There is certainly more marketing and sales tools out there than anyone can possibly get their individual arms around. The trick? Dialing in the optimal combination of tools to use that give the most bang for the buck (time and dollars).
It is impossible for the majority of senior-level marketing and sales executives to adequately explore many of these new tools. They're just too dang busy. Unfortunately, this scenario is reminiscient of the woodsman that is so busy sawing down trees with a handsaw that when someone comes to show him a chainsaw, he simply has no time. How much easier and productive would the woodsman's life would be if only he could find a minute to recalibrate?
It's too bad too because there are some unbelievable tools (technologies and services) out there. I'm sure that there are some that I have yet to discover myself. But I have finally dialed in the combination that works best for me. Below is a brief description of the some of tools that have lead to success for me (and "no, I'm not receiving comp for saying these nice things either"):
Marketing Tools:
- SurveyMonkey - This is a great tool for creating slick, professional surveys and compiling all the data in a cool, presentable format.
- VerticalResponse - A email campaign management tool. I use this to create, distribute and measure the effectiveness of various marketing campaigns. They also have a postcard mailing program that I have yet to try. This is an awesome tool.
- Typepad - this is a very easy to use weblog publishing tool. I am non-technical and created my weblog here and maintain it daily.
- Profits In Progress - Vanessa Lowry and her team will actually hand-write notes for you and mail them. If your handwriting is like mine, INVALUABLE.
Prospecting/Research Tools:
- Lead411 - This is a great tool to find out company event specific information ... what companies just had management changes, received financing (how much and what purpose), or made an acquisition.
- InnerSell - Used to generate and gather referrals from other people. This is the ultimate in the principal of giving to get. Their CEO, Craig Elias, has written some insightful, well-aligned articles ... go to their website.
- LinkedIn - I use this tool to see who I know that can provide me introductions and/or referrals to the people I want to target. The basic service, that I use, is FREE.
- Jigsaw - I use Jigsaw to get person-specific contact information (V-card stuff). If you contribute data the service is FREE.
- X-Sells, Inc. - the strongest outsourcer for lead generation I know of. Tim Young has built that company into a very well-oiled lead machine.
Sales Management Tools:
- Various CRM tools - For planning and managing activities, contacts, pipeline: Salesforce.com, SageCRM/SalesLogix, SugarCRM, RightNow Technologies, Inside Sales, NetSuite, SalesNet. Cost for these tools are anywhere from $45 to $125 per month per user.
Sales Execution Effectiveness Tools:
- Executive Link - The best way I know to prepare to a specific vertical and role is to interview others in the same position. That's exactly what Executive-Link offers. Executive-Link has 56 person-years worth of research (14 people x 4 years) where they interview execs in all different verticals and roles and tell me what's keeping that person up at night. Cost runs $45 to $65 per month per user (depending on size of client).
Presentation Tools
- COItalk - COI is a much lower cost version of WebEx. It doesn't have all the bells and whistles but I don't use those anyway. It's $25 per month for an unlimited number of uses.
Posted by: T Ogami | August 30, 2005 at 04:41 PM