Hi everyone, I started this week selling for a yellow page advertising company. Today was my first full day of prospecting, I called roughly 50 companies on the telephone and visited about 20 in person out in the field and no appointments. This isn’t my first time in b2b sales so I know starting out is tough but I don’t think I every hit this many contacts without an appointment. 6 or 7 told me to call in a week or so but that’s about it. Just wondered if anyone else here is in advertising sales and has any advice on good cold calling techniques. Here is what I do. I try to be very breif in my opening statement, tell them who I am, how I can benefit their business, and ask for an appointment. I’m very casual and laid back as to not sound like a scripted telemarketer.…

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This article was originally published by quickbase.intuit.com Companies typically spend more hiring their sales forces than any other function in an organization, yet sales managers often aren’t adept at assessing the right skills to make good hires. It’s time to turn that around in order to drive better bottom-line results. If you want people in the field to understand your strategic initiatives and demonstrate behaviors that will drive profitable growth, then there must be a clear roadmap to drive that alignment, says Frank Cespedes, author of “Aligning Strategy and Sales: The Choices, Systems, and Behaviors That Drive Effective Selling.” He discusses the issue with Anita Bruzzese in the second part of this interview that looks at hiring and how sales will be affected by an improving economy. AB: When it comes to hiring the kind of sales people that will help organizations to better align strategy and sales, what should hiring…

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This Article was originally published by the economist.com by E.W  Jan 23rd 2015, 16:36 | WASHINGTON, DC IN 2015 the promise of gender equality seems closer than ever. A new report by the Pew Research Centre shows that the majority of Americans think women are just as capable of being good political and business leaders as men. They are perceived as indistinguishable from their male peers when it comes to leadership qualities such as intelligence and capacity for innovation. On other qualities—honesty, fairness, compassion and willingness to compromise—many Americans actually judge women as superior. It’s tempting to read the report as a sign of progress. After all, the 114th Congress includes a record number of women (104) serving in the House and Senate. On the corporate front, 26 women now lead as CEOs of Fortune 500 companies; that’s up from zero in 1995. But, in fact, the 104 congresswomen only make…

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For Social Media Today by Andrew Hutchinson The Biggest Facebook Posts of 2015 and What We Can Learn From Them | Social Media TodayThe process of ‘doing’ Facebook got a whole lot tougher in 2015. Organic reach is way down, video views are way up, and Facebook itself is doing its utmost to convince more brands to forget their own blogs and pages and conduct all their business on their network instead. Better reach, better mobile experience – what’s not to like? Working out the best way to utilize Facebook is becoming more complex, with the sheer amount of options available – from ads to Page tools – growing every day. There are ways to ‘win’ at Facebook, there are ways to achieve great results, both organic and paid, but there’s a lot more to consider, and a lot more to learn. With this in mind, it’s worth taking a moment to…

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People called generation Y (born between 1980 to 2000), it has a very behavior based on immediacy.Most of these people have are the consumer and the working population. The study called the Millennial Band Advocates, Social Chorus makes an interesting analysis of how this shows the world population deals with brands and marketing companies. The conclusion is that Generation Y does not believe in advertising. Generation Y is a lover of social networks where they appear with a major expressiveness. This inclination for what is immediate and with just one click, makes the marketing department of any company that wants to reach this audience understand some aspects that are specific to this generation. Usually longer believe in experiences that your friends have with certain brands to the detriment of advertising messages. The positive or negative image of that audience with certain brands depends on the experiences in respect of them.…

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“We have this big myth in the technology industry that we like to impose on everybody — disruption is going to happen and it’s going to destroy you. But this pattern of change actually takes time.” And so began Andy Lark, CMO of Xero, launching into an overview of the actual rate of change in the digital era at Xerocon Denver 2015. Why do companies increasingly struggle to stay up-to-date with the accelerating pace of digital transformation? How can individuals and businesses learn to navigate today’s shifting landscape in a way that better prepares them for the future? They key, Andy says, is figuring out what is driving the change in business so you can get in front of it. Here are Andy’s 5 tips for improving change management in an evolving world: 1. Learn how to participate The days of pushing information out to customers are over. Companies will grow…

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The standard gauge railway (SGR) is Kenya’s single-largest infrastructure investment since the British built the old Kenya-Uganda railway in the 1900s. More importantly, it is only a matter time before Kenyans begin paying for the piece of infrastructure costing billions of shillings. Indeed, the repayment schedule will most likely test the economy than ever before. The most acknowledged benefit of the new railway, whose first phase is set to be completed by June next year, is that it will cut travel time for passengers as the new locomotives will cover the 480 kilometres from Nairobi to Mombasa in half the 10 hours it currently takes. That will encourage travel to and from Mombasa and boost the economy considerably. Needless to add, the most benefits will accrue through quicker cargo turnaround. However, for the public to realise swift and lasting benefits from the new railway, besides getting buses and trucks off…

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African exports to China fell by almost 40% in 2015, China’s customs office says. China is Africa’s biggest single trading partner and its demand for African commodities has fuelled the continent’s recent economic growth. The decline in exports reflects the recent slowdown in China’s economy. This has, in turn, put African economies under pressure and in part accounts for the falling value of many African currencies. Presenting China’s trade figures for last year, customs spokesman Huang Songping told journalists that African exports to China totalled $67bn (£46.3bn), which was 38% down on the figure for 2014. BBC Africa Business Report editor Matthew Davies says that as China’s economy heads for what many analysts say will be a hard landing, its need for African oil, metals and minerals has fallen rapidly, taking commodity prices lower. Chinese investment down There is also less money coming from China to Africa, with direct investment…

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Asian stocks are following Wall Street’s drop. Japan’s Nikkei plummeted as much as 4% Thursday morning, while the Hang Seng in Hong Kong fell as much as 2.1%. The declines came after a rough day of trading in U.S. markets Wednesday that brought the Dow, S&P 500 and Nasdaq into correction territory, meaning they have tumbled 10% or more from their recent peaks. Experts say stocks are coming under pressure from slumping oil prices and uncertainty over China’s slowing economy and its weakening currency. Chinese stocks on Thursday flirted with the lows of last summer’s market crash, with the Shanghai Composite sinking as much as 2.8%. The index has lost around 18% since the start of this year. For years, China’s booming economy was a key engine for global growth, but now its slowdown is rippling out through global commodity markets. Oil prices fell under $30 a barrel Tuesday for…

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Oil prices have briefly fallen below $30 a barrel on international markets for the first time since April 2004, before recovering again. Brent crude, used as an international benchmark, fell as low as $29.96, but bounced back to trade at $30.22. Oil prices have fallen by 70% in the past 15 months. Earlier, Russia’s Prime Minister, Dmitry Medvedev, warned tumbling oil prices could force his country to revise its 2016 budget. He said that the country must be prepared for a “worst-case” economic scenario if the price continued to fall. Taxes from oil and gas generates about half the Russian government’s revenue. The 2016 federal budget that was approved in October was based on an oil price of $50 a barrel in 2016 – a figure President Vladimir Putin has since described as “unrealistic”. Government departments have been ordered to cut spending by 10%, repeating a policy imposed in 2015,…

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