Today I’ve been at SheerLuxe Conference.  Some very impressive speakers and great insights at the level marketing directors and key decision makers function in.  My presentation is on SlideShare now.

If you’re interested in chatting with me further, don’t hesitate to contact via Twitter, LinkedIn, or via the BlueGlass Contact Us page.

I’ve discussed a few lessons learned from a specific international blogger outreach project I delivered on at this Linkdex ThinkTank.  These included learning that for this project persona development was an extravagant waste of time, writers need DEAD SIMPLE briefs, and acting as an enthusiast really helps with placement.

I had a lovely evening at Distilled Live, and learned a lot from the social presos in addition to sharing my tips and thoughts on how to improve organic visibility for local businesses.

I had a great time at The Content Marketing Show, there were some phenominal presentations.  I  think this event merged the digital marketing crowd and the content crowd in a way I haven’t seen at previous content events.  I assume this may be because the show was created by Kelvin Newman of Site Visibility, who created the hugely popular free SEO conference #BrightonSEO.

The topic sounds a bit bleak –  but I hope I did this fascinating topic justice!  I certainly mined a ton of research.

I had a great time at the popular weekend digital marketing conference #ThinkVis, always a pleasure to spend a Saturday in Leeds with other people who so keen on digital they want to spend a weekend learning about it.

On Friday I attended #BrightonSEO – it’s an amazing conference providing first rate SEO insights, put on by Kelvin Newman, the Creative Director of ThinkVisibility.  I was fortunate to be invited to speak, and my topic was about winning marketing directors over with SEO.  You can read my official blog post on how to pitch SEO to marketing directors or view my slideshare profile to see other presentations I’ve done.

If you have time, there is a great conference happening in London today.  It’s the Drapers Fashion 2012 Conference in Tower Hill.   Some of the highlights include:

• Essential strategies for growth abroad.
• Innovative ways to use social media to increase returns.
• Best practise to utilise mobiles to their full potential.

Arthur Miller, author of Death of a Salesman

I friend of mine actually is a salesman who travels the UK, and I asked him for some advice.  He is the antithesis of a “traveling salesman”; his hair isn’t greasy, you can’t see manipulative cogs turning in his head, and he’s friendly.  So if I’m going to emulate anyone in pushing sales, I’d like to be a bit like him.  He has given me the following advice.

Sales Books = Fluffy Bull Sh*t

Books can give you ideas and structure to your sales approach but ultimately the best sales people are born to do it.  If anyone could just learn to do it he argues successful sales people wouldn’t be so well paid.  That said, here are a few of those which he recommends:

What Every Body is Saying by Joe Navarro.  It’s a bit pop-culture / pop science but an easy read, take it on holiday.

Flipnosis – the Art of Split Second Persuasion by Kelvin Dutton.  Again, by no means an academic book but an interesting read for sure.

The New Strategic Selling by Miller Heiman, Sanchez & Tuleja.  More of a typical sales textbook.

Copy Cat = Successful Cat

The best way of learning is to watch what your most successful peers do and “borrow” from their best bits.  Don’t try and become them, that won’t work.  Adapt what you do based on what you’ve seen working for others and develop your style accordingly.

Personally, I have a sales friend who can charm the socks off any receptionist he rings and skip away with a direct line for just about anyone.  However, I can’t flirt like him, so I’ll try utilising my American charm.

Know Thy Product

The real secret is to know what you’re selling / your product so well you don’t have to think about it. Then you can focus your attention on your audience, what they’re doing, how they’re responding to you and each other. It’s all about the non-verbals.

Sales Karma

Lastly, believe in the “Sales Karma” for real.  I believe that if you help others to develop and grow, or just generally do someone a good turn you get repaid in Sales Karma (i.e. you do better yourself).

The lovely folks at digital content strategy agency Quad London have organised the Online Marketing Meetup today, Thursday at 7pm near Temple & Monument tube stations. Details for the event can be found here.

And I’m going to be presenting on the effect of tv advertising on organic search patterns.  It’s really interesting!  I know this because my mom said so when I practiced to her on Skype.

There are other fascinating presentations too by like likes of Richard Shove, and some other great peeps.  So do come along for drinks and discussion if you’re free, in London, and like online marketing.

About to ring an agency and tell them you’re interest in having them pitch to your business?  Be ready to answer these questions, so they can give you the best campaign.   A big thanx to my in-house friends who suggested these questions!

Questions a Digital Agency Always Asks a New Lead:

What’s your budget?  Please please please, don’t be a c*ck and tell them “I don’t know, show me what you can do”.  If you want to be all mysterious, you need to at least give a reasonable range like “£4000 – £6000 a month” or “£50K for the next business year.”  Without this, most agencies wont be interested in investing time pitching anyways.

Who are your current agencies?  To be honest, leads only answer this about 1/2 the time.  Some will even go further and email through some documents from their current agency, but this is less than 25% of the time.

Why are you looking for a new agency?  Was it because results weren’t good enough? Did an account manager frustrate your in-house team?  You may want to have a little internal brainstorm on how to answer this question, it will help your team arrive on the same page when selecting a new agency.

What is the purpose/goals/targets of your website?  Many in-house marketing teams don’t even agree on an answer to this question.  One person could say it’s to sell more products while another believes the purpose is to lure people to attend brick and mortar locations.  What’s important is that the decision maker’s answer is relayed to the agency, so they know what to focus on when drawing up a potential campaign.

What are your in house capabilities?  Agencies will take on as much work as possible because it means the most £ for them. Be clear with them on what can happen in-house, as this will help keep costs down as the pitch process evolves.  Answers like “we have 2 developers who we get to use 2 days a week” or “our PR company writes all our copy” make things clear for the agencies.

What would you add? Have you been asked any other good questions by agencies?  Looking forward to your opinion!