Some free time? Here are books about sales you might want to check out.

I just finished three books of fiction for pure pleasure while on vacation last week. Now that I’m back to reality I’ve decided to read some books about sales to help motivate me in 2009. Happily the 2008 Sales Book Awards, an organization that recognizes books, authors, and publishers whose work advances sales as a profession, has just released this year's winners.

Sales, I’m not in sales, you say! I am a director of a philanthropy, a middle management administrator, a lawyer who works for someone else. Guys, it’s time to re-think. Yes, all of us sadly in one way or another are in sales. If its convincing your boss that you deserve the new title, or you're a CEO and need to excite your staff about yet the next big thing in the company, even if its your kids that need to be motivated to pick up their dirty laundry, in one form or another we are constantly selling.

A panel of 35 judges rated submissions in 10 separate categories, awarding one Gold Medal and two Silver Medals in each. Each book was rated on five primary criteria: Authority, Readability, Content Relevance, Physical Quality & Writing Style. I’ve included the 2008 Sales Book Gold Award Winners in my list.

Hmmm, where should I begin, Any suggestions?

General Sales
• Gold Medal: Perfect Selling by Linda Richardson

Classic Sales Books
• Gold: Selling to Big Companies by Jill Konrath

Sales Leadership
• Gold: Coaching Salespeople Into Sales Champions by Keith Rosen

Sales Methodology
• Gold: Reality Sells by Bill Guertin and Andrew Corbus

Sales Motivation
• Gold: The All Star Sales Book by Billy Cox

Prospecting
• Gold: The Real Secrets of the Top 20% by Mike Brooks

Presenting
• Gold: Presentations That Change Minds by Josh Gordon

Industry Specific
• Gold: Salesopedia by Clayton Shold

Sales Audio Programs
• Gold: Nano Sales Books by Linda Richardson

eBooks
• Gold: 200 Sales Hunting Tips by Mark Hunter

– Ann Byne, Principal/Creative Director

Managing Your Reputation Online

It’s a subject that most likely concerned us all greatly in Junior High: Reputation Management.

It’s a big, virtual world out there and whether you like it or not, people are talking about you! The good news is, you can make sure it’s not all behind your back.

Fact is, there are more people online creating “buzz” about you than you create yourself, and considering how much you invest in marketing, it’s not to be ignored!

One of my favorite blogs, marketingprofs, recently offered 6 keys ways to manage your reputation online. I’ve summarized my fave’s.

…and yes you can do it all from your computer at home (but don’t tell this to your boss)!

1. Google—Google.com/alerts
Set up an alert and you’ll know whenever someone writes something about you, or even your competitors. Best to set it up in your RSS reader and you can sort the results to find out who the biggest talkers are… and who to kiss up to!

2. Blog Posts—Technorati.com
If you have a blog, register and Technorati will track other blogs who are linking to yours. What’s the point? It’s all about relationship management. Try to link to them in your blog, comment and spread the love.

3. Blog comments—Backtype.com
It’s so important to comment on blog posts that mention you, whether positive or negative. Use backtype.com to keep track of all of the conversations you participate in. The coolest part is you will begin to find out who the key influencers are (one bad apple can spoil the whole barrel) and do a little targeted damage control. And for those singing your praises? Tell them you appreciate it.

4. Discussion Boards—Boardtracker.com
Get alerts when someone in a “forum” mentions your name, and join the top few. Then you can establish yourself as a leader on the topic and offer resources. What great publicity!

So remember, it might be overwhelming at first, but after you’re up and running you will have a great picture of who is talking about you, what they are saying, and also the opportunity to inform, educate and be a good community citizen.

Just do it!

–Jennifer Zapf, Art Director

Are You on a Tight Budget?

Times like these you need to be more creative with your budget. The good news is that email marketing can fit into most anyone's budget. Wikipedia explains that email marketing is a form of direct marketing, which uses electronic mail as a means of communicating commercial or fundraising messages to your customers/clients. You can achieve a big bang for a small price while getting out relevant messages, achieving brand appeal and the ability to measure it all.

• Reduce Other Costs_ Think about what you are printing: holiday cards, invitations, newsletters. Could these be emailed? Of course they can.

• Get Valuable Info_ Using email you can obtain valuable stats and watch response rates in real time. With this information you can easily tweak your emails, see what is working and not working with your client/customer base.

• Build Brand Loyalty_ With email you can keep current clients/customers happy and engaged. Reward loyal customers, but keep it interesting.

• Do's and Don'ts – Use Email The Right Way
DON'T buy/rent an email list
DON'T send emails everyday
DO be client/customer specific
DO keep your focus on a permission-based strategy
DO make it fun and different

–Melissa Behrens, Senior Graphic Designer

What one Non Profits best practice teaches us all!

A CASE STUDY: How did one non-profit reach out to new clients in this economy and what can it teach for-profit businesses?

Now more than ever, I believe growth takes an entrepreneurial spirit, starting at the top that permeates throughout the entire organization. And I’ve had the opportunity to see first hand the successful outcome of this formula.

Our firm donates our time and talents to a local non profit of which I sit on its board. Amazingly, its Executive Director is always ahead of the curve coming up with new ways to raise the marketing bar, never accepting the status quo. If there’s a way to reach out, build consensus and stretch the marketing dollars she’ll figure it out. The most recent example; Reaching out to other like organizations in non-competing locations and pitch the idea of combining their funds for media. Some radio stations and newspapers overlapped so why not create an 800 number where potential clients could call into and pass the leads to the organization in the callers location. A real win-win to all who might consider participating.

This was not the first great idea this Executive Director formulated. By shear stick-to-it-ness she brought to life a revenue-generating initiative* by filling a real need she saw in her community and beyond. After bringing it successfully to market she now sells the program to other organizations for a small fee. It's a rare person who has that kind of energy and drive, she doesn’t have a marketing degree but she approaches things from a different angle with no pre-conceived notions. I have to say she has even taught me and my staff a thing or two!

So what best practices can you take away from one case study for your business or non-profit organization?

• Create an entrepreneurial spirit in your organization where new ideas are welcomed, and receive thoughtful consideration.

• Brainstorm other commercial or revenue-generating initiatives. And not only with your leadership team, sometimes the best ideas come from outside the inner circle. Tap into all the brainpower of your organization including the person who makes the coffee.

• Think about your competition differently. Are there ways you might pool marketing funds and come up with some new initiatives that would be win-win.

• Inspire people to think in new ways and be creative when times are tough, rather than get discouraged and do nothing. Remember if its your organization or firm your most important job is to be a cheerleader for your team.

• If you believe you have a great idea be willing to fight for it. Stick-to-it-ness really does pay off.

• Don’t assume you know what does or doesn’t work because what has happened in the past. Be aware that the climate has changed and a bold vision is imperative.

- Ann Byne, Principal/Creative Director

*AssuringYourWishes.org

Defending Your Marketing Budget!

When the economy is tough management's first response is to reduce marketing budgets. What management sometimes forgets to remember...... that during any period of economic downturn your best customers become someone else's best prospects. When you stop inviting them to do business with you, a more aggressive competitor may become much more attractive.

According to Nancy Schwartz author of Effective Marketing "It may seem right (politically) to accept the managements decision to slash your marketing budget, but it's the wrong move to make. In the long run, accepting a significant budget cut will harm your organization"

"No program succeeds without participants; no service lasts without users; few organizations stay healthy without a strong donor and volunteer base -- and marketing is the way that these groups are reached, engaged, retained and motivated to act. Challenge your organization's leaders NOW if they're shying away from investing in marketing. If they do, your organization will really suffer long term. That's what you have to point out -- as diplomatically as possible. And far better than just talking about it, you have to prove it. Rather than taking a defensive position when faced with budget cuts, proactively respond to your leadership's challenges."

So how can you defend your marketing budget, and make your customers experience exceptional.

1. Never take your focus off your customers. Cherish them, and make sure they know it. Make their Personal Experience Factor exceptional.

2. Media pricing is driven by market demand. Take advantage of the weak demand and the resultant drop in price to buy even more market presence without increasing your advertising budget.

3. Craft a plan tying marketing work directly your goals, and track the impact of every effort before, during and after the work to enable ongoing course correction.

4. Arm yourself with as many hard stats and success stories as you can. Talk about what colleague and competitive organizations are doing, and what you'll lose if your organization retreats now.

Does Your Website Need a Face-Lift?

The New Year is fast approaching and maybe
it's time you rethought your website’s purpose.
The Internet is constantly changing and so is
your clients/prospective clients expectations.
Visitors expect your site to be “cutting edge”
or at least “up-to-date.”

Things to keep in mind while
revamping your site:

1. Design with optimization in mind. Search engine optimization (SEO) means having text friendly elements on
your website which will make your site easily search able.

2. Visitors want what they are looking for quickly and easily. Spotlight or call to action important services on your homepage (ex: “click here to…” or “free download”).

3. Be proactive and engaging. Start a blog. Invite people to be a part of your online presence. Ask visitors to post their comments. The point of
a blog is to share and get involved in a community that is active and listening.

4. Ask your marketing team or web designer for their suggestions.
They may have ideas that you hadn’t thought of.

Check out our newest "green" web design: mydejavusalon.com

~Melissa Behrens
Senior Graphic Designer, The Byne Group
(source: Must-Have Website Features for 2009, by Shaheen,
The New York Enterprise Report, October 2008.)

What the Heck is Ambient Awareness?

The NY Times Sunday Magazine on 8/21 had a fascinating article on the effects of online contact. - I'm so Totally, Digitally Close to You by Clive Thompson

“Social scientists have a name for this sort of incessant online contact. They call it “ambient awareness.” It is, they say, very much like being physically near someone and picking up on his mood through the little things he does... Facebook is no longer alone in offering this sort of interaction online. In the last year, there has been a boom in tools for “microblogging”: posting frequent tiny updates on what you’re doing. The phenomenon is quite different from what we normally think of as blogging, because a blog post is usually a written piece, sometimes quite long: a statement of opinion, a story, an analysis. But these new updates are something different. They’re far shorter, far more frequent and less carefully considered. One of the most popular new tools is Twitter, a Web site and messaging service that allows its two-million-plus users to broadcast to their friends haiku-length updates — limited to 140 characters, as brief as a mobile-phone text message — on what they’re doing.

So what does that mean to agencies like us that create branding and advertising in print and on line? We have to understand that the marketplace demands transparency. Gone are the days when anyone can make empty promises! Within a blink of the eye consumers will sniff it out and share it. It’s really a trust issue, and all companies need to take it very seriously. The article also relates it to when Americans lived in small towns and everyone knew their business. You know that one nosey neighbor who was on the phone in a heartbeat if hanky panky was going on, well now its on cyberspace for all! Welcome to a brave new world

The Non Profit Boot Camp, Passion Lives!

Recently I attended and volunteered at the Non Profit Boot Camp in Manhattan (an event sponsored by The Craig’s List Foundation). It was truly amazing with over 1,200 emerging and established community leaders in the non-profit world in attendance. Everyone seemed filled with boundless and contagious enthusiasm; it was remarkable how organized the chaos was.

Most of the attendees were young and idealistic, many just starting out in the non-profit arena, there to soak up as much knowledge as possible during a very long day. Others came with only a dream, hoping to learn from others how set up their own non-profit, each convinced their cause was unique. The event included a day of interesting workshops, keynotes and some great networking. The volunteer staff was terrific, smoothing over any issues that occurred throughout the day and the killer coffee and natural snacks supplied from vendors for free were an added plus especially for those sitting in the trade show section!

So what was my part besides taking a booth at the trade show and drinking some great coffee? For two hours I sat in a small room working one-on-one in twenty minute intervals with 5 different people who signed up to speak to me for help with branding and marketing (the sessions were organized and run by a great organization called Non-Profit Central NY/NJ with its CEO Sue Caruso Green at the helm). I began each session w/, "How can I help you?" and often just being a sounding board seemed to help. Sometimes my "EXPERTISE" was just coming up with a simple solution for them to consider. (after all how much can you learn in twenty minutes?) Nonetheless, I felt very valued, with many of them trying to grab an extra minute with me before the next person came in to take a seat, and each leaving with a heartfelt thank you. Something that doesn’t always happen with paying clients.

It was a long day, but a real breath of fresh air. As one client (a boomer-aged director of an arts organization) once told me "After years of having to raise funds for the pens we use it’s great to see the next generation still idealistic, willing to take the challenge head on!” As I read in a commentary in The Chronicle of Philanthropy, “Millennial (young 20’s) are passionate about causes and, according to the Corporation for National and Community Service, are volunteering in record numbers.” I like to think that as a baby boomer our idealistic generation started the conversation. GO millenials – now you can keep the conversation going and teach us all a thing or two!

Want to learn more go to: www.craigslistfoundation.org

Look through fresh eyes- "Vuja de"

No I didn't misspell Deja Vu...... Vuja de happens when you enter a situation you've been in a thousand times before, but with the sense of being there for the first time.” George Carlin coined the phrase "Vuja De" first and used it in an early comedy routine. “It's all about the obvious right in front of our eyes. When someone invents a simple little something for the benefit of mankind, almost everyone either simultaneously thinks, "why didn't I think of that?" or "I was just thinking of that."

Bill Taylor in a post at Harvard Business Online writes about it from a business point of view. "Most companies in most industries have a kind of tunnel vision. They chase the same opportunities that everyone else is chasing, they miss the same opportunities that everyone else is missing." It's an atmosphere that stifles innovation, and can create an unsettling sense of corporate déjà vu as companies continue to use the same old thinking with each new initiative.

As the creative director of my firm, I still get a jolt when I first realize I'm looking at a brand new, fresh creative idea. It's about breaking away from the pack mentality and approaching each new challenge with fresh eyes.

When too many assumptions get in the way of asking open-ended questions

The art of marketing often involves asking lots of questions with no expectations of the answers. This can be the most difficult thing to do. How often do we assume we know the answers and forget to ask the right questions? I think what children do best is have an open mind. In Japan they use the phrase “Shoshin” which means beginners mind. In the beginners mind says Shunryu Suzuki, a Japanese Buddhist scholar, there are many possibilities; in the experts mind there are few.

I want to share a story about a friend of mine, which illustrates “the beginners mind”. We were in a meeting together and she looked as if she had been crying earlier. When I asked her if everything was ok she reassured me that it was just allergies and her allergist had prescribed drops.

The next time we spoke I asked her if she was still suffering with allergies. “Funny you should ask, she said, I went home that day, got into bed and hoped for some relief, my daughter came into the room and said, mommy, you have “esema”. (her daughter had eczema on her arms in the past) This conversation went on for a while and to get her daughter off her case my friend put some of her daughters cream under her eyes. As you might have guessed it worked instantly.

Now, I certainly don’t recommend self-medicating ourselves but I do believe there is a business lesson here. How often do we ask our clients a question with an answer already in our heads? Or in my client’s case did she start her conversation with the allergist asking for eye drops, for her allergies rather than asking an open-ended question of what is this. Next time you meet with a client try not to come up with a solution too quickly and try using “Shoshin, a beginners mind”. Ask more open-ended questions. What was wasted? What caused complaints today? You will be surprised what you might learn.

More interesting news on the college application front.

I recently read an article in the June 16th issue of Crains, written by Samatha Marshall, “Local Colleges Face Student Shortage.”

According to this article there will be a big demographic shift…promised to end what has been eight years of explosive growth in applications, “ and schools’ main market, of high school graduating classes across the Northeast, is expected to shrink by 14% over the next five years.” Some of the schools are stepping up international recruiting efforts, hiring international recruiters, and actively marketing themselves in burgeoning regions like Asia. Other schools are focusing efforts online and are offering programs that cater to older, nontraditional students, even keeping admissions offices open at night so prospects can register after work.

Do Design Awards Matter?

Well of course they do, but not how you might think.

They don’t often get you new accounts, but they certainly matter to your design staff who need and deserve the praise for a job well done. There was a survey going around a couple of years ago that asked people if they had the choice between winning an Oscar or an award for a scientific discovery, which would they choose? Surprisingly most chose the Oscar. It seems being in the limelight and dressed up in front of your peers at a gala event means a lot.

So why do clients care? People in marketing responsible for choosing a firm to work with are always under a lot of pressure. How better to validate their decision to their bosses when the firm they chose wins awards on their behalf. Now please don’t misconstrue this. Awards never replace who the ultimate winners are. They are announced later when you do or don’t get a call for the next assignment after your client evaluates the success of the strategy on their bottom line!
















So with that being said, I want to say kudos to my amazing and talented staff and to our very smart clients for choosing us. The Byne Group Took Home 10 Big W Awards this June including several honors for its work on Nyack Hospital’s Get to Know the Doctors Who Trust Nyack Hospital Image Campaign. Amy Massimo, Nyack Hospital's Director of Public Affairs, said it best: “The Byne Group worked extensively for us to develop cohesive, effective and targeted marketing campaigns and they all proved to be widely successful.” Amy let us know that we succeeded at our most important job by helping Nyack Hospital's bottom line!

The firm also earned Big W's for work for The Hollows at Blue Hill, Dominican College, Catholic Charities and United Hospice of Rockland.

How many of you have lived through the college admissions process?

-By Ann Byne

I recently followed my nephew’s search with great interest. It’s been quite awhile since I went through it with my own kids and I was curious how things had changed since the Internet and new media. Not to mention that as a strategic design agency it was research that we could share with our own higher education clients.

Researching the college marketplace through CASE, The Chronicle of Higher Education, and The New York Times to name a few, the funniest or saddest quote I read (depending on your perspective) was from an article in The Chronicle of Higher Education, “What Admissions Officials Think,” by Eric Hoover.

“My success,” wrote a male admissions official at a public institution, “is determined by the decision-making prowess of 17 year-olds.”

Yikes, not a great position to be in.

Wanting to dig deeper, we conducted our own tri-state survey on line contacting a few high school seniors we knew going through the process. Through “viral marketing” efforts (you know, the internet’s version of “word of mouth!) they forwarded our survey on to their friends who forwarded it on to their friends and so on and so on. Their comments confirmed some things we all know; yet some were quite enlightening. Who'd ever think that a teenager in 2008 would hate getting emails?

"Who’d ever think that a teenager in 2008 would hate getting emails?"

Well, it’s not hating getting one email, but try 200 on any given day from colleges they’ve approached for basic info. and may not even want to attend!! They still like holding brochures in their hands but when they receive it in the process became crucial. The first few received at College night or mail had a positive impact, but towards the end of their search they were crying Uncle and dumping materials into the garbage left and right. Not great for the colleges or the environment.

Students today are spending a lot of time visiting sites not affiliated with any particular college. Favored were campusdirt.com and collegeconfidential.com. Lots of great info can be found but some quotes on these sites can be brutal. Example: “Dorms are crowded, old, and in need of renovation. Dorm students are forced to pay for a large meal plan, even if they do not use it. Many hidden costs.” A disaster if you were the college mentioned!

One school we’ve been in contact with has stopped producing and mailing any view books. They direct all inquiries to their web and send e-mails. Have they gone too far?

Have we come to the point that the overabundance of e-technology communications turns off this generation?

So what’s an admissions officer to do?

We heard that kids want real stories, from real students about real life at college, not generic pretty pictures and definitely not in the same old formats. Here’s just a few quotes from our survey.

1. “Too many mass emails. I have gotten at least 200 and it’s quite annoying.”
2. You contacted me by mail “wayyy too much”
3. …”Everything seemed to be the same.”
4. “After the first few months I threw out almost all the pamphlets without even reading them.”
5. “I got the most mail from the schools I cared the least about.”
6. “Sometimes the brochures would be very dry and un-interesting, which turned me off from some colleges that I had been previously interested in.”
7. I want more “personal experience stories.”
8. “Most of them (pictures) look way too posed.”

Some other notable research reports I would recommend:

1. From HS to the Future: Potholes on the Road to College, March 2008
Although this is research done by the Consortium on Chicago schools it has great research on first generation college students many from latino immigrant families.

2. 2008 Moody’s Public Finance, 2008, U.S. Higher Education Outlook
which talks about the dramatic changes expected in enrollment.

And by the way if you were wondering, my nephew will begin at The College of NJ in the fall.

Rockland and Beyond- The Byne Group Staying on Top of the Issues Effecting our Clients

The Byne Group continues to stay on top of local issues and opportunities effecting our clients, particularly those in the higher education, healthcare and financial arenas. Constant vigilance on hot topics concerning our customers keep us on top of our game with ready access to the information and research areas available that can help our clients make useful and financially key decisions.

In line with this thought, Mary Ellen Hoffman, our strategy/business development director, recently attended the 3rd Annual Hudson Valley Regional Economic Summit held at neighboring Rockland Community College. The Summit is a seven-county effort designed to explore local, national and global economic issues. It focuses on the current state of the region’s infrastructure and identifies strategies to address the challenges. The intent is that the strategies will be adopted as priorities by lawmakers and other public policy officials and by leaders in the business and education communities.

Much of the dialogue of the day was how transportation and economic health go hand in hand and how to retain more of the 200,000 Hudson Valley commuters going to NYC, NJ and CT on a daily basis on roads and bridges over 50 years old. What was striking about the consortium of speakers was how they all must work in such minute detail to get anything done, i.e. – the traffic light on College Road entering Rockland Community College campus – a state road, a county road, a town road…finding out who was in charge took quite a while for President of RCC, Dr. Cliff Woods, but ultimately resulted in the needed traffic light. Pattern for Progress President & CEO, Jonathan Drapkin, opened the seminar with 15 Transportation Priorities needed in the Hudson Valley. Pattern is a regional planning organization that has for more than four decades shaped public policy initiatives to improve life in the Hudson Valley.

We applaud RCC for hosting this event and urge our colleagues, clients and friends to visit Pattern’s website at www.pattern-for-progress.org to learn more.

2008 Healthcare Reform Summit

At The Byne Group, it is important for us to stay on top of the trends, issues, threats and opportunities that effect the industries of our clients. With several healthcare clients, ranging from large hospitals to regional visiting nurses associations and hospice groups, we pride ourselves in staying on top of the news and bringing an understanding of current events into the work we produce.

As members of the Healthcare Professionals Public Relations and Marketing Society, we consistently attend symposiums and educational forums to maintain our status as knowledgeable marketers who also collaborate with strategic communications partners to bring the best possible end product to our customers.

Our principal, Ann Byne, recently attended the 2008 Healthcare Reform Summit in New York, hosted by an organization called the Executive Council. "The Executive Council is a dynamic, innovative forum for senior executives, their advisors and capital markets professionals to network in a highly collaborative and stimulating environment,"Ann said.

She continued, "The event was designed to provide healthcare leaders with insights into why and how healthcare reform is critical to our country and our businesses. The event focused on whether we can rely on our marketplace forces to address healthcare reform and the overall impact of reform on our academic health centers and medical schools, the Life Sciences community, small businesses and Wall Street.

It was a cutting edge session with powerful business and policy leaders from some of the world's most innovative healthcare institutions. Some of the speakers included Pamela Brier, President and CEO, Maimonides Medical Center, Dr. Ronald M. Davis, President of the American Medical Association and Mark Wagar, CEO & President, Empire BlueCross BlueShield.

Cathy Schoen, SVP, The Commonwealth Fund opened the conference with a fascinating discussion on "Bending the Curve: Options for Achieving Savings and Improving Value in US Health Spending." In this report prepared for The Commonwealth Fund Commission on a High Performance Health System, the authors examine 15 federal policy options that have the potential to lower health spending relataive to projected trends. The full report is available at www.commonwealthfund.org.

The interactive sessions covered topics high on the list of issues facing our US candidates. Everyone would agree that the current healthcare system is unsustainable. What is the best way to change the system? Full market-based? Governmental-run? Speakers touched on Universal Coverage, Rising Health Care Costs, Gaps in Quality Care as well as the roles played by state and federal government."


~Mary Ellen Hoffman
strategy/business development, The Byne Group

The Mistrusted “B” Word

In my work I am asked to help non-profits strategically analyze and improve their marketing across all mediums. After being hired, it’s inevitable that people within the organization will ask why they have to spend money and time on branding when let’s face it, they have so little of either.

Some staff will find the term alien, even off-putting, so make sure that all staff understands that a brand is not just a logo or a tagline or a mission statement. It is the overall impressions, good or bad that your organization leaves behind, from the materials you send out, to your website being current to the person who answers the phone.

So what are some ways to make everyone on the boat row in the same direction? In my opinion the key is in involving all levels of the staff. It may be a focus group, a task force or asking for input on current perceptions. We all want to be listened too, taken seriously and have our opinions valued. Hiring an outside firm can help create a non-judgmental atmosphere and a promise of no repercussions from upper management. The best cheerleading begins from within an organization and then naturally emanates to the people in the stands.

Now if only we can find a better word than branding, any suggestions out there?