The definition and very nature of contact information is changing.

Why is this important?  If you are not able to connect with people, you cannot sell to them, you cannot recruit them, you cannot market to them.   As I talked about in the video intro, things are changing.   If there was a contact information historian, it would be me.

What gets me irritated is when something gets reported as the “next best thing”, when in reality, it is simply, the next, extremely predictable innovation in a continuum.  In this blog, I’m going to play part historian, part reporter and part futurist as it relates to contact information.  When the “next big thing” happens, and I’m including social networks, you probably won’t be surprised.

First, a definition is in order.  What is Contact Information?  I define it as:

“an information venue that facilitates communication with a person”

Why am I spending my time doing this?  My day job is steering the ship at Broadlook Technologies.  Broadlook provides technology that empowers sales and recruiting professionals with contacts at corporations.  To stay ahead, we must innovate.  To innovate, we must research.  To research we must watch, listen, learn, explore and dream a little.

One interesting aspect about contact information is that very rarely does a new form replace an old form.  For example, with the advent of SMS (or texting) people are still using email; perhaps not as much, but they are using both.  Even faxes have not been fully replaced by email.  In some cases, legal wants the paperwork.  Take it a step farther and faxes are not enough and good old paper mail is still being used.   What does that mean?

1. The nature of new venues of contact information is additive.

2. New venues lead to more specialized usage of existing venues.

3. The nature of contact information must be part of system design.

Why is this stuff, in turn, important?  Example:  If you are designing a CRM for holding contact information and you “hard code” (design something inflexible)  to store phone, fax, email and that’s it…big problem. Each time a new type of contact information is created, a hard-coded CRM would have to be updated and reprogrammed.  Some may think that a SaaS model overcomes this, but it does not.   A good CRM will have the changing nature of contact information built into it’s design and not solve it with revisions.

“A good CRM will take into account the changing nature of contact information and  design for that nature from the start and not solve it with revisions.”

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Don’t get caught up in the naming of things with words, it gets confusing.  Words change the very nature of how we think about something.  It is “this”, therefore it is “that”.  Now, a tree is a tree and a rock is a rock, unless you are in some altered state on consciousness, but we won’t go there. I’m focused on the newcomer words that are still in flux.   Too often it is herd mentality that gives  new things their name.

Today I stared on my iPhone, Blackberry, GPhone and Palm pre on my desk and ask myself  “what are these?”

Cell Phones, Mobile Devices or Mobile Computers?

My company, Broadlook is developing software for mobile devices and I needed to have all of them.  I’m also a gadget freak, so I enjoy having all of them. Perhaps the collection of them, together, was odd and put me into a bit of a trance.

“What are these?”, I asked myself again.
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In 2002, I was excited to get phone calls or even emails from anyone.  My company was a start-up. 2 guys in a office with a dog and a bunch of computer servers.

Today it is different.  Perhaps I am partly to blame.  My contact information is on the Broadlook website, I’m the registration contact for 100’s of domains, and I freely put all my contact information into my email signature.

And…yes, my company, Broadlook,  makes software that pulls information from the Internet to empower sales and recruiting professionals.   Again, I am guilty, but having my contact information is not an excuse to sell badly to me.

Here is a secret:  I love being sold to.  Truly being sold to means that somebody has done their homework, looked at my needs, my company needs and has a solution to my pain.   To save those hundreds of sales reps time, I’ve decided to (1) define the rules of engagement of how to sell to me and (2) post them on my corporate bio.  If you follow the rules, I promise I will respond.  It may be an email that only says “no thank you”. Or try me next quarter, but if you take the time, I will take the time.

I like the transparency of establishing the rules of engagement.  When I passed this idea by a few of my peers, leaders in both small and large companies, they all liked the idea of establishing the engagement rules and being transparent.   My rules are not the next persons rules;  they are mine.  Everyone should craft their own and make them transparent.  If more people did this, selling would be so much more efficient and enjoyable, for both sides.  Imagine that!

In order to sell at a high level, you need more than an email address.  Perhaps having Broadlook’s lead generation tools at my disposal for the last 7 years has spoiled me.  When I reach out to someone, I know something about them and I always personalize my message.

I titled this blog verbosely so people looking to sell to me would find it.  SEO stuff.  We’ll see where it lands…

Rules to sell to Donato Diorio

1. Get my name right.  I can see how people mistake my first name for a last name, but it’s not brain surgery. It shows respect.
2. Personalize. I will not respond to a mass emails. Period.
3. Understand what my company (Broadlook) does.  Can you believe that there is some idiot out there that keeps trying to sell me a list of recruiting firms?     Talk about selling ice to an Eskimo.
4. Show me that I am special.  Customize your sales pitch for my company.  Don’t use generalities.  Research what my company does and ask me good questions. I don’t have a burning need to seek others approval, but if you take the time to tell me.
5. Call and email.   You will probably get voice mail, but I will listen to it.  The email will give me your contact information if I like what I hear.   Tell me you will also be sending me an email.   Be articulate, gosh, I’m sorry, but if your accent is so heavy that I have to listen to your voice mail a few times to understand it, it will get deleted at the very beginning.
6. In your voice mail,  say your phone number two times.  Give me a chance to write it down if I like what I hear.
7. Don’t use a voice mail script.  If you do, you are not at the level yet to successfully sell to me.  Try again next year.
8. Don’t use a negative sell.  i.e.  The economy is bad, and you can help.   Bad for who? Do your homework.  I’m an optimist.  I love hanging up on pessimists.  Realists welcome.
9. Know your product inside out.  If you can’t answer nearly all my questions, you should not be reaching out to me. Have you manager or top sales rep do it.
10. Don’t call me if someone else at my company makes the decision.  I don’t make the decisions on office supplies.
11. Did I mention… get my name right?

Here is the email that put me over the top to write this blog.  It was nth in a series, polite but impersonal.  I will not be working with this company.

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Dear Danato,  (got my name wrong)

Hope you are doing fine.   (does he really?)     (the DELETE button was pressed when my eyes hit this line)

This is with reference to my previous mail dated 4th March 2009. (reminding me of his spam) I hope you have received it. I eagerly await your reply as I look forward to exploring a potential business opportunity with your company , which I am sure would prove to be mutually beneficial.  (he has no clue what Broadlook does)

Please let me know your interest and your availability for a short introductory call at a time that would best suit your schedule.  During the call, I would primarily like to introduce XXXXXXXXX, our services, capabilities and address any specific queries that you may have.

Eagerly awaiting your reply.  (and 50,000 others he spammed)

Thanks and best regards,

XXXX

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It’s Saturday, I’m in at the office and I have 350+ emails in my in-box.   Arghhh.    I took a 1/2 day off on Friday to be the helper at my daughters school…so I got behind.  However, 350 emails is just crazy.

Here is approximately how the numbers broken down.

Somehow I let my in-box get away from me.  I lost track of best practices.  Anyone with some ideas on managing an out-of-control inbox, I want to hear from you. This blog is part 1. In part 2, I post the solutions & suggestions that I gather over the coming weeks.  Part 2 will only be posted once I get back control of my email inbox.

For those about to send me suggestions.  I already make good use of filters and I have a professional email spam-blocking service that I am happy with.  The spams I am getting are from contacts that somehow make the conceptual leap from being a business connection to putting me on their distribution lists.

Idea: wouldn’t it be nice to have a program that took all webinars and events emails and only shows you ones that fit your schedule?   hmmm

part 2…under development.

Companies and the minds within them evolve over time.  I have experienced it firsthand in founding Broadlook Technologies and steering its growth over the last 6 years.   Core competencies change, competitive landscapes change, opportunities come and go and through all this there is your corporate identity and messaging.   There is internal messaging, external messaging and…

THE ELEVATOR PITCH

While internal messaging may be something like “don’t complain about the 150 lbs slobbering behemoth of a dog the CEO brings in with him” (if they do, I bring in her soon to be 200 lb offspring), I am not focusing on that here.    Today I am concerned (sometimes, up at night) about external messaging; that which is projected outwards to the marketplace.  What brought this to my attention was my wandering around the booths at the recent Onrec conference in Chicago.  Innately, I a very curious person; I want to understand.  So I made the rounds to each vendor booth and simply asked them.

“So what do you do”?

For the most part, I was horrified with the experience.

Why?  It was NOT because what I heard was awful.  In fact, many pitches were excellent.  I was horrified because it made me question and run to the Broadlook booth.  Was my team excellent, or not so excellent?

Let me digress…Understand this is an area of pride for me, Dan Hughes (one of Broadlook’s co-founders) and I rock at the trade shows.   People line up to get a peek at our latest solutions.  We have well crafted pitches, regardless if we are talking to a recruiter, recruiting manager, sales rep or CEO.

How did my team at Broadlook Technologies do with their pitches?

Mixed results.  Some were very good and some were poor.  Next step, I called each of my reps that were not attending the show.

“This is Donato, I want you to call my cell phone back ASAP. I won’t pick up my cell phone.   Leave me a message as if I was a prospect at a trade show and I asked you.”

“So what do you do?”

Armed with a larger sample size, it was hard for me to accept that Broadlook Technologies was, as it relates to elevator pitches…average.   We filled out all sectors of the bell curve. That hurt.   The blame was solely mine and I needed to do something about it.  Average sucks.

Fast forward.  Today Broadlook Technologies rocks the pitch.

How did Broadlook get there?

I did a deep dive into researching elevator pitch.  Most of the research, materials and advice I found was related to making a pitch to get financing.  In reality, this type of elevator pitch is 2-3 minutes long and is too lengthy for a trade show pitch.  I needed techniques for a 20-30 second pitch, not 2-3 minutes.
Most of what I learned is that people have mastered copying each other.  Like almost all writing in all industries, industry “experts” are copying 5 of the top 10 something’s from one place or another to build their top 10 list of something else.

I’ve never been good at that.

So it was time for fieldwork.  Thus, for those that saw me in October conferences with my camera, I was learning.  At the first conference, I was in not helping with the pitches; I recorded them as-is.  The camera was cheap, and the audio quality was lack-luster.  At the second conference, I had a new Sony HD camera.  Video was great but the audio was poor with all the background noise.  By the 3rd conference, I added directional microphone.  By the 4th conference in October, I learned what made a great pitch and I was able to coach the people I was recording.   After the 4th conference, I was confident enough to put together a 60-minute webinar:  “The Art of the Elevator Pitch”.  It went over very well for the vendors attending the Kennedy conference.   In the webinar, I talked about elements of a good pitch as well as how to measure and coach a pitch.  Info on measuring and coaching was absolutely void, so I feel I made a break-through contribution.  What good is teaching something if you don’t have the tools to measure effectiveness and coach the topic?

This was a fun experience.  In total I did about 60 recordings.  38 of the recordings made it into this blog entry.  The ones I cut out were either very bad, or the video/audio quality was poor.   I am not a videographer, some pitches were fantastic, but my camera skills were not and the end result was unusable.  My end goal was to (1) share what I learned about pitches and (2) give the vendors that spent time with me a venue to get them some exposure.

If anyone that I excluded wants to be included, contact me and we can record your pitch via Skype and I will post it on a future blog.  I’ll be adding an “elevator pitch” section to my blog, as I intend on continuing my research.

Much of the existing literature on the Internet about elevator pitches included 8-10 points to remember.  Trying to remember 8-10 concepts at the same time can be paralyzing.  I wanted to bring the whole process down a few, simple, memorable steps that anyone can implement.  After my research and fieldwork I can up with a three-step process to build your elevator pitch.   Enjoy the videos!

1.    Talk about a problem.  What is the problem in the market that caused you to create your product or service?

Sales reps spend 30% of their time prospecting.  They use the Internet inefficiently.  They manually picking through web sites… cutting & pasting contact information.  They do this because the leads they are getting are stale and overused.

2.    How do you solve that problem?  Be concise and clear.

Broadlook provides solutions that harness names, titles, emails, phone numbers and bio’s from the Internet.  You choose the sectors or companies to target.  The data is fresh.  The data is actionable.  Think about it:  The most powerful list is the one no-one else has.   We can help you build that list.

3.    What makes you unique?  Don’t use generic terms like the “best”, craft a something that truly differentiates you in the market.

We automate the entire process of Internet research from finding the data to moving it seamlessly into your CRM.   We can change 8 hours of research into 15 minutes.
Lastly, for those interested in the powerpoint for the Art of the Elevator Pitch webinar.  Get it here.

Elevator pitches – part 1

Elevator pitches – part 2

Elevator pitches – part 3