Today is my first day of writing, but . . . Where do I begin? My office buddy, Ted Weinstein, is a literary agent. He ordered me to ”write 5,000 words” by today. That was a  few hours ago.

Since then, I’ve done a lot of work. I made social plans to go to the Symphony in June, I downloaded my pictures from our March Spring party, I cleaned out my purse and found the hand lotion I thought I lost and even ran outside to see if it was raining today. It is.

What’s the deal with excuses and distractions?

Beginnings are hard . . . blah, blah, blah

My book marketing efforts must start now and I should be working on developing a strategy before I start writing . . . blah, blah, blah

My travel schedule will be crazy this month so I might not have as much time to write . . . blah, blah, blah

I need to research more, interview more, blog more and come up with more relevant content . . . blah, blah, blah

I need to hire a few more people to help me out . . . blah, blah, blah

There isn’t enough crunchy food in my office to stimulate my brain  . . . blah, blah, blah

But wait! I just wrote this blog!

The journey begins . . .

He has established a culture by design, not default. His people work hard and play hard, they have  high expectations of themselves, require constant confirmation of their abilities, and and the fun factor is extremely high. They like to “follow” because mentoring is very important to them.

Millennials are flooding inside sales organizations. They account for 25% of the workforce. These interesting states, based on a recent MTV research study, will help us in our recruiting and managing efforts:

When recruiting them:

• 93% of Millennials want a job that works with their lifestyle.
• 93% of Millennials want a job where they can be themselves.
• 88% of Millennials want their coworkers to be their friends.
• 89% of Millennials want their workplace to be social and fun.
• 79% of Millennials think they should be allowed to wear jeans to work at least sometimes.
• 81% of Millennials think they should be allowed to make their own hours at work.
• 92% of Millennials think their company is lucky to have them as an employee.
• Half of Millennials would rather have no job than have a job they hate

When managing them:

• The three most critical aspects of their work are work/life balance, loving what they do, and having good benefits. Having a good salary and vacation time are important, but not their key drivers.
• 76% of Millennials think their boss could learn a lot from them.
• 8 out of 10 Millennials want regular feedback from their boss.
• 8 out of 10 Millennials think they deserve to be recognized more for their work.
• Over half of Millennials want feedback at least once a week or more.
• Three-fourths of Millennials want to work for themselves one day.
• Three-fourths of Millennials would like to have a mentor.
• 61% of Millennials say they need specific directions from their boss to do their best work.

How to appreciate them:

Managers, listen up. Instead of giving your team members “att’a-boy” kudos for their good work, try something more personal and meaningful: Take the time to walk them into their office, close the door, and tell them how important their contribution is to the team and company.

Hand-written notes are back. At the end of the quarter, get out your pen and start writing!

I give full credit to our founders, Larry Reeves and Bob Perkins. These two guys have been plugging along the past few years, growing this professional association way beyond just membership –  into a movement and an industry. And because Larry and Bob have such solid leadership values, high integrity, and a strong work ethics — and because they are so nice — the people it attracts are full-bodied, amazing professionals.

I feel right at home with this group — we share my favorite topic, inside sales. And we are all doing so much work towards elevating the visibility and viability of this profession – it is spectacular.

Best of all, we support each other.  Yesterday’s annual awards ceremony announced some winners — thank you, thank you, thank you! I am so honored and humbled to be recognized for the THIRD year in a row as one of the TOP 25 Most Influential Inside Sales Professionals.  Congrats to all the other winners in all categories — especially Art Sobczak for winning the Lifetime Achievement Award. He is the godfather of inside sales in my world (even though he’s younger than me. )

Stay tuned for more highlights and a few out-takes.

In my 2012 Trend Report, I’ve alerted  inside salespeople to put their best face forward because video is quickly becoming the new high-impact sales medium. By 2020, 85% of buyer-seller interactions will happen online through social media and video.

This is why I’ve chosen to partner with PGI for a Vote4Video 3-part webinar series. It starts on April 10th @ 11:00 am PST. Register Now!

Here are the topics:

Topic #1, April 10th – Why Video Matters! Sign Up Now

Video is quickly becoming the new high-impact sales medium, and it is transforming the sales prospecting landscape. Find out the latest stats and trends. Discover why early adopters are winning when they use video as their “must-have” sales tool.

You’ll learn how to:

• Build trust faster + earn time with today’s elusive Customer 2.0
• Raise your sales tool IQ + get quicker response
• Shorten all stages of your sales cycle with stronger conversion rates

Topic #2, May 8th – Can You See Me Now?

What if . . . you turned the camera on? Do it, but get ready first. This session will focus on setting the scene for video to become an essential sales productivity tool.

You’ll learn how to:

• Set up you general office or cubicle decor to look good on camera
• Tech check – do you have everything you need?
• Find out if your customer is ready to see you now – and what’s their set-up?
• Improve your personal visuals, including body language
• Pull out the best conversation starters — reference LinkedIn poll

Topic #3, June  5th– Video Revolution

This session will deliver real-life examples of sales companies that have significantly improved sales with video, possibly told by the customers themselves.

You’ll learn how to:

• Improve hiring and retention efforts
• Increase sales training and coaching
• Better collaboration for virtual sales forces
• Improved lead conversion

***A contest will happen during the last webinar, when we will vote for the “best face” and ask them to share their video success story.

The Sales 2.0 Conference adoption curve has traveled a long road, here’s the journey:

2007: The first Sales 2.0 Conference hosted by the Genius team. Everyone in the sales community showed up expecting a great party. They had no idea what Sales 2.0 meant other than, um, maybe it was  a new pseudonym for a cool, sexy cocktail?

2009: Selling Power team took over managing the Sales 2.0 Conference, which made it more official — plus we get to see lots more of Gerhard. This time the sales and marketing community showed up suspicious, apprehensive, defensive, and curious about the Sales 2.0 possibilities and how it might impact them in the future. Was it new or improved or social?

2010: Sales 2.0 Conference finally found it’s place. Sales and marketing people showed up and started to realize that it’s not a movement that you must join, it’s not a disease that will just disappear, it’s not a manipulative ploy to sell more sales tools. They were open and ready to learn and even adopt some new ideas.

2011: Sales 2.0 Conference confirmed that Social Selling is alive and kicking and it was the end of the world as we know it. Sales and marketing people showed up, ready to embrace the new elusive Customer 2.0 and incorporate some social selling into the mix.

2012: Sales 2.0 Conference has finally grown up. It’s ready to engage socially, and especially with Inside Sales — the nexus of Marketing/Sales alignment and teamwork.

Perhaps you are sitting in a good place just about now — resting at 90% of your sales quota, with a few days left. CONGRATS! Or you may feel panicked because a few of your team members have been out sick, the forecast accuracy is looking very shaky, and you are far from making your quota — with a few days left.

Don’t stop now! This is the best time to squeeze more out of your team than ever before.

You can use your power of influence to make a difference. A few smart managers I know have a motivational texting strategy that they kick in during end of quarter, and it works.

Texting 1-2-3:

1. Make sure you have your entire team’s cell phone numbers.

2. Outline a text motivational strategy to include morning texts (motivational, confident and energetic) and end of day texts (grateful, rewarding, and acknowledging).

3. Send out 2 texts per day — one in the morning to keep them focused, and one at the end of the day to keep them energized.

Suggested morning texts:

• TODAY is the start of 3 new deals. Go get em!
• Say NO to distractions and YES to selling.
• Walk into work and strike your BEST sales pose.
• Give MORE today than you did yesterday and you will be CLOSER to your goal.
• Let’s not be conventional, let’s be DISRUPTIVE.
• Part One: Obstacles don’t have to stop you. If you run into a wall, don’t turn around and give up.
• Part Two: Figure out how to climb it, go through it or work around it.

Suggested end of the day texts:

• Thx for moving mountains today — we are #WINNING
• Falling down is how we grow. Staying down is how we die.
• Wise people learn when they can. Fools learn when they must.
• Were you CREATIVE today?
• You are what you repeatedly do. Excellence is not an event — it is a habit.
• I feel so lucky to have such a killer team — thx!

Please send me samples of your motivational texts – as a thank you, please download our Team Interview Behavioral Questions.

I don’t want to compromise my writing, monitoring, or presentations, so  this morning I sat down and tried to map my technology requirements.

Here’s what I came up with:

A view from my office: Need double monitors to write, read, research, monitor social media discussions, track inbound leads, website maintenance, email marketing, video/web conferencing. Laptop, double monitors

A view from my traveling road show: Need something with a long battery life that’s small enough to work on airplanes, use email, access social media, writing, watch videos, movies, etc. Notebook, iPad

A view from my home: I want something I can use to look up recipes, classes, social media. Since I don’t have a TV, I’d like something that has a big screen so I could download videos from HuLu and YouTube. Laptop, iPad

A view for recreation: Something small that monitors everything: iPhone

In our efforts to increase our Tool IQ, it is important for managers and team members to step back and take the time to align their lifestyles, work habits, and preferences with the available technology. This is very individualized, depending on each person’s unique style:

Office setup:

• phone (landline)  for outbound and inbound calls
• iPhone/Smartphone for colleagues, peers, customers (texting included), music, sports, social media, financials, calendaring
• iPad for CRM, presentations, sales intelligence, social media monitoring
• laptop for CRM, email, proposals, PowerPoint, Excel, forecasts, calendaring

Out of office setup:

• iPhone/Smartphone to monitor everything
• personal laptop
• iPad

Check out Dave Stein’s My Favorite iPhone and iPad Apps blog post and Donal Daly’s iPad on the Sales Road: 13 Best Practice Tips.

Take some time to think about your habits and your ideal technology needs. Cure that technology mid-life crisis now!

Did you know that last week was declared Sleep Awareness by the National Sleep Foundation? Sleep is a huge issue these days. According to the National Sleep Foundation, the last 25 years has seen a substantial increase in the number of people getting less than the recommended sleep requirements.

Being constantly connected with technology can be great, but it means that we are always on — and this impacts our sleep. To address this sad fact, Europe recently opened up “nap bars”! And the Benjamin Hotel in Midtown Manhattan lets you choose from 12 sleep pillows to make sure you get a good night’s sleep.

But here’s where it gets personal: Sleep deprivation clearly impacts your sales focus, drive, and motivation. Salespeople must be super alert in today’s sales environment. If you are sluggish and exhausted, many opportunities will pass you by while you nod off.

Check out this great TedTalks video from Arianna Huffington called “How to Succeed? Get More Sleep.”

Click here to view the embedded video.

But food isn’t all that is booming in my town. The social media sales hub was born this week in San Francisco: InsideView’s first conference on social selling. I was also honored with making the top 25 List of Influential Leaders in Sales.

Koka Sexton, InsideView’s Social Media Strategist, leads the LinkedIn Social Selling University group. He knows a lot about social selling — especially since his background is in sales.

Koka assembled a panel to talk about the 9 Social Selling Tools You Should Not Go Without, and I was super curious to find out what these were. I travel thousands of Blue state and Red state miles, and everywhere I go I hear what seems like the same middle-aged, overweight, and frustrated VP of Sales say, “I haven’t seen any deals close because of social media. Watching my salespeople ‘work’ on Facebook all day ain’t gonna happen while I’m around!”

He just can’t understand how the social ”How’s it going?” efforts translate into a closed sales deal. He wants to see tangible productivity and revenues generated by social media, and so far he doesn’t

I gently remind him of the reality of social media today: “Your customers are ready to buy – you just have to be there at the right time during the sales cycle to be part of it.”

He listens, folds his arms, and challenges me, “Fine. Give me your top 3 social media tools you can’t live without.”

“No problem!” I say. “But remember — it all depends on your target audience, your solutions/products, and the length of your sales cycle. Do you know the proverb of the three wise monkeys –  hear no evil, see no evil, speak no evil?”

“Of course,” he says.

“Good. Because I want to use them to explain my 3 top social media recommendations”:

1. Hear no evil: You can make your salespeople chief listening officers by getting them all a Twitter account. They can stay ahead of breaking news, trends, and discussions, and hear snippets about companies, solutions, and customers.

2. See no evil: Everything is so visual now. My vote is for video, which means that YouTube is where everyone goes to learn, develop, educate, and watch some good or bad presentations. Your team’s retention rate in learning and absorbing will be so much greater if they spend time on YouTube.

3. Speak no evil: In social media, you must be part of the conversation, and LinkedIn drops you right in. This is a forum where you can share your thoughts in group, you can send “inmail” messages to your contacts, and network with peers and prospects. Fewer appointments get cancelled when they are sent through LinkedIn. Real power can be vetted through the LinkedIn profiles, so you know to get out of the No-Po zone fast.

That’s my three, and Koka presented a total of 9. So here are 6 more:

4. Blogs: Have access to thought leaders, studies

5. Facebook: Become a fan, follow, and learn about prospect’s lives

6. InsideView: Give them sales and social intelligence to help them sound relevant

7. SlideShare: A great way to share slide presentations without having having to upload them

8. Timetrade: The best calendaring tool I’ve seen

9.  Pinterest: This online pinboard is gaining lots of traction — it is creative and engaging

If you are curious about the future of selling in today’s world, this was the place to be. InsideView has become a “must-have” sales intelligence tool that has changed the face of prospecting. The formula is simple:  sales intelligence + the right people +  the right message +  the right time = relevance.

The first day kicked off with some great keynotes and presentations. I can’t wait to get some slide decks because there are some killer stats there.

Here are a few highlights from the conference:

Umberto Milletti, CEO of InsideView, is the Social Intelligence leader. Now he says that we must be relevant with all this intelligence. He’s right. After all, if 92% of our prospects do not respond to cold calls or email, we must learn to be smarter about it.

Kim Celestre, Analyst with Forrester, hosted a live and interactive TweetJam with the audience asking some great questions. Among them:  “How will social media impact the lead generation and nurturing process?” and “What are best practices to engage customers with social media?” and “What are your top social media priorities in 2012?”

Forrester has surveyed customers’ online behavior and found the following:

• 24% Creators: They create web content.
• 33% Conversationalists: They post updates.
• 37% Critics: They respond to others’ content.
• 20% Collectors: They organize available content.
• 59% Joiners: They connect via online social networks.
• 70% Spectators: They consume social network content.
• 17% Inactives: They don’t create or consume any kind of social network content.

The cool thing about these conferences is that you can dare to be different and try something new.  Leave it to charming Gerhard Gschwandtner from Selling Power to add an improvisational component to his PowerPoint presentation. He randomly selected audience members and had them interpret six of his slides. It was cool!

A few take-aways:

1. Geography is dead; social proximity is in. I have written about this in my Inside Sales 2012 Trend Report: “Geographic Territories Are (Almost) Over because in today’s social world, geo regions may not have as much meaning as they used to. Salespeople work virtually now — from home or from satellite offices.”
2. Social doesn’t have a hierarchy anymore. Gerhard gave examples of open-space office environments where the CEOs sit in the center of their teams.
3. You can improve the top 20% of the sales team if you provide them with better tools. Absolutely true.

Don’t bother being social if you aren’t going to be relevant!

Keynote- People Not Contacts

Proven Techniques to Increase Prospect Response Rates

9 Social Selling Tools You Should Not Go Without

21st-century Sales Warriors: Work Smarter, Sell Better and Win More

Why Downturns Break Sales Orgs (And What To Do About It)

InsideView has made great strides in the sales and social intelligence community. They have inserted themselves into the DNA of many inside sales organizations. There is still time to register for this great event.

We partnered on a great ebook last year, check it out:  Smart Selling to the People with the Power to Buy 

Last year, my travel schedule was insane. In every room I had suitcases in various states of packed and unpacked.  But this time of year, things are quiet and I’m finally getting to enjoy my home — especially the quiet and peaceful sacred space that keeps me grounded.

So when my sister asked if she could come up from Santa Cruz and stay over  a couple nights this week, I said “No.” What? After thinking it over for a while, I said “no” again. How could I do such a thing to my own sister? How could I be so selfish? How could I turn away my own family? I felt super guilty, like a really bad sister.

The truth is, I’m a bit of an introvert. I need some quiet time alone to recharge. Whenever I say this to my close friends, they laugh out loud and think I’m joking. How could that be possible? I have an active social life, I speak in front of hundreds at conferences — all the time. It doesn’t seem to match up.

I felt validated after watching Susan Cain’s recent TedTalk on The Power of Introverts. In talking about their preferences and habits, she explains their need for solitude — to create, think, develop, and get energized.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Susan talks about  how our society strongly discourages introverts, and it’s true. The sales profession in particular has traditionally chased extroverts. They are usually the most desirable applicants to hire and the most likely to succeed.  Everyone wants them on their team and in their territory because their “always on” persona feeds the sales engine.

But I think it’s to rethink this strategy and to take a hard look at the introverts. They may not always have the ”gift of gab” but they can be grounded and come from inside out. Today’s inside salesperson doesn’t have to “talk” too much. In the Sales 2.0 world spend much more time writing, researching, thinking, and strategizing. All within the confines of their laptop.

If you have a lot of introverts in your sales meetings, you won’t have large discussions. They will be embarrassed when you share stories of their sales success, and feel uncomfortable if you rank them against their team members. But if you leave them alone,  give them space, and trust them, you will be pleasantly surprised. And don’t forget to give them some privacy — especially when prospecting, it works wonders!

Right now, I’m looking to hire a couple of people and — apologies to my daughter — I probably won’t hire a hipster.  I can only imagine  . . . They would question the purpose of what I want to do and convince me it was useless. We’d start working late into the afternoon and end by 2 am after some CRAZY brainstorm session that would take us absolutely nowhere. They probably don’t like anything that has to do with sales either. Oh, and one day if they decide this job isn’t real for them, they just wouldn’t come in.

I probably need to stick with hiring the classic Gen Y employee. Now, I’m not saying that the classic Gen Y’er doesn’t have an attitude problem. They like to stay clear of confrontation, and they can’t relate to people who get all worked up about something (like me?).

I found the recent white paper written by Bunchball on “Enterprise Gamification, The Gen Y Factor” very interesting. They confirmed that the Gen Y generation (those born in the early 80s – mid 90s, which includes many hipsters) make up 25% of the workforce today. They are digital natives. They live and breathe online and “#winning” is their slogan.

These findings were based on three  important characteristics that help engage and motivate this group.  (1) Performance (2) Achievement and (3) Social Interaction. So when hiring, I need to keep all of these in mind:

1. Performance: This includes real-time feedback, transparency and goal-setting. Daily feedback is key for me, being honest and open about what is going on, and setting goals is what I’m all about.

2. Achievement: This includes badges, leveling up, on-boarding, and mastery. Setting milestones for learning new skills and achieving good results will be key.

3. Social Interaction: This includes competition, teams. I expect my new hire to have a strong and impressive digital footprint, I want them to live on Facebook and Twitter, but also want to know they can channel some of that into the business realm.

I think I’m better matched for the classic Gen Y’er. If you want to know more about the position, feel free to email me @ getsmart@tele-smart.com. 

And that snaps me right back to my own, very pleasant, reality.

If you’re in the market for training, there are two big things to consider.

First, sourcing for a sales training vendor is a  HUGE responsibility.  Salespeople have comp packages that include sales commissions. That means that every minute of their time is valuable. Believe me–they do NOT want to sit through days of useless, brainless, irrelevant sales training. Not even one day. Not even one minute. So the training you find for them had better be really good.

Second, sourcing for an inside sales training vendor who can train the most complicated and misunderstood sales group on the planet — inside sales — can be a real challenge. Where do you even begin to look? And what questions do you need to ask?

No worries! I can help. Today is  the new release of my latest ebook:

10 Triggers to Think About BEFORE you choose an Inside Sales Training Vendor in 2012

Check it out!

We know that inside sales is experiencing phenomenal growth, but managing these organizations is increasingly more complicated. The old rules absolutely do not apply. A whopping 90% of managers used to be individual contributors, but the skills that got them there aren’t the ones they will use in their leadership roles. So they are scrambling to figure out the best way to effectively manage and drive revenues with their teams.

This AA-ISP Leadership Summit is the answer. Every year, some great thought leaders generously share their knowledge and make recommendations on how to effectively manage inside sales in today’s ever-changing reality.  My topic  Why Inside Sales Needs Social Selling, and What You Need to Know to Make it Work is definitely going to make you think.

Ken and Dave from Insidesales.com did a great job with this promo trailer. And hey . . . that’s me:

Click here to view the embedded video.