Dan Galante

During my time in field sales, I wanted to obtain the business of Dental Schools and Hospitals. After obtaining meetings and making presentations to prominent Dentists, I was informed that they could not buy from me. After handling objections, showing how my offerings were better than the competition, I found out why. The decision-makers explained that they were under contract with large manufacturers and distributors.

These competitors offered deep discounts to Dental Schools so their students would get comfortable using their products. When students would become licensed Dentists, they would use the products they trained on instead of the competitors. These competitors built lifelong customer loyalty.

When I called on certain Dentists, they said they liked a particular company’s product. I asked them why they liked the product and would they consider switching for something comparable with faster service. The Dentists said no saying that they learned on particular equipment in Dental School and it was the only thing they felt comfortable using.

The Technology Life Cycle

Image via

http://www.matthewsonmarketing.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/chap-1-fig-2-geoffrey-moore-tech-adopt-curve1.png?w=580

Geoffrey Moore discusses the Technology life cycle in Crossing the Chasm.

Dental manufacturers and large distributors used pricing to target the Innovators/Early adopters/which in this case was the dental students and hospitals. To increase market share, they offered discounted pricing in exchange for purchase and long service contracts. These manufacturers and distributors succeeded in targeting dental students right before they would become customers; earning them years of customer loyalty.

Here is how this SAAS marketing program could be executed on the Technology Life cycle curve.

Innovators Preparation Programs

Offer Preparation programs discounted pricing and free trials to try the product.

Have Pre-service Professionals get comfortable using the product.

Early Adopters Early Career Professionals

Offer them free trials and a lower discount.

Early/Late Majority Seasoned Professionals

Offer Trials and discounts to targeted staff and managers

Laggards Senior Staff Members

Continue to innovate the product and messaging to show how the product is being used.

Obtain Testimonials from satisfied staff and managers.

Show how the product exceeds competitors.

When appropriate, offer free and discounted trials to all appropriate prospects.

This is how Tech companies can improve their market share and generate life-long customer loyalty.

Tech Companies have the chance to improve business and generate life-long customer loyalty. This opportunity can be seized by offering discounted pricing and free trials to Innovators/Early Adopters which in this case are the preparation programs.

How this applies to EdTech & E-Learning

This strategy can be applied to the EdTech/E-Learning market because many companies serve this space but only a few companies dominate the market. The opportunity to target Innovators/Early adopters as I described above presents itself as the United States Department of Education is asking for Education Technology to be embedded into K-12 teacher preparation programs.

EdTech/E-Learning companies have the chance to improve the Teaching profession and generate life-long customer loyalty. This opportunity can be seized by offering discounted pricing and free trials to Innovators/Early Adopters which in this case are the teacher preparation programs.

Here is how this marketing program could be executed on the Technology Life cycle curve.

Innovators Teacher Preparation programs

Offer Teacher Preparation programs discounted pricing and free trials to try the product.

Have Pre-service Teachers/Admins get comfortable using the product

Early Adopters Rookie Teachers/Admins

Offer them free trials and a lower discount.

Early/Late Majority Seasoned Teachers/Admins

Offer Trials and discounts to targeted staff and Administrators, Lead Teachers, and Instructional Coaches.

Laggards Senior Staff Members

Continue to innovate the product and messaging to show how the product is being used.

Obtain Testimonials from satisfied Teachers and Administrators

Show how the product exceeds competitors.

This is how EdTech/E-Learning companies can improve the Teaching profession and generate life-long customer loyalty.

What EdTech/E-Learning product do you want to try?

Additional Market Research

Why & How People Buy Tech

When marketing and selling a tech product or service, it is important to ask two questions to understand your buyers.

1. What motivates people to buy a tech product or service?

2. How do people find a tech product or service to buy?

I surveyed my LinkedIn audience for answers.

1. What motivates people to buy a tech product or service?

People buy a technology product or service for many reasons.

2. How do people find a tech product or service to buy?

People find and buy technology products or services in different ways.

How Buyers Find EdTech & E-Learning Products & Solutions

I asked my audience how they find Education Technology products and solutions. According to a survey I conducted on LinkedIn, 58% used google, viewed product demos, and read reviews. Next was Social Media and word of mouth at 33%. This suggests that the education technology buying cycles are customer-centric. A great product demo is only as good as product reviews, word of mouth, and the customer experience for established brands. Only 8 % found products from seller-centric activities such as seller calls emails and catalogs. Customers are educating themselves and seeking out sellers at the end of the buying process, not the beginning.

When marketing and selling an EdTech or tech product or service, it is important to ask two questions to understand your buyers.

1. What motivates people to buy your tech product or service?

2. How do people find a tech product or service to buy?

These findings suggest businesses need to create customer-centric offerings to survive in a competitive marketplace. Answering these questions will help businesses develop, create, and, position offerings people want to purchase.

Why & How People Buy In General

When marketing and selling a product or service, it is important to ask two questions to understand your buyers.

1. What motivates people to buy a product or service?

2. How do people find a product or service to buy?

1. What motivates people to buy a product or service?

People buy a product or service for many reasons.

2. How do people find a product or service to buy?

People find and buy products or services in different ways.

These findings suggest businesses need to create customer-centric offerings to survive in a competitive marketplace.

Answering these questions will help businesses develop, create, and, position offerings people want to purchase.

Additional places to find my content and blog

WordPress: http://dangalante.me/

Tumblr: http://www.askdangalante.com/

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/today/author/DanGalante

Medium https://medium.com/@DanGalante

YouTube https://www.youtube.com/trendsettingsm

Anchor https://anchor.fm/dangalante

About Me

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:

Tractica in the News

The Future of AI

https://medium.com/@DanGalante/the-future-of-ai-insights-from-the-ai-summit-ab6267eca70b

Digital Marketing World Forum

https://www.digitalmarketing-conference.com/key-insights-from-digital-marketing-world-forum-north-america/

Voice Summit

Compilation: Our Favorite Post-VOICE Coverage So Far

https://www.voicesummit.ai/blog/compilation-our-favorite-post-voice-coverage

Engage Bay

7 Steps to Align your Marketing Automation Strategy

https://www.engagebay.com/blog/marketing-automation-strategy/

Relay 42

The Role of Technology in Customer-Centricity

https://relay42.com/resources/blog/the-role-of-technology-in-customer-centricity

Databox

How to Improve Marketing and Sales Alignment (Gave background)

https://databox.com/how-to-improve-sales-marketing-alignment

Onalytica

Named as a Top STEM Influencer for EdTech and Education Industry Insights.

http://www.onalytica.com/blog/posts/stem-top-influencers-brands-publications/

The Arizona Republic

http://yourbusiness.azcentral.com/handle-top-10-sme-sales-objections-24845.html

Twitter Ads Blog

https://blog.twitter.com/2014/how-smartphone-users-engage-on-twitter-three-key-findings

Paper.li’s Wall Of Fame via Scoop.it

http://www.scoop.it/t/all-things-paper-li/?tag=Dan+Galante

I’ve been honored for my Social Profiles

•LinkedIn SSI Score in the Top 1%

•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

A LinkedIn profile is a great opportunity to showcase who you are and what you can do for others. To effectively showcase yourself with your LinkedIn profile, you need to be able to tell a story that is credible and engaging. How do you tell a story on LinkedIn with your profile? There are 8 steps you need to take to optimize your profile for storytelling.

1. Creating a Great Headline

A headline is equivalent to the title of a book, essay, or story. The headline should be engaging. Like a story, the reader decides if they want to read more or move on. Using the automatic headline that lists your job title is a mistake. It is boring and makes you just like everyone else. It demonstrates that you lack creativity.

Your headline should be a short introduction showing how you help others in your current role. This is key if you are happily employed or if you are looking to advance in your current field. If you are looking to change careers, the title should demonstrate how you can take the skills and insights that you have developed and apply them to the career that you aspire to obtain. In other words, the headline should be able to answer the question “What are you looking to do or what do you want in your next role?” 

2 Uploading a Photo

LinkedIn profiles include large amounts of text. Similar to a story, text alone is not visually appealing. This is where a photo can help. When you upload a photo to your LinkedIn profile, your profile comes to life; similar to cover art on the front cover of an autobiography. Remember your profile is your story and brief career autobiography.

When you chose a picture, make sure that it is clear and makes you look professional.

3. Recording an introduction

LinkedIn also lets you record a 30-second introduction to your audience.

4. Crafting and Creating a Summary/Presentation

Your summary should reflect and expand on the headline. This is the place where you provide a brief overview that supports the headline, thesis, and title of your story. Your summary is a place to introduce yourself to your audience. It is important to keep your audience in mind. Put yourself in the place of the reader. Would you want to read your profile if the roles were reversed?

Once you introduce yourself, tell your story. Explain your background, where you are today, and where you want to be in the future. Make sure to include how your current skill set and experience have helped others and how these skills can be applied to a new role. When you list your work experience, make sure to back up your headline and summary. Think of this as your body paragraphs.

You can also share links to a digital portfolio, website, or whatever boosts your profile appearance.

5. Describing your work experience

As I mentioned above, the work experience section of your profile is the body paragraphs of your essay and story. It should be listed in chronological order. Each position that you describe should have specific examples of how you helped others in the role. LinkedIn also allows users to upload presentations and videos of their work. This can serve as a digital portfolio of your work that people can view. The next thing that I would do is obtain recommendations. You can also share your presentations from Slideshare on LinkedIn as well.

6. Obtaining Recommendations and Endorsements

A LinkedIn recommendation serves as proof that you have done excellent work in your position. These recommendations should be from coworkers, supervisors, and customers that you have served. They should serve as the conclusion to your story and essay where your claims are verified and validated. Recommendations should not be given away freely; doing that will undermine your credibility.

Endorsements are a quick way for someone to say that you are good at a particular skill without needing to write a recommendation. LinkedIn allows users to list up to 50 skills that connections can endorse.

7. Open to Work/Open to Hire

LinkedIn allows users to share if they are open to working or looking to hire. This is a nice addition to their job seeker and job posting experience. I am currently looking for work. 

As you can see, LinkedIn allows you to list 5 job titles along with your desired work type location, etc. While I chose to make my job search public, LinkedIn allows users to make their open-to-work status visible to only recruiters to protect the anonymity of job seekers. 

Recruiters and hiring managers can also share that they are hiring for roles by using the Open to Hire frame. 

8. Creator Mode

LinkedIn allows you to display 5 topics on your LinkedIn profile to show potential followers when you turn on creator mode. Creator mode also allows you to reach your audience in new ways with tools such as LinkedIn Live, Audio Event, Newsletters, and follow on LinkedIn.

Putting it all Together

Using these 8 steps will allow you to create a LinkedIn profile that can help you tell a credible and engaging story to potential customers and employers.

How have you used your LinkedIn profile to tell your story?

Share your thoughts.

Additional places to find my content and blog

WordPress: https://dangalante.me/

Tumblr: http://www.askdangalante.com/

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/today/author/DanGalante

Medium https://medium.com/@DanGalante

YouTube https://www.youtube.com/trendsettingsm

Anchor https://anchor.fm/dangalante

About Me

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.

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.

Open on title, industry, company, location, and level. Reach out on LinkedIn or at dan@dangalante.com to start a conversation.

Buyers have different wants and needs.

When marketing and selling a product or service, it is important to ask two questions to understand your buyers.

1. What motivates people to buy a product or service?

2. How do people find a product or service to buy?

I surveyed my LinkedIn audience for answers.

1. What motivates people to buy a product or service?

People buy a product or service to: solve a problem, meet a need, or fulfill a want or desire. 49% buy products and services to solve a problem, meet a need, or fulfill a desire. 27% wanted to solve a problem, 16 % want to meet a need, and 8% wanted to fulfill a want or desire.

2. How do people find a product or service to buy?

Buyers find and buy products or services through word of mouth, social media, online search, and,/or product reviews. Of those surveyed, none said they found or bought products from seller calls or emails. No one found or bought products at trade shows or events; this is probably because of the pandemic.

63 % found or bought products from social channels or word of mouth, and 37% found or bought products or services from online searches or product reviews.

These findings suggest businesses need to create products and services that are customer-centric. Businesses need a great reputation to survive in a competitive marketplace.

Answering these questions will help businesses develop, create, and, position products and services customers want to buy.

There are four major types of buying cycles. Business to Business, Business to Consumer Business to Government, and Direct to Consumer.  It is important to know the difference because it is tempting to think one size fits all especially when certain products like computers and tech are sold to all of these verticals.

How are they different?

B2B vs B2C

To start, the buyer is different. In B2B, buyers work at companies. They usually have a big budget to make purchases but there are multiple decision-makers and stakeholders. Sales cycles are longer and buy-in is needed by a variety of stakeholders, not just the end-user. Products cost more in many cases than B2C.  An example of this is the purchasing of SAAS.

In B2C the buyer is purchasing products for their home and recreation. There are fewer stakeholders and shorter sales cycles but their budgets are smaller than B2B in many cases. An example of this is buying consumer electronics.

Some products overlap between the two verticals in e-commerce models; the difference is the sales cycle length and how products are acquired. Buyer needs and pain points differ between B2B and B2C.

I surveyed my audience on LinkedIn; asking them how B2B and B2C products differ from one another. 82 % said that they differed in who the buyer is, the sales cycle, pricing, buyer needs, and pain points.

B2C VS D2C

I surveyed my audience on LinkedIn about the differences between B2C and D2C products. 64% of those surveyed said that B2C and D2C products differ by buyer pain points needs who the buyer is sales cycle, pricing, and who the buyer is. 27% said these products differed on sales cycle and pricing. Only 9% said that these products differed in terms of the buyer. However, there are similarities between B2C and D2C products. These products are purchased in the home in many cases and the sales cycle is shorter than B2B or B2G. They fall into the category of consumer goods. B2C and B2C are overlapping through e-commerce and subscription business models.

B2B VS B2G

When I asked my audience about the difference between B2B and B2G products. 67% of those surveyed said that the products differed by buyer needs, pain points, sale cycles, pricing, rules, regulation, and who the buyer is. 33% said these products differed by sales cycle, price, regulations. When selling products to governments, it is important to understand the regulations and processes that must be followed. There is some of this in B2B but B2G has a lot more.

What are the differences between B2B, B2C, B2G, and D2C?

How are they similar?

Share your thoughts in the comments.