Glance and the Mechanic

My husband spent the first 1/2 of his career as a mechanic.  More specfically, a truck mechanic for Coca-Cola.  He knew every Coca-Cola distributing mom and pop store within 100 miles, and the best roads to use during high traffic times.  Why?  Because as a mechanic, it was his job to fix and maintain trucks.  Only some of that job took place IN the garage.  The other part took place under the broken-down truck, wherever it was, regardless of the weather.

As a mechanic, he was trained to know which pieces of equipment he needed to do the job.  He knew which ones would get the job done, vs. get it done right.  He had relationships with the Snap-On guy, and also knew when he could get by with a Craftsman alternative.  He knew how much time he had to get the Coke to the store, get the truck back home safely, and take the environment that particular day into consideration.  As a result, he has a high appreciation for the right tools, and I have a garage full of big red toolboxes on wheels, and very few recognizably branded tools.  

Sales is no different, and Sales 2.0 has evolved the choices of tools to a similar level.  There are tools that should get the job done, and then there are tools that are designed specifically for a particular task.  

We've seen an explosion in business intelligence tools, lead generation, content management, webinar, marketing automation, CRM, collaboration, sales incentive management, pipeline tracking and proposal management tools.  For some tasks, there are certainly as many choices available to sales as there are to mechanics.

Why then, do we seem to arm our sales reps with a marketing tool for a sales function?  Most of the collaboration tools I come across as a buyer (and even as a seller) are designed to host webinars, with the capacity to share some slides with up to hundreds of people, point a fancy mouse highlighter for all to see, poll the audience and more.  

How often are all those bells and whistles needed in a sales call?  Most of the time, sales calls are short, sweet and directly to the point, with little time for bells and whistles --- it's more about quick diagnostics and a visual concept to get past the next gate.  For that, sales reps need a collaboration tool that's light, fast, easy, reliable -- the right tool for the type of collaboration that occurs in the sales process.  The tool that will get the buyer back to their day job as quickly as possible, and help the sales rep move that conversation to the next step efficiently.   

Even in a Sales 2.0 culture, we've become so familiar with the tools from 1.0, that we just don't think about how important speed and simplicity is to the sales rep.  But the primary tool sales reps need are knowledge and listening skills, not fancy technology.  Technology that gets OUT of the way builds the relationship and accelerates the selling cycle.

Glance Sales Director Diane Fonseca is a Black Belt in Uechi-Ryu karate and is currently gearing up for the AA-ISP conference in Dallas. Follow her on twitter @DawnLeighF

Easy Drawing Tool for Mac Users

We know that many of our users would appreciate being able to draw on their screens during a Glance session.  While this is not a current feature of Glance, it can easily be integrated with free software.  We've done some research, and discovered a tool for Mac users called OmniDazzle made by the OmniGroup.  Just like Glance, OmniDazzle is always on, always ready, and available in an instant.  

OmniDazzle takes a spot in the Menu Bar right next to Glance, with which you can choose different tools.  While some of these are more of novelties than tools, they don't interfere with the usefulness of the product.  

With the "Scribble" feature selected, you can start annotating with a simple hotkey ctrl-1. Numbers 1-4 can be used for different colored pens.  ctrl-` (backquote key next to 1) immediately erases any marks and puts you back in control.  That's it!

Another feature of OmniDazzle is "Focal Point" that calls out whichever window is active.  The background is faded out while your active window is highlighted with a blue border.  You can't miss it.

A "Zoom" feature can magnify any spot of the screen up to 2x by drawing a quick box around it. Use it to manually call out specific items during a presentation.

Among the playthings are special effects, such as ripple waves, a sonar to detect your mouse, comic onomatopoeia (BIFF!  ZAP! POW!) popping on your screen, a footprint trail, and my personal favorite: Pixie dust.  Your mouse trails a shower of yellow sparkles that glitter your screen.  So, just like a smartphone, OmniDazzle makes for a very useful toy. Enjoy!

-Scott Baker

"Don't Be That Guy" [VIDEO] | When You've Got the Key Decision-Maker On the Line and You've Got 5 Minutes to Demo Your Software!

Although outsiders think it’s easy, it’s not; great selling requires intellect, discipline, hard work, and a boat load of courage.
 
At Glance, we get your world, we have lived it, and continue to live it every day; a Sales 2.0 company built on deep Sales 1.0 experience.
 
I guess that’s why we didn’t have to work too hard to come up with “Steve” our fictional Salesman, or should I say semi-fictional.  Most of what you see in our latest set of “Don’t Be That Guy” video series comes directly from our own gaffs; those that at the time were painful, but now, crack us up.
 
So whether beginner or wily veteran, we give only this advice, learn to laugh at yourself, or at least, at Steve. Enjoy.

Demonstrating... Don't be that guy. Get Glance and demo on-the-fly, whenever opportunity strikes!

Check out the other videos in our "Don't Be That Guy" series (and pass on to a friend who needs a laugh today!)

 

5 Tips to Make Your Sales Presentations Come Alive

Just knowing your product's features and benefits doesn't guarantee sales. To sell your product, you've got to create a need in your prospect's mind that can only be satisfied with your solution. When you’re demonstrating your product to a potential client, you’re in a critical phase of the sales process. It’s your one chance to positively impact a prospect.

Whether in-person or doing an online demo, the best presentations move your audience to take action. As a sales professional, it’s your job to bring your presentations to life and build enthusiasm for whatever you’re selling.

Here are 5 tips to liven up your presentation:

1) Be energetic and enthusiastic. When you make the same points for the 50th time, it's hard to feel the same sense of spontaneity, and excitement as the first time. But don't let this happen. Give yourself a pep talk beforehand. Smile while you're talking, even on the phone - your voice will come across as much more positive.

2) Incorporate strong, interactive visuals. Go beyond Powerpoint. Use non-linear techniques like mindmapping instead. Use online tools like Balsamiq for mock-ups, or Dabbleboard for whiteboarding.

3) Involve your audience. Ask questions. Pause often and verbally make sure everyone is on the same page. Mention people’s names in order to grab (and keep) their attention. Something quick like, “As Bob mentioned a few days ago…” (Bob will give you 100% of his attention for the rest of your presentation!) If you are using a screen sharing tool like Glance, allow the participants to use the remote control feature, where they can point to items on your screen as if they were sitting next to you.

4) Ask feedback questions. Asking questions like, “Does that make sense?” during your presentation allows you to find out if you’re on target. If you get a, “no", ask more questions to find out where you went off. And be honest. If you don't know the answer to a question, don't try to answer it. There's nothing wrong with admitting uncertainty.

5) (Perhaps most importantly) If your customer is not in a position to make a decision at the end of your presentation, schedule another call. Come up with a reason to get back in there.

-- Carla Gates, Director, Marketing

>> Try Glance's dynamic demo tool, built especially for Sales Pros, to make your sales pitches come alive.

"I have not yet begun to fight!" | What Did John Paul Jones Have in Common with Today's Elite Sales Pros?

In Portsmouth, NH, this weekend, taking a mini-break from work, we came across the "John Paul Jones House" on Middle St., where the famous Revolutionary Naval War hero lived between 1777 and 1782.

John Paul Jones is most famous for NOT giving up, even as his own ship, the U.S.S. Bonhomme Richard, sank around him.

As the legend goes, after conducting sea raids on the coast of Britain, he took command in 1779 of a rebuilt French merchant ship, renamed the U.S.S.Bonhomme Richard to honor Benjamin Franklin. On September 23, 1779, Jones engaged the British frigate Serapis in the North Sea, daringly sailing in close, lashing his vessel to the British ship, and fighting the battle at point-blank range. During the fight, 2 of his cannon burst, and the British Captain asked Jones if he was ready to surrender. Replied Jones: "Sir, I have not yet begun to fight!"

The American crew finally boarded the Serapis after the British had surrendered her colors, and from the deck of the Serapis they watched the U.S.S.Bonhomme Richard sink into the North Sea, but having won the battle and captured the Serapis.

So, what did John Paul Jones have in common with elite sales pros of today?

• He had a good team;
• He thought highly of his abilities;
• He took risks;
• He assumed he would win the battle, even as his ship was sinking around him;
• He never gave up;
• He psyched out the competition, who must have thought he was crazy for not perceiving his own eminent defeat;
• He inspired his team with his stated confidence in his and their abilities.

Who knows what was the key to Jones' victory....was it his belief in himself and his team, or did he intimidate the competition with his loudly proclaimed self-confidence?

Today's sales pros face similar odds: According to a recent CSO Insights report, only 52.4% of sales reps at the companies surveyed made sales quote in 2009. As a point of comparison, that number was 61.1% in 2007. So what do you do? Think like John Paul Jones....get together a good team, take risks, think positively, psych out the competition, and above all, as the ship is sinking, yell out, "I have not yet begun to sell!"

-- Carla Gates, Director, Marketing

Follow Glance on Twitter and Facebook for daily tips on using Glance's sales enablement tool to maximize every conversation throughout your sales cycle.

It's Chicken Soup! (yes, I'm talking about screen-sharing)

"Its chicken soup!" That's how my grandmother told you something you were trying to do was (or should be) really easy. Apparently, she thought making chicken soup was easy, and maybe, in comparison to the other more complicated Mediterranean recipes in her cooking repertoire, it was!

These days, I'm the Marketing Director at Glance -- a high-tech start up, that makes the world's easiest screen sharing tool. I'm sure my grandmother would not only say "it's chicken soup!" but she'd be able to use Glance herself (and she wasn't a fan of technology - never learned to drive a car).

Watch our new (really short) how-to video, below, and see for yourself how easy Glance is to use, compared to all those complicated web conferencing services out there that need an IT guy standing by just to get it started. Better yet, test it on your grandmother. And then try it with your prospects, clients, and colleagues, when you do your next sales demo, sales presentation, prospecting, or support call.

Let me hear you say it now, "IT'S CHICKEN SOUP!"

Follow us on Twitter and Facebook for daily tips on using screen-sharing to maximize every conversation throughout your sales cycle.

-- Carla Gates, Director, Marketing

Adherence to Sales Process Drops, With Negative Results

More interesting insights from CSO Insights' Sales Performance Optimization 2009 Survey:

I was surprised by the fact that 62% of all companies surveyed have a random or informal sales process! The CSO Insights Report points out that, in fact, year over year, companies using formal or dynamic processes have decreased, and that loss was converted to increases in informal processes.

Why does all this matter? Well, businesses that have implemented more formal or dynamic sales processes have:

• higher conversion rates throughout the sales cycle,
• better predictive ability to forecast, and
• better ability to adapt quickly to changes in the marketplace (e.g., recessions)

Clearly, it takes much more discipline and rigor to implement and maintain formal sales processes than not (I know because I watch my friends in Sales here at Glance do the hard, sometimes tedious, work of maintaining our formal process!) But it's worth it. In difficult times, sticking to formal sales processes can give you a significant competitive edge.

A few resources on sales processes, to get you started:

• The New Strategic Selling: The Unique Sales System Proven Successful by the Worlds Best Companies, Miller & Heiman.
• Systematic Selling: Process Map Portfolio, Smith, Selden, and Burton
• BNET.com's 84 Resources for Sales Processes

And of course, my own plug: Make every conversation count, throughout your sales process -- Try Glance, the only screen-sharing tool built for sales pros, free for 7 days...

-- Carla Gates, Director, Marketing

The 10 Commandments of Sales

I  was having one of those unsure moments the other day, and found  myself in that one and only place where you can can go for guidance and direction, a place which is visited by millions seeking help, the place of light, wanting to repent, looking for the answers that no one seemingly can provide, that’s right...I was at Barnes and Noble.

Specifically, I found myself in the isle which contained “Sales and Marketing Guidance”.  I spent the better part of an hour browsing the labels of literally hundreds of books:“Sales Closing for Dummies”, “How I raised myself from Failure to Success in Selling”, “Soar Despite Your Dodo Sales Manager” et al.  It wasn’t until I actually opened a book and began the forward, which started with the words: “With more then a decade of Sales Success...”  did I realize that I must be a fool.  

As I drove home I thought about my two decades of selling Enterprise Software, and now here at Glance Networks, and wondered if asked, what omnipresent knowledge would I divulge?  With that...my 10 Sales Commandments, from yours truly:    

1. No means no: If asked for concessions, or about features, or about anything to which you know the answer is no, then that’s the answer; “sorry no”.
2. Less is More: The Japanese culture says that the quietest man is the wisest.  Think about this the next time you are in a meeting of any sort.
3. Question Questions: There’s more to every question than meets the eye: never answer a question at face value. Always clarify the question, no matter how simple: “hmm, interesting, why do you ask?”, learn this technique and see your conversations change.
4. Call BS: if you think clients are “full of it”; call them out early and often, it may be hard at first, but it will save you from chasing bogus deals. 
5. Deal with Power: do what you need to, be courteous to evaluators, but make it clear to them that nothing can happen until executives meet and agree.  If they say no, then there is no deal in the first place, and if there is, you’re not getting it!
6. Go GQ (or Vogue): Stay in shape, wear a nice watch and own several pair of expensive shoes.  No one, including IT guys, wants to do business with a slob.
7. Lose the PowerPoint: if you know your stuff, grab a whiteboard and a marker; roll up your sleeves and engage in a valuable give and take conversation. Or an online interactive demo. This will go miles beyond every cookie cutter Sales Team that follows  your pitch.
8. Get Over Yourself: if there is a deal on the table (especially these days), don’t bicker with the client, and more importantly don’t bicker internally; get over yourselves and just get the deal done. If you don’t, your competitor will.
9. Get Personal: It’s impossible to completely understand your customer if you are only meeting in a cube, office or conference room. People get personal with Sales Professionals that they trust and are going to do business with. Get them out for dinner lunch, coffee, or whatever you can.  If they refuse, be worried. 
10. Don’t Be Yourself: If you are an abrasive person, or shy person, or overly aggressive, or have bad breath, or love to wear too much cologne; or hate to close, or can't demo, or you shake hands like a dead fish, are unorganized, perpetually late...whatever your weaknesses; identify them, own up, and then commit yourself to correcting them.

-- Tom Scontras, VP Sales and Marketing

Directory Solutions Group Finds The Perfect One-Click Solution For Software Demos On The Fly.

If you were in the market for directory solutions software like rDirectory or SimpleSync, would you rather sit through a one-size -fits-all automated presentation on the manufacturer's web site...OR experience a one-on-one, personalized web demo conducted by a value-added reseller (and software guru), in real time?

Most of us would choose the latter – and that's exactly what Jerry Welch is offering his customers, with the help of Glance.

For years Jerry's been presenting software products on the fly with Glance's one-click screen sharing, and increasing his bottom line in the process.

Jerry points out in this new video testimonial how "it's nice to have a client on the phone and say ' would you like to take a look.' They ask when I can schedule a presentation, and I typically say how about right now?"

How about right now, indeed. That's Glance in a nutshell!

And with the recent addition of reverse screen sharing, Jerry can view and control his products on his client's desktop. "It just became even that much more valuable," he explains.

And you just became more valuable to us, Jerry! That's why we're giving you three months of FREE Glance service – that's a $150 value – in exchange for your simple video posted to our Glance Lights, Camera, Savings page on Youtube.

Same goes for anyone reading this – post your simple video right now and save big on the tool that's changing the way smart companies do business around the world.

If anyone's interested in rDirectory or SimpleSync, please contact Jerry for a presentation. Chances are it'll also be a great way to see Glance in action.

Thanks Jerry!

Business Intelligence firm demos software all over the world without leaving their office. Now that's intelligent.

Jake Stein, Co-founder of the very impressive RJ Metrics, embarked on a long, extensive process to identify the best tool for his company's screen sharing needs. In this video, recently submitted to our YouTube page, Jake calls Glance the clear cut winner, citing the "ability to start and host a meeting as quickly and simply as possible."

Speaking of quick and simple, in just 67 seconds, Jake earned $150 (three months free Glance service) by explaining why he loves Glance, and you can do the same – submit your simple video today.

Jake gets right to the point in explaining how guests simply log on to a private url (rjmetrics.glance.net) and punch in a unique four-digit session id. Then, as Jake says, "Glance does the rest."

He also points out how wonderful it is to be able to host a session from either a PC or a Mac – "another area where Glance really shines."

"Those factors, and the low cost make RJ Metrics a happy user of Glance," explains Jake.

We're certainly happy to have Jake and RJ Metrics as a customer – and we think their web-based metrics dashboard is super cool. Thanks Jake!