Why Change Selling Blog

Readers of this blog collectively will have sat through tens, if not hundreds of thousands of hours of product training in their sales and marketing careers.

Here is an awesome and comprehensive summary of the transformation under-way in marketing. If you're in sales and struggling for leads, you might want to pass this on to your marketing colleagues and your exec team.

The HubSpot $32Million series D funding round from new investors, Salesforce.com, Google Ventures and Sequoia Capital, with all original investors doubling-down is old news by now, but the ripples are now being felt in all parts of the marketing automation industry.

I was in Las Vegas last month with a team of eight sales enablement professionals from WhiteboardSelling to facilitate a Whiteboard Selling Symposium as part of a global sales kick-off event for over three thousand front line sales and presales support people. Our client, a major player in the virtualization business (I'm writing this as an affiliate partner of WhiteboardSelling) will remain nameless as we are under NDA.

If you are in sales or consulting, live in the USA or Canada and work most of the time from home, you might find the following article on setting up high quality sales communication system worth the time it takes to read.

Selling from a Home Office

I've been working from a home office since 1995 and have had a variety of communication set-ups and have tried a number of different telephone service providers including Pac-Bell, Sprint, Nextel, British Telecom and T-Mobile.
In setting up my new home office, I had planned to use my cellphone as my only phone with T-Mobile— they have an all you can eat voice and data plan that is (un)reasonable...but I'm stuck with it. Unfortunately the signal in my office is very poor and a non-starter for professional communication, so I needed a plan "B".

Quality Matters

When I ordered the Internet service I went to the local cable company, Comcast, as they have upgraded their technology and service level and offer a competitive introductory rate for broadband. I declined their phone service at $60 per month however as I knew I could install VOIP myself for a lot less.

I had used Vonage for six months and Skype for about six years in the UK and tried Skype here for a few months, investing in a high quality USB microphone and a noise cancelling headset, but found voice quality very choppy and plenty of times would just get cut off or the sound quality was not good enough for sales conversations.
It's hard enough to get someone on the phone — when you do, static on the line and garbled communication is intolerable. I was spending about $40 per month on the Skype service and was not happy with service, although Skypetogo was useful in speaking with overseas family members on my cellphone for the price of a local call when out of the office on my cell.

Ooma Telo

I did some homework on DECT phones
to connect to the VOIP system and went my local BestBuy to buy a set and get a couple of recommendations on VOIP. After more homework I opted for the Ooma Telo VOIP  system at the basic level and paid just over $200 for the device. The Ooma Telo system (pictured) gives you unlimited phone calls in the US and you pay a fee in advance for International calls at similar International rates to Skype (1.5 cents/minute), but there is no monthly fee, except for local taxes - about $3.00 per month in my case.

Integrated Bluetooth Headset and Mobile

I bought a Bluetooth enabled Panasonic KX-TG6581 DECT 6.0 system with a desk unit and 2 handsets...this is a great phone, optional upgrades are a DECT repeater and extra handsets.
Already the owner of the excellent over the ear Plantronix Voyager Pro Bluetooth headset with a boom microphone, I paired this with the handset.
I installed the Ooma system, connected up the DECT phone in about 10 minutes and after the new number was provisioned, started making calls within an hour....crystal clear calls.
I've had the system for over 9 months now and the quality is excellent most of the time (which is the same for most VOIP providers), my cell phone usage has dropped in half and I have renegotiatied my rate down with T-Mobile. The ROI on this total investment was less than 6 months. If I had been using Comcast phone services my ROI would have been less than 3 months. The Bluetooth on the Panasonic supports my Android mobile phone so that when a call comes in on my mobile I can pick it up on the Panasonic DECT system.

Take-aways

1. There is no room for compromise in quality of your voice communication when selling over the phone .
2. The Ooma Telo system works great and will pay for itself in months.
3. Bluetooth headsets have come a long way and I wear the Voyager Pro all day...I dont even notice it is there.
4. The Panasonic DECT 6.0 phones have a long battery life, work extremely well with Bluetooth and have everything you need.

Addendum

Since writing this article I have added my old Polycom Soundpoint Pro speakerphone into the mix as I record a lot of my whiteboard messaging conference calls and wanted the best possible audio reproduction. I simply added a split jack onto the analog port on the back of the Ooma.
The sound quality on this analog speakerphone is unbeatable.

I also highly recommend the Roland R-05 voice recorder from The Sound Professionals. I have bought a ton of professional recording gear from them over the years and found them to be an excellent source of high quality gear and sound advice. The one in the image has superseded the unit I am using, but I use it in nearly every meeting as it is extremely valuable to have a recording to refer back to when a reference is needed and weeks have passed since the conversation.

On Wednesday last week, I had the pleasure of sitting in a one day course entitled "Presenting Data and Information" presented by Prof. Edward Tufte.

As a sales professional and sales performance coach, I read a lot of books and invest in some way in my own professional development every year. Recently I purchased a copy of Baseline Selling by Dave Kurlan to complement a recent HubSpot partner sales training course and coaching session.

If you ask any group of salespeople what the difference is between qualifying a sales prospect in, or qualifying out, you are bound to get an interesting and varied set of answers. If you asked what the impact would be of each of these approaches on their bank balance, you still might get a quizzical look.

For the past 7 years I've been helping companies selling high value software or services to uncover their compelling value proposition and to create a positioning and brand messaging architecture in the process of aligning sales and marketing messaging.

1. Best Book: Seth Godin's Linchpin really addresses a bunch of personal issues that prevent people from getting the important stuff done.
2. Obama's healthcare reforms: mean affordable healthcare coverage for me and my family and the employees of our business...and millions of other small business owners and employees in the US.
3. Moving back to the USA...it was a good time to go to the UK in 2003 and it feels like a good time to be back in the US - an added bonus, we missed the coldest, snowiest winter in Scotland for 60 years.
4. Becoming an affiliate of WhiteboardSelling provides a logical output of our Messaging Architecture process and translates it into something the sales team will actually want to use and enables me to implement a lot of the Salescraft technique I have developed as well.
5. Our Toyota Prius has to be the smartest car I've ever owned and we are averaging 50+ MPG. A real surprise inside, with more leg and headroom than our old Volvo Waggon and a terrific load deck that will carry most stuff we need to haul.
6. Moving in to our Pebble Beach home in just 10 weeks from purchase with a complete renovation has to be some sort of record...thanks to my wife, Robin.
7. My new Kevin Burns Putter...this is the first putter I have ever owned that is scientifically fitted exactly for my physiology and putting stroke. It is also the finest quality milled putter available and the custom-fitting-machining process that Kevin Burns invented and his practical stroke improvement tips mean that KBGolf putters are the only truly custom golf clubs that actually improve your game.
8. Best Work Engagement: Working on implementing Inbound Marketing at hot Cloud Storage spin-out Scality in Paris.
9. Best Wine of the year: 1976 Penfolds Grange Hermitage - a majesterial wine, still improving, incredible colour, nose and massive sweet and intense chocolatey red and black fruit flavors that linger for minutes, this wine still has 20 years in it.
10. Best Pub: The Central Bar, St Andrews and ask for a pint of my favorite real ale "Bitter and Twisted" from Harviestoun Brewery.
11. Best New Golf Course I played: Loch Lomond, Scotland thanks to my host Rick Gardner and the best parkland layout I've ever played - shot a 79 gross.