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Inquisix on the Business Insanity Radio Show

18 May

barrymoltz

Barry Moltz has a radio show where he will, “… talk about all the craziness of small business.” Last week’s theme was sales & marketing networking thru social media and he invited me to talk with him. You can listen to my portion of the show below.

[audio:https://michaelkreppein.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/05/barrymoltz1.jpgwp-content/uploads/2009/05/barrymoltzinquisixinterviewmay2009.mp3%5D

Barry had a few guests on his show along with me, including Alyssa Dver from my last post.  His show was also the inspiration for my post on why the cold calling process is like, “putting lipstick on a pig” which generated quite a few comments. If you’d like to listen to the whole 30 minute talk, go to Barry’s website here and listen to episode #40. You’ll find a wealth of information on his site so enjoy.

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Improve Your Message Before You Call

7 May

Since I have that fancy letter “C” as the first letter in my title as Chief Sales Officer, I get quite a number of cold calls.  Of course it just makes me cringe to be called by someone who hasn’t even spent a minute looking at our business and developing a message about their solution that I’d care about.  But I do enjoy critiquing in my mind their pitch.

Some would like to rename cold calling.  I recently heard it called “introductory calling” in an interview done on Barry Moltz’s talk radio show.  I don’t know, seems analogous to putting lipstick on a pig.

lipstickpig

Instead of just renaming the term, Nigel Edelshain of Sales 2.0 has written a 24-page ebook on turning cold calls into social calls.  He reviews the new Sales 2.0 techniques and tools to “…help you with the three most critical factors: talking to the right people, establishing relationships and using changes in your buyer’s environment.”

You can download Nigel’s book for free here.  Adding his blog to your RSS reader is also well worth it.

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Minding Your Money Interview with Inquisix

25 Mar

Tom Cafarella, Inquisix member, owner of accounting firm CMB Accounting and host of “Minding Your Money” on TV, interviewed Michael Kreppein of Inquisix recently. Tom and Michael spoke about the challenges facing small businesses, specifically how they can find new business.

http://www.viddler.com/simple/59f0d3df/

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White Paper Available – Inquisix Referral Networking

4 Mar

Whether you’re a front-line sales rep hunting for new business, a consultant delivering solutions, or small business owner communicating with customers, board members and employees, it’s all about selling: selling to win new business or selling to retain customers in an increasingly competitive marketplace. So what’s the deal with the buzz around emerging Sales 2.0 solutions? Which approaches are best able to fill the pipeline? How can you integrate informal networking with the latest technologies?

This White Paper by Michael Kreppein, Inquisix’s Chief Sales Officer, explores the value of referral networking by using Inquisix to combine your in-person with your online networking.

Please download the White Paper in pdf format by clicking the link below.

InquisixWP
Inquisix White Paper on Referral Networking

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How To Integrate Your Online Networking with In-Person Events for Best Results

27 Feb

We had a great turnout to Friday Feb 20th’s Executive Club of Boston event hosted on BlitzTime. I was invited to talk on integrating your online networking with your in-person networking efforts.  While the audience on the 20th couldn’t see the attached presentation, it’s what I used to prompt me during my speech.

[flashvideo file=”wp-content/uploads/2009/02/inquisixonblitztimeflash.swf” /]

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Inquisix Presentation and Networking Event – Fri Feb 20th

5 Feb

Brent Trethewey of the Executive Club of Boston has invited me to speak on Friday February 20th at 8.00am ET to his group. The topic of the discussion is “How To Integrate Your Online Networking with In-Person Events for Best Results”

Come join us by phone!

speed-networking

Brent is a member of Inquisix and runs a “speed” networking event every Friday. The concept is pretty cool, I’ve attended a bunch of his meetings. Instead of meeting face-to-face every Friday, he’s using a technology from BlitzTime that allows participants to connect via phone with up to 6 other executives, all in 45 minutes. Each week, Brent invites an expert to talk and then the participants get connected with each other to talk for 6 minutes. After your 6 minutes is up, you are connected with another participant. Hence, the “speed” in his networking.

So please come join us! It’s best to be online while on the phone.

At the moment, there’s only a US-based number to call into. I’m talking to the BlizTime founders to add a European number so our Inquisix members there can join us for the next event.

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The Highly Engaged Referral Survey

3 Feb

John Jantsch of Duct Tape Marketing has a blog post today regarding the Highly Engaged Referral and the level of participation the person getting referred to is in the referral process. Obviously the higher the participation, the better the referral!

survey

John is asking people to take a quick 5 question survey on referrals. Why not respond?

PS - thanks to wickedphobica for the picture

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Good Cold Calling Leads to Referrals

22 Jan

I’m a big fan of reading Geoffrey James’ blog, Sales Machine.  He gets to be edgier and more controversial than his articles in Selling Power magazine.

He posted a great letter from one of his readers on the value of cold calling.  The real value in cold calling is disqualifying prospects, much like panning thru dirt to find diamonds.  I’ve posted on the value of cold calling in a previous Inquisix post.

The commenter’s conclusion on the value of cold calling?

coldcallingreferral

Same as what I said; the benefit of cold calling is….referrals!

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Creating a Referral Machine

7 Jan

John Jantsch has a great blog post about creating a systematic process for creating referrals that everyone in the company should be using.

You can find the link here.  I don’t see anything dramatically unique in his steps but they’re all important and it’s surprising how many people forget some of the steps.  Of course his big reminder is to “make giving referrals a business strategy…best way to get is to give.”

He closes with “…everybody’s in marketing…” to which I’d reply, “…everybody’s in sales!”

Happy Referring!

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Top Inquisix Posts of 2008

25 Dec

Happy Holidays and Happy New Year to all. As the end of 2008 rapidly approaches, the Inquisix team hopes you are all enjoying the holidays with your family and friends. If you’re thinking of prepping early for 2009, here’s some of our most popular articles from 2008.

Why Cold Calling Doesn’t Work:

Cold Calling From the Buyer’s perspective:

Generating Referrals:

Pay or Play for Referrals/Reputation:

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