In this episode of AMP Up Your Digital Marketing, Glenn Gaudet speaks with Greg Rosner, CEO and Founder of PitchKitchen, a company that helps to fix bad sales presentations and websites that do not make their product the hero. They discuss how to refine a sales pitch and place the prospect at the center of the discussion.

You’ll learn:

* How to ask questions and create conversations that allow a prospect to own their decision rather than being told what their position should be. 

* How to present and position the before and the after to solidify the sale. 

* Why it’s important to audit your sales pitch. Not only can it help your salespeople learn what works and what doesn’t, but it can help marketing spot gaps in prospect perceptions. 

Sales pitches – some area great, some are terrible, and you have likely had every conversation between both ends of the spectrum.

Greg Rosner, CEO and Founder of the PitchKitchen, says the mistake companies are having is that they’re focused too much on selling feature after feature and not practicing true empathy.

“Too many salespeople love to talk and tell prospective customers what they should do,” he says. “But the best salespeople are the ones who ask the right questions, in the right way, at the right time, rather than spraying their messaging and hoping it sticks.”

Greg joined the AMP Up Your Digital Marketing podcast to talk about how to refine the sales pitch and what it takes to gain true buy-in from a prospect.

What is the conversation folks are having with prospects that goes above feature, feature, feature?

Adjust Your Sales Pitch for Tactical Empathy

With sales and sales pitches, you need what Chris Voss calls tactical empathy.

Too many salespeople love to talk and tell people what they should do. But the best salespeople are the ones who ask the right questions, in the right way, at the right time, and to the right people, rather than spraying their message and hoping it sticks.

You need to come into every conversation having some degree of who these people are and what issues they might face. The fault in many salespeople, and even CEO’s, is that they make a lot of assumptions. They deny the reality that people are going to believe in the things that they themselves decide and not the things you tell them.

Even if you do understand their situation and you know exactly what they need to do to be successful, you cannot tell them this. They need to come to that conclusion on their own.

So what does a solid sales pitch look like? You’ve likely already experienced one without ever knowing you were being pitched.

Say you go to a doctor and you tell him or her your symptoms and that you’re not feeling well. They listen to what you have to say, take one look at you and question you very little, before handing you a script for a medication to take care of your ailment. Sound like a familiar experience?

Now, say you go to another doctor and tell them the same thing – here are the symptoms and you’re not feeling well. The doctor then asks, “are you waking up around 2 AM with pain when you move your eyes around?” You answer, yes. Then the doctor asks additional questions that continue to hit a nerve, to which you’re nodding your head yes, you’re thinking “How did you know that?” After 10-15 minutes of that doctor asking questions that hit a nerve, and truly understanding your problem, the doctor writes you a script.

Now you have two scripts – Doctor A and Doctor B – which do you...

#344: Achim Nowak and Mitchell Levy on Thought Leader Life Credibility Episode

Transcend your story of success through accountable leadership demonstrating your humanity and mindful influence. This episode features #ThoughtLeader and #Expert Achim Nowak (https://www.linkedin.com/in/achimnowak/), author, TEDx speaker, C-suite coach, and international authority on leadership presence. He helps successful leaders reconnect with the fire that they once had about how to be of service through their work, as they continue in their journey of success in career and life.

Achim’s clientele list includes Lonza, NXP, HSBC, Owens Corning, Sanofi, Takeda, Standex, and Knowles, among others. He is passionate about uncovering micro-behaviors that set highly influential leaders apart from the pack and transform them into authentic, insightful, and inspiring leaders.

If you’re successful at what you do but there are things you need to work on to be more human, consider reaching out to Achim Nowak by visiting his website, https://brilliantbest.expert/, and going to https://www.linkedin.com/in/achimnowak/.

Here are a couple of AHA messages from this episode:

* CEOs and C-suite executives who want to show up with relaxed authority and amplify their personal influence should reach out to Achim Nowak. https://linkedin.com/in/achimnowak/

* Do you feel that though you are producing results in your business, your people are often turned off by you, like the human part of your leadership isn’t working? My role is to coach you to add #MindfulInfluence to your leadership. https://brilliantbest.expert/ @AchimNowak

* I’m an old-school coach in that you and I can agree on a coaching roadmap that will help you become a more perceptive and authentic leader. Are you ready to take this challenge? #MindfulInfluence https://www.linkedin.com/in/achimnowak/

* As a leader, you need to show more of who you really are and to connect more deeply with people. With my guidance, I can help you become an exceptional leader in your chosen field. #MindfulInfluence https://www.linkedin.com/in/achimnowak/

* I have an outsider’s eye and a sophisticated perspective to understand a range of human behavior from my years of experience working on leadership competencies. I can mentor you on how to be a more impactful leader. #MindfulInfluence https://brilliantbest.expert/ @AchimNowak

To learn more about Thought Leadership and how it can help you be successful, visit https://thoughtleaderlife.com/.

 

#345: Donald Rheem and Mitchell Levy on Thought Leader Life Credibility Episode

Addressing employee retention issues in organizations with science-based employee engagement tools. This episode features #ThoughtLeader and #Expert, Don Rheem (https://www.linkedin.com/in/DonRheem), CEO of E3Solutions and a consultant at the US Securities and Exchange Commission and The National Institutes of Health. He is also an author, a keynote speaker and a Vistage and TEDx speaker.

Don conducts science-based consultations for CEOs and senior leaders about employee engagement. He provides his clients with employee workplace metrics as well as keynotes, coaching and workshops in order to help improve employee engagement and to reduce employee turnover within their organizations.

COVID has given new meaning to the value of authenticity. David and Paul riff on a few examples:

Marketing Week speaks to Salesforce.com’s CMO and what B2B can learn from B2C marketing. One thing is to keep it personal by forgetting about stock photos and telling personal stories. This helps to build trust and deliver better customer relationships. Of course, it helps to have a charismatic and opinionated CEO like Marc Benioff around to inspire the team.

Sprout Social’s Alicia Johnston writes about how to inspire action with your LinkedIn presence. Rather than making your vendor page a promotional smarmy read, take the time to be more aspirational and educational. This can help provide insights and make connections with your community. The piece also discusses ways to experiment to find your best corporate voice and how to time your posts for maximum impact.

Social media influencers are raking in the big bucks, and we think it’s because they build, rather than buy their audiences. But marketers and influencers alike need to keep in mind that paid relationships need to be disclosed, and penalties for failing to do so will grow along with paychecks. But we like this more toward promotion through authentic channels.

Our IT journalist colleague Sally Grotta writes that personal interruptions that once would have been inappropriate are now not just accepted as part of the online conference experience. The interruptions by kids, animals and delivery people make our interactions less formal and more real. Musicians have led the way, with many famous performers inviting us into their living rooms for concerts that seem so much more intimate than when given in a performance hall.

#341: Jo Dodds and Mitchell Levy on Thought Leader Life Credibility Episode

Empower people to be successful and to live more. This episode features #ThoughtLeader and #Expert Jo Dodds (https://www.linkedin.com/in/JoDodds), creator of POWER to Live More CALM and host of “POWER to Live More” podcast. She is also an employee engagement consultant and speaker.

Jo conducts consulting and speaking services for home-based coaches and consultants. She works with her clients to improve their productivity, organization, well-being, energy, and resilience, enabling them to be successful and live more. She is passionate about empowering people to do more of what they want to do and less of what they feel like they should do.

If you’re putting 80-hour weeks and want to be more #Successful, while spending more time on your life versus working in your business, consider reaching out to Jo Dodds by visiting her website at https://powertolivemore.com or https://www.linkedin.com/in/JoDodds.

Here are a couple of AHA messages from this episode:

* Home-based coaches and consultants who want to be #Successful and live more should look at the work being done by Jo Dodds. https://powertolivemore.com @JoDodds

* Do you want to be #Successful and live more? Do you know how it’s done? You should know how and what you should do so you can be successful and live more. https://powertolivemore.com @JoDodds

* To be #Successful and live more, you should do more of what you want to do and less of the stuff you don’t. How often do you get to do the things you want to do instead of the things you don’t? https://powertolivemore.com @JoDodds

* Home-based coaches and consultants who feel isolated, frustrated, and procrastinating and aren’t as successful as they want to be don’t feel like they’re getting to live more. https://powertolivemore.com @JoDodds

* I give home-based coaches and consultants the help they need for them to move forward and stop being stuck via my online membership site. It gives me an easy way to work with them closely. https://www.linkedin.com/in/JoDodds @JoDodds

To learn more about Thought Leadership and how it can help you be successful, visit: https://thoughtleaderlife.com/.

 

#342: Dr. Patti Phillips and Mitchell Levy on Thought Leader Life Credibility Episode

Justify your spending to get more funding through a comprehensive ROI methodology. This episode features #ThoughtLeader and #Expert Dr. Patti Phillips (https://www.linkedin.com/in/PattiPPhillips), CEO of ROI Institute. She is also a researcher, educator, consultant, and author.

Patti conducts business consulting for managers and executives about ROI. She helps her clients justify their spending to help them get more funding and demonstrate the value of what they do. Patti provides consulting services to Fortune 500 companies and facilitates workshops for major conferences throughout the world.

If you’re a company that has been funded and you want to justify that so you can #GetMoreFunding, consider reaching out to the ROI Institute or Dr. Patti Phillips by visiting their website at https://roiinstitute.net or https://www.linkedin.com/in/PattiPPhillips.

Here are a couple of AHA messages from this episode:

I have a client who has become a friend during the past several years. At the start of our bi-weekly meetings, we discuss gardening. We eventually get to agency growth, of course, but we start with growing things. 

You see, she is a Master Gardener and I’m, at best, an amateur. How many of you can lay claim to having the full and undivided attention of a Master Gardener every other week? Not many, I’ll bet. So you can rest assured I take full advantage of being able to talk to her every couple of weeks—so I can work on my green thumb while she works on her business. I’m totally winning in this relationship. 

During a recent conversation she and I had, we discussed a Wall Street Journal article about how to survive the pandemic by taking cues from nature. Naturally, of course. 

What You Can Learn From Nature

As it turns out, wildfires, pine cones, armadillos, geckos, and mantis shrimp hold the key to out coming out of the pandemic with our heads on straight—and a new found passion for our careers. 

The idea that we can innovate by observing and copying nature is a concept popularized by Janine Benyus, an American natural sciences writer, innovation consultant, and author. It applies to new products, such as adhesives inspired by the sticky feet of the gecko and underwater cameras suggested by the eyes of the mantis shrimp. 

But the natural world offers so much more than simply ideas for product design. It can also offer insight into how to keep up with quickly changing markets, cooperating with peers, and fostering resilience—each which are relevant to every one of us, no matter where we are in our career growth.

Many of the roughly eight million species on Earth have weathered times of intense disruption—something human beings are experiencing now. The non-human species have developed strategies to help them not just adapt to harsh conditions, but to thrive. Strategies we can learn from. 

The aforementioned article looked at five ways organisms respond to periods of extreme adversity—and the insights they hold that are valuable to you. And that, my friends, is what we’re going to discuss today: what you can learn from nature to pull yourself—and your career or your business—out of the pandemic.

Links Mentioned In This Episode

* What We Can Learn from Nature

* Janine Benyus

* Marketing In the Round

* Spin Sucks (the book)

* Spin Sucks Academy

* Spin Sucks Community

#338: Alex Melen and Mitchell Levy on Thought Leader Life Credibility Episode

Gain remarkable results for your company through innovative digital campaigns and advertising. This episode features #ThoughtLeader and #Expert Alex Melen (https://www.linkedin.com/in/alexmelen/), a co-founder at SmartSites, award-winning entrepreneur, and keynote speaker. He is passionate about assisting businesses in managing their online marketing campaigns as a consultant.

Alex is known for starting one of the first free web hosting companies: T35, founded in 1997. It was the first of its kind in the mid-90s, when earning a strong digital presence was expensive and complicated. Currently, he is the co-founder of SmartSites, an award-winning advertising agency started in 2011 that is committed to helping clients with design, development, e-commerce, PPC, and SEO.

If you know that you do good in the physical world but kind of suck online, reach out to Alex Melen by going to his website at https://www.smartsites.com/ or visiting his profile at https://www.alexmelen.com/ or https://www.linkedin.com/in/alexmelen/.

Here are a couple of AHA messages from this episode:

* Small businesses that are fantastic in the real world but suck online should reach out to Alex Melen. https://www.linkedin.com/in/alexmelen/

* Some entrepreneurs are just really good at what they do, it’s where they excel, but online success is a whole different playbook. It can take away what they’re doing day-to-day to smoothly run their business. https://www.linkedin.com/in/alexmelen/

* My job is to help businesses be as successful as they can be online by taking away all their burdens and taking over all their digital activities. https://www.linkedin.com/in/alexmelen/

* We’re a full-service digital agency that covers the entire gamut. We do website design development, SEO pay-per-click & newsletters — anything digital. In many cases, people come to us with no website at all. That’s where we help. https://www.linkedin.com/in/alexmelen/

* It’s 2020, but surprisingly, there are still many businesses out there that have just gotten by with yellow pages or word of mouth, which is great, but at a certain point, they’ll need an online presence for a wider reach. https://www.linkedin.com/in/alexmelen/

To learn more about Thought Leadership and how it can help you be successful, visit: https://thoughtleaderlife.com/.

 

#339: Luke Acree and Mitchell Levy on Thought Leader Life Credibility Episode

Generate more leads and revenue with customizable marketing tools. This episode features #ThoughtLeader and #Expert Luke Acree (https://www.linkedin.com/in/lukeacree/), president at ReminderMedia, relationship marketer, and publisher of American Lifestyle magazine.

Luke is passionate about helping business professionals understand how to connect with their client database in a way that generates leads, secures repeat clients, and captures referrals. Known as a sales fanatic, marketing evangelist, and an expert team builder, he has partnered and worked with tens of thousands of companies.

If you’re a business professional or owner and find yourself leaving money on the table either with existing clients or due to underwhelming marketing not being as effective as you need it to be,

Whether you’re interested in starting an employee advocacy program or you already have one in place, you definitely want to make sure it reaches its potential. 

In this episode of AMP Up Your Digital Marketing, Glenn Gaudet speaks with Andrew Stewart, head of customer success at GaggleAMP. Stewart is running a virtual training session called AMPlify Virtual, where he trains marketers to run their employee advocacy programs the right way. In this discussion, he explains how organizations can make the most of their employee advocacy programs, what mistakes some marketers make, where they should focus instead, and more. You’ll learn:

Why you should focus your program on organic engagement.

How to get your employees active.

What you’ll get out of AMPlify Virtual.

 

Employee advocacy is a huge way to get your social media presence off the ground, increase your social media reach, drive engagement, traffic to your website, and boost your leads. The trouble is many organizations approach it the wrong way. They focus on sharing content, retweeting the same message, and years ago it was about having 200 employees share the same tweet. 

That’s not how to approach your employee advocacy program, Stewart said. 

“What works on LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter this year will look much different next year,” he said. “The best employee advocacy programs are the ones adjusting with that.” 

What People Want From an Employee Advocacy Platform 

Many organizations find that getting their employees active in a program can be a challenge. In some cases, they can only get 10% of their employees to contribute.

“I see that quite a bit,” Stewart said. “I also see people using very few avenues to get content out. They only use one or two social networks or they don’t use that many activity types.”

He’s seen many organizations switch employee advocacy platforms to GaggleAMP because they want to expand their program in order to take advantage of the larger number of actions and activities such as reviewing a company on Glassdoor, commenting on LinkedIn posts and blog posts, voting in online polls, and more. Organizations want to strategically grow their program with these activities. 

“The active membership is super interesting to me,” Stewart said. “Let’s say you want your salespeople to be in this program. A lot of marketers are going to assume, ‘Sales should be doing this because I’m giving them content.’ But a lot of program strategies aren’t totally aligned with the goals of those individuals. That could be the platforms themselves, but it’s also how the content and programs are presented to those teams” 

The key is to drive value to the people in your organization so they contribute to the program. A common mistake is assuming that it’s about inviting as many people as you can or just getting leadership to sign off on it. Both are extremely helpful, but that’s not what employee advocacy is about.

“It’s about making sure the goals are aligned with all the different people in the program,” Stewart said. “That’s the only way you’ll get people to do that, and we have a unique ability to do that with our expertise but also the breadth of activities that are in the platform.”

Employee Advocacy Training at AMPlify Virtual 

AMPlify, The Employee Advocacy and Engagement Conference, was an event held in Boston for each of the last five years. 

It was a great way to get employee advocacy program managers of any platform together to talk about best practices, methods that worked for them, tactics they tried that didn’t work, and network with other marketers. Making connections and learning from each other was one of the best part...

#335: Sue Tidswell and Mitchell Levy on Thought Leader Life Credibility Episode

Maintain top-line revenue growth through time-tested global solutions customized for you. This episode features #ThoughtLeader and #Expert Sue Tidswell https://www.linkedin.com/in/sue-tidswell-110b541/, the founder and CEO of pplumm. Sue helps organizations build exceptional sales and recruiting teams from the ground up.

If you’re in a Fortune 100 company and struggle with maintaining top-line growth, reach out to Sue Tidswell by sending her an email at [email protected].

Here are a few AHA messages from this episode:

* Fortune 100 companies that are struggling to grow that top-line revenue should look at the work being done by Sue Tidswell at https://www.linkedin.com/in/sue-tidswell-110b541/. #TopLineGrowth

* I work with companies by going in and taking a look at their sales org. I take the company in pieces from top to bottom to understand what’s troubling them. #TopLineGrowth https://www.linkedin.com/in/sue-tidswell-110b541/

* I look closely and find out why the company is struggling to reach that #TopLineGrowth and why it seems to run away from them. https://www.linkedin.com/in/sue-tidswell-110b541/

* I look at the whole org: 1) the sales side of the business and 2) what’s going to help them meet their goals. #TopLineGrowth https://www.linkedin.com/in/sue-tidswell-110b541/

* We evaluate the existing teams and work out a plan to see if they’re good or bad and what they need to do to be developed. #TopLineGrowth https://www.linkedin.com/in/sue-tidswell-110b541/

To learn more about Thought Leadership and how it can help you be successful, subscribe to the channel: http://youtube.com/user/thoughtleaderlife.

 

#336: Sharon McCollick and Mitchell Levy on Thought Leader Life Credibility Episode

Be a better business architect by building the skills of your team. This episode features #ThoughtLeader and #Expert Sharon McCollick https://www.linkedin.com/in/sharon-mccollick-383519, the managing director of Strong Point Strategy. Sharon is focused on building the business and leadership skills of people tasked with building the companies they work for.

If you’re a functional leader who recognizes that there are skill sets that you can improve on and that your team needs to up-level, reach out to Sharon McCollick at https://strongpointstrategy.com/.

Here are a few AHA messages from this episode:

* Functional leaders who recognize the importance of building the skills of their org should reach out to Sharon McCollick at https://www.linkedin.com/in/sharon-mccollick-383519/. #BusinessArchitecture

* We work through two areas of expertise: business development and leadership development. #BusinessArchitecture https://www.linkedin.com/in/sharon-mccollick-383519/

* Most people think that business development is sales. But it’s actually #BusinessArchitecture: how to build a business. https://www.linkedin.com/in/sharon-mccollick-383519/

* Business development is #BusinessArchitecture. It’s things like strategic planning, business planning,

Among the topics in this week’s FIR Zoom Chat: What services companies have introduced during the coronavirus that may (or may not) still be around after it’s all over. Also, Sherrilynne Starkie shares what her museum clients are doing while nobody is allowed in museums, including virtual tours conducted by curators over Instagram Live.

#332: Gilmore Crosby and Mitchell Levy on Thought Leader Life Credibility Episode

Engage your people with cultural change and align your workforce and organization development strategies for results on the bottom line. This episode features #ThoughtLeader and #Expert, Gilmore Crosby (https://www.linkedin.com/in/gilcrosby/), an experienced and effective leadership and organization development professional. He is a change and project management expert with extensive experience in executive coaching and the facilitation of cultural change in addition to being an author and the president of Crosby & Associates.

Gilmore conducts workshops using the T-group method which is a group dynamic process for learning about how people think about the world and how they handle interactions. Some of his books are “Leadership Can Be Learned: Clarity, Connection and Results” (2017) and “Fight, Flight, Freeze: Emotional Intelligence, Behavioral Science, Systems Theory & Leadership” (2006). Both books offer a practical and proven systems approach to leadership and are available online.

If your firm is stuck or not moving in the right direction, and you want to be more effective, consider reaching out to Gilmore Crosby by visiting his website https://www.crosbyod.com/ and going to https://www.linkedin.com/in/gilcrosby/.

Here are a few AHA messages from this episode:

* Business owners and executives who are confused and who are not getting the results they have hoped for, and don’t really know what to do, should reach out to Gilmore Crosby. #OrganizationDevelopment https://www.linkedin.com/in/gilcrosby/

* I can provide you with conversations where you can ask the right questions. In order to solve your problems, I can teach you how to apply Kurt Lewin’s methods in #OrganizationDevelopment. https://www.crosbyod.com/ @CrosbyandAssoc

* Walking on the giant shoulders of my father, Robert Crosby, and Kurt Lewin, and working with large companies from different locations globally, gives me the credibility to help you find solutions to setbacks in #OrganizationDevelopment. https://www.linkedin.com/in/gilcrosby/

* I have experience and wisdom that was gained over the years by working with various teams, so, I can coach you with clarity and accountability and guide you in developing strategies for better alignment in your organization. #OrganizationDevelopment https://www.crosbyod.com/ @CrosbyandAssoc

* Planning and implementing change are two different things. When you can apply those to your own life, it’s easier to do the same in your business. #OrganizationDevelopment https://www.linkedin.com/in/gilcrosby/

To learn more about Thought Leadership and how it can help you be successful, visit https://thoughtleaderlife.com/.

 

#333: Tony Chatman and Mitchell Levy on Thought Leader Life Credibility Episode

Reinvent your personal and professional decision-making process by reducing bias to create a more inclusive workplace. This episode features #ThoughtLeader and #Expert, Tony Chatman (https://www.linkedin.com/in/tony-chatman-6064054/), who is a corporate relationships expert, leadership speaker, trainer, reinvention expert and a board member of the Captain Phillips Lane Kirkland Maritime Trust. He worked as a chemical engineer for a Fortune 500 company for a n...