It’s not every day that you get to work alongside a real life saving hero, but thanks to one of our brave employees, here at FirstRain it has now become a daily occurrence. We are extremely proud of Aaron Shiansky, one of our Sales Engineers, who was honored on Monday by San Francisco mayor Ed Lee. On January 19, Aaron jumped into the San Francisco Bay to save a tourist who fell off the pier.
The woman, a professor from Taiwan, was taking pictures when she tripped and fell into the water. Aaron’s lifeguard training (and bravery!) came in handy: he, along with two other good samaritans, jumped in and saved the woman’s life. After remaining in the hospital in a coma for a few days, the woman is thankfully now recovering in Taiwan. She and her family have said that Aaron will always have a place to stay in Taiwan.
The original story of Aaron’s heroics is here: “Good Samaritan Describes Rescue after Tourist Falls in SF Bay”. And coverage of the award ceremony here: “Men Honored for Rescuing Woman in SF Bay”
Great job, Aaron!
This article by Penny Herscher was posted this morning on the salesforce.com blog. See the original here.
A recent David Williams Forbes article, Why You Should Fill Your Company With Athletes, highlighted seven traits to look for when hiring. David didn’t mean that you should hire only real athletes, but rather, try to hire employees that have “athlete traits that make any individual an exceptional hire.” With the winter games off to an exciting start, and many of our own fiscal years starting up, sales teams are looking to be fast out of the gate. There are many lessons sales teams learn from the best winter athletes in the world.
What traits do athletes have that can translate to sales? Quite a few, actually. Athletes, especially Olympic-caliber ones, are very driven. They know that they have to put in the work at practice to see results in the games—and sometimes that means practices every day, or twice a day. Moreover, they have a never-say-die attitude, and they know how to work through adversity to see results. Managers should try to find salespeople who put in the time and work to prepare for client meetings. Chances are, they’ll be more successful.
The best athletes focus on the smallest aspects of their sport. They know, for instance, that anything that isn’t streamlined during the ski jump can subtract precious tenths of a meter. They have impeccable timing, whether it’s changing positions mid-air, or releasing the puck. And world-class curlers know exactly how much force to put behind the stone. Salespeople have to show the same attention to detail in their accounts. To be truly successful, they should strive to be intimately acquainted with every aspect of their accounts. The smallest event, or hint of an emerging trend, can be the key to making or losing the sale.
Lastly, the best athletes have the best equipment available. In fact, they need the top-of-the-line gear so they don’t fall behind their competition. Even if one person is an inherently better athlete than another, a slight edge in aerodynamics can mean the difference between the gold medal and 10th place.
Of course, the same is true in sales. How can you expect your salespeople to be the best and achieve world-class results if you don’t equip them with good tools—or any tools at all? In order to succeed, they need to be able to have a deep view of their clients’ business and markets. They need to be given the opportunity to react to a management change, or a market shift, and if they have to sift through all of the noise that’s on the Web, there’s a good chance they’ll miss it, or never get to it at all.
As a hiring manager, you need to look for salespeople who are driven and dedicated, but are also creative, detail-oriented, and have finesse. Once you’ve assembled your team, you have a responsibility as a manager to give them the tools they need to be successful. The right people will use the right tools wisely and move the needle for your business.
What can each of the winter sports teach your sales team? Check out the infographic below to find out!
Yesterday, FirstRain CEO Penny Herscher was part of a panel discussion at the Ark Women Legal Forum in San Francisco. Speaking to a room of about 100 women, she and her co-panelists, Patricia Gillette, Partner, Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe LLP (moderator); Kathi Lutton, Partner, Fish and Richardson; and Pamela Fulmer, Partner, Novak Druce Connolly Bove + Quigg LLP discussed how women are helping other women by forming “stiletto networks”—all-female groups to support each other professionally in a more safe and unthreatening environment.
The panel agreed that the most effective aspect of stiletto networks is that they are truly helpful to the women involved. They’re not a place to vent or complain; women come up with a concrete action plan and challenge each other intellectually as they navigate being leaders in the male-dominated fields of both Law and Tech. As Kathi stated at one point, “We interact with the world differently, and that’s OK. And it’s good to have a network of people to think through it.”
As Penny highlighted, it’s precisely for this reason that FirstRain has made a concerted effort to have a diverse leadership team: when you assemble a group of people with differing opinions and experiences, you end up being much more creative as a group—and more effective. As stiletto networks grow and empower the women involved, everyone—including businesses—benefits.
All of the panel discussion really boiled down to one idea, whether it’s women helping women or women interacting with men. Patricia said it perfectly—that empowering women is “about relationships—baby steps, and building relationships. It’s not going to happen overnight. You have to be in it for the long haul.”
Is your email marketing game up to par in today’s mobile-oriented landscape? For B2B enterprises, email is generally still the preferred means of communication. You use it to maintain contact with current clients, nurture potential leads and identify sales opportunities. As mobile phones take off, email is more important than ever before. However, if you’re not taking mobile devices into account when you create email campaigns, you may be losing your audience.
If your routine is like that of many professionals, you are probably attached to your phone. You check your email while on the subway, waiting in line for coffee and maybe even on your lunch break. Now think about what happens when you get an email that isn’t mobile friendly, or click a link that just never loads. You probably move on from that message pretty quickly and never look back. Once you start looking at it from your customer’s perspective, it quickly becomes clear that you need to think in terms of mobile.
The first thing you should do is switch to a campaign platform that automatically does mobile optimization, or create your own responsive design. This means the email will open with its format intact and won’t require too much maneuvering on the part of the viewer. Now it’s time to start writing.
Subject Line
If you thought subject line space was at a premium before, this is a whole new ballgame. Doing research using customer analytics could help you determine the key buzzwords for your customer’s industry. But use them wisely. According to email marketing platform Constant Contact, you only have about 30 characters. Creating a decent subject line with such limited space is a challenge. One thing to keep in mind is that you should try to come up with a line that actually reflects the content of the email. Think of it as the world’s shortest elevator pitch. Sometimes, posing a question is another good way to get users to open your message.
Snippet Text
Nope, you’re not done yet. Most email providers show a preview of the email after the subject line. Just like the subject line, it shows up immediately. This is prime real estate, so use it to provide consumers with another incentive to open the message. According to digital marketing expert DJ Waldow for Entrepreneur, you need to make sure the first line is something important. It could even be a good spot for a call to action.
Generating email messages that are easy for your customers to read will help you keep them engaged, giving you the opportunity to improve sales productivity.
We’re excited to announce that Penny has been invited to speak at the Ark Group Women Legal Forum on Wednesday, Feb. 5. The Women Legal Forum is advancing the increasingly important dialogue on gender diversity in the legal profession, while illustrating the business imperative for the retention and succession of female leadership.
Penny will take part in a panel discussion around the themes of the book Stiletto Network: Inside the Women’s Power Circles That Are Changing the Face of Business. The panel will focus on shedding light and sharing insight on models used in business that the legal profession can learn from and adopt.
For more information on the Ark Group Women Legal Forum and to see a complete list of speakers, please visit http://usa.ark-group.com/events-details.aspx?eid=142.
Congratulations to Kathy from CH2M Hill, the winner of a brand-new Fitbit Force! Kathy won her Fitbit by attending our January 22 webinar, How Personalized Business Analytics Transform Your Business.
Didn’t get a chance to attend the webinar? Don’t worry; we have another one coming up on Feb. 13. Stay tuned for details and the registration link.
D&B’s Business Information Products Now Powered by FirstRain’s Advanced Analytics; Customers in Any Market Can Immediately Maximize Sales Opportunities
SHORT HILLS, N.J. & SAN MATEO, Calif.–(BUSINESS WIRE)– D&B (NYSE:DNB), the world’s leading source of commercial information and insight on businesses, and FirstRain, a leading provider of customer insights for the enterprise, today announced a partnership to deliver a ground-breaking solution combining structured and unstructured business data and analytics. The solution will provide a 360-degree view of a company that unifies relevant social content with D&B’s leading commercial content in a simple and seamless manner that is easy to use and integrate into business applications, in near real time.
“As we continuously look for opportunities to strengthen our position as the market leader in B2B data intelligence, finding and identifying solutions that solve unmet customer needs is crucial to our success,” said Laura Kelly, Chief Product Officer, D&B. “The relationship with FirstRain will enable our customers to receive up-to-the-minute insights on prospects, customers, competitors and key markets, especially in today’s social age where companies have immediate needs for deep insight. FirstRain’s company and industry social analytics combined with D&B’s world-class structured data gives customers advanced warning of sales and growth opportunities in their markets, when and where they need it.”
Under a long-term strategic agreement, FirstRain provides D&B with customer and market intelligence, which D&B delivers through its world class solutions. The agreement with Silicon Valley-based FirstRain, an emerging leader in big data analytics, builds on D&B’s commitment to investing in and providing its customers with breakthrough and innovative services.
Going far beyond traditional news feeds, FirstRain big data analytics on unstructured information, including social media conversations on Twitter and blogs, deliver highly relevant, real-time insights on companies, markets and competitors to sales and marketing teams. FirstRain users have a superior understanding of their customer’s businesses, uncovering greater opportunities and risks, and ultimately driving smarter business decisions and accelerating growth.
“The integration of FirstRain’s analytics with D&B’s sales and marketing intelligence will enhance D&B’s profiles, setting them apart from commoditized products in the market,” said Harry Henry, VP & Practice Leader at Outsell, Inc. “This partnership allows D&B to offer relevant new content, from a wide range of sources including social media, to millions of users across different industries.”
D&B users now have access to FirstRain’s first-level analytics integrated directly within the D&B solutions including Hoovers, D&B360, D&B Direct and First Research®. The combination of D&B data and insight on more than 230 million businesses, 100 million business executives and three million corporate family trees linked via the D&B DUNS® Number with FirstRain’s real- time insights on customers and markets sets the standard for business data analytics.
“Our partnership with D&B is a tremendous milestone for FirstRain,” said Penny Herscher, CEO of FirstRain. “D&B is the global leader in business information and we are excited to bring the powerful insights that FirstRain extracts through real-time unstructured data analytics to their customer base through this partnership.”
About Dun & Bradstreet (D&B)
Dun & Bradstreet (NYSE:DNB) is the world’s leading source of commercial information and insight on businesses, enabling companies to Decide with Confidence® for 172 years. D&B’s global commercial database contains more than 230 million business records. The database is enhanced by D&B’s proprietary DUNSRight® Quality Process, which provides our customers with quality business information. This quality information is the foundation of our global solutions that customers rely on to make critical business decisions.
D&B provides two solution sets that meet a diverse set of customer needs globally. Customers use D&B Risk Management Solutions™ to mitigate credit and supplier risk, increase cash flow and drive increased profitability; and D&B Sales & Marketing Solutions™ to provide data management capabilities that provide effective and cost efficient marketing solutions and to convert prospects into clients by enabling business professionals to research companies, executives and industries.
For more information, please visit www.dnb.com.
About FirstRain
FirstRain is a pioneer and leader in customer insights solutions for the enterprise. FirstRain’s cross-platform solutions provide sales, marketing and finance professionals with analytics tuned to their specific company strategy, allowing them to deeply understand their customer’s business and their markets. FirstRain’s patented, advanced analytics technology finds business-focused Web and social media and then integrates it seamlessly into the world’s premier CRM and social enterprise platforms, including Salesforce, Salesforce Chatter, Cisco WebEx Social, Microsoft SharePoint and Dynamics, Jive and Yammer. This intelligence is similarly incorporated into leading research platforms such as Fidelity.com, Interactive Data and Mergent. Based in San Mateo, California, FirstRain also has offices in New York and Gurgaon, India.
D&B:
Media
Wayne Roberts, 404-995-4533
wayne.roberts@porternovelli.com
or
Investors/Analysts
Roger Sachs, CFA, 973-921-5914
sachsr@dnb.com
or
For FirstRain:
Merrill Freund, 415-512-0770
firstrain@schwartzmsl.com
Source: D&B
Too often, salespeople get a bad rap. When the average person thinks of a sales rep, they imagine pushy, inconsiderate and generally insincere individuals who will do or say anything to close a deal. Popular culture only perpetuates these negative images. In movies like Wall Street and Glengarry Glen Ross, salesmen are depicted as ruthless, sociopathic and criminal.
However, it doesn’t have to be this way. Truly successful salespeople know that honesty and empathy are key to making great sales.
Understanding your customers
To be a great salesperson, you have to know where your customers are coming from. Use CRM intelligence to get a better handle on your potential buyer’s world; however, don’t use customer analytics to hurl data points at your prospects. Yes, it may communicate to them that you’ve done your homework, but it probably won’t help you make a sale. Use this information to truly understand what it is your customer needs. Then you can think about your role in helping them achieve it.
Empathize
Understanding your customer’s background is a little different than actually being in the room with him or her. Being keyed into your client’s emotional state can help you better guide the conversation. Emotional intelligence can be hard to learn, but there are some ways to practice. According to Natalie Grace for the Houston Chronicle, practicing self-awareness can help you to better understand the thoughts and feelings of others. When you can identify your own emotional triggers, you will become better at noticing them in others.
Be a good listener
Part of being an understanding salesperson is knowing when to stop talking. As S. Anthony Iannarino puts it on the Sales Blog, a huge part of emotional intelligence is the ability to listen. Salespeople often put a lot of effort into changing people’s minds. However, without really understanding why someone believes what they do, these efforts are going to be in vain.
Ask good questions
If a prospect has already decided they don’t want what you’re selling, they may not say what they’re thinking. A good salesperson knows how to ask the questions that will make prospects open up.
Know when to stop
Not every pitch will end in a sale. Some clients truly don’t need or want what you’re offering, at least right now. An empathetic salesperson will know the difference between hesitation and determination. For prospects that truly have no intention of buying, persistence can be a waste of time. Being too pushy will certainly not make you look good. End on a pleasant note–it’s possible you may hear from them again in the future.
Penny shared her insights into the changing relationships between CMOs and CIOs on The Economist‘s marketing blog, Lean Back. The post looks at how CMOs need CIOs more than ever as the marketing budget grows.
She writes, “Regardless of how much injustice CIOs feel, the success of their companies is increasingly reliant on their teams learning to align with CMO teams whose priorities—and very nature—are incredibly different from their own.”
Read the full blog post, “Why CMOs won’t lock CIOs out of the C-Suite,” here.
We are pleased to announce that Penny has been chosen to emcee the Anita Borg Institute’s Women of Vision awards banquet. The banquet honors women who make significant contributions to technology, and one company that has demonstrated measurable results in attracting, retaining and advancing women in technical roles at all levels. The banquet is attended by thousands of women technologists each year and will feature Hilary Mason, Data Scientist in Residence at Accel Partners and Scientist Emeritus at bitly.
Congrats to Penny!
You can see the full press release, published January 7, here.
