By Mike Sperduti

With the Independence Day upon us, I find myself reflecting on our American values … especially how they apply to our corporate landscape.

One of the noblest ingredients of Americana is loyalty, and I have to tell you, dear reader, at this time, across this economic landscape, loyalty is on the ropes. There’s little to be found, in marriage, in friendship, especially in business. There are always exceptions that prove the rule – maybe you’re that loyal spouse or that loyal friend, or that rarest of animals, the loyal business associate – but by and large, loyalty is at a premium, particularly in our corridors of industry. Since I’m in the business of business, I’ll focus on that, and leave the domestic counseling to Dr. Phil.

In this country’s heyday, people were loyal to their companies and companies were proud of their people, and they treated those employees with courtesy and respect. There was a time when your word was your bond – not everything required a written contract in triplicate – and a handshake meant something.

Now, all we have are contracts, and nobody honors them. Companies aren’t loyal to employees, employees aren’t loyal to companies, nobody’s loyal to their customers and customers, understandably, are out for themselves. Everyone is on a different team – their own team – and you better believe this changes how we do business. How we do it, and how much of it we do.

Everyone thinks they’re independent and they can go it alone. But it’s absolutely nuts to think you can go off by yourself with some private agenda and get anywhere.

The fact is, in an age when every enterprise in every industry has competitors out the wazoo, we’ve never been more dependent. We need companies to work for. We need good people to run our companies. We need customers. We even need competitors, for balance and comparison’s sake: Coke is good, but it can’t call itself “the best” without Pepsi.

We need each other, more than ever.

When I talk about this stuff, I always think of my grandmother. Grandma worked for AT&T for 38 years, starting as telephone operator and ultimately rising to management. During those four decades (with the same company), she’d never tolerate any guff about Ma Bell. Seriously. You could make fun of the church, but if you dissed the phone company, you’d probably meet up with the business end of a rolling pin.

It wasn’t just her job, it was her loyalty. It wasn’t just a company, it was grandma’s company. When she finally retired about 20 years ago, they threw her a party attended by AT&T’s top brass. This wasn’t a vice president, mind you, just a low-level exec who’d earned her stripes through 38 years of dedication – and the brass recognized the inherent value.

I just wrapped up a speaking engagement at an annual educational/networking forum hosted by the VGM Group, a business services unit based in Waterloo, Iowa. This is a 500-employee operation specializing in the home medical equipment industry, and even during this worst American economic crisis since the Great Depression, VGM never stops growing.

How successful is this company? Well, attendance at the 2010 educational/networking forum was up 20 percent over 2009, and VGM has become the largest business services group in the medical supply industry. What’s their secret? Loyalty

Every single employee I spoke to felt the same pride as my grandmother. Every one of them had to drive to the airport to pick up at least one conference guest, and not one of them minded, not one bit. This was their company, and if something was going to make their company better, they were on board.

So refreshing: How employees thought about the company, how the company treated its employees, how they all treated their clients. A bona fide blueprint of what everyone needs to do, every day, in every business.

As we fire up our grills and head to the beaches and celebrate our freedoms, it’s the perfect time for the smart businessperson to reevaluate the landscape. So let’s raise a frosty one to American Independence, but let’s also remember to salute American Interdependence – and let’s never forget what my grandmother knew, and what those keen thinkers at VGM know now.

Dependence on others is not a weakness. It’s one of America’s greatest strengths.

By Mike Sperduti

Is the economy still struggling? Yes. Are the various government-endorsed stimuli helping? Slowly. Do the Goldman Sachs shenanigans and other depressing headlines hamper the recovery? They sure do. Are too many businesses using the poor economy as a crutch? You bet your ass.

I work with tons of companies, from Fortune 100s to mid-sized firms. Many are not performing well right now. Some of their competitors are faring even worse, downsizing to the point of obscurity or just folding up. When they go, they usually offer the same excuses: It’s the economy, it’s the new healthcare legislation, it’s competitive bidding. They’re great at pointing fingers … except when it’s time to point at themselves.

It’s understandable why owners, managers and employees adopt “woe is me” attitudes in times like this – understandable, and unacceptable.

Wake up, people … it’s not the economy. It’s your staff. It’s your corporate attitude. It’s you.

Here’s a steaming cup of reality: Things are tougher than they used to be. Business is harder. Success is harder. Survival is harder. There’s more competition for less business, meaning lower prices and higher customer expectations.

There are two schools of thought on dealing with such conditions. One is to do less: less marketing, less production, less effort, downsize everything. The other is to do more: more marketing, more training, more effort. Work three times harder and demand the same from your employees.

Which works better? Put it this way: If there are fewer business opportunities out there, it’s galactically absurd to think doing less is the way to get them.

This is when you do more. Pedal to the metal, baby. Marketing, sales training … a new corporate mantra flowing from the top down. Those who do less now will do even less later, when they’re out of business.

Want to do less of something? Try less stupidity. I’m completely floored by the wasted resources and blown opportunities I see, and by managers who fret about the bottom line and struggle to save every nickel while continuing to embrace the same failed policies.

For instance: Stop any marketing initiative where you can’t measure your return on investment. If you can’t quantify the benefit, there probably isn’t one. It’s a fairly simple idea, but you’d be amazed how many otherwise-smart businesspeople ignore it.

Maybe this rings a bell: Stop wasting time and energy calling the same accounts over and over and expecting better sales. If it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it ain’t gonna turn into a swan. Get your sales team out of its comfort zone and start prospecting.

Perhaps you throw good money after bad: Stop wasting time on employees and customers who repeatedly fail you. This is business. If you’re not assuming an accept-no-excuses posture, you’re positioning yourself to fail.

We Americans can be so arrogant, always imagining ourselves as smarter and more enlightened than previous generations, always crowing about the technological and economic advances of the last century. But let me tell you something: As a nation of businesspeople, we can’t hold a candle to our parents, grandparents and great-grandparents.

Where we have an inbred sense of entitlement – I went to college, so I deserve success – they had a built-in work ethic that shames us. They expected to work hard, and as a result, they built better roads, tougher houses, better businesses and, yes, stronger families.

Somewhere along the way, we lost that. Now, we build great excuses.

All is not lost. Today’s businessperson has every opportunity to build a legacy as strong as a hundred-year-old house. It starts with chucking the excuses and rolling up the sleeves. It starts with smarts.

Is the economy still scuffling? Yes. Is that a good excuse for failure?

It’s not even a bad excuse.

By Mike Sperduti

Did you hear about NASA’s big discovery under the Antarctic ice sheet? Drilling some 600 feet down for an unprecedented look into the dark, frigid waters below the ice, NASA scientists – expecting to find some microbes, maybe – were stunned to discover a tiny, shrimp-like creature swimming around, as well as a dismembered tentacle from some deep-sea jellyfish.

The discovery of animal life in a place it certainly wasn’t expected has renewed longtime scientific debates about where, exactly, life can thrive. Theories abound about how these creatures got there and how they survive, but the fact that NASA could drop a camera through a remote ice shelf and find higher life forms dancing a jig only reinforces nature’s irrefutable talent for adaptability.

There’s an important lesson there, and it translates perfectly to business. H.G. Wells wisely noted that “adapt or perish, now as ever, is nature’s inexorable imperative,” and if you don’t think that applies to your product and sales strategy, you’re doomed.

I’m talking about “sales process optimization.” As much as your terrific product or fabulous service, this adaptability is going to determine your success. In today’s marketplace, no matter what you’re selling, you have to look at how your customers are buying, and you have to adapt. The responsibility is yours: Optimize your service or product to the market, or watch your customers march thataway.

I took this ideology to Richmond, VA., where Emerge was tasked with overhauling the sales process of a somewhat successful medical supplies company. Home Care Delivered – specializing in domestic deliveries for patients suffering a host of maladies, as well as filing assistance with Medicare, Medicaid and other insurance claims – was doing all right but wanted to do better. Naturally, they called Emerge. Naturally, we had a plan.

First, a thorough examination of Home Care’s place in its world – its customers, its competition and everything else. Improving sales almost always starts with market research like this, so with an unbiased and unblinking eye, we addressed several critical questions: What did their customers buy? What did they buy from the other guy? Why?

Then we undertook a soup-to-nuts review of the company’s products and services – what about their sales process worked and, more importantly, what didn’t – all with the goal of building a more successful, completely predictable and ultimately repeatable sales process.

You might expect sales professionals to resist the outsider who swoops in and starts citing flaws, but Home Care got on board right away. Sales Director Ryan Shumate called it “easily the best sales-training program I’ve ever been through,” while other Home Care representatives used phrases like “very direct,” “energetic” and “totally engrossing” to describe their training experiences. (One trainee wrote she was “excited … to get on the phones and try out these new tools.”)

The real measure of a sales-optimization plan, however, is not jazzed-up trainees. It’s better sales. Three months later, reallocating its resources to emphasize a new combination of phone, Internet and field transactions, Home Care is on the verge of new sales records – an “incredible turnaround,” Ryan noted.

What’s your sales optimization plan? Thorough research and a top-to-bottom review will help, but one thing’s certain: If you don’t make this effort, your company will never meet or exceed its potential. It sure is easy for one tiny shrimp to get lost under all that ice.

by Mike Sperduti

“The Future is Calling” was actually the name of a program I implemented years ago at Triad Medical, where I converted sales operations from outside to inside, often against the wishes of a kicking-and-screaming management team.

Triad, which sold tubes and hoses and similar medical equipment, was pulling $5 million a year with its outside team. Within six years, we had an all-inside sales force and revenues around $65 million – and we’d cut sales and marketing overhead by about 11 percent.

What advertising alchemy, what marketing magic, accomplished this magnificent feat? No tricks, dear reader. Just a journey along the original Information Superhighway.

Behold, the telephone. Many things have changed in the world – particularly in the communications and business worlds – but at least one thing remains certain: In 1876, Alexander Graham Bell patented the most influential, most powerful sales tool the world has ever known. Computer technology is wonderful, and all the sleek advances make it easier than ever to share ideas and crunch numbers and swap crucial data, but without the telephone, your bells and whistles fall silent.

I’m amazed at how many smart businesspeople forget this. Cold-calling is the end-all, be-all of successful sales, always has been, always will be. Your computer can leap onto a conference table, juggle eggs and belt out a spot-on Tony Bennett, but if you can’t identify a potential customer, get on the horn and get an appointment, nobody will ever know it. They’ll never know about your products or services, either.

Your fingers can do the walking, but your mouth’s got to do the talking. That’s how business is done. But look at 99 percent of sales people today; they’ve never been trained on this. Look at Triad, which did no cold-calling – zilch! – when I arrived.

Oh, I can hear the naysayers now – Cold-calling doesn’t work! – and they’re absolutely right. Cold-calling doesn’t work, not unless your sales force is trained to make it work. Cold-calling is hard; it’s a skill. The reason it’s ineffective is the people doing it are ineffective, or they aren’t doing it at all.

Not every company is built for inside sales; not every product can be sold over the phone. But cold-calling is still king. The successful business is going to train its sales staff to rock this critical task, or it’s going to outsource the duty to trained professionals. Put this in your online registration form and smoke it: If you can’t get on the phone, deliver the critical information that positions your company for a sale and get into a room with someone who controls a budget, you’re not selling anything.

The one-on-one marketing relationship – that’s the promise and the beauty of the telephone. Proactively cold-calling and engaging someone in a dialogue – that’s how you survive an economy like this, where people aren’t spending and companies are folding left and right, especially small ones.

Going out and finding business – that’s the ballgame.

The Internet and email and all the digital whirlygigs absolutely help. But without the telephone, no matter what you do or how well you do it, your sales efforts are lost in cyberspace.

With Chapter One of The Business Growth Series in the books, momentum continues to build around the groundbreaking webinar cycle.

Advance registrations are pouring in for the monthly series, which launched Jan. 22 with “Stop Advertising and Start Marketing,” an interactive tutorial on modern marketing presented by New Media. Business owners, marketing directors and professionals on all levels with something to sell are lining up to glean wisdom from the biggest brains in 21st century communications.

The Business Growth Series, the most ambitious ad hoc business-building webinar series ever conceived, unites experts in several critical fields – marketing, trade shows, data storage and Internet-based promotions – under the umbrella of Emerge Sales, a national sales and training leader. With five additional installments on the horizon, including a second go-around for New Media’s popular “Stop Advertising” session, this seems a good time to share why each Business Growth presenter is the best at what he or she does.

Michael Kitakis
CEO, New Media Marketing and Communications

Michael is a corporate leader who cut his teeth on the artistic side. A creative architect who crafts whole marketing programs from the ground up, he’s honed his artistic and administrative skills over a quarter-century career – as a video producer, design consultant and retail advertising executive across the Midwest, and later as founder of his own professional firms. Along the way, he’s designed and managed national advertising campaigns for major-league clients including Revlon, Coppertone, Mattel, Sony, AOL and Land O’Lakes.

Laura Palker
Managing Director, Trade Show Solution Center

Laura is an accomplished business executive with more than 25 years of experience in trade shows, sales and marketing. As the founder and managing director of Trade Show Solution Center, she has furthered a distinguished career and honed her logistical and analytical skills – to the benefit of Exhibit Corporation of America, Exhibit Graphics and Display Presentations and several of the New York region’s other top companies. Specializing in lead-generation tools, marketing collateral, corporate communications, promotional items and total trade-show management, TSSC supports its clients’ entire sales cycle by crafting clear, consistent, compelling messages that build memorable brands.

Danny Naz
President, Naz Creative

Danny is the founder and owner of Naz Creative, a New York-based web-development and Internet-marketing firm specializing in website design, e-commerce development, search-engine optimization, integrated marketing, pay-per-click management and e-mail marketing. A consummate entrepreneur, Danny is also the founder and co-owner of Creativo, a surface-design company that sells and licenses prints to Fortune 1,000 companies. After a decade of honing his design and marketing skills, Danny focuses today on providing these services to nonprofit and for-profit startups and midsized organizations – and is a regular fixture at Internet-marketing and web conferences around the nation.

Michael Sperduti
President, Emerge Sales

Michael has gained national recognition for his expertise in building world-class businesses and revitalizing underperforming firms. A leading authority on business psychology, he’s a master of cold calling and salesmanship and unwavering in his dedication to peak performance. Before founding Emerge, Michael created significant shareholder wealth as the owner and/or operator of 14 different manufacturing and distributing businesses. A powerful motivations speaker, topflight sales trainer and high-level consultant, Michael has counseled the likes of GE, TYCO, Johnson & Johnson, Baxter and the Adelphi MBA program. As Emerge’s webinar guru, he’s shared his business-building, success-now messages with thousands of employees representing hundreds of firms.

Olaf Wadehn
Executive VP, Software Reproduction Technologies

Olof has cultivated growth, profitability and management leadership in diverse economic climates, counseling companies of various sizes across numerous industries. As project manager for Philadelphia-based engineering firm Winokur Associates, he ensured client satisfaction on land-development projects; as leader of Asian operations for Geonex International, a U.S.-based geographic information systems company, he directed a team of 600 field agents and ensured profitability for several professional organizations. In 1993, Olof co-founded SRT, a New York-based media manufacturing and multimedia firm, where’s he been instrumental in the development of “good practice” standards for multimedia marketing designs and for technological advancements in CD and DVD design.

Upcoming Business Growth sessions include “The Plan: Ten Strategies for Trade Show Success” (Trade Show Solutions Center, Feb. 19) and “What is Multimedia? And How it Drives Sales” (Software Reproduction Technologies, March 12). Also in the works are informative lessons on search-engine optimization from Naz Creative in April and more crucial sales advice from Emerge in May, plus the just-added “Stop Advertising” encore (New Media, Feb. 25).

To register for any or all of the informative Business Growth Series webinars, please visit Emerge Sales’ website here. See you in cyberspace … remember to bring your best questions!

By Laura Palker

Think an inviting, informative exhibit space is your only key to trade show success? Guess again. The trade show allows you to tap virtually every component of the marketing spectrum — easily — through a single venue.

Below, we’ve highlighted a few of the buzz-building opportunities you should exploit to make sure your business shines at every show.

Meet the Press: Don’t be your industry’s best-kept secret. Take advantage of a great corporate branding opportunity by scheduling a trade show-based press conference to share your firm’s new product, service or other news. Learn your trade show’s deadlines, and provide your show press contact with a short press release announcing your conference topic, date, time, location and speakers. Make sure the show pressroom has your press kit on hand for distribution to the media and public relations professionals who represent new products. Also, ask for a list of expected media and decide whom you want to meet. And don’t forget to ask your press contact for copies of any available video “B-roll” (background footage used during voice over) that you can send to your local broadcast media along with an announcement of your firm’s big news.

Build relationships! This scheduled time away from the office allows you to put your face-to-face communication and networking skills to work in a high-traffic environment. Reinforce product visibility by being available for immediate contact after press briefings and at your booth.

Become the Authority. Whenever feasible, respond to the venue’s Call for Papers by submitting a polished report of your firm’s most recent research findings or anecdotal industry study. Providing an informative or academic presentation on a relevant business topic will position you as an authority in your field and put you in front of people interested in your subject matter (potential networkers and clients). Be sure to advertise your presentation in advance, especially to your “Top 10” prospects, media and public relations professionals. Leverage your presentation after the fact with a letter to clients and prospects, accompanied by a copy of an informative post-event press release.

Advertise. Enhance visibility by placing your listing or provocative ad in the show’s advance and day-of advertising. Take advantage of communication vehicles, such as the show directory, show daily, lists of events and exhibitors, as well as trade publications that will be distributed at the show. Ask your host for a list of associated advertising deadlines and plan ahead to meet them.

Tap into targeted pre-show mailings. Trade show planners maintain accurate, up-to-date mailing lists of sponsors, exhibitors and event registrants. Communicate directly with this motivated audience by procuring the list and creating your own advance and post-event direct mail campaigns. Send potential clients and prospects an invitation (and enticement) to visit your booth.

Host or sponsor a special trade show event.  Plan your event at a time that does not conflict with major conference presentations or activities, and when press is most likely to be on hand. Invite the media and prospects to your special talk, breakfast, cocktail party or press briefing. Take advantage of other marketing opportunities throughout the show by sponsoring breakout sessions, seminars or break areas.

Maintain high-level professionalism. Throughout the show, remember that your booth is your business office. Save coffee drinking and eating for personal break times. While working your booth, be fresh and available, putting your customers’ and prospects’ needs first at all times. If you need refreshment yourself, arrange for a colleague to staff your “trade show office.”

Assess the competition. Don’t forget that trade shows provide a great opportunity for you to research your competitors. Collect their information, attend their presentations and see what approaches work best for them. Then decide how you will turn that information to your advantage.

Query and follow-up. As a service, product or solutions provider, you naturally solve problems. As you gather leads, be sure to ask your prospects what would help them do business better and follow up after the show with information, suggestions and solutions.

Act to hold your gains. To ensure continued top quality performance, be sure to collect and evaluate data regarding your tradeshow and follow-up performance. Adapt your processes as needed with an eye toward winning the “best in show” award!

For more information on topics we’ve touched upon or for trade show marketing assistance, please call Laura Palker (631-470-5591).

Things are tough all over. The recession may be “officially” over, but the recovery has only just begun. There’s good reason for clever entrepreneurs to be optimistic, maybe even a little bold … but make no mistake, they still need all the help they can get.

Well, here’s some: Along with its stellar roster of strategic partners, Emerge is assembling a webinar series that will guide any business through the wilds of 2010 and beyond. We’re talking topflight sales, marketing, multimedia and trade-show specialists, united under the auspices of the webinar masters over at Emerge Sales for a single purpose: to improve your bottom line.

That’s the thrust of  Emerge: The Business Growth Series. Promising “marketing and sales solutions for a new era,” the series continues Emerge’s unparalleled webinar success by combining superior sales support, topflight telemarketing programs, proven growth strategies, smart application of the latest communications and research technologies with the marketing might of New Media Marketing and Communications, the digital dominance of Software Reproduction Technologies, the trade-show acumen of the Trade Show Solutions Center and the web-based wizardry of Naz Creative. The result is an unprecedented five-part series that covers, in exhaustive detail, every aspect of successful marketing in the new decade — and offers the most affordable training package your sales staff will ever know.

“We’ve never really attempted anything like this — I’m not sure anyone has,” notes Michael Kitakis of New Media Marketing and Communications, Inc.. “We knew that forming alliances with our strategic partners would help all of our companies expand our range of services and our client bases, but to combine all this skill and all these experiences and put it out there as an educational product … it’s ambitious and really exciting.”

The series is slated to kick off Jan. 22, when New Media presents “Stop Advertising and Start Marketing.” In a live, open forum alongside Emerge President Michael Sperduti, New Media President Michael Kitakis will offer a no-holds-barred primer on the subtle but crucial differences between making a sale and building a relationship — while presenting a wealth of graphic content and responding to real-time questions from his online audience. 

Webinar highlights:

• What “branding” really means to your business!
• How to develop Unique Selling Points that set your business apart!
• How to turn your website into a 2.0-compatible marketing weapon!
• How to create messages that don’t just pitch a product, but actually communicate your company’s benefits! 

Future installments in The Business Growth Series include “The Plan: Ten Strategies for Trade Show Success” (Trade Show Solutions Center, Feb. 19) and “What is Multimedia? And How it Drives Sales” (Software Reproduction Technologies, March 12), as well as informative lessons on search-engine optimization from Naz Creative in April and more rock-solid sales advice from Mr. Sperduti and Emerge in May.

“What we’re offering, for $99, is a chance to listen to qualified professionals with proven track records, talking about their areas of expertise, which happen to be critical to your business’ success,” notes Mr. Sperduti. “All you have to do is sit your staff down around a computer. This is the most affordable, most convenient and most informative sales-training package I’ve ever seen.”

To register for one or more of the webinar installments, or for more information on The Business Growth Series, please visit Emerge Sales’ website here. And start jotting down questions!

Happy New Year!

But it’s more than that, isn’t it? With the economic recovery slowly building steam, there’s a certain something in the air – not entirely identifiable, not completely tangible, but absolutely there. The economy has turned the corner, and 2010 is more than a new year or new decade. It’s a new day.

It’s still rough out there, obviously. It took America years to dig this hole, and it’ll take a good while to climb out. But look closely at your customers, your suppliers, your competition: Holiday bells are still jingling, but the wheels of industry are spinning full speed ahead. No January hangover, not this year. Too much to do.

We’re with you. Emerge Sales has enjoyed some success, even through the depths of the recession, but now we’re gearing up – and psyched up – for a mammoth 2010. In fact, we have a three-headed plan of attack, if you will, that ultimately benefits you as much as us.

First, we proudly present moresalesperiod.com, which debuts with this inaugural post – alongside our new logo, slogan and website, all of which are new and improved.

To celebrate all our new stuff, we’re hosting the “Best Business Story We Ever Heard” contest, inviting entrants to spin a yarn – humorous or educational or both – for a shot at dinner with our managing partners, Michael Sperduti and Bill Klein (see our homepage for details). That sounds like a silly grand prize, unless you know that Bill is a bona fide TV personality, starring alongside his wife, Dr. Jen Arnold, on the hit TLC program “The Little Couple.” (If it still sounds silly, we offer an alternate prize: a 32-inch high-definition television, so if you don’t want to eat with Mike and Bill, you can watch them on TV instead.)

Which leads smoothly to Super-Huge Announcement No. 3: Emerge’s latest appearance on Bill’s show. New “Little Couple” episodes air Tuesdays at 10 pm on TLC, and on Jan. 12, the cameras will follow Mike and Bill from Houston to New York, where they hammer out Emerge’s new marketing strategy.

Contests and cameos are loads of fun, but Emerge is very serious about making 2010 a stellar year for ourselves and our clients. This blog, therefore, is the most important part of our three-pronged attack: We want readers to see Emerging Markets as a critical resource, and we need your help to do it.

Emerge has the chops. We have the track record and the distinguished client list. We have answers, and we’re itching to share them. Now, you can fill a blog with rants and endless “my two cents” hokum, but that’s why they invented Twitter. A good blog is a forum readers can take from and respond to, and without that healthy back-and-forth, even the hottest ideas will die.

The community Emerge serves is extremely smart when it comes to its products and marketplaces. But what it so often lacks are winning strategies – straightforward, no-B.S. plans that have struck gold in other industries, but just haven’t crossed into these territories.

We don’t have all the answers, but collectively, this community does. Combine our knowledge and experience with your feedback, and MoreSalesPeriod.com becomes the indispensable resource that carries all comers to the promised land, and beyond.

Welcome to 2010, the year we make contact. Bookmark us now, dear readers, and let’s roll.