OC Talk Radio

Join us for this episode:  Sales Enablement’s Evolution from a Front Row Seat with Jim Ninivaggi,Chief Readiness Officer at Brainshark, Inc.

 Hear Jim as he talks about:

His front row seat to the evolution of sales enablement.  How does it differ from what he saw 6 years ago?

The “bifurcation” that is happening and how it is primarily around two key areas of sales enablement: sales readiness and sales content management. We will discuss what this means.

We will discuss how this bifurcation is shaping the sales enablement tech landscape.

How sales enablement is a critical component of marketing alignment in some key areas:

Helping in the management of content.

Ensuring reps can use assets effectively in their buyer interactions.

Helping ensure lead conversion through better initial buyer conversations.

Working hand-in glove with product marketing to ensure reps are ready to position enhancements and new products.

We will wrap up by talking about the group that seems always lost in the alignment discussion – first-line managers, and how we need to think about providing assets for managers to use in coaching reps.

More about our guest:  Jim is an established thought leader and business analyst from his former role as the head of SiriusDecisions' sales enablement practice. He has researched and presented to business leaders around the world on advanced concepts in optimizing sales talent, maximizing rep productivity, world-class sales leadership and sales enablement technology. Jim has published more than 200 research briefs and engaged audiences at hundreds of conferences, forums and executive presentations.

Our host, Lee Silverman welcomes Mark Tietbohl. He is a growth strategies advisor and change catalyst at Growth Strategy Advisors. Topics today are about getting comfortable with data.

There is a great deal of data eveywhere today. So much so, that most organizations wanting to start the data driven decision process can easily become overwhelmed. There are numerous studies that show that companies that drive decision with data experience greater growth than those that do not.

But the key to doing this well for the long haul is to start with a "less is more" approach. Getting comfortable with data requires that you choose initially what matters to you rather than drinking from the firehose.

Some of the questions they'll cover include:

What are the dangers of collecting too much data too soon?

Data and technology makes it easier to change direction for marketing today. Is this a good thing?

Are there downsides of data driven approach?

If you are not a currently a data driven decision making organization, how do you get started?

In addition to serving as an adjunct instructor for Web Analytics/SEO and Mobile Marketing in the IMC program, Mark Tietbohl is currently engaged in providing marketing and business development strategy support to technology industry clients.

Show Notes  I find it shocking the number of people that tell me quite literally they “hate their jobs.” And if they don’t hate their job they are simply dissatisfied by so many things they do more than 40 hours each week. That’s a lot of time of dissatisfaction. Our special guest today is here to help us with that issue. With me today is Mac Prichard, who’s the founder and publisher of Mac’s List, which is an online community of people looking for rewarding, creative, and meaningful work. More than 80,000 people a month visit the site, which includes a job board, a blog and courses about the nuts and bolts of job hunting and career management. As a leading career expert, Mac helps people who are looking for a job during all of life’s transitions, which include Millennials getting a first job, midlife professionals switching sectors, parents getting back to work after raising a family, or even baby boomers who want to change careers. Mac is also the author of Land Your Dream Job Anywhere and hosts a weekly podcast titled ‘Find Your Dream Job.’  You can reach Mac at www.macslist.org Find Your Dream Job podcast macslist.org/podcasts Free chapter of Land Your Dream Job Anywhere macslist.org/nextchapter   For more with Charlie Hedges please visit www.thenextchapter.life

Listen while you shop for groceries on iTunes

This interview is part of an on-going series to hear from successful people about what they have learned in business and life. Cyndi Greenglass, a business founder and marketing expert shares with us the 5 Most Important Things She has Learned:

There is a fallacy in the term “Work-Life Balance”

There is a graveyard of high performances

Why we have to be kind and humble

Be (not) afraid

And parting advice from her Aunt, “You cannot be happy if you’re not grateful.”

This is an interesting personal reflection about her trip through life and work.

About Cyndi Greenglass

Cyndi W. Greenglass is a founding partner and Senior Vice President Strategic Solutions at Diamond Communication Solutions, a data driven communications firm specializing in Healthcare, Financial Services and direct response solutions. Cyndi is a member of the Executive Management team at Diamond Marketing Solutions where she is responsible for the strategic planning process, participates in strategic acquisitions, and manages the agency services division.

Cyndi has twice been named into the Top 100 Influential BTB Marketers by Crain’s BtoB Magazine, and was the 2012 CADM Chicago Direct Marketer of the Year. In 2016  and 2018 Cyndi was named one of 20 Women to Watch in Sales Lead Management and one of the 10 Most Fascinating People in Business to Business Marketing.  She lectures on data and digital marketing nationally, is highly sought after to speak at major industry conferences.  She is also a host and commentator on the WVU Marketing Communications Today program, a live radio program with podcast replays sponsored by West Virginia University.

SLMA Radio Sponsorship

 Whether you're producing a seminar series, user's conference, lunch and learn, or exhibiting at a tradeshow, Validar has a solution. Call 888 784 2929 or visit us at www.validar.com

Why It Matters:

Dan McDade says, "Scoring algorithms are allowing more poor-quality leads to go to sales faster than ever before!"

Of course, the salespeople own the pipeline, right?  Maybe yes and maybe no.   With the advent of more sophisticated CRM systems, certainly marketing automation programs and now AI, marketing is getting involved in almost every step of the pipeline.  And with involvement comes a responsibility.   In this program DAN McDade, CEO of PointClear talks about pipeline ownership and how technology isn’t always the answer if the basics aren’t being addressed:

The reality is that marketing ownership it is limited

However, marketing is handling more of the cycles of contact

Scoring algorithms are allowing more poor-quality leads go to sales faster than ever before

CSO says marketing works on 25-30% of the pipeline

What is this blackhole called CRM?

Marketing has a limited view of what a qualified lead is most of the time

What are the three C’s that sales is driven by?

Should marketing spend any money on branding?

Marketing automation doesn’t seem to eat its own dogfood!

Dan thinks the top percentage of prospects should not go through marketing automation

Will senior executives give up their digital body language?

Saturated lists are an issue in lead gen!

Alignment is the issue between sales and marketing!

How does persistence play into closing deals?

Marketing has to understand what a lead is and what sales needs

Where is the ownership for sales lead qualification?

More, lots more

  About Dan McDade

Dan McDade founded PointClear in 1997 to help B2B companies with complex sales processes drive revenue through lead generation, qualification and nurturing. For close to 20 years, he’s been instrumental in developing strategies that assure 100% of leads delivered to client sales organizations are fully qualified to client specifications.

McDade's Viewpoint Blog

SLMA Radio Sponsorship

 Whether you're producing a seminar series, user's conference, lunch and learn, or exhibiting at a tradeshow, Validar has a solution. Call 888 784 2929 or visit us at www.validar.com

As the Managing Director and Senior Portfolio Manager over Real Estate securities strategies @ Salient Partners, Joel is responsible for their investments into listed stocks whose underlying business is commercial real estate investment and management.  Focused on the rent collecting commercial property development and management market, thru REIT's and stocks, Joel discusses the benefits of investing into this space.  Joel has seen this industry grow from $6 Billion to almost $ 1 Trillion in assets over almost thirty years and offers unique and valuable insights into this market.

Listen to Matt, Director of Research @ Kaizen, discuss his 6 year old strategy, The Alpha Seeker, trading Volatility.  He discusses the recent meltdown of VIX inverse strategies that created some major market disruptions.  The Alpha Seeker uses a "Volatility Dashboard" to direct on investing in VIX ETF's and their inverse.  They manage equity exposure thru Volatility trading.  Fascinating stuff, and not for the faint-hearted.  Anyone interested in protecting equity exposure will find this interview to be very interesting.

For those of you that couldn't make it to the OC Fairgrounds recently for OC's LARGEST MIXER, you missed one heck of a party.  Thousands of people packed into a bldg at the Fairgrounds sampling local cuisine and connecting with the most amazing cross section of OC business owners imaginable including OC TALK RADIO (that was priviliged to be a media sponsor and streaming live from the event from 4-8pm.)  Check out their website to see all that you missed. Get more information on next year's event and reserve your space and place for 2019 soon.  It definitely sells out quickly...

Some say it is starting to get confusing as marketing assumes an ever increasing responsibility for parts of the sales pipeline; sales it seems is relinquishing areas it wants help with or doesn’t want to deal with. In this episode with Jen Spencer, Vice President of Smartbug Media, we try to understand the changing nature of these two departments ehich serve the prospect that holds the purse strings. The host is Jim Obermayer.

About the Guest: Jen Spencer

Jen Spencer is the Vice President of Sales and Marketing for SmartBug Media, an intelligent inbound marketing agency of experts in digital strategy, design, PR and marketing automation. Over her career, Jen has built several demand generation and sales enablement programs from the ground up and has experience working within tech startups, publicly traded companies, mid-market organizations, and the not-for-profit space. Jen subscribes to the notion that “we’re all in this together,” and great communication leads to great partnership. She loves animals, technology, the arts, and really good Scotch.  Spencer has been nominated as one of the 20 Women to Watch in Business in 2018 by the Sales Lead Management Association.

About Smartbug Media

SmartBug Media is an intelligent inbound marketing agency that assists businesses in generating leads; increasing awareness; and building brand loyalty through inbound marketing, digital strategy, design, marketing automation, and PR. For 10 years, SmartBug has been helping businesses increase sales leads, close more customers, and enhance the reach of their brands. One of a handful of HubSpot Diamond partners in the world, and the highest-rated agency in the history of the HubSpot ecosystem, SmartBug Media also boasts the highest ROI documented from any HubSpot partner: 3,558 percent and 14,500 percent ROI on a six-month and three-year campaign, respectively. 

SLMA Radio Sponsorship

 Whether you're producing a seminar series, user's conference, lunch and learn, or exhibiting at a tradeshow, Validar has a solution. Call 888 784 2929 or visit us at www.validar.com

Show Notes   My guest today is our good friend, Terry Hershey. If you’re a frequent listener of the show then you’re familiar with Terry, who is a regular guest. Terry is a prolific writer, conference keynote speaker, renowned landscape architect, and spiritual advisor. Today, Terry and I plan to chat about Spring Cleaning: Getting Rid of Things that Don’t Work. You know we’ve all talked about Spring Cleaning for years now, although I think very few of us really do it anymore. Still, it’s a great concept.  You know there just simply does come a time each year when you need to Clean House, not just physical stuff, but also tasks and habits and even relationships. We seem to live in a “yes-filled” world when the truth is many of us need to just learn the word “no.”  I think that when faced with tasks and habits and relationships we also need to understand the important difference between either HELL YES or NO WAY!  You can reach Terry at www.terryhershey.com   For more with Charlie H...