ROAR! Get Heard in the Sales and Marketing Jungle (Wiley).

Whether you’re negotiating a major deal, interviewing for your first job or graduating college, the benefits of ROAR! and pursuing The Awesome Experience are endless. In a charming and motivational manner, Daum has the insight to create ROARing successes in both the professional and personal realm for anyone looking to succeed.

I asked Kevin what he attributed to these numbers. He responded, “It’s a combination of timing knowing when certain media events or buying events are coming. I knew I was speaking to a large group and they would be buying a number of books and then focused my energy on for a groundswell with my family and friends. ROI from an efficiency standpoint.”

Kevin tells the story of a company that spends $10,000 a year on a self-published book that doesn’t sell  them but, instead, gives them away each year and, as a result, gets back $150,000 or more from that investment. He continues on his process, “I took a book from concept to contract in five months called Green Sense and got a five-figure income. In my column I focus on  convergence of need, entertainment and the unexpected. I didn’t have the money that Patrick Lencioni or Seth Godin had but I had a network and I am a marketer so I took what I did have and made it work.”

So what’s the Amazon status of his book currently?

Stats: #1 on Amazon, month of May 2010, #1 on Amazon in the category of Marketing, has been #22 overall

AUTHORS EDGE!

Help get Kevin onto the New York Times Bestseller list. Buy his book (click here). Send me a receipt and I’ll send you a free copy of our e-book, The NanoSecond Networlders.

Additional Gift! – We’ll put you on the list for a free, book club chat!

Bio: Kevin Daum is a bestselling author, marketer, and Inc. 500 entrepreneur. His sales and marketing approach resulted in more than $1 Billion in sales with a 95 percent pull through rate. With over 25 years of experience in theatre, finance and marketing (an odd but effective combination). As a National Columnist for Smart Business Magazine Kevin teaches companies how to pursue The Awesome Experience for their customers and has authored several books including Building Your Own Home For Dummies. For more info visit: http://kevindaum.com/

And finally, who would think of putting a tatoo on their chest that says, “New York Times Bestselling Author” but Kevin Daum? What a guy!

Rather than writing about rehashed sales and sales management
methodologies, the author, Dirk Beveridge went to the heart of the
issue of sales performance and productivity, by researching – what is
it that separates those businesses who consistently outperform their
competitors. And what he found is gold.

The research led to defined best practices that are spelled out in
this book that form a roadmap for you and your organization. A
roadmap for significant top and bottom line sales results.

But more than a listing of best practices, you will hear the stories
of execution, stories of performance and success, providing a unique
insight that you’ll immediately relate to your business.

Now, there are no quick-fix-promises as part of what you’ll find in
this book, but you will want your entire management team to immerse
themselves in the provided wisdom and implementation tools. Then as a
team, together you can use the implementation roadmaps provided to
guide you in:

* Institutionalizing a differentiating sales process
* Developing and nurturing a high performance sales culture where
the team is committed to your vision
* Guide you in implementing a training and development program to
foster continuous skill development – even from your veterans.
* And… this book will show you how, to take more from the market
than the market is prepared to give you buy out strategizing, out
managing, and outselling your competitors.

Click here to read the 31 key-take-aways you will gain by reading this book and
to order your copies of Driving Distributor Sales Beyond for you and
your management team.

About The Author: Dirk Beveridge

Dirk Beveridge is president and chief executive officer of 4th
Generation Systems, a sales, marketing, and leadership development
firm that helps distributors and manufacturers become more competitive
and provider deeper value to customers. Dirk is an experienced
business executive who has helped strengthen the sales and marketing
strategies of leading firms, such as Time Warner, IBM, Andersen
Windows, Avaya and Berlin Packaging.

For more than 20 years, he has worked with over 3,000 firms as a
leadership consultant, trainer and speaker.

In addition to leading 4th Generation Systems, Dirk is one of the
nation’s most requested and highest-rated business speakers. He
provides timely, pertinent information to organizations on the topics
of customer focus, sales motivation, and market leadership. He is a
passionate, energetic and entertaining presenter and has been featured
on international speaking tours addressing groups on six continents.

There is no question that selling today bears no resemblance to selling a year ago. At the same time there has been one area in business that has realized a decided growth–the development of social networking. Social networking most simply defined as online networking has grown and will certainly continue to grow perhaps even more so during these fearful times. So what can you be doing as a business owner to capitalize on these low-cost, no-cost marketing and sales tools that are like super express trains helping accelerate top line sales success? Following are three key strategies you can implement immediately to capitalize on a real “Network Effect” for your sales initiatives.

First, choose just one social networking platform to master. Why? Over the last twenty years I have worked with some of the best companies–Motorola, CNA, American Express, Hewitt, UBS and so on with leaders who were constantly searching for the best and most successful tools to grow their markets.  When they asked me to offer my suggestions, the successful results I have seen kept leading me back to social networks and social networking strategies, but more specifically, the strategy I have found even more successful is to master just one platform rather than try to learn and then leverage mutiliple platforms.

My number one prediction since its inception has been that LinkedIn would become a leader in social networks for business.  Now with more than 35 million users, the average age being 41, with all Fortune 500 companies represented with literally hundreds of employees going up to the C-Level, LinkedIn is a platform that can help cut sales cycles by 30% or more. For the last six years my organization has used LinkedIn to help more than 3000 professionals use  how to use LinkedIn to grow their sales and recruit top talent.

Second, because networking at its core is based on building trust, I have seen that social networking strategies can help with not only generate new leads, prospects and customers but also upsell new account opportunities. The real question to ask when growing your network today would be, “Who are the super connectors who my company’s sales professionals can build trust with to create continuous introductions into new and existing accounts?”

With the many leaders I have met over the last two decades it was not until the development of online social networking sites that any of us discovered there would be millions of people who have top-level networking skills and be  “ready, willing and able” to make introductions to key decision makers, or at the very least, are people who are Two Degrees or just one person away from the key decision makers at almost any company. Semi-conductor companies, insurance , high tech–you name it, all industries have top-level networkers who are accessible. Why are these people so willing to help others? They see the networking as “opportunity expansive” instead of “opportunity limiting.” Another name for these people is “Open Networker.” ,The good news is that anyone can build a base of connections to these professionals who will make valuable introductions. And now an introduction has become the new referral. And the cost? Nothing. And the time? Well if a cold call would be considered a Six-Degree Connection what would be the time savings to realize, instead, a Two-Degree Connection?

Third , perhaps the most interesting reality is that social networks are just hitting their stride. As business professionals move from becoming aware of social networks for top line sales to a recognition that they are relevant to building trust faster to acquiring and taking ownership of new accounts to leveraging even more new sales as your customers begin to see you as a leader in your market and then choose to leverage your brand out to even more new potential customers, you will be well on your way to realizing your top line sales vision through your relationships.

Social Networks are here to stay. The only real question is will you be one of the early adopters who leverages their usefulness or will you be one of the Laggards (a company who progresses slowly and falls behind the others)? It’s really as simple as that.

Top Learning Point: Know the Four Stages of Branding to Take Optimum Advantage of Top Line Sales

1. Brand Awareness – Your market needs to first be aware you are out there before they can begin to recogize that you have something that might be of value to their business.
2. Brand Recognition – Once your market is aware you are out there they need to recognize that you offer products and services can help their business become more successful.
3. Brand Ownership - Once your market recognizes your value they are willing to engage you as a vendor partner. Youare first, more of a vendor than a partner perhaps, but, if you know how to continuously listen to your customers’ needs and respond sometimes even create new products and services to serve them, you will quickly turn into a partner.
4. Brand Leverage - And when your customers become real partners with you, you will then find even more opportunities such as co-creating with them through joint ventures and, most certainly, realizing the very real benefit of them naturally spreading word-of-mouth endorsements for you fine work. In other words you will realize the best top line sales opportunities.

Some saw marketing as the necessary foundation to build sales. Others saw sales as the most important part of the business development cycle as that is where the real relationship begins with one’s client or customer. I weighed in on the discussion emphasizing that I see sales and marketing as equally important along with the element of networking that basically glues the two initiatives together when done right.

What the answers revealed to me most is that when marketing, sales and even networking experts have such differing opinions as to the role and importance of the strategies they suggest businesses use, how do business leaders decide how to most effectively grow revenues? One of the most important things I would suggest is to start to read some of the marketing and sales questions on sites like LinkedIn. I found I gravitated to answers that were simple, to the point and often metaphorical. For example, one person said something like selling without good marketing to support it would be like trying to row a row boat without any oars.

Keep your marketing, sales and networking as simple as possible–focused on the end goal–continuously creating value for your client. The rest is just background music.

First, think of the very best vendors you have bought from. What sticks out in your mind most about them? If you are like most of my clients they would first say what great people they were BEFORE they commented on the services or products they sold.

Second, ask yourself if you were ready to buy something that you have been wanting for awhile, looking forward to buying, almost salivating at the mouth to buy, but, unfortunately, you meet up with one of the worst salesperson you ever met. I mean this salesperson is rude, ignorant and disinterested. They almost go out of their way to make you miserable in purchasing something you were so excited about purchasing when you went to the buying table. At this point would you want to buy that product? I bet you would think twice.

Third, imagine vendors who, instead of treating you with disinterest or disdain, do just the opposite. They call you regularly to see if they can be of service. They email you with insightful articles or resources that compliment the work they are doing with you. They are proactive and responsive. They connect with you socially as well as professionally. They are good business friends.

These examples just help us realize the importance of someone who is good at building relationships. They are good at making you look good and, in return, you enjoy doing business with them. These are good networkers and the reason they can be so effective is because they are “exchanging” with other people in their network resources, connections and professional support on a regular basis. The net effect of their networking is that you benefit because they know how to network well.

And, now, more than ever, because of online social network tools like LinkedIn, Facebook and others, you can connect more effectively, looking like the best sales people in your own business or career. It’s all about getting started with your own community of learning a practice.

What’s New? We are now offering you the ability to start your own Networlding Community of Learning and Practice. Email us info@networlding.com for details or call us. We would be happy to have you call us 312-421-4213.