I write about the three topics that I am most passionate about; Sales, Marketing and Social Media. These topics are covered from my experiences in outside sales and marketing. My objective is to use my expertise to help business and the individual.
The council’s mission is to: collectively representing tech, life science and tech-related companies and organizations as well as the professional firms that support them, the Tech Council has the unique ability to:
Offer opportunities to learn, network and grow
Recognize and promote member companies and their leadership
Nurture the tech and STEM talent pipeline critical to growth
Provide access to financing sources and additional resources
Advocate and support public policy which strengthens our ecosystem
Founded in 1996, the Council is a private, nonprofit membership organization, which supports the tech, innovation, and entrepreneurial ecosystems across the state and region. It is among the largest and most respected trade organizations of its kind nationwide.
The focus of the event was to help New Jersey start ups grow and raise funds. Start ups pitched their businesses and asked for funding.
There were two rounds of pitches along with networking opportunities.
The startups that pitched represented industries such as but not limited to: EdTech, E-Learning, Healthcare, Sports Betting and esports .
Round 1 included
Scriptertainment Wapanda LifeCuff Technologies Inc. QwikScript Boxcar Upside Health teliapp SiLAS eCare21, Inc VibeGather, LLC TrueConnect Systems, Inc Krow Network WearWorks MARCo Technologies LLC Lambent Data Life Skill Software OculoMotor Technologies Sporttrade TLCengine SRL Group Ribbit.io Nutrivide MedifVu, LLC Totally Pregnant
Round 2 Included
PeerChecked, Inc. Datafy Medality Medical Smirta Innovations Inc. Vikar Technologies Malbek Verstill Commerce Blitz, LLC. PlayDate XPEED Turbine Technology Pochette, LLC Genomic Prediction Pullup Technologies ROAR for Good Indie Art World Elemeno Health Bloqcube Caregiver Smart Solutions MYXR Events Corp. Paratrees Speak2 Software Gamefuly Entractiv Quintrix
You could feel the energy and excitement in the air as I was able to speak with 48 innovate startups.
I really enjoyed the keynote speech by the Fanduel EVP & Head of Strategy David Van Egmond.
In the speech, he discussed how he helped FanDuel grow and succeed. He also discussed the industry of online sports betting and esports; both are growth industries. These industries are legal in New Jersey and serve as a great source of revenue for the state.
It was a great event. I want to thank the New Jersey Tech Council for allowing me to cover the conference.
Dealing with rejection in Sales, Marketing, Business, Job Search and Life is rough. I have experienced rejection in various aspects of life. It is important to not take rejection personally. When you are rejected in job search and career; remember that it applies to the specific situation, position, promotion, transfer but not you as a person. This also applies in Marketing when your ideas, products and services are not accepted by the market. When facing rejection, it important to learn from the experience, pivot and not quit. The only way you are defeated is if you quit and stop trying.
Here is a poem entitled Don’t Quit that I have turned to for inspiration.
How to Conquer Rejection in Sales
To achieve Sales, success, the seller needs to be willing to persevere, through rejection. I remember my time in outside sales in New York City. I would make a lot of cold calls or try to up-sell or cross-sell products to existing customers. I remember days in the field when the answer I received was some form of no. Sometimes no matter how perfectly we execute the sales process, the answer is going to be no.
Many people would think to themselves I can’t take this rejection I should just quit. Well their right at least in the short-term. After you have made five or six sales calls with no results, take a short break. Take a walk and do some deep breathing. Try to remember that it is your offering that is being turned down and not you! Unless the prospect says “I hate this guy”. This happened to me on one occasion.
You should take a short break after being rejected for the following reasons:
1. At this point in your call plan you are probably frustrated and are not thinking clearly. This will ruin any chances of making sales for the rest of the day.
2. Taking a break allows you to vent and refocus.
3. Reflect on past successes you’ve had. Remember, you have made sales before and you can do it again!
After you have cooled off, try to think over the last calls that you have made. Reflect on what went well and what did not. Take this information and go on to your next calls with a positive attitude as if nothing has happened. Remember, your prospect does not care about how your day is going.
During my time in Outside Sales, I would have to call on certain prospects as many as 10 or 12 times before I could make a sale. In terms of cross-selling and up-selling, you have to build relationships with your customers. It is not going to happen over-night. This is true when you are selling items that require a large investment from your customers or prospects.
Some of my biggest sales successes have come during my last few calls of the day. When you feel spent, take a short break and then keep going. You never know when you are going to get a yes. If you quit; the answer is always no. Remember, always ask for the order. I was cursed at and thrown out of buildings; if I could keep going so can you!
How have you have you persevered when you were rejected in Sales, Marketing, Business, Job Search and life?
Share your story below.
About the Author
Dan is passionate about using Marketing to help businesses drive sales. HubSpot Certified in Inbound Marketing, Dan has worked on various marketing assignments including Start Ups, a Political Campaign and a Digital Marketing Conference.
Prior to teaching, Dan served customers as an Outside Sales and Marketing Rep in NYC. In this role, he taught and trained Dentists on the company’s products and services using a consultative selling approach combined with direct marketing. He also supported the company’s marketing efforts at industry trade shows.
He writes and publishes a business blog on the topics of Sales, Marketing and Social Media entitled Sales, Marketing & Social Media Today; which has grown to 24,000+ followers on LinkedIn and 21,000+ on WordPress.
Dan is seeking a full-time role in Marketing. He is willing to create and build out the Marketing function of your organization if it does not exist. If your company is hiring for roles in these areas, contact him directly via a free LinkedIn Message or email him at Dan@DanGalante.com to set up interviews.
I write to share my ideas with the world and to showcase what I have done and my potential.
My objective is to use my expertise to help business and the individual produce better results in Sales, Marketing and Social Media.
I write about the three topics that I am most passionate about; Sales, Marketing and Social Media. These topics are covered from my experiences in Outside Sales and Marketing. Feel free to send me your questions.
My blog is published on WordPress Tumblr, Medium and LinkedIn.
#Marketing#UVP: My #Sales, Marketing and #Teacher#Skillsets make me a top hire. #ONO
Email Dan@dangalante.com
Website http://www.dangalante.com
Blog http://www.dangalante.me/
LinkedIn http://www.linkedIn.com/in/dangalante
SlideShare http://slideshare.net/dgalantenyc
Twitter https://twitter.com/DanGalante
My mix of Outside Sales, Marketing, Social Media, helping Customers and Classroom Teaching experience makes me an excellent Marketing candidate for your organization.
Are you hiring for Inbound Marketing, Digital Marketing, Product Marketing, Content Marketing, Customer Marketing, Social Media Marketing, Sales Enablement, Lead Gen, Demand Gen, Retention Marketing, Talent Branding and Employer Branding roles?
Marketing UVP: Sales, Marketing, Social Media, & Teacher exp. make me a Top Marketing hire. Hiring? Let’s Interview. ONO
Marketing UVP: Sales, Marketing, Social Media, & Teacher exp. make me a Top Marketing hire. Hiring? Let’s Interview. ONO
Dan@dangalante.com
My mix of Outside Sales, Marketing, Social Media, helping Customers and Classroom Teaching experience makes me an excellent Marketing candidate for your organization.
Are you hiring for Inbound Marketing, Digital Marketing, Product Marketing, Content Marketing, Customer Marketing, Social Media Marketing, Sales Enablement, Lead Gen, Demand Gen, Retention Marketing, Talent Branding and Employer Branding roles?
Marketing UVP: Sales, Marketing, Social Media, & Teacher exp. make me a Top Marketing hire. Hiring? Let’s Interview. ONO
Seth Godin’s new book This is Marketing sums up the lessons of his previous books.
In the past Marketing was Advertising. Many Brands and businesses used to buy ads to interrupt prospects in the hope that people would buy. However, with so many media channels, the advertising of yesterday has lost its effect.
What this means for Marketers is that they need to build trust, engagement, community and earn permission to contact prospects and customers. With the ever-increasing privacy legislation such as GDPR, Marketers will pay a high price for SPAM.
Also, today there are many micro-markets of products and services as opposed to one mass-market. Frequency has surpassed reach in terms of effectiveness. Marketers need to tell a compelling story that resonates with the people they seek to serve.
Marketers need to improve their knowledge of customers to enhance the customer experience and engagement. Brands need to have conversations with customers as opposed to talking at them.
Ideas that jumped out at me while reading and listening to the book
Seth dissects Marketing, showing the reader that today’s successful marketer is generous and gives value to the customer as opposed to stealing their attention.
Chapter 19, the chapter on funnels is very interesting because it shows how to look at the funnel in a new way.
Seth explains how to shorten the sales cycle by making it easier for prospects to engage and purchase a product.
He demonstrates how to do funnel math to see if and when marketers should advertise using paid ads along with how to know if ads will pay for themselves.
In this chapter, Seth shows how marketers should focus on serving micro-markets as opposed to the mass market.
This idea is illustrated in Jeff Moore’s book Crossing the Chasm. Seth takes this concept, and explains how to move a product from micro-markets to the mass market but surprises the reader by demonstrating that marketers can be successful by catering to a micro-market.
Seth illustrates this in the long tail concept where he shows that hits are exceptions to the rule. Instead he shows that selling a lot of different products to different people is the way that most marketers will find success today and in the future.
What is next in Marketing? Comment and share.
Bonus Content
I have had the pleasure of meeting Seth on two occasions. Here are videos and pictures of the talks.
Salesforce does a great job of providing information on industry trends. Everyone who attends Salesforce World Tour and/or Dreamforce is a Trailblaizer. The company brings people together and builds a community.
What insights do you use to make Sales and Marketing decisions?
Comment below.
Posted 293 weeks ago
I am searching for a full-time Marketing role.
#Marketing#UVP: My #Sales, Marketing and #Teacher#Skillsets make me a top hire. #ONO
Email Dan@dangalante.com
Website http://www.dangalante.com
Blog http://www.dangalante.me/
LinkedIn http://www.linkedIn.com/in/dangalante
SlideShare http://slideshare.net/dgalantenyc
Twitter https://twitter.com/DanGalante
Posted 294 weeks ago
Marketing UVP: Sales, Marketing, Social Media, & Teacher exp. make me a Top Marketing hire. Hiring? Let’s Interview. ONO
I recently has the privilege to cover the World Business Forum in NYC last week. There were so many great panels and top business minds at the event. I want to highlight some of my favorites.
Seth Godin’s talk on Marketing where he discusses How today’s Marketer needs to be both remarkable and generous.
In his talk Seth discusses his new book This is Marketing and he discusses what it takes to succeed in today’s connection economy.
The new economy was Made of of the following components
A key idea was that Marketers make change happen.
It was truly an amazing talk.
2. A talk by Juan Enriquez on the topic of trends in technology.
Two trends that caught my attention were:
3. Whitney Johnson’s talk on How to build an A Team where she discusses how to design jobs to maximize both employee engagement and performance.
Companies should strive for 70% employee engagement.
Companies should take chances hiring people who are inexperienced to keep a steady pipeline of employees.
4. Daniel Kahneman’s talk on the psychology of how we make Intuitive Judgments and choices based and why people are more risk averse than others. He also discusses how stress impacts decision making.
The World Business Forum is an amazing event packed with insights and for everyone in Business. If you missed out this year; attend the next one.
I write about the three topics that I am most passionate about; Sales, Marketing and Social Media. These topics are covered from my experiences in outside sales and marketing. My objective is to use my expertise to help business and the individual.
I asked my LinkedIn audience If the Sales and Marketing functions were merged and run by Sales, What would be your main focus? Why?
As you can see, 68% of those surveyed said that increased lead generation and demand generation was a top priority. What this means is that people see Marketing as a vehicle to increase Sales and Revenue.
Free Trials
Previously, I have discussed the marketing strategy of free trials, discounted trials, and loss leaders.
Free Samples
Another great marketing strategy for brands to get prospects and current customers to try a new product or retry an existing one is to offer a free sample. This can be done by handing out the product sample during online, field, and tradeshow marketing.
Field & Trade Show Marketing
Samples can be in the form of a physical product, a link to an online offering, offering a discount to make a purchase. Recently, I attended the 9th Avenue International Food Festival in New York. I received sample food products. One of the vendors offered a food sample and a coupon to make a purchase.
At Tradeshows, brands can offer physical and digital products in exchange for customer information. This is an excellent tactic for lead generation. Most times brands scan the badge of customers to collect this information.
Online Marketing
Brands can also reach customers online to get them to request a free sample. The sample can come in the form of a download or a physical offering depending on the product type.
Brands can also offer branded merchandise as a way to be remembered by prospects and customers.
How have you used free samples to attract new customers, renew, upsell, and cross-sell existing customers?
I’m a Strategic Marketer with Field Sales, Sales Enablement, Content Creation, and, Classroom Teacher/Trainer skill sets using Marketing to drive Sales/Growth.
As a Marketer, I’ve worked with Start-Ups, a Political Campaign, and a Digital Marketing Conference.
I’m certified in Inbound Marketing with classes in Marketing, Product Management, Product Marketing, SEO, and SEM.
Before teaching, I was an Outside Sales and Marketing Rep. selling and marketing dental products to Dentists using consultative selling, trade show marketing, field marketing, and market research.
I publish Sales, Marketing & Social Media Today; a blog that covers industry events and trends.
Open on the title, industry, company, location, and level. Reach out on LinkedIn or at dan@dangalante.com to start a conversation.
Posted 62 weeks ago
Sales, Marketing & Social Media Today
I write about the three topics that I am most passionate about; Sales, Marketing and Social Media. These topics are covered from my experiences in outside sales and marketing. My objective is to use my expertise to help business and the individual.
Before businesses can sell anything, they need to determine if there is a market for their products and services.
Most businesses will not necessarily be creating new product categories. As a result, they will be entering into a marketplace that already exists. This is true if you are a re-seller or distributor of products and services. Once you decide that there is a market for your products and services; you need to study your competitors.
Smartsheet.com template
You can see who your competitors are by doing internet research, reading trade publications, and attending industry trade shows. On the internet, you can view your competitors’ websites. Once you have all of this information you need to determine the sales, and marketing channels that you will use to sell your product. Are you going to sell products via a website, direct mail, social media marketing, retail space, trade shows, or a direct sales force? There are many options available to you.
Knowing who could use your product is also something important to consider. If you do not have any existing customers you will need to be the Sales rep for your business to get yourself set up in the marketplace.
To be able to make an effective Sales Presentation to a customer, you will need to compile your Marketing research in competitive analysis and intelligence chart.
You will need to perform a SWOT analysis by assessing your strengths and weaknesses, opportunities, threats compared to your competitors on the products you offer, the price, quality, the service, reliability, stability, expertise, company reputation, location, and appearance of your business along with how important it is to the customer.
This is a must-do even if you do not hire sales reps. But if you, do it should be part of their training. This competitive analysis should be done regularly.
This is how you can apply Marketing research to drive your product sales.
Here are nine things to address in a Product Marketing Brief.
What does your company do? Does your product offering align with your business goals?
What are the features of your product? Do others understand what you are building and why?
Does this Product address gaps in the Market? Include an overview of a Competitive, win-loss, and, SWOT analysis.
Who is your ideal customer or target market? Include an overview of findings of demographic, psychographic, and buyer persona research. Does your product solve customer pain points?
How will you measure product success?
What are can go wrong? Can failure be anticipated and corrected?
What is the roadmap and schedule of the product? Who’s responsible and in charge?
Who needs to be included in the project and who needs to approve deliverables?
How will goals be tracked? How often will they be monitored? What insights are you trying to glean from the data?
A buyer persona is a guide to understanding the needs, challenges, and pain points of customers.
Questions to ask
What are these customers’ habits?
What concerns, needs and challenges do they have?
What actions are customers taking to address their needs and challenges?
Why do customers need to take these actions?
This question may be applied to multiple action steps described in Hooked by Nir Eyal as the 5 Whys.
What makes them want to buy?
Where do they look for information?
What type of content and medium do they use to access the information?
What days and times are the most likely to look for information and consume content?
It is important to note that businesses with multiple products and more than one target market will need to create buyer personas for each ideal customer.
Where to obtain information on the Ideal Customer
1. Interview current customers and prospects.
2. Send out targeted surveys via email, direct mail, and Social Networks. Offer incentives such as gift cards and discounts to encourage people to provide the information needed.
3. Read biography and history books about your ideal customer.
4. Study the news.
5. Study existing research conducted by Market Research firms.
Building buyer personas will result in:
1. Creating and implementing better and more targeted product messaging and communication
2. Getting the product in front of customers who truly will benefit from its use
How have you used Market Research, and Product Marketing to increase Sales?
I’m a Strategic Marketer with Field Sales, Sales Enablement, Content Creation, and, Classroom Teacher/Trainer skill-sets using Marketing to drive Sales/Growth.
As a Marketer, I’ve worked with Start-Ups, a Political Campaign, and a Digital Marketing Conference. I’m certified in Inbound Marketing with classes in Marketing, Product Management, Product Marketing, SEO, SEM.
Before teaching, I was an Outside Sales and Marketing Rep. selling and marketing dental products to Dentists using consultative selling, trade show marketing, field marketing, and market research.
I publish Sales, Marketing & Social Media Today a blog covering industry events and trends.
Articles and insights have been featured, mentioned, and, referenced in:
•SlideShare for being in the top 5% of profiles viewed in 2014
•LinkedIn Profile was in the top 1% of profiles viewed out of 200 million members in 2012
I’m seeking a full-time role in:
Inbound Marketing, Digital Marketing, Content Marketing, Product Marketing, Demand Generation, Social Media Marketing, Sales Enablement Enablement, Sales Strategy, Marketing Strategy, Employer Branding, Recruitment Marketing. Reach out to start a conversation on LinkedIn or email me at dan@dangalante.com