“Square your feet and chest to the basket”, they say. “Keep the ball to the right of your eye, keep your elbow in, and your arm straight”, they say. If you ask, every coach and every basketball player will tell you that those things lead to proper shooting form.

But those things don’t lead to accurate shots.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GEkW_6j2jko

None of the top shooters in the NBA shoot like that. Not Kobe

It was the career fair two days ago. If this was last year, I’d be nervous and determined to ask the right questions to show that I’m capable so the recruiter could be impressed. This year I walked away from the career fair smugly thinking, I don’t need a job, so glad I don’t have to go to that packed room of students being all needy.

As I was walking away I thought, wait there are big corporations there, this could be a good opportunity for me to find out about the inner workings of these companies, and get some insights on their needs.

So I forced myself to walk back to the career fair, and just as I imagined it was packed with people and an air of self-consciousness. I was wearing my daily clothes, no suit.

And all of my conversations started out normally, I asked what their company did, and where they were headed. They told me about their job openings and asked what I was looking for, and I aggressively parried their questions and fired back with a flurry of questions.

The conversations went something like this

The other day I was talking to my boss. I was asking him what parts of my work I should put more focus on – what type of work will generate revenue. He said I needed to help him push out more content. Content marketing seems to be the main focus of most online marketing nowadays. Almost everyone is giving away advice and tips.

So I asked him that, I said “You sure about content marketing? Everyone is doing content marketing these days”.

He replied “That’s why we have to create better content”.

Naturally, I replied to that with “Don’t you think the bar is being raised too high? If everyone is giving way free content, then pretty soon paid content will be free content. Don’t you think that because content marketing is so saturated that one day it will stop working?”

“Yes. One day, content marketing will stop working" He said, "But right now, it works. So we gotta go with what works. When I was young, I was caught up in the future, and I ended up wasting a lot of time chasing things that never happened, and getting nothing done.”

The other day I was talking to my boss. I was asking him what parts of my work I should put more focus on – what type of work will generate revenue. He said I needed to help him push out more content. Content marketing seems to be the main focus of most online marketing nowadays. Almost everyone is giving away advice and tips.

So I asked him that, I said “You sure about content marketing? Everyone is doing content marketing these days”.

He replied “That’s why we have to create better content”.

Naturally, I replied to that with “Don’t you think the bar is being raised too high? If everyone is giving way free content, then pretty soon paid content will be free content. Don’t you think that because content marketing is so saturated that one day it will stop working?”

“Yes. One day, content marketing will stop working" He said, "But right now, it works. So we gotta go with what works. When I was young, I was caught up in the future, and I ended up wasting a lot of time chasing things that never happened, and getting nothing done.”

The other day I was at a local small business trade show, and halfway through the day I was pissed. I was pissed because throughout the whole day while I’m trying to network, all I hear from these small business owners is constant promotional spiel. I would walk up to their booth ask them about their business and they would just blabber for 15 to 20 minutes. Of course when they finally finished, they try to sell me their product. Then, it would be super awkward for me to say, “No, I don’t want to buy your product, but I’m curious about your online marketing. Do you put a lot of focus into your online marketing?”

So halfway through the day I was furious. I just couldn’t network.

I remembered Alan Mayer said that in sales you let the person talk, and if you listen, then they’ll return the courtesy by listening to you.

So I switched modes and went back to the booths. I asked them about their business, let them talk and then after the gruesome 20 minutes I said “That’s very interesting Mr. Person, I do video production. Would you mind if I asked you a few questions to see if I can help you?” Then I was able to go through my list of questions, and qualify the lead.

Hey guys,

I've recently started using a crm, and I picked Zoho because its free for 1-3 people.

I'm pretty much brand new to using any CRM so I'm a little confused as if its worth all the effort to spend my time doing data entry. Especially since I'm sending about 20 cold emails a day to prospects.

So my question is, should I type in the emails of all those prospects as leads?

Is the mail merge functionality smooth?

"I don't think of sales as packaging a product for someone, I think of sales as building a relationship and having conversations with them about their video ideas" -Tom Kranzle, Creative Director at Venture Visuals

There's so much pressure I put on myself to make short term sales and close deals. I keep getting frustrated that clients don't respond or that I'm reaching the wrong person. But getting video sales takes a long time, and getting access to marketing directors take a long time.

Looking back at the last couple of months, our sales rarely came from cold outreach. Instead, where we really saw progress was meeting people in higher positions. Essentially, getting someone to introduce us to someone who introduces us to someone who needs video.

Because the sales cycle is so slow, I know we have to make the most of our upsells and referrals. And by referrals I mean if they could refer us to someone who could introduce us to who might be able to introduce us to someone else.

Other than that, I've learned a lot about client management. The most key insights I got were to always suggest ways to help the client. Give options to the client and recommend one of them. And always communicate what you have and will have delivered to the client.

We can almost all agree that niching is crucial in marketing and distinguishing your brand. While it’s important in sales to niche your business, it’s also important to frame yourself as adviser: someone who has the ability to pick from a variety of tools to solve a client’s problem.

Niching and advising seems to be two opposite things, which is confusing. Should I focus on having a wide knowledgebase or a specific skillset?

Personally, I think the answer to that question is to have a specific skillset and niche your abilities. But where I think many of us go wrong is that we get caught up in that niche, and we start to build, not only our business identities, but our personal identities in that niche.

As I niche, my business will become the video production house that produces lifestyle web commercials for tech gadgets, and I should promote myself as so. But I have to remember that this is my marketing strategy so I don’t get sucked into believing that this is all that I am, and become limited to this role.

This applies in the overall sense that we should be open to new projects and ventures. I’m not a web commercial director, I’m a creative, and I’m open to and confident about all creative projects.

Recenlty I started using Yesware, pretty much an all in one email tool built straight into your Gmail.

Email follow ups are so important in business, and I needed a way to systemize this and remind myself. There are other good tools too such as contactually or followup.cc, but this is followup.cc with more features...and its free!

It even has mail merge (not for free).

"Building a successful business is rarely about executing on quick wins. Its about having a few good systems in place and running those systems over and over"

-Jake Hower, Founder of Fuzedapp