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Understand the Opportunity and Become Lucky!

Do you really understand the opportunities you've been presented within your career and personal life? [more]

10 Suggestions to Overcome Sales Burnout

It’s real and we all go through it. Sales Burnout. Here are 10 powerful suggestions to overcome this potential career [more]

Cloud, Virtual, Web 2.0, Social Media and its Impact on Business

It is speculated that technical advances are growing exponentially. One hundred years of accomplishments, twenty years from now, will only take one [more]

Top 10 Business Relationship Social Media Networking Tools

Professionals and companies of all industries have adopted some sort of integration with social media. They use these tools in a variety of ways to promote themselves, ideas and [more]

Location Based Services Smart for Business

In a more recent report… Location-based services could become a $10 billion per year business by [more]

2012 Top 50+ WordPress Plugins

After years of trial and error testing this is my exhaustive list of what I consider the most powerful WordPress plugins [more]

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The Latest

Mightymeeting – Cloud Presentation Tool

Two things I love in a software and/or hardware product; easy and wow. Mightymeeting has both.
By Chris Lott in the last month | 4,599 views | 2 Comments

Mightymeeting title=

Two things I love in a software and/or hardware product; easy and wow. Mightymeeting has both. I have shown this around the office and in every case they were pumped. Many of my sales team members have now started using Mightymeeting. With this much excitement I just had to write about it!

Easy
Arriving at Mightymeeting.com you’re presented with a wonderfully simple main screen. While there looks like only two things to do, “Sign Up Now” or “Join a Meeting”, there is actually a third item you should be aware of. I actually missed it the first time. I needed to install the touchscreen (iPad, iPhone, Android) application.

The links are in the lower left hand side of the main screen. I personally just went to the Android Market on my EVO, did a quick search, and downloaded it OTA (over the air). Maybe a QR code would make this easier? Hint, Hint. Overall, however, this is a pretty simple install and registration process.

Kindle Fire for Business and Sales – Top 10 Apps

Is the Kindle Fire “ready to rumble” for business and sales use?
By Chris Lott in the last month | 2,035 views | No Comments

As one of the 4 million plus that recently received a Kindle Fire for the holidays a new tablet love affair has transpired. It doesn’t have a camera and bluetooth but I don’t need either. My EVO 4G works just fine there. Its 7” size is perfect to carry around for all my personal and business duties. The later being a huge unexpected surprise.

As I started searching for various Kindle Fire apps in Amazon’s app store I quickly found that not all the choices I had become accustomed to were available. Even those that I did find were not ready for prime time on the Fire or any tablet for that matter. Maybe Google Apps Marketplace? While you can view apps in the Google/Android Marketplace from a Kindle you can’t install them from there. Hmmmm…

Was the Kindle Fire “ready to rumble” for business and sales use afterall? The hunt was on.

Kindle Fire Business and Sales Apps Options

So what are the options… if any?

Option 1: Of course I could always “root” my Fire and access Google’s Marketplace but that wasn’t my goal. Also, this process is not for the weak of heart and I wanted to drink the Amazon services device “koolaid”. What could I do with this $199.00 tablet using the services and apps offered by Amazon for sales and business?

Envato – Audio Files, Royalty Free Graphics, Website Themes and Much More

Envato, the prices are reasonable for royalty free graphics. Selling or buying it’s a place you have to visit.
By Chris Lott in the last month | 2,765 views | No Comments

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Envato, headquartered in Australia, has got to be one of the greatest best kept secrets around. It’s a digital market place like none other. If you have electronic creative talents you can market your creations easily and affordable. If you have limited talents, like me, you can purchase these “royalty free” creations to use in your presentations, websites, whatever.

In their own words…“We operate a set of inter-connected marketplaces for digital goods that allow anyone to buy or sell Flash, music loops, sounds, video effects, pixel fonts, site templates and CMS themes.”

These Marketplaces are:

Works of art not selling well?
“You can learn to perfect your craft through tutorials and comments in the Envato “creatives” sphere. “With our world famous Tuts+ websites, Envato offers free training and tutorials in Photoshop, web development, audio and illustration. The sites have a huge following and run work by talented creatives from around the community.”

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Turn Your Business Around!

Is your business suffocating? Do you feel lost on what to do to turn it around? Here are three powerful ideas that should get you started in the right direction.
By Chris Lott over a month ago | 2,490 views | 2 Comments

Turn Your Business Around!

I was in a retail toy store the other day and the owner randomly asked me what I thought he could do to improve his sales. He is leasing a nice store front in a small strip mall but off the beaten path. I told him that his location sucked. He looked shocked but ultimately agreed. I also told him that that’s OK. “I have successfully run plenty of retail store fronts in lousy locations.” I assumed he got a screaming deal on the lease and he had.

I then started browsing around for a game that I had read about in a business journal earlier. This store had been recognized by a game manufacturer because of a report from a consumer about the owners nine year old son. He was playing a new game and literally talked the potential customer into playing with him. They bought the game and sent an email off to the manufacturer. Amazingly, the store owner had no clue that there was a story about his store and son. After looking around I decided buy a “stomp rocket”. No up-sale suggestion like extra rockets was offered however.

“Every brand isn’t for everybody, and everybody isn’t for every brand.” -Liz Lange — In other words, do what small businesses do best and focus on a niche — and then own that niche. Be at the top. – American Express Open Forum

Continuing the business conversation… I explained that I see leasing as a marketing cost. You pay a higher lease to get a busier location that draws more traffic… store marketing. You save on your lease but the location isn’t that great your skimping on marketing unless… you market in other areas. Maybe that’s part of the solution? So I asked what he was doing in other marketing venues. Word of mouth, coupons and website was his answer. Wow. I looked at the coupons, delivered in a coupon pack, boring and no real stimulating offer. Later I looked at his website which was basically a business card with no call to action. As I was leaving I told this floundering store owner I would get back with him with some ideas and did.

advertise

Market Changed and You Didn’t

Are you staying on top of the latest trends in marketing and product direction for your organization? Do you understand the implications if you don’t?
By Chris Lott over a month ago | 2,122 views | 2 Comments

Market Changed and You Didn't

Business owners, managers, and sales professionals can be blind to market changes and competition. In relying on their small group of influence they miss the big picture many times. Ego can also stand in the way. Small successes continue to reinforce small thinking. It’s like the frog standing in the pan of water and stays there as the heat is turned up until boiled alive.

With that said, many are slowly waking up to the realization that their “tried and true” practices and product offerings are simply no longer effective. Marketing, products, and culture changed but they didn’t. Now their competition that “got it” is ahead of the curve. Many times as much as years ahead. Let me give you an example…

Years ago I introduced social media marketing and its applications to my company and more specifically sales teams. Amazingly only one person really grasped the vision and power. She understood the possibilities and ran with it. With a local economy downturn this person now had the power of selling through other regional markets without any real costs. The big picture. Of course the soothsayers, a year or so later, were now trying to imitate her success and quickly realizing that it takes time. They are now playing catch up and are behind the curve.

“If you are not willing to risk the unusual, you will have to settle for the ordinary. (via Great minds)” -Jim Rohn

Businesses are living breathing entities. You are either feeding them or they die. Sales success is not any different. What new idea, new process, or new excitement have you brought to your organization?