Dan Galante

I asked my LinkedIn audience If the Sales and Marketing function 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.

Marketing also serves as an Enablement for Sales Teams, Customer Success, support, and even employer branding. Many companies have created a dedicated enablement function. Companies sit employer branding and Recruitment Marketing in HR. However, there are still a lot of companies without dedicated enablement and employer branding functions.

Everyone looks to the marketing department. The lines between product, marketing, sales, and customer success are blurring. Marketers need to be able to serve different parts of the organization.

Marketers do traditional work of branding, advertising, market research, content creation, and enablement, but these tasks support the larger goal of increased Sales and Revenue. Marketers impact Sales by filling up the Sales pipeline, pre, and post-sale. In the end, Marketers need to make a business case to justify their existence.

Why do People use Marketing?

People use Marketing for different reasons and they have different sets of challenges concerning the Marketing they do. I conducted two surveys of my LinkedIn audience.

I asked the following:

1. What do you hope to gain from your marketing efforts?

Based on the survey, most people want the marketing mix of brand awareness, leads, sales, and revenue in exchange for their marketing efforts.

2. What is your biggest marketing challenge? Why?

Based on survey findings, 56 percent of people use Marketing for a mix of brand awareness, lead generation, and revenue. In terms of Marketing challenges, 70 percent said that Content Marketing was the biggest.

What should be the main priorities of Marketers? What do you hope to gain from your marketing? What is your biggest marketing challenge?

Share your thoughts.

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.

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.

Building relationships with customers and closing deals is critical for sales success. In business, customer acquisition and customer retention are crucial to generating revenue. It is cheaper to keep existing customers than to acquire new ones.

Once a sale is made, it is tempting for sales reps to move on to the next customer.

However, the sale is not complete when the customer signs the contract. Customers should pay their invoices on time to ensure the business has enough cash to operate and potentially turn a profit.

What on time means is dependent on a company payment policy. Customers can have payment terms raining from C.O.D, net 30, net 60, net 90, net 120, or longer. Some cycles can run for a year or longer. Certain companies offer financing options. Payment structures are structured based on the length of the sales cycle.

How can we make sure customers pay their invoices on time?

Here are six ways to keep customers and get them to pay their invoices on time.

1. Build and nurture customer relationships.
2. When the sale is complete, put all details in writing.
3. Follow through with the implementation product or service post-sale.
4. Check-in with your customer to make sure they are happy with their purchase. This can present an opportunity for upselling, cross-selling, repeat business, referrals, and testimonials.
5. If the customer voices concerns or has an issue with a product or service, address it immediately.
6. Make sure to honor any promises and warranties extended during the sales cycle.

If you follow these steps, you will get most customers to pay their invoices on time.

What do I do if a customer will not pay their invoice?

In large organizations, the accounts receivable manager will handle the customer by sending past-due notices and charging penalties. However, if Sales Reps work for a small company as I did, this will be the Sales Rep’s responsibility. Ideally, the Sales Rep should be able to handle customer issues because they have a relationship with the customer.

Sales Reps should call and  visit the customer. During the visit, Sales Reps need to try to solve the issue. Be polite. Never raise your voice or swear at a customer. The goal is to get paid while keeping the customer whenever.

As a result of implementing the strategies above, my receivables (open invoices) were the lowest in the company! This allowed me to earn more commissions, make more sales and develop great relationships with my customers.

It is important to note that Sales and Service across acquisition and retention are subdivided in larger organizations.

How have you improved customer retention and gotten your customers to pay on time?

Please share your thoughts with me.

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, 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.

I’m seeking a full-time role in

Inbound Marketing, Digital Marketing, Content Marketing, Product Marketing, Competitive Intelligence, Demand Generation, Social Media Marketing,

Sales Enablement, Enablement, Sales, Account Management, Customer Success, Sales Strategy, Marketing Strategy, Employer Branding, and Recruitment Marketing.

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

I covered the Digital Summit Series in New York City this past Wednesday and Thursday. The Digital Summit Series provides attendees with comprehensive workshops on Digital Marketing that are conducted by speakers from leading brands along with industry through leaders. Topics ranged from Content, Email,Search, Mobile, UX Design, Social and Strategy. Attendees were also able to network with other attendees. I learned so much over these two days. Here are some of the highlights.

Stacy Minero delivered the keynote on Day One of Digital Summit entitled the Craft of Content in which she show how Brands can make an impact using Content.

1.Key takeaways were that Consumers want Brands to talk with them and not at them.

2. Consumers want Brands to take a stance on Social Issues.

3. Consumers expect Brands to solve social problems.

4. 89% of Content is not noticed at all

5. 40% of Consumers are more likely to respond to brands who respond to them

6. The old world started with Storyboards and TV now The new world starts with the customer and canvas.

7. Examples of Brands Creating Great Content include Heinz with the #MayoChup campaign and HBO with with its promotion of the digital streaming of Sopranos.

8. Before posting content Brands need to ask if the content they create is memorable or meaningful.

The keynote gave me a lot to think about.

Seth Godin gave the keynote entitled This is Marketing on Day two. In the keynote Seth covered many great points on Marketing from his book This is Marketing.

1. Marketers make change Happen.
2. Pick Yourself.
3. Tell a story that resonates with the people you seek to serve.
4. Pick the Smallest Most Viable Audience or Most Viable Market
5. Marketing is not advertising anymore
6. Television is about Mass Marketing and the Internet is a micro-medium

Seth also had an interactive Q & A session. He had a Poke the Box style Mic with the caption Catch the box; which he randomly tossed in the audience prompting them to to ask questions.

I really enjoyed the talk.

Other sessions that I enjoyed were on the topics of improving: Email Marketing, Marketing Workflow, B2B Marketing and Video Marketing. Pictures of these slides will be posted to Instagram.

If you want to attend in your city, click here for more information.

Did you attend Digital Summit? What are your thoughts?

Comment below.

Bonus Content