10 Ways to Raise Your Lead Generation Game

10. Banish the phrase “cold calling” from your vocabulary. You’re hunting, you’re investigating, you’re connecting, and you’re helping buyers address critical issues. Adopt this mindset, be persistent, and with time, they will look forward to your calls – REALLY! 9. Open with a story. Take case studies, craft 30-45 second stories to open up conversations, [...]

5 Tips to Earn More AND Better B2B Prospecting Conversations

Prospecting Conversations are those initial chats where you learn more about your buyer and the critical issues they’re tackling right now, as well as emerging needs on the horizon. Research tells us successful salespeople say less and listen more. During initial prospecting conversations, your buyer should be doing at least 70% of the talking. But [...]

Diary of a Newbie Blogger – Part 2: Building Community

Follow-up to previous post: Diary of a Newbie Blogger Part 1 With almost 6 months under my belt, I bring you installment #2 of “Newbie Blogger.” My hope is that it will help you determine if/how a blog might fit your own business plan. Revelation #1: Blogging Builds a Community of Followers Retirepreneur is one [...]

Wanna Grow Your Business? Go Have a Cup of Coffee

I’m spending more time at Starbucks, Caribou, and a host of other charming cafes. And get this – it’s really driving more new business opportunities. Who knew my best strategy for 2010 would revolve around a cup of coffee? A few thoughts about the java strategy: Great Place for a F2F Prospect Discovery Typically, my first exchange [...]

Networking and the Exposure Effect

Let’s start with a definition (from Wikipedia): The Exposure Effect is a psychological phenomenon by which people tend to develop a preference for things merely because they are familiar with them. In social psychology, this effect is sometimes called the familiarity principle. In studies of interpersonal attraction, the more often a person is seen by [...]

The Elevator Pitch – Take 2

In an earlier post,  Going Up? – Perfecting Your Elevator Pitch, we looked at your Approach Statement – the 60 second pitch for that first time you connect with prospects, communicating who you are, what you do, who you work with, and the value you deliver to clients.  That post caught a lot of attention, so [...]

Laser Your Focus: SMART Goals

This week feels like the movie Groundhog Day.  I’ve had the same conversation with three different people.  It goes something like this: Client: I wondered if you could help me with podcasting. Me: Sure, but first tell me more about your message. What exactly do you want to accomplish with this podcast? Client: Well, we [...]

Going Up? Perfecting Your Elevator Pitch

I’m pursuing a business grant to help take Retirepreneur to the next level and this week, I attended workshops to learn more about the application and decision process. Step 1 is a 10-page written proposal. Those who advance to Step 2 get a chance to pitch their business concept to a panel of a dozen [...]

Product Peddling vs Asking Great Questions

Recently, I had some challenges with my business phone solution. I “googled” options, read reviews, and reached out to several providers to understand more about what they could do to address my issues.  This one step brought on a barrage of “insert name here” emails, a few calls, and some world-class feature dumps. But not [...]