You’ve probably heard the word “gamification” bouncing around. It’s definitely a buzz word with growing popularity as more people are realizing its effectiveness. If you don’t know already, gamification is “the insertion of game dynamics and mechanics into non-game activities to drive a desired behaviour”. In other words, it makes the boring parts of anything more fun by adding points systems, badges, and other features of game playing. So what does this have to do with your

At our February #SmallandMightySummit, we were lucky to host Ted Nikolakakos, VP of Sales at Salesforce, where he mentioned what the biggest change has been for B2B sales in recent years: that customers don’t want to talk to sales professionals anymore. Thanks to the internet, customers now have access to information so that they’re more informed than ever before. As a result, salespeople come much later in the sales cycle and more so, the sales cycle is no longer in tune wit

The customer is at the center of all that we do. Engaging your customers with the right message, at the right place, at the right time, via the right channel, at the right price point is the key to winning in today’s marketplace. According to IBM, we create 2.5 quintillion bytes of data every day. That’s 2.5 million terabytes (or 2.5 trillion megabytes) being created on a daily basis - that’s a lot of data! This data that’s being created every day translates into valuable inf

As small business owners, we all wish there were more hours in the day. Since I haven’t figured out how to stop time or add more hours, I’ve had to learn to be strategic about where I spend my energy. The Pareto principle (namely the 80/20 rule) states that 80% of the effects come from 20% of the causes. Not surprisingly, that’s true for account management. Can you pinpoint 20% of your accounts that make up 80% of revenue? Key account management is a systematic approach t

There was a time not so long ago that I constantly updated my Facebook profile. Every trip, birthday and new apple product unboxing (I’m cringing as I write that) was faithfully captured with photos, tags and comments. Every new feature was quickly learned and implemented. Profile pictures matched the cover photo in context and size (It’s pretty hard to sync a profile picture with the cover photo background…. but not impossible!) The fad died when my mom surpassed my Faceb

Sales has always been a social business, but now a lot of that socialization takes place online. While it is still important to build face-to-face relationships, you can supplement your sales strategy with Social Selling to take your small business to the next level. For small businesses, it’s important to stay up-to-date and relevant, and that means venturing online. In a nutshell, Social Selling is defined by Hubspot as “salespeople [using] social media to interact directly

You have a great product, so you should be all set - right? Not quite. At this point you may know What you are selling, When you’re selling it, Where you’re selling it, but do you know to Whom? An integral component of any successful sales venture is identifying its ANUM and then targeting your sales accordingly. Authority - The first aspect of ANUM is Authority. Who is it that has the authority to make the purchase? If you’re not targeting your sales towards the people and/o

As a small business owner you know that your customers are the key your business? Now, do you really understand what is motivating them to buy from you? This HBR webinar on The Elements of Value aims to look at the values that influence a consumer’s purchasing decisions, albeit on a larger scale. Here at Change Connect we’re going to take make it relevant for small-business and see how you can put this concept to work. First you need to understand what the Elements of Value

On average, in 30 seconds, your customer has made up his / her mind whether there is a business opportunity on hand or not. Now, you see the importance of a carefully crafted 1-min pitch? Summarized our pointers below for your reference: Starting with a Blank Slate and asking questions You are given 1-minute from the moment you start your pitch. Make no assumptions. The only way to make the minute relevant is by asking questions - Ask open ended questions; for example, “W

We conducted a quick survey around the office, only 30% of our sales people do post-call reviews. Let me be the first to tell you - Post-call is equally as important as pre-call. Here are the best practices to get you started: 1. Do it as soon as possible. Grab that wifi from Starbucks and go into your CRM right away. The biggest trap is either not doing it at all or postponing post-call review so long that it just turns into an exercise of completing a call report for