Timothy Riesterer's Blog, page 24

Insights-based Selling: Everyone’s Doing It…Or Are They?

The traditional approach to insights is becoming commoditized. Here’s how to break from the cycle of “true but useless” information.

Insights are everywhere—at least, that’s the impression in the market. According to a recent Corporate Visions survey, 81 percent of companies say they use an insights-based approach to selling.

But are they actually?

Selling with insights has won such an enthusiastic following so fast that its sheer popularity has outstripped the market’s ability to define it. This has led to various standards—some rigorous, others lax—about what it takes to qualify as an insights provider today.

But, regardless of how companies internally define what insights-based selling is, and regardless of the quality of insights they’re actually delivering, you can bet on this: The approach has been roundly embraced as a key element of provocative selling. In other words, insights, rigorously developed or not, are saturating the market.

What are you doing to make sure yours get noticed?

We’ve talked here and here about four different types of insights—and how not all of them are created equal. Some are simply better than others at revealing deficiencies or missed opportunities in a prospect’s current situation. Some are better than others at opening customers up to persuasion and activating buying intent.

In our survey, respondents deemed “anecdotal” insights (think in-house, tactical, best practices-focused content) to be the least effective in terms of achieving positive selling outcomes. Ironically, respondents said this insight type appeared most often in their campaigns and sales-facing content.

On the other hand, the survey revealed that so-called “visionary” insights, based on original, company-generated research and forward-looking market interpretations, were viewed as the most effective insight type, but were used the least of the four categories.

To be truly visionary, your insights-based message and content must be:

Original – Carry out primary research or market surveys to uncover market-related data. Ensure that they’re statistically relevant and sound.


Exclusive – Generate data points that are unique to you and that you can use as the foundation for developing counterintuitive insights about emerging trends in your market. You can then use insights, which you own, to carve out distinct positioning for your products.


Forward-looking – Develop a content-driven narrative on both sides of the lead handoff that asserts a distinct point of view—a perspective that shapes the conversation and leverages your findings to deliver unique interpretations of emerging issues, challenges and trends.

With insights so pervasive, the bar for qualifying as a credible insights provider is rising, and the traditional “insights” selling model of recycling third party analyst figures, re-packaging the findings and laying claim to the concepts is only going to commoditize your message—because your competitors all have access to the same information as you.

That approach doesn’t deliver insights. It delivers true but ultimately useless information. Well-thumbed analyst reports and established information won’t have the impact on more discerning prospects and customers, who are going to start demanding more rigor behind insights generation. As a result of this shift, companies are going to need to take more edgy, counterintuitive stands, supported by original, research-based rigor—otherwise, you may only be posing as an insights provider.

Corporate Visions Appoints Three New Veterans to Executive Team

PLEASANTON, Calif., Nov. 2, 2015 — Corporate Visions, Inc., the leading marketing and sales messaging, content and skills training company, today announced the appointment of Gloria Fan as CFO, Leo Hanna as EVP of international sales and Jennifer Zick as EVP of marketing. Fan will oversee finance, legal, HR, IT and administrative functions, while Hanna will lead all company sales activities, account management, and strategic reseller relationships across the EMEA and APAC regions. Zick will be responsible for the company’s brand, communications and business development teams and programs.

With more than 20 years of experience in providing financial, operational and business leadership to high technology companies, Fan has taken two companies public on the NASDAQ stock exchange and has deep expertise in M&A transactions. To complement Fan’s financial activities in the U.S., Hanna brings more than 20 years of sales and executive sales management experience in the enterprise software, cloud and professional services industries to Corporate Visions’ London office. Zick completes the trio of new hires to the organization’s executive team, adding more than 15 years of marketing experience with innovative, entrepreneurial and accelerated-growth companies.

“As a company, we’re deeply committed to helping our customers have more memorable and effective sales conversations to increase their bottom lines,” said Corporate Visions CEO Joe Terry. “At the same time, we’re also focused on increasing our global footprint to deliver our services to an even greater set of companies around the world. Gloria, Leo and Jennifer all bring a wealth of expertise to our executive team and I’m confident they will help us continue our strong growth by identifying new customers, partnerships and market opportunities.”

Fan most recently served as CFO at ClearEdge Power, Inc., where she led the sale of the company to Doosan, a $20 billion Korean organization. Prior to ClearEdge Power, she spent seven years in the solid-state lighting industry where she was CFO for both Pinecone Energies and Bridgelux. During that time, she raised more than $100 million from private placement and debt financing and participated in the strategic development of the companies. Previously, Fan spent seven years at UTStarcom as VP of finance and global business operations, where she led the company through its IPO, grew its revenue from $186 million to $4 billion a year and completed more than 10 M&A transactions. She earned a Master of Science degree from Purdue University and an M.B.A. from San Jose State University.

Before joining Corporate Visions, Hanna led Saba Corporation’s EMEA operations as GM and SVP for the region. Under his leadership, the company made the significant transition from a software licensing company to a cloud services provider. Prior to Saba Corporation, Hanna held senior sales and marketing leadership positions at Oracle, Symantec and Microsoft Corporation, with roles in the U.K subsidiary, EMEA and APAC leadership functions. Hanna earned a Bachelor of Science degree in mathematics and computing from Leicester De Montfort.

Zick was most recently the head of marketing for PwC’s Salesforce technology practice, representing the fastest-growing and third-largest Salesforce implementation partnership. Prior to joining PwC, she was a founding member of Magnet 360, where she was responsible for all facets of marketing strategy and execution. Under her leadership, marketing programs influenced more than 70 percent of Magnet 360’s net new revenue each year. Zick is currently a board advisor for the Minnesota chapter of the Business Marketing Association, where she previously served as president and VP of events and development. She earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in communications from the University of Minnesota.

New Corporate Visions Survey Finds B2B Companies Agree Sales Conversations Have Biggest Impact on Closed Deals, But Still Primarily Invest in Sales Processes Instead

Data Underscores How Sales Messaging Can Be More Valuable Than Technology, Tools or Processes in Helping Organizations Achieve More Profitable Growth

PLEASANTON, Calif., — Oct. 28, 2015 — Corporate Visions, Inc., the leading marketing and sales messaging, content and skills training company, today announced the results of a new survey focused on marketing and sales messages and tools. The survey, which polled more than 430 business-to-business (B2B) marketing and sales executives globally, uncovered that although companies invest the most time and budget on sales process- related activities, respondents instead identified messaging and sales conversations as being the most important factor for driving more profitable, closed deals.

“The results reveal a striking contradiction between what companies believe will drive the greatest value and where they are investing most of their time and money,” said Tim Riesterer, chief strategy and marketing officer at Corporate Visions. “While it’s important that salespeople know where to show up and how to structure an opportunity, it’s clear in this survey that companies know that what is more important is actually what they say when they get there.”

Here is a detailed look at the survey results:

Investment Priorities

The largest number of respondents (34 percent) ranked the sales process (making sure salespeople know what to do and how to do it when it comes to managing accounts and opportunities) as the area their company spends the most time and budget on, followed by:

Product training (reps are taught to know their solutions’ capabilities and features in a way that makes them an expert source) – 27 percent
Messaging and field conversations (ensuring reps know what to say and how to say it to differentiate and articulate value) – 26 percent
Automation technology (giving sellers the latest and greatest automation and selling-related technologies and tools) – 13 percent

Perceived Impact

The majority of respondents (61 percent) selected reps’ ability to deliver a distinct point of view that uniquely positions their solutions as the most important factor for successfully driving deals to a profitable close, followed by:

Having a great sales process in place and having it consistently followed – 19 percent
Equipping reps with the best enabling technology and tools to increase productivity – 9 percent
Making sure reps know the ins and outs of their entire product portfolio – 11 percent

When given two choices and asked to select the one that had the most impact on moving a prospect to action and closing profitable deals, the vast majority of respondents chose the non-technology or tools-related option. Responses were as follows:

Understanding the key metrics executive decision-makers use to run their business (94 percent) versus contract applications (6 percent)
Linking your prospect’s business initiatives to your business value (93 percent) versus RFP response tools (7 percent)
Sharing market insights (86 percent) versus gamification tools (14 percent)
Managing the tension in your sales negotiations to help you secure more value (89 percent) versus email automation tools (11 percent)
Contrasting a prospect’s status quo with a change scenario (82 percent) versus CRM systems (18 percent)
Sharing a distinct point of view (68 percent) versus top-notch ROI tools (32 percent)

“For the remaining results, respondents indicated it was what salespeople say – not what they do or the tool used – that is most impactful,” said Riesterer. “This data further underscores the need for companies to focus on developing more effective messaging and training their salespeople to deliver those messages in a way that differentiates them and their solutions.”

For more information and an analysis of the survey findings, please view this infographic: http://cvi.to/1PLnBPk.

Ebooks Vs. Paper Books The Pros and Cons

Instructors’ analysis resources are a vital a part of evaluating the capabilities, progress and progress of students. Assessment instruments assist instructors assess simply how much students understands at the beginning of subject, semester or a school-year. If the students have adequately mastered the material, evaluation resources also support course advancement and notify the trainer. Academics’ analysis instruments are available in different kinds, including interviews, tests, homework papers and instructor observation. Academics’ review instruments could be objective, summative, formative and subjective. (Catherine Yeulet/iStock/Getty Images) Formative Assessment Formative assessment instruments are used to assess students at the beginning or heart of a class, semester or subject. Interviews placement tests and teacher remark are examples of formative evaluation tools. Formative evaluation methods are created to enable a trainer realize studentsis advancement. Formative evaluation resources are not rated.

If it???s granted videotape it.

They’re intended entirely to steer a student to mastery of the given topic and notify the educator wherever she wants the pupil to focus. Lisa F. Fresh/ iStock/Getty Images Summative Assessment Summative evaluation instruments are accustomed to gauge the upshot of the learning http://dslitereview.com/ process. They give attention to the curriculum introduced during the understanding model and are used to discover whether there was a student effectively trained a particular issue. Quiz, remaining assessment, a graded check, thesis report and exam are all examples of summative teachers’ assessment resources. Tools that were summative must be made to replicate the data offered within the program. Unlike resources that were formative, they are made to expose what already continues to be discovered during a particular educational unit’s length.

I imagine you might be shut out and down of touch together with your thoughts, however.

Just summative analysis resources should be scored. Andreas Rodriguez / iStock Images Goal Evaluation Tutor’s evaluation instruments, summative or whether formative, might be further split into two additional groups: subjective and purpose. Objective evaluation resources possess a clearly-defined solution that was proper and inappropriate. They are used-to determine a studentis understanding of certain facts and results which are common. Types of examination instruments that are objective are genuine /bogus and multiplechoice questions. As they depart tiny area for model math problems have been objective review resources. Analysis instruments that are objective would be the easiest to grade and design and, therefore, will be the more widespread type of evaluation tool. Kostyantin Pankin / iStock Images Subjective Analysis Subjective analysis instruments need a little more imagination and opinion to the part of the scholar.

Listed here are several subjects to acquire you started.

These are papers concerns or tests that depend on arguable material’s presentation. Argumentative speeches and essay issues, research documents are types of subjective assessment instruments. They are able to generally uncover significantly more than an objective analysis resource simply because they allow on the part of the pupil for more than just memorization. The pupil’s tastes, persona and method of education may more effectively be seen with analysis tools that were subjective. Subjective and objective teachers’ examination resources frequently are employed in combination, such as a test that’s a legitimate/phony inquiries and an article question at the conclusion. Yeulet / Hemera Images

Career Pathways Combining Science and Art

Today, there are tons ofpeople whoask the exact same concern: ” does biotin trigger acne?”. You can find Web that is almostthroughoutthe was asked by this problem. Individuals who are trying to find some aid regarding acne and biotin request connected questionson websites, forums and sites that address the main topic of skin that is healthy. While you can see, biotin and acne are closelylinked with one another. In this specific article, I’ll review what’s already-known about the influenceon one’s skinand how to handle that of the biotin. How biotin affects the skin? Biotin boosts the hair’s development and has useful effect on the potency of the fingernails. Plenty of women are getting it supplementary because of that.

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That is the shiny side. However, there are also some biotinis negative effects? it plays with vitaminB5for cellular and intestinal uptake (whichis causedby their comparable framework)[1555]. This means that when one takes a lot of biotin, there is a great probability that vitamin stage that is one’sB5 could be below normal. When you have probably believed right now lowlevel ofpantothenicacid (vitaminB5), among the probable biotin’s side effects, may be the cause of acne flareups[1556]. Biotin causes pimples?! Ok, therefore now you know that not enough that biotin and cause pimples could affect the degree of that precious compound. Does it suggest, that using biotin extra will definitely result in cystic acne in your skin?

If you have produced numerous cards, it’s time to check oneself.

Thankfully enough, the answer is damaging. Using vitaminB7 (biotin) supplements might not affect your skin layer whatsoever, it certainly depends on your body. Ways to get sure whether taking biotin triggers your acne breakouts? In this part I Will suppose you are presently using biotin. So, getting guaranteed whether using biotin is detrimental to your cystic acne is not quite difficult. The very first thing you’ll certainly have to do would be to stop using biotin. Since biotin is really a water-soluble material you need to drink water than typically, to have reduce the absolute most ofthe material fromyour physique. Then you shouldobservewhether the skin problem gets better. http://essaysource.com/essay-writer/ If it will was possibly the issue.

They incorporate not only other human beings, but also flowers and pets.

Take note that a lot of people documented after receiving off biotin supplements that their skin improved virtually instantly. However, waiting a few days before finishing the outcomes of getting the biotin off is a rule of thumb. How todecreasethe risk of skin difficulties while using biotin? Effectively, there are a few things that you can test to-do opportunity that is toreducethe for pimples. The one is quite evident reduce the dosage. Plenty of people think, that acquiring substantial doses of supplements or drugs are certain to get them better faster. That’s usually not accurate. As you have read huge doses of cause vitaminB5deficiency that is vitaminB7might, therefore lowering the dose is actually a fair action. Another reasonable move to make would be to just drink water.

Why don’t you produce the bundle.

As you know biotin is water-soluble, therefore drinking more water may additionally assist. Another functional suggestion is to raise supplement B5that oneconsumes’ daily dosage. Nevertheless one ofus is different, and a few peoplewonot beable to consider biotin that is ancillary without increasing their acne. You’ve got an additional opportunity consult with a physician, preferrable a dermatologist or a dietician if none of the described approaches did benefit you. They could be ready to help you. Wrapup Preferably, I Have furnished you using the reply to the title concern: ” does biotin cause acne breakouts?”. Acne and biotin are directly associated as you should be aware of by now – biotin causes acne in a few people and there’s a lot of evidence of this Internet that is throughoutthe. Fortunately enough, not everybody will suffer from pimples because of the biotin intake.

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Sadly, many people will not beable to product themselves with biotin without experiencing pimples. If you should be experiencing pimples, an acne-treatment should be started by you immediately. If you’ve liked scanning this article you may desire to read posts that were different about acne:

A Happiness Advantage? You Bet.

At last year’s conference, we brought you an expert on persuasion. This year at Conversations That Win, we featured an expert on happiness. Positive psychologist Shawn Achor is one of the world’s foremost experts on the link between happiness and success—his TED Talk has been viewed more than 11.5 million times. Achor brought his distinct blend of quirky comedy and lucid intelligence to Conversations That Win, keynoting the morning session of Day one.

Here are three revelations from his colorful and hilarious speech:

The Happiest People are Not Happy all the Time – In fact, according to Achor, aggregate patterns show that the top 10 percent of the happiest people in the world aren’t constantly happy. Like most people, they have ups and downs. However, what sets these optimists apart is that they fluctuate around a baseline that’s higher than less happy individuals.


Optimism—not IQ—is the Greatest Predictor of Success – The human capacity for optimism is dictated by three things: 1) The belief that your behaviors matters; 2) The breadth, depth and meaning of your social connections; and 3) Your ability to perceive stress as a challenge.


The “Happiness Advantage” is Real – According to Achor, happy people achieve 37 percent more in sales than less happy individuals; they’re three times more creative and 31 percent more productive; they’re 40 percent more likely to receive promotion and show 23 percent fewer fatigue symptoms. They’re also 10 times more engaged and—get this—39 percent more likely to live to age 94!

How United Rentals Made Great Sales Negotiations a Part of its Culture

United Rentals has dramatically changed the selling culture in the company, and the shift is yielding some exceptional results. In a breakout session for the Three Value Conversations track, United Rentals’ Shelley Robins spoke with Corporate Visions’ Cheryl Geoffrion about how the company has successfully embedded Situational Sales Negotiations into its DNA.

Here are three tips from the session:

Turn your managers into models – Once training ends, studies show that most sales organizations revert back to their old methods and messages within nine months. But United Rentals refused to be part of that statistic—instead, they asked sales management to become their trainers and model new sales behaviors. This strategy created alignment from the top-down and contributed to maximizing the success of their investment.


Know your worth – Customers have no qualms asking for more, so why do sales teams often struggle to do the same? Because United Rentals had confidence in their products and value, they felt comfortable doing just that, anchoring higher targets that asserted their unique value and expanded the customer’s range of reason. By setting higher targets and encouraging their reps to embrace the tension and avoid unnecessary discounting, they’ve been able to create more opportunities and increase their average deal size.


Convert and dedicate – There’s a difference between being convinced and being committed. For example, everyone knows exercising is essential to a healthy lifestyle, but not everyone is committed to maintaining the routine. Once United Rentals was convinced they had the right formula for sales success, they committed themselves to making it part of their company DNA. This led to widespread adoption, positive behavior changes in the field and tremendous success at executing the negotiation skills and techniques their sales team was trained to.

CenturyLink: A Comeback Story

CenturyLink may have endured a lean year or two in the first half of the decade, but now they’re back and thriving on the strength of a new identity as a differentiated IT solutions provider. The company’s resurgence also owes something to better, more focused customer conversations, fueled by a shift in their approach to sales enablement and training.

To successfully transition from a commoditized, product-oriented company to a dynamic IT solutions provider, CenturyLink knew it had to develop the kind of message that would allow them to stand out in a crowded, hyper-competitive market. With Power Messaging as the foundation, the company shifted to a messaging approach based on “commercial and market-based insights.” According to Jones, this allowed them to develop “point of view pitches” that aim to identify customer challenges, which they can then map to their unique business strengths to show prospects how their solutions positively affect ROI. Jones noted that the ROI-focused point of view pitches not only helped them distill complex solutions into digestible ideas, but also get better access to key executive decision makers.


Another training shift CenturyLink spearheaded was the establishment of a sales effectiveness consulting team to provide coaching air cover. This initiative helped them develop a “coach the coach” training program, led by sales leaders who have experience in all skills training platforms (Power Messaging included), as well as previous sales leadership experience. As part of this program, salespeople are being trained to deliver whiteboard-style presentations to make their POVs more remarkable, and to help them internalize their message so they can deliver it in high-pressure environments.


Jones offered a simple maxim that sales leaders can’t afford to take for granted: When you coach to the skills you invest in, adoption soars and behaviors change. And when you don’t, you’re missing an opportunity. Still, as far as adoption is concerned, most sales leaders know the passage of time can be their worst enemy. Jones noted that while adoption is always high after a workshop, it does tend to wane with time. To counteract this, the company is weighing various reinforcement ideas to make sure the skills and techniques they train to are retained more completely by their sales teams.

Power Messaging: Starting and Sustaining the Fire

Paul George of Corporate Visions kicked off the Three Value Conversations in Action track with Thomson Reuters’ Matt Etzell and Laurel Ley. Here are three takeaways in particular that sparked the interest of attendees:

Mobilize Your Messaging Efforts — A limited budget is one of the most common roadblocks you’ll encounter when trying to implement a new program in your organization. But that didn’t stop the team at Thomson Reuters—instead of compromising or giving up on their initiatives, they shared their goals with internal cost center owners and asked for help. This strategy not only raised the money needed for implementation, it created an incredible alignment across the organization. Many stakeholders now had skin in the game, spurring the change needed to propel the messaging efforts forward quickly and efficiently.
Be Strategic and Build Groundswell — Key stakeholders and marketing managers should always be involved in Power Messaging workshops. You need their input and buy-in because they carry the weight to bring the message forward and drive adoption within their teams. Listen for people in the workshop who are really excited and have them demo the message in the field to determine what works and what doesn’t. Once the story has been refined, have them schedule training and set expectations for their teams.
Leaders Must Lead — The most powerful messaging in the world is a failure if it’s never rolled out. Support your leaders so they can educate and enlighten sales staff about the power of conversational messaging. If they are believers, their teams will be too.

How Salesforce Elevates Value

Salesforce.com, as you might guess, is doing a lot of things right in the marketplace. Okay, that’s an understatement: They grew 35 percent in last year alone. But they’re not stopping there.

In the Elevate Value Case Study breakout at Conversations That Win, Larry Shurtz, SVP of Enterprise Business Unit at Salesforce, and Conrad Smith, VP of Consulting Services at Corporate Visions, talked about how Salesforce.com chose Executive Conversations to elevate their sales team with the skills needed to match their rapid growth.

Here are a few key highlights from the discussion:

Many sales people are adept at talking about products. In fact, recent research by Forrester says that 88 percent of executives see sales pros as really good at the sales product conversations. However, only 24 percent of executives say salespeople are proficient at business conversations. Yet, executives want business conversations four times more than product conversations.


Five years ago, Salesforce.com talked to prospects about opportunities and contracts. Fast forward to now, and it’s all about customer engagement. This is a materially different conversation, a major shift in corporate strategy—one that’s more aligned to having better conversations.


You do need sales professionals effectively trained in product knowledge, but that should function as the bridge that gets them over to the business conversation.


There are three basic challenges that salespeople typically encounter in conversations with executive-level decision makers (competence, confidence and the ability to demonstrate a compelling business case to justify customer investment). To overcome these challenges, they must have 1) Specific conversational business competencies so they can go toe-to-toe with executives; 2) Confidence to speak with authority about what’s really important to executives; and 3) a strong training support structure to enable them to adopt and deliver the skills salespeople learn in Executive Conversations.


The best way to instill confidence is through repetition. In Executive Conversations training, salespeople are paired up so they can learn from each other and offer help if needed. Practice, repetition and reinforcement inspires confidence.


Due to improved conversations, Salesforce.com has increased their number of big deals, shortened sales cycles, and grabbed more senior-level conversations. There’s now much more confidence when walking the halls of the C-suite.


Salesforce.com started with Power Messaging then moved to Executive Conversations. But interestingly, Shurtz recommends starting with Executive Conversations before moving on to Power Messaging. These two workshops in combination can be transformative.