Until now the LEADSExplorer web service consisted of providing visiting data and identification of visitors by company name.
The main complaint we got from our customers or ex-customers was: great data and information but we want to do something with it.

Reach your customers early in their buying cycle
As of today the web service allows you to take action towards your visiting companies by helping you to contact your visiting companies more easily and conveniently.
An email sent to interested visiting companies is likely to get more attention as the timing is right and the subject is known by the pages visited or the search terms used.

On the home page the users will find a list of the latest visiting companies that never have visited before. The ‘Interest’ column indicates graphically their visit intensity.

Browse visiting companies
Browse and click one of the companies. Then a pane with more information opens with company website, business information, geographical location, visit data and visited pages in order to qualify the company.

Find contacts and their email addresses
If the company interesting enough then contacts and email addresses can be retrieved from different sources on the Internet.

Using the ‘prepare email’ link will open a popup asking to:
- Paste the email address found
- Select the email content from a number of emails
These emails have previously been created and can be edited on the spot by clicking on ‘create / edit email templates’.

Prepare and select email
By clicking ‘Prepare Email’ the email client (Microsoft Outlook, Thunderbird,…) will open in order to allow further editing or personalization of the email and add the senders’ signature.

The actual sending will be done from the email server of the user.

Benefit
Sending an email to an interested company takes out two of the tree uncertainties of email marketing:
- Content is matching their interest
- Timing : the message is timely
This is likely to enhance the interest in products or services.

Saving data and events for future use
Every email sent will save the company, the contact person with his email address to the SALESTractor CRM, including the email.

Additionally an event is created in the communication log which will appear in the activity charts that plot the visits of one company and the communications with this company.

We are proud to bring more features for the same price.
Get a 30 day free trial to experience yourself getting more leads generated from your website.

On Quora a question is asked: Which is better to work for, Google or Facebook?.
The answer to this question made the conclusion:
Google tends to value technology. Things are often done because they are technically hard or impressive. On most projects, the engineers make the calls.

Facebook values products and user experience, and designers tend to have a much larger impact.

This comparison forgets one company: Amazon – the bookstore, the Kindle system and Amazon Web Services.
Amazon has a diversified profitable business model selling products, services and values useful technology, whereas:
- Google is still a one trick pony: Adwords which they copied from Bill Gross from Idealab (Overture Services, Inc. – formerly Goto.com) who turned the idea and concept of keywords from Scott Banister into a business.

- Facebook has many people using the service but still it is uncertain if their business model is sustainable. The first sign of decay is apparent as teen move away from using Facebook.

Will Google come up with a new profitable business? Not just another Beta service with no business or another vehicle to sell Adwords?
Even Adam Rifkin of GigaOM declares that Google has no game !
Will Facebook be wiped out by the next social media or gaming portal, like what happened to MySpace?

Amazon generates profits from a growing number of successful multiple product lines like the Kindle and AWS.
AWS is even into Social Gaming as it provides the hosting that powers six to eight of the top ten Facebook games  like Zynga, Playfish and Playdom.

So who is the major force on the Internet ?
Amazon because it has different sustainable business and is able to reinvent itself on a regular basis with additional profitable businesses.

How sustainable is your business ?
Does your business have a back-up plan or alternative business ready to be executed ?

The farmer
The farmer is limited by his land.
The choice of plants can make the difference in of the value harvested.
When a farmer plants his seeds he knows he will be harvesting after the summer but he is uncertain about the quantity and quality.
Using more or less fertilizer can influence the harvest.
Most of the seeds will grow into plants and during spring and summer the quantity and quality can be better estimated.

The salesman
The salesman is limited by his territory.
The products can make the difference in the sales numbers achieved.
When a salesman plants his seeds he is uncertain about harvesting.
It is only when seeds turn into leads and go into the funnel that the hope of harvesting grows.
The nurturing of leads will influence the chance on success as less leads will leave the funnel.
Even until the very last moment the seeds (leads) can decide differently and the hope on sales evaporate instantly.

Although farming seems to hold more certainty for success, we still prefer to be in sales as the financial rewards can be much higher (and we don’t know much about farming).

How is your farming of seeds and nurturing of leads going ?

Social media marketing: no fit for corporations
The guru’s and enthusiasts of Social Media Marketing have made us believe that it is the next Holy Grail. However it isn’t as it is a chaos.

The demise of social media marketing is probably due to social media itself as it is a chaos:
- Too complex to streamline
- Too complex to put into simple rules that can be executed by employees of a company
- Moreover it can’t be censored or controlled which will frighten management

Social Media Marketing just acts like an uncontrollable child in an office environment.

Social media is the marketing ADHD child
Social Media marketing can best be compared with ADHD (Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder):

- Impulsiveness
- Participants react quickly without thinking
- Hyperactivity
- Continuous activity
- Constantly in motion
-  Inattention: as the attention of the contributors can turn completely into another direction.
- Changing focus overnight
- Talk (communicating) nonstop
- Difficulty doing quiet tasks
- Not following instructions
- Blurt out inappropriate comments
- Show their emotions without restraint
- Act without regard for consequences
- Have difficulty waiting for things they want

All these characteristics are not fitting company structures and rules which makes Social Media Marketing hard to use under a corporate structure.
The reactions and rules imposed by corporate governance hinder the success, the flow, the uptake and the control of Social Media marketing even more.

No prescription pills for ADHD social media
If you still would consider creating, implementing and executing a Social Media marketing campaign then beware that there are no prescription pills to be taken to ease the problems.
You just have to swallow the problems caused by the clash of your company and the social media.

How’s your ADHD marketing child doing ?

Free consulting is not part of your sales process

When a company has a problem to solve it can look for a consultant to fill in the job.
Many consultants will or can apply for the job.
In order to stand out from the crowd some could even offer an initial free consulting. Similar to a freemium in web services.

Considerations:
- Free has no value and is valued as no value
- A service is only worth the price you (can) charge
- The free consulting can solve a large part of the problem hence no contract
- The free consulting will cannibalize your fees and can cost your engagement
- Once offered free consulting, then they will consult you for free over and over again.
- The notion of a free consulting service suggests the sales process was never completed and the free consulting still has to prove the value for the company or organization.
- There is no apparent win for the company and too many uncertainties exist whereas the role of the salesman is to reduce the risks.

As David Heinemeier Hansson of 37Signals writes: Eyeballs still don’t pay the bills.

The sales process
However during your sales process you need to show and demonstrate your expertise and provide some value for the organization – but not free consulting. If you can’t provide value during the sales process then you or your services are a commodity.

Your sales process can also be an education for the client as he might not be aware of many issues and problems.

Maybe you can offer the initial session for identifying the needs for free as this allows you to define the size of your project and scope. The more problems and ideas you can identify, the more consulting opportunities you have. Just be smart enough not to list all of the problems in your first offer as then the initial total amount will become way to expensive.
This initial free session is a part of your sales process as ti allows you defining the total project or different projects you can go after: it is your company market research.
Do you offer free consulting to convince your client to buy

When the thirty year old entrepreneur appeared in front of his Board Of Directors for explaining his lagging sales, the 60 year old ex-IBM board member said: “In my time at IBM during the seventies and eighties we’ve sold …”

The entrepreneur immediately interrupted and replied:
“You have never been in Sales as you were only in negotiating contracts and closing deals and your lead generation was completely based upon inbound marketing driven by the IBM brand name.”

The ex-IBM man was astonished as his pride was demolished as the statement was true: CEO’s and CFO’s actually called up IBM in  order to get a meeting with an IBM salesman.

According to the entrepreneur a real salesman has to:
- Prospect the market constantly
- Call up potential customers: cold calling
- Find leads
- Explain about the benefits and features of the product
- Explain why they need the solution now instead of later
- Inform about the company
- Persuade the lead
- Giving presentation
- Nurture the leads through the funnel
- Make the price quotation or answer the RFP
- Negotiate the contract
- Close the sales deal
- Make sure the delivery is on time
- Collect the money / get paid
- Get the commission
- Keep the customer – to avoid churn

People and businessmen from different companies have different views on the tasks involved in sales. An entrepreneur needs to deal with all those tasks in order to get a deal closed and a happy customer.

In a big company with a strong brand name much less is involved for a sales man.

What about your sales cycle ?

All is fine when you sign the deal:
- The goods or services
- The delivery date
- The payment terms
- …

Within the requested delay you supply the goods or services and promptly your company issues the invoice and has it send over to the customer by mail or email

Due date
As the due date is nearing you call up your contact and ask if the administration is processing your invoice. Of course your buyer confirms he will call the purchasing or accounting dept. to speed up the process.

When the due date of the invoice has passed by you ask the accountant or the accounts receivable clerk if he has received a payment from your client.
If not paid you call your customer again in the hope to the get them to make the payment. Your client informs you the administration of his company is processing your invoice.

The address is wrong: re-issue the invoice
A few weeks later the invoicing department or you receive a mail or email explaining the invoice was wrongly issued: the address of delivery was correct, but the invoice should be billed to a different address as the company headquarters or Registered Office is located on a different address. They still use the old building instead of the new facility.
How could you know as nobody ever told you.

The only solution is to re-issue the invoice with a different address and hope the customer will pay as soon as possible – but probably the customer will only pay within the agreed delay after receiving the new invoice.
Every few days or week your boss or even the CEO will ask about your unpaid invoice(s) until it becomes embarrassing.

There is nothing that you can do as the customer is king – especially when it comes to paying.
In any case this customer will not play this trick on you again (until he moves his Registered Office).

Managing your invoices, payment terms and payments are key for a successful business.

Cash flow
Using this method the customer doubles the payment terms and improves his cash flow.
The DSO (Days Sales Outstanding) simply doubles and your CFO or accountant gets nervous as his cash flow becomes a problem.

Sounds familiar to you ?

New product launch
When new products have been developed by the company corporate communications will issue a press release, marketing will promote and present the product with advertising and events to inform the potential customers to build awareness.

At the same time the salesmen need to learn the new product.
In most cases this is difficult to achieve as they are busy with contacting lead and selling the current products and following-up on their customers. That’s why boot camps for sales training were organized where they were cut off from their normal habitat. However the times of sales boot camps have passed by as people can continue to communicate with their customers and leads using cell and smart phones or wireless Internet.

Salesmen learn when:
Still salesmen will get a presentation and documentation in order to be trained on the new products.
A minority of the salesmen will learn quickly about the new products but the majority will have the wait and see attitude.

The best ways for getting a salesman to learn about the new products:
- When a lead or a customer asks about it or has a significant budget available.
- When a colleague earns a big commission
- When the margins on the new products are higher leading to higher commissions
- When the competitor steals his customers with a competing product
That’s when salesmen will learn the fastest.

Inciting salesmen
When launching a new product the best is when there is:
- a demand from the customers
- a big order giving a big commission to a colleague
- a competitor stealing customers
- a commission larger than average for the company

What incited or stimulated you to learn about a new product ?

As people are slowly moving from Internet to Mobile Internet due to the high cost, marketing guru’s and the ad networks are preaching Mobile Advertising as they see the new holy grail (for their own benefit).

However there are several reasons why mobile advertising will never take off :

1. Mobile Internet is expensive
The Mobile Internet is still an expensive medium for most people, whereas the Internet has become affordable for many.
Until cheap flat rates are offered: forget about Mobile Advertising: it costs them money each time they click on your ad.

2. Browsing versus action
Internet users browse for information
Mobile Internet users want to do something instead.

If the ad consumes 25% of the tiny screen people are likely to be turned off.

3. Intrusive Mobile Ads
As the mobile screens are small, popup ads or banner ads just become too intrusive.
The mobile phone is considered more personal as the LCD screen of a PC.

4. Limited ad message
Due to the limited space, the ad message needs to be short – very short.
Just hope they understand it.

5. User experience of Mobile Internet
Working on a small screen is harder than using a large LCD monitor.
Accidentally clicking (touching) an ad link will open a website the user didn’t want. This will confuse the user and will decrease the users’ experience.

6. Visibility
In many cases – especially outdoors in the sun – the mobile screens are hard to read.
Cluttering the information screen with an ad will kill even more the user experience of the service.

7. Compatibility
Mobile screens come in all sizes and can be hold “portrait” or “landscape” (and moved around – your ad will be confused).
Getting your ad message correctly on the screen is a real hassle which drives up the costs.

8. Measurability of Mobile Ads
Measurability has become the holy grail of Internet marketing.
On the Internet online ads are easy to measure mainly thanks to cookies.
Not all mobile Internet browsers support cookies.
The mobile Internet adds location to the information for the advertiser but that is just a part of the total information needed.

9. Location Based Mobile Ads
Currently Location Based Mobile is all the hype
Will people actually look on their screen when a local store sends a message to their mobile or changes their screen saver ? If so will they grasp the message which is likely to be out of context and time. Will they take the desired action (change the agenda of the day) ? Probably not.

10. Opt-in for ads / newsletters
People do opt-in for newsletters on the Internet. Not for advertising.
People won’t opt-in for newsletters on their mobile as that is disturbing and intrusive for the limited capacities of their mobile.
Getting big newsletter files will increase the monthly bill.

11. Push Mobile Ads
Do people still want push advertising ? No.
Marketing just started the pull era on the Internet: content marketing – inbound marketing.
Getting advertising pushed onto their mobile will disgust people quickly.
Ad blockers will become widely used.

12. Bounce rate
Even if people click on the mobile ad, how many pages are they going to see or will they bounce immediately ? Spending time on the Mobile Internet costs money which will increase the bounce rate significantly.

13. Distractions of the environment
Sitting in front of their PC they are focused on their screen without any distractions.
People using their mobile phones for Internet are likely in an environment with many more distractions as people are passing by or sounds are around.

14. Demographics
Currently the Mobile Internet is being used by a selective minority group of people who have the money and time to use it (or their company pays for it).
They are strongly engaged, techies or need the Mobile Internet for their ego.

The way these people use the Mobile Internet can be completely different from how the masses will (ever) use the Mobile Internet.

Are you using Mobile Advertising with any success ?

The 40 hours week of work:
We (employees) probably work 40 hours a week – less all the coffee breaks and chit chat.
We do many things and have multiple experiences during this work week (even boring time consuming meetings).
To be fair: the commuting time to work needs to be added to these 40 hours.

During these 40 business hours we do our work, run the business and gain our income.

The 40 hours weekend:
A weekend lasts a little over 60 hours: from Friday 5 pm to Monday 7pm.
The 3 nights of sleep are consuming about 18 to 21 hours.
This making the amount of time available during a weekend about the same as the entire work week: 40 hours.

During this free time we spend most of our disposable income (or what’s left over after mortgage and utility bills).

Work vs weekend
Seems we have as much time to earn or income as we have time to spend our money.

So what did you do during:
- Last work week ?
- Last weekend ?
Anything significant ? Or just wasting time ?

People have a lot of time to themselves but seem to be more active or effective during business hours.
Make sure you spend your spare-time efficiently and well.
Life is too short to waste your time.

Remarks:
- Many entrepreneurs work almost the entire week by combining the two: working more than the 40 hours.
- The Internet and online businesses are active 24 / 7.