Quiver & Quill

A RSS reader is a sales person’s secret weapon. This blog post explains what an RSS reader is and how it will enhance your sales process. The RSS reader makes it easier to gain market and competitive insights and become a resource to your clients.

Step 1 - How RSS works.
This 3:44 minute video explains the basics.

Step 2 - Select your Reader.
I recommend Bloglines for salespeople. I created a “How to use Bloglines” guide here:

How to Use Bloglines

View SlideShare presentation or Upload your own. (tags: guide bloglines)

Step 3 - Get Great Content.
Visit Alltop to find niche blogs. Subscribe directly to newspapers and websites you frequently visit.

Step 4 - Customize your Content.
Go to Google News, enter a search term and click “Search News”. Use your reader to subscribe to that search term to receive constant updates sent directly to your reader.

Step 5 - Get Newsletters.
Bloglines will give you your own email address to use when signing up for newsletters. You can sign up for your competitors’ newsletters too.

Step 6 - Folder like a Pro.
Group your feeds together in folders named for how you will use the information. For example, call one folder, “Read to understand
my market,” and another folder, “Read to prepare for a sales meeting”.

Step 7 - Build a sales resource library.
Clip and save your articles to folders. Name each folder according to step 6. When you are preparing for a sales meeting, use your clippings to provide value to your clients.

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I recently ate breakfast at one of my favorite spots called “The Neighborhood.” They serve excellent Portuguese food widely adored by the 20-something crowd in Boston, and especially loved by Yelpers. As I was waiting in line, I noticed they had a white erase board with a special note to their Yelping customers. This was the first time I have seen a restaurant “talk back,” to their customers reviews in this way. It sparked a few ideas that I would like to share with you. If I owned a restaurant, here a 20 things I would consider doing to recognize and attract Yelpers.

1. Respond publicly to feedback on Yelp with a non-defensive and appreciative attitude.
2. Send a positive reviewer a private message thanking them.
3. Send a positive reviewer a coupon for a future dining occasion.
4. Invite a negative reviewer back to the restaurant for a VIP dinner on the house.
5. Invite a negative reviewer to tell you how you can improve the dining experience.
6. Respond to a review on your restaurant’s blog.
7. Make a big deal of a positive Yelp review. Frame it and take a picture with the Yelper and hang it in your restaurant.
8. Create special, “no-wait” tables in the restaurant for Yelp reviewers that have cool benefits.
9. Gather your Yelp reviewers to a private wine tasting or to sample new menu ideas.
10. Name dishes after Yelp reviewers.
11. Ask positive reviewers what they ate, post pictures of the dish on Yelp and reference the reviewer.
12. Make an offer to the friends of positive reviewers. If they print out their friend’s positive reviews and bring them to the restaurant, they receive a discount.
13. Have a Yelp-only happy hour for happy Yelp reviewers.
14. Create a menu item that you can only order if you have reviewed the restaurant on Yelp.
15. Conduct a focus group dinner for negative reviewers.
16. Indicate on your menu, “Yelp reviewed,” or  “Yelpers loved this.”
17. Post a blog entry that lists all the points in a negative review and how they were responded to.
18. Invite negative Yelpers to provide their feedback during a staff training session.
19. Offer free valet parking to positive Yelp reviewers (or unlimited drink refills).
20. Offer a discount when two Yelp reviewers come together.

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Nokia is flying me, and 34 marketing and technology experts from around the globe, to join them in Helsinki over the next few days for the Nokia Open Lab.

They equipped us with their new e71 phone to review, encouraged us to share this experience on our blogs and social networks and have made every effort to ensure our comfort and spark our enthusiasm.

Here is our agenda over the next few days:

There are four workshop topics in total. Each will begin with an introduction by a facilitator who will talk a bit about the theme for that workshop and introduce the task. You will then be split into smaller groups to discuss the issues as set out below:

Workshop 1: Neighborhood
During this workshop you will be asked to outline your own online community involvement and social media history on a timeline. You will then get together to create a map/timeline of technologies and solutions for content creation in the future.

Workshop 2: Connected Life
During this workshop you will be asked to create future forecasts for geospatial solutions and technologies. The task will be to create such a forecast in three stages: very near futures, next 3-5 years and the more distant future.

Workshop 3: Entertainment
During this workshop you will try to identify which type of entertainment (e.g. music, gaming, movies etc) will have the most future potential. You will then be asked to create a business model focusing on how consumers will want to interact and pay for such an entertainment in the future.

Workshop 4: Work
During this workshop you will look at the communication technologies and solutions in use today and then try to come up with new uses and business models for one of those solutions.

I will share my notes and thoughts with you. Let me also say that I am extremely impressed with Nokia’s experiment for several reasons

1) When you invite experts who are deeply embedded into social communities, they are going to share their thoughts with those communities.
2) By inviting experts, paying for their travel and accommodations and making them feel like honored guests—they are circumventing any consulting fees these experts would otherwise charge their clients.
3) I can only imagine how much thinking and preparation was involved in bringing 35 people from all over the world together. It’s a very involved initiative, and I give them credit.
4) Nokia has made no effort to influence our opinion. In fact, quite the contrary, they have encouraged us to share our candid assessment.

Considering that on multiple occasions I was ready to toss my iPhone out of the window for dropping calls, not opening a browser properly or freezing, I am eager to find a replacement. And perhaps that will be the e71. Will keep you posted.

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I recently interviewed Beth Seabright, managing director of Tucker Arensberg, P.C., about her program to motivate young associates at her law firm to take business development initiatives. After you read this great article, check out how the program worked in a bit more depth by reading the below:

1.     Did you provide your team with additional resources to point them in the right direction. For example, did you create a list of possible speaking engagements for them to attend, or were they expected to research this on their own? 

I did provide additional resources for them.  I suggested publications for articles, speaking engagements, networking events and occasionally set up lunches with my contacts that I wanted my attorneys to get to know.   I coached them through phone calls when they were reaching out to contacts for the first time and walked them through various business development scenarios.  I helped the Associates to get to their goal in any way that I could.

2.    Did you post people’s point score continuously and publicly?

I sent out the results every two weeks to our Associates and occasionally included our Managing Shareholder.  

3. Did that create a competitive or a collaborative environment?

I would say more motivating than competitive.  A few Associates that were not making the time for the program initially saw that other Associates were making progress toward the goal and were inspired to meet with me to put together a plan to catch up with their colleagues.

4. What was the logic behind assigning which point values to which activities?

The more difficult the task, the higher the point value.  I made a list of all of the activities included in the program and ranked them from simple to challenging.  For instance, meetings with me: easy - Associates received 2 points/meeting.  New clients were worth 10 points.

5. And lastly, have you been able to correlate a dollar amount to the biz dev challenge–ROI?

To be honest, I did not go back and correlate dollar values to the challenge, simply because a lot of the value in the program was planting the business developing seeds with the Associates.  While our more senior associates brought in new matters and clients, which I could easily correlate with a dollar value, our younger associates were setting up meetings and writing articles for the first time, activities that were not going to create instant new business.

Quiver&Quill commentary: If I ran a business development program for a law firm, I would use a similar framework to motivate my young associates. Here’s how it would work:

The process starts by answering one of two questions:

• What, that our business prospects care about, could we help them better understand?
• What, that our business prospects are doing, could we help them do better?

The next step — turn the young associate into a resource.

Incent them to attend lectures, visit social networks, read niche publications and develop a personal interest in the areas that matter to prospects. Finally, place them into situations like conferences and events where they can help prospects and demonstrate their resourcefulness.

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