being discussed with current and prospective buyers. Now. Every day. Online. Without you!

Are you listening? 

If you are sitting on the sidelines merely playing spectator, allowing misinformation, self appointed brand ambassadors and champions engage in conversations around your brand, without your participation or recognition, you can expect an outcome that may or may not be favorable.

OK, so you know you need to get started. But how and where? Don’t rush to launch a social media campaign is my first piece of advice. Technology merely enables your business objectives. Ignore the temptation to jump into creating a blog, Facebook fan page or Twitter account. Success requires that you create a social sales strategy before jumping into the tactical elements of the technology.

Here is some guidance on getting started:

Photo credit: www.freshpeel.com

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: sales, social media marketing, social selling

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