The Bacon Podcast with Brian Basilico | CURE Your Sales & Marketing with Ideas That Make It SIZZLE!

Chuck Hester is a nationally renowned LinkedIn trainer and speaker who helps clients get the most out of LinkedIn. He also teaches others how to communicate effectively both in their personal life and career. Chuck has addressed audiences throughout the United States, Mexico, Canada, and Australia. He has created and presented online courses for Content Marketing Institute and been a guest on more than 50 podcasts. He is also the host of Conversations with Chuck Hester, a weekly podcast live on LinkedIn.

One thing I can assure you about marketing your business is that it’s a neverending treadmill of change.

When it comes to website technology, there is not a lot of earth-shaking change happening. WordPress is still the #1 platform for building dynamic websites. Google is still the #1 search engine, and the cell phone is still about 1/2 of the traffic viewing a website. Depending if you are B2b or B2c that can change, but not so dramatically that you have to change everything.

In the case of consumer websites, e-commerce is king. Their websites have to make finding, saving, and buying items the most important function that a website can provide.

In the business-to-business space, it’s different. More often than not, your end goal is human-to-human interaction. That means, you want to create as many opportunities to capture, names, have people fill out forms, and maybe even just email or call your company or individuals within it.

I think a modern B2b website needs to hit the viewer over the head with a problem-solution model that gets the visitor to say “Hey? That’s Me!” And then as quickly as possible, get them to initiate contact.

Anything viewed as a sales pitch will be met with hesitation at best, and a click away from your website at worst. I believe that you have to identify their problem, tell them they are not alone, and get them to take action. The goal should be to have the deeper dive be on the phone or a Zoom call and not simply reading more website copy.

In this episode, I will discuss how websites have pretty much remained the same, but how people are using them has evolved… It’s time for websites, content, and navigation to catch up!

Frank Agin (http://frankagin.com) is president of AmSpirit Business Connection, an organization that empowers entrepreneurs, sales representatives, and professionals to become successful through networking.

He is also the host of the Networking Rx podcast, a weekly short-form podcast with insights and interviews related to better business relationships. And he narrates the Networking Rx Minute, a micro podcast with daily ideas and inspiration.

Finally, Frank is the author of several books, including Foundational Networking: Creating Know, Like & Trust For A Lifetime of Extraordinary Success.

I love my morning walks with my dog, Layla. Especially here in North Carolina.

She gets to sniff, do her business, meet other dogs and people, and have the occasional stare-down battle with bunnies along the way. I get some exercise and inspiration. I have talked before about how I use Blinkist (15-minute Cliffs Notes audio versions of books). I usually get to listen to three full books per walk. I get inspired, not only by new ideas for business, bet even the topics for my blogs and podcasts. This is no exception.

The one thing I have learned about walking a dog is that it’s their time and not yours. You have to let them sniff, run, and explore within reason. I have found that I am less anxious when I have information that feeds me while I let Layla be a dog. We both get what we want, and she and I are both satisfied and content in the end.

Connecting your customers and prospects with your sales team is kind of the same thing. They both get what they want and generally on their own terms. Both end up being satisfied and content in the end.

In this episode, I will discuss how people strive to innovate, but often forget that human-to-human interaction is the key to increasing sales. Sometimes, technology alone is just not enough to increase sales.

Hi. I’m Warren Whitlock. My mission is to help brands improve the results of their digital marketing.

I started creating content for marketing when “new media” meant we could combine multiple slide projectors for a presentation. By the time I went online in 1981, I’d learned to push for better technology whenever it allowed us to achieve our objectives.

Throughout my career, I have created new strategies to use influence and persuasion to help people get what they want. I set hard sales goals and measured performance but never forget that people hate to be sold, but love to buy. I have been an entrepreneur in the computer, publishing, and media,

I look for collaborations where brands can share resources, extend their reach and give customers an experience they will want to share with others. I am currently partnering with IBM Futurists and a few brands and startups along with keynotes where I can engage executives transforming their organizations for an abundant future.

Contact Warren at: http://WarrenWhitlock.com

Warren Whitlock is an advisor, best-selling author, digital marketing influencer and Alchemist. He helps businesses grow exponentially by defining a brand strategy framed to tell a business’s story to customers who will come with a desire to buy exactly what you sell.

You may (or may not agree with the statement of concept… Marketing & Advertising are different. Advertising is about creating brand awareness. Marketing is about human interaction, behavior, and relationships.

If you are a fan of my content, you know I love acronyms and this is no exception. The L-O-V-E I am talking about here today is about showing interest, patience, and consistency in getting to know your clients or prospects and their level of desire to solve their business problems, either today or in the future.

Learning to Listen, Observe, Validate, and Evolve, will help you nurture the business relationship much more productively and profitably in the long run. It is much better than most sales training that promotes Listing (features and benefits), Objections (and overcoming them), Value (pushing your strengths), and Execute (closing the sale).

In this episode, I will discuss consumer and business-to-business advertising and marketing differ, and how you can show your customers and prospects a little L-O-V-E.

Marla Tabaka is an internationally known small business strategist, national radio show host, and leading Inc.com author. Her integrative approach to coaching combines mindset management and strategic planning, resulting in multi-million dollar businesses for many of her small business clients.

After a career of 22-years as an Emmy Award-winning producer at NBC Television, Tabaka worked as a creative consultant for large and mid-sized corporations, established and sold a retail business, and then founded her business coaching practice in 2003. Early in her coaching career, she achieved the status of a leading coach with the American Express sponsored “Count Me In for Women’s Economic Independence” program where she led dozens of female business owners to successful 7 and 8 figure business results.

In 2015 she co-founded EmpruV Business Value Builders with ABC’s Shark Tank’s original Shark and founder of As Seen on TV, Kevin Harrington. The two co-host the nationally broadcasted Big Pitch Radio Show and Tabaka holds an Advisory Board position at the award-winning DRTV consultancy, Shark Finds with Kevin Harrington.

In addition to her articles at Inc.com, you’ll find Tabaka’s work featured in major business publications such as American Express Open, Fox Business News, TIME Business, NAWBO SmartBrief, The Huffington Post, Entrepreneur.com, and The Business Intelligence Report.

Michelle Filicicchia’s primary focus is helping leaders and employees achieve high-performance and measurable results that encompass engagement, productivity, well-trained individuals and effective teams. Michelle brings a vigorous customer-focused approach with client engagements. She is accomplished with diverse and multi-cultural audiences and is a certified Personified Leadership facilitator. Michelle’s body of work spans the following practice areas: Instructional Design, Facilitation, Executive Coaching and Performance Consulting

The brain loves to store and process sequences. We tend to rank success by the probability that a sequence will end in a positive or negative result. This is due to our limbic brains and the fight or flight response.

There really is no way to just bypass the normal course of B2b business to make a sale. Even if you do, the chances of that becoming a long and established business relationship are small.

Think of yourself as that Saber-Tooth Tiger who just caught its prey. All is well until a bigger and stronger tiger wrestles that lunch away for itself and you are left hungry, searching for your next meal. It will be much harder for that lone tiger to take the meal when you are surrounded by friends (people at the company where you have established long-term relationships and a history of success).

In this episode, I will discuss how people are trying to sell me what I don’t want or need and how their tactics will not yield positive results for my, or your B2b business!

Hank is an author, speaker, podcast host and Sr. Manager of Client Solutions at iContact, a Ziff Davis company. With a passion for all things digital and social, combined with more than 20 years of experience in sales and marketing, he has been dubbed the Digital Marketing Infotainer because he makes marketing fun and successful.

Everything has new technology. Washing machines don’t have agitators (I guess they are less angry now), fridges have Bluetooth (who talks to it?), and mattresses have memory foam (I am not sure I want my mattress to remember what I do while sleeping?).

I have a lot to learn. and I am asking local friends and acquaintances for recommendations.

Our closing date (which we were told was September/October) is now set for August 16th! Luckily, almost everything we looked at and want has no supply chain issues and 6 weeks is enough lead time.

The major point I wanted to get across, is that quality customer service still matters. If you are selling B2b, it’s all about relationships, experience, knowledge, empathy, and communication.

I can and want to strive to be like (salespeople) Dan, Melanie, and Linda. They understood that information and education are golden and that spending the time to explain the hows, whys, and what ifs of new technological advances can benefit our lives and our new home!

In this episode, I will talk about shopping and Holiday Sales don’t always lead to the best fit and the best value. Also how that philosophy can apply to your B2b sales organization!