Closed Loop Marketing Hype ??“ What Is It?

It is generally observed that marketing and sales, tend to perceive the available data in extremely contrasted ways. Sales usually receives and researches information pertaining to ordering history, minutes and results of the last meeting and the credit status of an organization.

Marketing tracks information pertaining to promotions and outreach, sales reports, pricing variations, market trends, competitor??™s activities etc.

Although, the data tracked by marketing is beneficial for sales and vice versa, both tend to have different views. This results in both the sales and the marketing fields having a vague picture about today??™s consumer, his needs and his demands. The industry as a whole can suffer owing to differences in opinions between the both.

It won??™t be able to successfully sell the right customer, the right product at the right time. A strong mediator is required to help both the departments work together for the common interests.

Considered a powerful tool that can help sales and marketing work together harmoniously, closed loop marketing is both a process and a tool. Marketing plays a huge role in the first part of the process of closed loop marketing, while sales plays a pivotal and crucial role in the latter part of its process.

Through the closed loop marketing system, data can be exchanged between the marketing and sales departments in a hassle-free manner. The continuum of suspect-to-sale can be used to track customers.

Marketing data like campaigns, demographic information about the company on the website, programs, keywords, updates, offers, landing pages etc. used in company websites can be used to enable closed loop marketing.

Sales data like the number of customers, the number of successful deals, the different sales processes and the time elapsed between them, value of closed deals, total revenue generated etc. can help enable closed loop marketing.

The advantage of this kind of marketing is that it saves figures like ???10 million products sold??? or ???over a billion users tend??? to create a confidence in the prospective clients and also helps in boosting the reputation of the product substantially.

Accurate information about the current customers and the potential customers can help in targeting the right kind of customers for a particular product. Through this longer sales cycles can be maintained. All this ensures the success of closed loop marketing.

With the right reports and closed loop marketing processes the sales and marketing departments of an industrial unit can work towards it betterments.

Indeed, the hype is justified!

Ingredients Of True Leadership: Do You Have What It Takes?

Simply saying a leader is someone who motivates and inspires others is an understatement.

Vision, Trust, Loyalty, Integrity Communications etc all breed success. A true leader leverages all these to create true success for himself and for his followers.

Are you imaginative, innovative and improvement oriented? if you think you have everything to be a true leader, please read on.
There is more to these thoughts, But again these are just enough to get you thinking..

Solution: A leader should possess the skills and vision to find multiple solutions to a problem. Sometimes just finding solutions may not be enough. They have to be simple and creative. Solutions have to spread across disciplines. For example if you are a CEO by virtue of your sales skills, how well will you fare when problems arise in other departments such as engineering, accounting or HR?

Remember finding a new solution to a problem is much easy when compared to delivering improvements on top existing ones.

Tenacity: Do you often give in to obstacles? Well a true leader shows absolute perseverance. Read this amazing article by Dr. Kimberly A. Harms on the subject of ???Tenacious Leadership???

Flexibility: To a certain extent the common perception is that leaders thrive on constant change. This is a common notion in corporate sectors where changes are rapid. But in reality a true leader always seeks balance by soliciting views and even appreciating them when they are opposing. Demonstrating flexibility in an uncertain environment and breeding adaptability across the teams is a characteristic of a true leader

Collaboration: A true leader always finds ways to collaborate by seeking partnerships sometimes to strengthen the weaknesses and sometimes to take the existing strengths to next level.

Partnerships are built on relationships and a true leader understands how to capitalize this to produce success.

How Credible Is Your Business In Your Own Mind?

The power to convince a prospect to pick your product or service over the competition comes from your own belief system. While you may have the best sales process, Lead Generation campaigns, engineering teams and product ideas in place yet the elements of influence which trigger the sales come directly from your own confidence in the product or service you are trying to sell.

Why the best products in the world exposed to qualified markets and customers never created a windfall of profits for their companies?

Well..the answer is either the sales folks never believed in what they were selling or the product creation was just a fluke in the first place.

A Belief System can be created, strengthened in multiple different ways. While there is one defined way of going about it, here are some guidelines based on my very own experiences.

• Often times your confidence in your product increases with sales and customer testimonials but knowing that you have a funding plan in place and if revenues do dry up it further secures this confidence

• A periodic detailed assessment of Sales and Marketing functions will assure you that your are truly representing the message created by your teams, when you are in front of the customers.

• Your own confidence is sometimes tied into the confidence of other people in your business. So allow them to understand your business and hey will lead you into many insights

• The more assumptions you can flush out the better you will improve your understanding. One way to do that is to document them periodically. So Start a log book!

• Minimize the steps needed for decision making. Brainstorm some key decisions ??“ use ???sticky notes??™ and list them if need be.Not only it will raise your confidence but will also increase efficiency

• When selling complex solutions, most customers are interested in one thing. How will their own requirements be accommodated in the product or solution you are trying to sell?. Track all such requests you received in last 12 or 24 months and how many you have included in your last couple of releases. Approach them with this data and demonstrate that you have a process in place for doing this.

• Develop clear understanding on the indirect and direct benefits of the product. If the benefits are intangible then qualify them. If they are qualitative measure them. Demonstrate the numbers with confidence.

While I can add twenty more things to this list, for now I will close this with one important one..

Many a times despite of you doing your best, a sale may not be possible for reasons that are far beyond your control. In such circumstances I have shown even more confidence by making a recommendation of a competitor??™s product.