5 Steps To Building A Productive Linkedin Profile

To so many Linkedin is viewed as more in depth business card.  Which in some cases is true, but it is also so much more.  Used correctly, Linkedin can be the single best source for new job opportunities, expanding your network, finding mentors, getting cutting edge news and data, and even generating new business for your organization.

So how do you reap these benefits?

Below are six easy steps you need to take to make your profile not just another name on a list, but a profile that is productive for you and your organization.

1. Add or Update Your Profile Photo - Not having a photo on your profile is the fastest way to Linkedin Failure.  Having a "RECENT" photo shows that this profile is really you, and that you are engaged with your online network.  This is very important if you are looking for new business or job opportunities.

For those of you who do have a photo on your profile, you have taken a great first step.  But, you also must make sure to keep it updated!  One of the largest frustrations I have with profiles is meeting a person for the first time that looks nothing like their profile photo.  My issue with this is that it immediately raises red flags that this person may have self esteem issues, or may be hiding something.  It is always better to be upfront and honest with all the data on your profile, and your photo is no different.

2. Write an Engaging Bio - I am not saying you need to write Nobel Prize worthy bio, just something that can capture attention quickly, and make the person viewing your profile want to learn more.  Personally I find the use of carefully selected quotes (that I update annually) to be very useful.  The quote(s) I select are always relevant to the industry I work in, and reflect the image I wish to portray to my profile viewers.

A few other cleaver ideas I have seen are the use of jokes, personal mission statements, and great questions (i.e. - Do you need a person who can double your current sales in 12 months?).

The secret sauce is to be UNIQUE and CLEAVER and PERSONAL.  Make your bio reflect you, and make it standout so when someone reads it they will remember it and talk about it with others.  But, even more importantly make sure when you read it that is 100% YOU!

3. Keep Your Work Experience Up To Date! -  Not updating your work experience is by far one of the most common mistakes people make on Linkedin.  If something changes, it must be reflected on Linkedin ASAP.  It doesn't matter if it is something as small as your title changing from Sales Executive to Sr. Sales Executive, you need to memorialize it on Linkedin the day it happens.  This not only is important for future job opportunities, but it also sends out a note to your entire network, which can potentially jog their memory of a business opportunity they may need to talk to you about.

Remember, every opportunity to get in front of your network both digital and face-to-face is important not to waste.

--> As I was writing this post I received an email from Linkedin with the title "Who's Started Something New?"  Just proving my point that keeping your profile up to date is so important!

4. Beef Up Your Experience With Accomplishments - You don't have to win an official award to have accomplishments.  These can be as small as beating quota by 10% in a quarter, to as large as making the President's list at your company.  It is important to celebrate your professional accomplishments and share them with your network.  By doing this you do two things:

a) You show people that you celebrate all victories small and large, and take a positive view of everything going on.

A positive view of the world is a breath of fresh air to many employers, especially coming off the rocky economic times we all just went through.  People want to work with people that always see opportunity, even when no one else can.  This kind of attitude is what makes leaders, and that is what every company wants in their ranks, and as partners.

b) Accomplishments show prospects and your network that you are someone who strives to do more in your position that just hold a status quo.  When a potential employer or client sees this, it will help them view you as a resource, rather than another vendor or prospective employee.  Changing this view is so critical, as it then allows you to collaborate with a person, rather than just take orders from them.

--> It is important to note the importance of recommendations.  Many people will say that recommendations are the most important item for your profile.  Personally, I do agree they are important, but do not view them as mission critical.  Recommendations are things you do need to ask for, and will get when you have earned them from your network.  

One word of warning is that you need to make sure to only publish recommendations that is both impactful, and relevant to the image you are looking to portray on your profile.  So many times as I am reviewing a profile and reading peoples recommendation I begin to get confused by what the person actually did.  (i.e. - A VP of Sales received a recommendation from a co-worker in H.R. / Recruiting who mentioned that she always appreciated the help he would offer with recruiting efforts her team was working on.)  This raises two flags for me: Why is a Sales VP working on recruiting and not sales, and how does this tell me why this person was a good/great Sales VP?    

5. Stay Engaged and Active - Social media is not a set it and forget it environment.  It is communications channel that must be managed and supported on a regular basis.  Now I am not saying you need to be working on it 100% of your time.  What I am saying is that you do need to schedule 5 - 10 minutes a 2 - 3 times a day to check it and share some news about yourself or something going on in your professional environment (i.e. - News article, blog post, reactions to a new technology, etc...).

Though many do not believe it, people are curious about what you do, and what you think about.  Share it!  This will engage your network and help them become closer to you.  This way when an opportunity presents itself to them, that you could benefit from, they will come to you with it.

--> A great FREE resource I highly recommend to every busy professional is an online service called Buffer (https://bufferapp.com).  This service allows you to load up posts for all your Social Networking sites and then it will post them on a regular schedule throughout the day.  I have used this program with great success and HIGHLY recommend it to anyone looking to get more active, but can not be day-to-day.


If you follow these 5 easy steps you will be well on your way to building a GREAT network that your are engaged with, and can come to rely on for business opportunities for many years to come.

Feel free to visit my Linkedin page and add me to your network to see my profile in action!
http://www.linkedin.com/in/michaelcmcmillan/

To Your Success & Prosperity!!

Learning Never Stops

Tonight I had the great honor and privilege of attending my first ever Toastmasters Meeting.

For those of you not familiar with the organization may I strongly suggest visiting http://www.toastmasters.org to learn more about them and find a local meeting to attend.

I have heard of the Toastmasters for many years but never really took the time to really look into what this organization had to offer me as a sales person, and more so as a leader of my sales team. Toastmasters quite possibly may be one of the single most important goals I am so happy I am accomplishing in 2009 for myself, and almost more importantly for my team and all of my readers. The knowledge I have gained in my first ever meeting alone has made me completely rethink the way in which I perform presentations. I now understand to present correctly it takes a ton of preparation, research, and most importantly PRACTICE!

Now I know many of you are going to say, "Mike I give presentations and run meetings all the time why do I need this silly club?" My answer to you is simple, you may be running these meetings, or giving presentations but, are you performing at the absolute performance? That answer would be no buckaroo!

We have all heard the sayings a million times, guess what here is 1,000,001:

Tiger Woods did not just wake up one day and become the best golfer in the world, he practices, got constructive criticism, and had coaches teach him how to be the best.

Olympic Athletes do not just send in a resume saying they would like to compete in the Olympics. They have to train for years to hone their skills to perfection for the very slim possibility they MAY get picked to compete.

These sayings are things we say but very rarely act on. My primary goal for my self this year was simple, "Become a Better Follower, So I Can Become a Better Leader!" Yeah sounds weird right, that is what I thought when I first wrote it. But, then after reviewing my goals over and over again in December I realized it made perfect sense. I have to first learn how to follow (TRAIN) before I can lead. So this year I am getting myself in front of the experts and begging for teaching and guidance so that I can then become the best leader for my sales force.

In closing always remember if you are a person you thinks you know everything about everything, you are never going to succeed in life. The faster you can come to understand that with continual education comes the success you seek, the faster you will find the happiness you seek.

From Sales Life Style

Bio: Michael McMillan is the director of Sales & Marketing for Answer Center America, Inc. “Learning Never Stops” talks about how the learning process must never end if a person is to be successful. For more information on ACA's services please visit http://www.goacanow.com.

To Succeed or Not Succeed

Today I had a sales guy calling me asking me my opinion on how I felt my sales force would do during this depression. I quickly responded, "unlike other industries our team saw this coming for a long time and has positioned our self to not only succeed but clean up." Of course the next question was how do I plan on doing so well in this horrible economy. My response possibly less than what he wanted was, "EXTREMELY HARD WORK!"

I started this entry out with this quick review of this interview because I wanted to comment to the world want it is going to take to get through this depression and come out on top.

To succeed in this bad economy takes a level of work that is so foreign to people in my age group they see it as fiction. The problem with this is that this is the time we need to get back to basics and understand an 8 hour work day is not possible any more. To not only survive but be a winner we need to do everything that is possible to do what is necessary for our businesses success.

If you want to really see the level of dedication it will take, go see you Grandparents, or even better your Great Grandparents if they are still around and ask them what their work ethic was. What you will hear is the same like when you were a child. It will more than likely sound something like my Grandfather told me:

"Boy, my work ethic was simple, I went to work, I never called off 1 day, I worked till the work was done, and I will never stop working till my heart gives out or my boss kicks me out."

That is Dedication! 

That is a Statement of a Winner! 

Are you willing to have that same dedication to your business? If not I can guarantee you with almost no uncertainty you will more than likely fail in this economy and be one of the many losers out there. So starting now stops playing around on the internet and gets your nose into your work and do whatever is necessary to not only fit the status quo, but to be a winner!


Bio: Michael McMillan is the director of Sales & Marketing for Answer Center America, Inc. “To Succeed or Not Succeed” gives a peak into what an employee will need to do in 2009 to not only survive but be a winner. For more information on ACA's services please visit http://www.goacanow.com

From Sales Life Style

What are Your Goals

I commonly tell my sales people that a promise is only as good as the paper it is written on. So to are the goals that you set for your self. Many people, especially sales people, set goals for them self all the time. The issue is that many times they forget to do the most important piece, write them down for everyone to see. To give everyone a real life example to help everyone get started I am going to post my real 2009 professional goals here to share with all of you. (I would share my personal goals, but they are not as fun) LOL!! I look forward to your comments on them.

1. Close 1 account that has a base package over $100,000.00 per month, a.k.a. $1,200,000.00 per year account!

2. Personally Close over 2 million dollars in total sales in 2009

3. Lead my team to 3.5 million dollars or more in total sales in 2009

4. Increase my monthly outbound revenue to over $50,000 per month

Now please understand in world these numbers are very realistic and reachable with a lot of hard work. Next to writing your goals down, the next most important part is making your goals realistic. You want to set them to a level you know you can achieve. If you set them to high you will not achieve them and then not want to do it again next year. So now sit down, write everything out, and get ready for an amazing sales year!!!

From Sales Life Style

Bio: Michael McMillan is the director of Sales & Marketing for Answer Center America, Inc. “What are Your Goals” talks about how setting goals can make you much more successful personally and professionally. For more information on ACA's services please visit http://www.goacanow.com.

Not Service Industry! Supply Chain Management, What?

A few months ago I had the pleasure of going through a training by Tim Searcy, with http://www.whalehunters.com. Tim is by far one of the most passionate and energetic sales people I have had the pleasure to meet in a long time.

During this training Tim had said something to me that really blew me away. Tim first asked, "what industry are you in?" Of course the crowd all from call centers said, "Call Center." Tim abruptly said, "Wrong!" As all of us looked at one another thinking this guy must have had a few to many cocktails, he started to explain. "None of our company's are in the call center industry, we are in the supply chain management industry." "All customers are looking for us to do is make the flow of goods or services become easier to get to their customers."

When I heard this I quickly wrote it down as it really rang true to me. I thought to my self how all my customers come to me with an issue and that issue is almost 99.9% about issues in their supply chain to customers. When I heard this I began work on a different way of selling our services. I began to build an atmosphere that was informative and helped client's streamline their supply chain all the way from manufacturing to their customer as much as I can.

This strategy was not as easy as typing a few thing down, it took a crazy amount of work to accomplish. Below I have listed what I did to learn more about how I can help consult my client's on their supply chain. These were only a few of the steps. If you are interested in more please feel free to comment and I will add more.

1. Joined & began attending events with 2 different business networking organizations here in Chicago.

2. Networked with other outsourcing companies that I know from past experience would offer a benefit to my client's.

3. Did background checks on all the businesses I met and spoke to their clients to categorized their service quality.

4. Created strategic partnerships with those businesses I felt were the best and began negotiating costs and services for my client's if I were to refer them.

5. Developed presentational materials for the most common issues client's inform me they are having. This way I can provide them a complete solution in a nice bundle.

This is what I did first. By doing this I learned a ton about who I was as a sales person and what I really can offer a client. Knowing this information I have been able to increase my sales drastically and not be just another sales person to my client's, but a trusted advisor to them. Being a trusted advisor, a.k.a. FRIEND, I get to reap the rewards of frequent referrals and great testimonials. That alone has paid for all my hard work in spades!!!

So what are you doing still reading this??!! Email me for what else I did after my first step and start increasing your sales...

My Favorite Movie Quote:
" I know you're not standing on your front porch with a bag of money waiting for me to call you. But I'm not some 18-year-old selling a cure for AIDS. I'm 46 years old, I have 22 years market experience, I know this business. So pick up your skirt, grab your balls, and lets go make some money"

- Boiler Room, 2000

From Sales Life Style

Bio: Michael McMillan is the director of Sales & Marketing for Answer Center America, Inc. “Not Service Industry! Supply Chain Management, What?” offers a new look at an industry that commonly just sees it self as an outsourcing solution. For more information on ACA's services please visit http://www.goacanow.com.

Social Networking

When I first was told about social networking I was so confused on where to start. Then I built a MySpace & Facebook page. This got me started and I was able to meet a ton of people, but was not seeing any business from it. Then I discovered the world of blogging and reviewing. This opened my eyes to a part of the social networking scene I was able to get into. Now almost 3 months later I have already seen 3 new client's from it and close to 100 business contacts who look to me for business advise. This reach would not have been possible if not for my social network. If you are struggling with getting your social network started let me give you 5 steps to success. I am not saying these steps will lead you to riches, but they will expand your network.

1. Build a MySpace & Facebook Page (Add Photos, Videos, & Posts often)
http://www.myspace.com/ & http://www.facebook.com/

2. Start a Blogger Account (Promise Yourself to write at least 1 entry per week)
http://www.blogger.com/

3. Open a Yelp Account (Begin Reviewing Local Places ASAP, 5 a week atleast)
http://www.yelp.com/

4. Open a Plaxo Account (Make sure to tie in your MySpace, Facebook, Blogger, & Yelp Account) This way all of your network can see what you are saying
http://www.plaxo.com/

5. Track all your success with Google Analytics (Doing all this work with out a way to track it is just foolish! Make Sure your Hard Work is Paying Off)
http://www.google.com/analytics/

If you don't know anyone online add me. Below are all my user names and links. I would be more than happy to be your first friend and help you expand your network.

Facebook:


MySpace:
http://www.myspace.com/mikiesplace

Blogger:
You are here http://thesalesking.blogspot.com/

Yelp:

Recent reviews by Michael M.

What's this?

Plaxo:
http://salesking.myplaxo.com/

From Misc. . .

Bio: Michael McMillan is the director of Sales & Marketing for Answer Center America, Inc. “Social Networking” gives sales people 1 more tool to use to build their professional network. For more information on ACA's services please visit http://www.goacanow.com.

Creating Landing Pages that Convert

It is expensive to buy traffic using pay per click. It is expensive to “optimize” your website pages for natural search. In both cases, the ultimate goal is to convert these clicks to conversions so that you see a nice return on your investment (ROI). One way to increase your ROI is to increase the conversion rate on the pages that visitors land on when they click on your ads or visit your site as a result of natural search.

There are really two kinds of landing pages; campaign specific landing pages, and organic searched pages. People who know what they want click on ads, and they are different from organic searchers doing research. They want what they searched for, and they want it fast. Your landing pages should provide them with facts, take them exactly where they want to be without any hassles, and make it simple for them to get what they want.

So what should you consider when designing your pages to increase conversions?

What is the Most Effective Landing Page?
Avoid using your home page as your landing page. Create specific landing pages for every ad and paid search term. If this seems daunting, remember that retailers can use the "product page" as a landing page, and service providers can use the "service page". However, if you have the time and resources, the most effective thing to do is to create landing pages specifically targeted towards your PPC campaign. This provides you with more freedom to customize the design of your landing page.

If the ad campaign is a temporary offer, you won't want this landing page indexed by search engines, and you can use the robots.txt file to tell search engine spiders not to index it. It would be embarrassing if you remove the ad listing but consumers continue to find this landing page because it appears in the natural search results.

What Goes On the Landing Page?
Make sure your landing pages answers these questions:
• What's the offer?
• Who's interested?
• Why are they interested, and why should they take further action?
• How do they get started?

On your landing pages, start with benefits, not features, and use persuasive wording.
• Be Concise – If you use paragraphs, use one idea per paragraph and use no more than three lines. Use bullet points. Make headlines bold and prominent.
• Match the Wording on your Landing Page
• Use a Big Call-To-Action Image Button – placed in the top right of the page.
• Show the Price, show the shipping information.
• Make Sure the Page is Grammatically Correct
• Show Credibility – Add testimonials, awards, partners, associations. Show product ratings or reviews. Include a phone number! You want to establish trust.
• Don’t Clutter the Page, and Use Images – make sure the landing page looks professional and appealing. Put graphic on the left side. Make sure the page looks good on a mobile phone.
• Show some cross-sells. Show “best sellers” or “best value” services.
• Use Short Forms – do your need to have more information than: Full Name, Email, Phone, Product or Service interest?
• Thank You. Make sure you thank them afterwards. You can even give them an unexpected bonus like a link to a survey or a case study.


The Message From Your Ad Listing
Make sure the content on your landing pages works with your ad copy, and follows through on your ad promise. For example, if your ad says you are a low cost provider, show them price comparisons on the landing page. In this way you begin to establish trust with your site visitors because your message is consistent, from the ad to your landing page. Trust will increase your sales and encourage long-time customers.

Position Critical Information At the Top of the Page
Your landing page does not have to be short, but all the important information, like benefits and the order button should be visible without scrolling. Web developers refer to this as "above the fold." Since people use different size screens and different browsers, make sure you test this information placement. Your landing page might look great on a 1024x768 screen resolution, but most of your visitors are still using 800x600 screen resolution, and they won’t see the buy button without scrolling. Make sure this is not the case.

Don’t Give Visitors Too Many Navigational Choices
On really targeted landing pages, you should completely remove the website navigation and provide only links which will help complete the sale (such as shipping information and the privacy policy).

You don’t want to give customers too many choices on your landing pages. It might distract them before they buy. Once they complete their purchase, then you can take them to a "thank you" page that offers them links to search the rest of your site.

Use Action Words
Use words that easily convey what you want the visitor to do, like Buy Now, Sign Up, Download, and Add to Cart. In addition, make sure you put the words in a place on the page where they will be noticed. Many people ignore the top 60 pixels of a screen because that's where they expect to see a banner ad. Make your buttons large, graphical, and brightly colored, and put them in the middle of the landing page, above the fold.

Consider the Google Quality Score:
Since many of the landing pages you will be designing will correspond directly to your Google Adwords campaigns, it is important to understand the Google Quality Score.

An Amazing Article by my marketing mentor, trusted advisor, & Great Friend
Sue McCrossin, PA Internet Marketing

You Must Give To Get!

This week I learned possibly one of the most important pieces of my sales life thus far.

"It is better to take an order from a motivated referral, than it is to sell to a defensive buyer!"

What this saying means is that to become a great sales person, instead of just a good sales person you have to earn it.

So how do you earn it you ask!

It is simple! You earn it by making your value to your potential client so great that they start to see you as a friend, or better yet a trusted advisor, rather than some annoying sales person. To do this you must provide them with exactly what you are looking for, MORE BUSINESS!! Now I am not saying this is easy, trust me I grew up in sales and just figuring out now how to do this effectively, and it still is not easy!! But, I have already started to see just how much it pays off by working hard for your clients. Let me tell you what I have done so you can see how this can work for you.

This week I dedicated myself to taking the new people I have met at the YEC event I attended and finding them either new business from my current contacts or solutions to express issues they were having. I did this quickly and efficiently without them asking. I did it so that it was not seen as a burden rather a kind gesture on my part. Now, let me just tell you this was not by any shape or form easy. For 2 of them I spent almost 6 - 8 hours researching the best possibly client's for them and then calling upon my client's that fit in that category. But, the reward from all this hard work has just paid off is ACES!! One of the client's I did this for just referred me a multimillion dollar potential client that just started looking for call center services. Because of my hard work my client referred them to me and told the client there is no other call center they would ever trust more than ACA!

I wanted to tell you this whole story so you can see that this is not just smoke I am blowing up your back side to get you to read my blogs. This is real life, and real dollars and cents. If you are eager to make money, and when I say money I mean LOTS & LOTS of MONEY!!! Then you must be willing to put in the time and effort to make it worth your potential client's time to work with you and buy your product/services. You do this by research, backward referrals to your client, and always fulfilling on the promised you make to your clientele. Done properly the days of cold calls, cold lead selling, & begging clients for referrals will be over. The days of order taking for referrals sent over to you will begin. Then you can tell everyone how proud you are to FISH IN A BARRELL!!!


Bio: Michael McMillan is the director of Sales & Marketing for Answer Center America, Inc. “You Must Give To Get!” talks about how giving value first really makes sales so much easier. For more information on ACA's services please visit http://www.goacanow.com.

A Night Networking

Tonight I had the pleasure of attending my first Young Executive Club of Chicago (YEC). Out of many of the events I have had the pleasure of attending I must say this was truly one of the best. Walking in it was very nerve racking as I knew no one at the event. But, after only 2 minutes I was knee deep in conversation with 4 executives an creating a great networking opportunity. If there is anyone in Chicago looking for an amazing networking group I would strongly urge you to look into YEC. If you have questions on the group please visit; http://www.youngexecutivesclub.org.

From Misc. . .

Bio: Michael McMillan is the director of Sales & Marketing for Answer Center America, Inc. “A Night Networking” is my personal review of a night out at a business networking event. For more information on ACA's services please visit http://www.goacanow.com.

For The Love of Sales

I was one of the lucky few who had the opportunity to grow up in the world of sales. This opportunity has allowed me to experience more networking, sales processes, and get more mentors than most other sales people. All of this experience led me to my sales motto that I tell everyone who I consult with. My motto sets up my entire life. From the way I dress, to the people I associate with. What is my motto you ask! Well let me tell you.. .

"Sales is not a career decision, it is a lifestyle decision that you live 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year!"

- Michael C. McMillan

This motto has become the bedrock principle of everything I have taught sales people over the years. The ability to truly understand this quote and embrace it makes the difference between successful & rich sales people, and LOSERS.

I have created this blog to network with other sales representatives, managers, directors, VP's, etc... to share war stories and learn a few new things. So please post, and then post again, use this as your sales journal so we can all learn from it.

From Misc. . .

Bio: Michael McMillan is the director of Sales & Marketing for Answer Center America, Inc. “For The Love of Sales” is my introduction to this exciting Blog and a review of my past. For more information on ACA's services please visit http://www.goacanow.com.