There are more than 47,000 products available for purchase in the store nowadays. Low entry barriers give customers a variety to choose from, so packaging plays an essential role in the retail industry. In this Expert Insight Interview, Michael Keplinger discusses branding in terms of packaging. Michael Keplinger is a Director of Strategy and Managing Partner with Smash Brands.

This Expert Insight Interview discusses:

• Established products on the market
• New products entering the market
• Attracting millennials as consumers

Established Products

The retail industry got positively impacted by the evolution of digital marketing because it made it so much easier for the companies to test customers’ first impressions on the products. Earlier, they had to place the products on the market and wait for the reaction, but now digital marketing enables faster and more efficient first impression testing. Another thing that changed with time in the retail industry is that product design plays a significant role. Today, in the mass of products out there, product design needs to grab a customer’s attention. Considering that millennials are in their prime spending age, products mostly follow their design preferences as bright colors, for instance. People like innovation and differentiation, so the companies need to show their products in a new and different light. That might be a challenge for the already well- established big companies which emphasize the tradition. Duracell is an example of a company which managed to bring the evolution in their product design but keep the feeling of reliability with their products.

New Products

On the other side, a new product coming to the market is basically like an empty canvas. It requires an entirely different perspective and strategy. The design of a new product needs to stand out. Newton, Amazon brand oil, found a way to stand out in the mass of similar brands by communicating more to the female audience. While other companies focused more on males, this company realized that healthy diet oils should market more to women. By reading customer experiences on the competitors’ products, Newton also differentiated itself by making better quality packaging, which lacked in this market.

Attracting Millennials

Millennials differ from other consumer generations because they like to feel connected to the brand and to agree with the idea that the brand stands for. Millennials are also very fast-paced, and they prefer simple and convenient things to fit into their fast-paced schedule. 7- Eleven did a great job presenting itself as a business for working people who are traveling all the time or in a hurry. The prepaid debit cards offered in 7-Eleven are again convenient for millennials because of their try to avoid the bank fees.

Our Host

John is the Amazon bestselling author of Winning the Battle for Sales: Lessons on Closing Every Deal from the World’s Greatest Military Victories and Social Upheaval: How to Win at Social Selling. A globally acknowledged Sales & Marketing thought leader, speaker, and strategist, he has conducted over 1500 video interviews of thought leaders for Sales POP! online sales magazine & YouTube Channel and for audio podcast channels where Sales POP! is rated in the top 2% of most popular shows out of 3,320,580 podcasts globally, ranked by Listen Score. He is CSMO at Pipeliner CRM. In his spare time, John is an avid Martial Artist.

In today’s Expert Insight Interview, our guest is Arif Anis, a world-famous speaker, best-selling author, therapist, and an executive coach. Focusing his work on leadership, influence, and getting the best out of human productivity, he has trained celebrities and leaders from movie stars to heads of states. Inspired by the turbulent events of 2020, he has written an upcoming book called ”Made in Crisis.”

This interview explores the following themes:

• How the mighty have fallen
• Small business owners in crisis
• Positive aspects of pandemic

How the Mighty Have Fallen

This pandemic wasn’t the first Earth-shattering crisis in the US, and certainly not in the world; every decade has its own. However, it is evident that many leaders weren’t prepared for it and didn’t know how to react adequately. We couldn’t see it coming, and when we finally saw it, we still denied it until it shook us very seriously. We have witnessed the crisis of leadership and the failure of leaders during previous months, especially the ones considered significantly powerful in terms of their influence and vision.

During the analysis of over 50 leaders from the first, second, and third world, it became clear that the most successful leaders who managed to turn the things around were females. It was a bit unexpected, given the general theories and beliefs about leadership. The females acted decisively, yet with compassion. The male leaders of some of the most powerful countries in the world, such as the USA, Great Britain, or Russia, had the exact opposite reaction. And consequently, their countries suffered the most. The conclusion is that the biggest problem is the mispositioned goal of leadership. Leaders are winning elections and gathering support for the wrong reasons. While they spend enormous amounts of money on preparing for wars, investing money in health and technology/education relevant to health is not a priority. And that needs to change.

Small Business Owners in Crisis

One of the biggest questions of this pandemic is how to prepare your business to survive it and come out of the crisis thriving. Studying the organizations and people who were successful in these conditions enabled the introduction of the PRICE framework. PRICE is the acronym for the promise, risk, innovation, change, and empowerment. When the crisis hit, they have promised that they will react quickly, make fast decisions, and manage through all of it. They approached the risks head-on, yet cautiously. They were ready to change, and they have implemented that change on the go while empowering their teams, which was a crucial element in these success stories. So, the key is in the agility, supported with the adequate digital processes.

Positive Aspects of The Pandemic

Every pandemic was a cause for an enormous number of lost lives, but ever since the 13th century, it has also challenged us to become better and to change. Pandemic accelerates the changes that need to happen anyway. We owe most of the discoveries and innovation in the last 700 years to crises such as pandemics. They get the worst and the best out of people, but in the end, the best part usually outweighs the worst part.

Our Host

John is the Amazon bestselling author of Winning the Battle for Sales: Lessons on Closing Every Deal from the World’s Greatest Military Victories and Social Upheaval: How to Win at Social Selling. A globally acknowledged Sales & Marketing thought leader, speaker, and strategist, he has conducted over 1500 video interviews of thought leaders for Sales POP! online sales magazine & YouTube Channel and for audio podcast channels where Sales POP! is rated in the top 2% of most popular shows out of 3,320,580 podcasts globally, ranked by Listen Score. He is CSMO at Pipeliner CRM. In his spare time, John is an avid Martial Artist.

The X-Factor for CRUSHING your Sales Targets

Author, Coach, Digital Marketing Expert, and all around inspiration, Bill Carmody joins us for a #SalesChats to talk about Mental Fitness for Sales Leaders: The X-Factor for CRUSHING your Sales Targets.
In this session, Bill will talk to host John Golden about:

• What mental fitness really means
• How leaders can help their sales teams become mentally fit
• And how we can all improve our mental fitness

Don’t miss this as given the way the world is right now we all need to be as mentally fit as possible.

How to watch this #SalesChats Episode:

Go to Youtube Live and set a reminder.

Recorded Live – 8th of October, 9am PT

Our Guest

Bill Carmody

Bill Carmody is a more-than-20-year digital marketing veteran. He is the CEO of Trepoint and a regular Inc columnist.

Links › Bill Carmody | linkedin.com | Twitter | YouTube

Our Hosts

John Golden

John is the Amazon bestselling author of Winning the Battle for Sales: Lessons on Closing Every Deal from the World’s Greatest Military Victories and Social Upheaval: How to Win at Social Selling. A globally acknowledged Sales & Marketing thought leader, speaker, and strategist. He is CSMO at Pipeliner CRM. In his spare time, John is an avid Martial Artist.

Martha Neumeister

Martha is a social media strategist, responsible for all social media platforms of Pipeliner CRM. She is a communication expert with social media affinity, which she has been focusing on throughout her professional career. She has a bachelor´s degree in Entrepreneurship & Management and a master´s degree in Online Marketing which supports her in her career as Social Media Strategist.

About SalesChats

SalesChats is a fast-paced (no more than 30 minutes) multi-media series that provides leading strategies, tactics and thinking for sales professionals worldwide. It can be found on Twitter (#SalesChats) and as a podcast available on iTunes, SoundCloud, and right here on SalesPOP! If you think you would make a great guest for #SalesChats, please contact co-host Martha Neumeister.

SalesChats is co-hosted by John Golden, CSO Pipeliner CRM, and Martha Neumeister, Social Media Strategist Pipeliner CRM.

Have you ever imagined that this year will be like this? In this Expert Insight Interview, Margie Warrell discusses her new book You’ve Got This, which is about overcoming uncertainties. Margie Warrell is an international leadership speaker, bestselling author, and founder of Global Courage.

This interview discusses:

• Working on self-certainty
• Operating from the faith and not fear
• Surrounding ourselves with the right people

Self-certainty

There is a lot of research showing that uncertainty, especially global uncertainty like the one we live in now, naturally generates anxiety in people. There are so many external sources like social media or the news that fuel us with panicking ideas. But, if we continue to focus on all the negative things that are happening around us, we only add up our anxiety levels. Thus, we should try to organize our thoughts to focus on the things that we can control. There is a strength in each one of us, and we can decide how to use that internal strength we have. During the hard times, we must strive to be the person that will make our future self proud.

Faith and Not Fear

Fear casting is a concept of imagining worst-case scenarios. Considering that our minds and bodies are connected, this type of thinking affects our immune system. It also affects our creativity when facing problems and challenges. That is why it is crucial to keep our faith that good things can still come out of bad situations. Faith does not have to be necessarily religious. It can also be the concept of believing in yourself, in the sunshine after the rain, and the next opportunity.

People Around Us

The conversations we have with other people and the energies we receive from them influence the way how we look at things as well. However, we are accountable for whom we decide to share our time and thoughts. So, we should choose to be around people who can lift us and inspire us. For instance, many people are afraid of international travel at the moment. But we cannot let fear dictate our actions because we will not be able to grow from this situation then. We have to stay positive and embrace the moments we experience now as best as we can so that we can thrive. We cannot control the circumstances sometimes, but we can definitely control whether we go out of it as winners.

Our Host

John is the Amazon bestselling author of Winning the Battle for Sales: Lessons on Closing Every Deal from the World’s Greatest Military Victories and Social Upheaval: How to Win at Social Selling. A globally acknowledged Sales & Marketing thought leader, speaker, and strategist, he has conducted over 1500 video interviews of thought leaders for Sales POP! online sales magazine & YouTube Channel and for audio podcast channels where Sales POP! is rated in the top 2% of most popular shows out of 3,320,580 podcasts globally, ranked by Listen Score. He is CSMO at Pipeliner CRM. In his spare time, John is an avid Martial Artist.

Brand identity does not come only from the visual look, but from the way how a company talks to its customers as well. In this Expert Insight Interview, Margie Agin discusses brand storytelling. Margie Agin is a Founder and Chief Strategist at Centerboard Marketing, content expert, speaker, and author.

This Expert Insight Interview discusses:

• The process of storytelling
• Identifying the brand’s personality
• Testing the company’s voice

The Process

In brand storytelling, the hero of the story is always a customer. Customers are the main characters, and the brand serves as a guide to hold their hands and help them achieve their visions and goals. The brand journey and customer journey take way longer than people think. From the sales and marketing perspective, we have to be very careful not to act like the story is over once when we close the sale. The customers still interact with the service, technical, and implementation support, so customer care still has to be at its highest level. Being loyal to the end of the customer journey encourages a customer to make a repeat purchase and to give referrals to others. All the departments of the organization represent the same brand, and they form one universal brand personality in the eyes of the customers.

Identify the Personality

Brand personality is as important for B2B business as it is for B2C business. Slack is a great example of a company which managed to unify the impression its employees, products, and a visual look makes on its customers, and to make an authentic brand personality. Each company has its personality, but many of them might need an external assessment to identify it. The company’s core characteristics that differentiate that company from the others can be found through interaction with its employees. Those core characteristics need to be built up into a personality and one of the techniques used is of an archetype. Companies can personalize some of the archetypal characters such as a rebel, magician, jester, etc. for their marketing and sales purposes. Once when the brand personality is identified, the company needs to work on its consistency in embracing it. The key is for the frontline workers to unify the tone of voice they use in interaction with the customers, no matter if that is email, chat, social media, or a phone call. That can be learned through editorials, workshops, training, etc.

Test the Voice

A good practice for every company to test whether its personality is distinctive enough is to think “in case if we take out our logo from being seen, would the customers know which company communicated this message”? The point is to develop the company’s voice which is distinctive and accepted by the customers.

Our Host

John is the Amazon bestselling author of Winning the Battle for Sales: Lessons on Closing Every Deal from the World’s Greatest Military Victories and Social Upheaval: How to Win at Social Selling. A globally acknowledged Sales & Marketing thought leader, speaker, and strategist, he has conducted over 1500 video interviews of thought leaders for Sales POP! online sales magazine & YouTube Channel and for audio podcast channels where Sales POP! is rated in the top 2% of most popular shows out of 3,320,580 podcasts globally, ranked by Listen Score. He is CSMO at Pipeliner CRM. In his spare time, John is an avid Martial Artist.

Are you concerned about whether your business will survive the current worldwide health crisis? In this Expert Insight Interview, Tony Guarnaccia discusses how business owners can successfully navigate through the unknown. Tony Guarnaccia is an entrepreneur, founder of Result Trained, growth strategist, marketer, author, speaker, and innovator.

The interview discusses:

• Factors to focus on
• Moving quickly in experimenting
• Creating a value

The Results Loop

When we find ourselves uncertain of how to handle a business situation, we should first break the things down into three primary areas to understand the situation as best as we can. The first thing is to decide what we want to achieve and which strategy to use for it. The second step is to make an action plan. And the third step is to take that action and to adjust as needed. Our goals still need to have SMART characteristics, but because of the volatility of the situation, we should prefer short-term goals. The Results Loop represents the growth factors to focus on in any circumstance. Those factors are the markets we serve in, the products or services we provide, the value we create, the number of customers, brand loyalty, and referrals. In a crisis, some markets get affected more than others. Agencies that work in heavily affected markets must be able to adapt their offerings in the new directions that markets go to. In this case, that direction is the virtual world. One company started to live stream funerals across the world, and who knows, this trend might continue after the pandemic is over as well.

Move Quickly

The process of changing to or adapting to the new market requires a lot of experimenting. It requires quick movement if the feedback shows that the project is failing. Thus, it is important not to get too involved with the projects because they might fail quickly. However, people do “marry” their projects sometimes, so the appropriate messaging to those people can be very helpful. We should look at the failed projects as lectures that lead us to successful
innovations.

Create Value

In a crisis, already established businesses should focus on loyalty. Current and past customers are more likely to buy from you again. Try to get those customers to buy more or to refer new customers. The way to increase sales opportunities with already loyal customers is by being useful to them in times of crisis. Now is the time to help people by giving them free ideas, tools, software, anything that adds value to them. By adding value, you can make your business to stand out from the rest of the companies which sends only good thoughts to their customers via emails.

Our Host

John is the Amazon bestselling author of Winning the Battle for Sales: Lessons on Closing Every Deal from the World’s Greatest Military Victories and Social Upheaval: How to Win at Social Selling. A globally acknowledged Sales & Marketing thought leader, speaker, and strategist, he has conducted over 1500 video interviews of thought leaders for Sales POP! online sales magazine & YouTube Channel and for audio podcast channels where Sales POP! is rated in the top 2% of most popular shows out of 3,320,580 podcasts globally, ranked by Listen Score. He is CSMO at Pipeliner CRM. In his spare time, John is an avid Martial Artist.

Our society teaches us to have a limited mind perspective. But, in this Expert Insight Interview, Stacy Bahrenfuss discusses how to become a magnet for the opportunity with a limitless opportunity approach. Stacy Bahrenfuss is a founder and CEO of the Catalyst Real Estate Company and creator of Limitless Realtor Circle, a professional realtor training program.

The interview discusses:

• Understanding the approach
• How it affects your clients

The Limitless Approach

We have a choice to make about how we want to live, what we want to do, and what we want to believe in. Thus, we can decide to set up an “everything is possible” mindset. When we clear up with ourselves what we want, the universe will conspire to help us achieve want we want. However, it is not enough to just wish it very hard. We need to make sure that we have the right mindset, the right circumstances, and that we are putting enough effort and hard work into achieving our goals. There are two ways of approaching and executing your business differently. The first one is to simplify your daily tasks. For example, in the real estate industry that would mean simplifying your lead generations to one to three main ones that you want to pursue. The second one is to look at the world from a bird’s perspective. We live in a very connected world, so your current real estate buyer or seller can be your connection for your next clients. Different industries are interconnected nowadays as well, so thinking outside of the box and always looking for the opportunity can help you to grow your business.

Clients See It Too

Real estate agents often seem to be in some chaos. Being chaotic creates doubt and fear in your customers, especially when some curveball happens, which is very common in the real estate industry. Thus, having the right mindset will bring you the calmness in any situation that your customers will be able to notice too. And, by showing the right energy to the customers, it will be easier to achieve better communication and to build a trustworthy relationship with them. Satisfied customers can contribute to many long-term recommendations and referrals. The pandemic situation also shows that everything is possible with the right mindset. Many people decide to make a life-changing decision they were always putting off for later. For instance, considering the trend of virtual work, this is a great opportunity to move and to go live somewhere you always dreamed of living. Virtual jobs and schools made the traditional selling periods to last all year long.

Our Host

John is the Amazon bestselling author of Winning the Battle for Sales: Lessons on Closing Every Deal from the World’s Greatest Military Victories and Social Upheaval: How to Win at Social Selling. A globally acknowledged Sales & Marketing thought leader, speaker, and strategist, he has conducted over 1500 video interviews of thought leaders for Sales POP! online sales magazine & YouTube Channel and for audio podcast channels where Sales POP! is rated in the top 2% of most popular shows out of 3,320,580 podcasts globally, ranked by Listen Score. He is CSMO at Pipeliner CRM. In his spare time, John is an avid Martial Artist.

Some might say that all you need for starting a business is persistence and luck, but actually, there must be some purpose in what you do. In this Expert Insight Interview, Russ Barnes discusses the principles for purposeful profitability in the entrepreneurial world. After 27 years in the US Air Force, Russ Barnes is now a founder of Systro firm dealing with business strategy for small businesses, an author, and an international speaker.

This Expert Insight interview discusses:

• Finding a purpose
• Setting the framework
• Planning process

Find Purpose

For the purposeful profitability, we need to know the final destination we want to reach. Then based on our personality, resources, talents, and skills, we can make the smaller steps towards it. It is kind of like wanting to go to Hawaii. You imagine yourself at the beach drinking cocktails, but to do that, you first have to do a bunch of smaller steps such as buying a ticket, booking a room, etc. Starting a business is stressful, and for many people, their business becomes their identity. Thus, it is important not to lose the original framework that will enable your business to prosper.

Set the Framework

Getting the business organized a certain way does not mean that you will lose on the creativity, flexibility, and the ability to pivot. It only means that by knowing the final destination, it will be easier to track down the progress and to make necessary adjustments within the boundaries. Thus, in case of a crisis, everybody will know what their job is and how to do it, so there won’t be a problem of taking accountability for it later. Creativity cannot be an excuse for a lack of discipline. A challenge of leadership is to be able to give enough freedom to employees to do their jobs their way. Over time, there must exist a trustworthy relationship in which the management can check the work periodically to see the progress without any doubt that the end-results will be as effective and as productive.

Have a Plan

Crisis happens all the time in business. The benefit of having a good framework is that it enables you to anticipate. When you know in which direction your business is heading, and when you know your daily operations, the crisis can only make you approach tasks differently. For instance, Covid19 forced many organizations to transition to online work. In life, things rarely go according to plan. It is not a plan what is important, but planning. When you plan constantly, you develop abilities to adapt to different situations and to do faster, critical, and methodological thinking in a spur of the moment.

Our Host

John is the Amazon bestselling author of Winning the Battle for Sales: Lessons on Closing Every Deal from the World’s Greatest Military Victories and Social Upheaval: How to Win at Social Selling. A globally acknowledged Sales & Marketing thought leader, speaker, and strategist, he has conducted over 1500 video interviews of thought leaders for Sales POP! online sales magazine & YouTube Channel and for audio podcast channels where Sales POP! is rated in the top 2% of most popular shows out of 3,320,580 podcasts globally, ranked by Listen Score. He is CSMO at Pipeliner CRM. In his spare time, John is an avid Martial Artist.