Ever heard of an instrument called Ukelele before?

Neither have I, but now that I have... absolutely love it. Listen to this virtuoso Jake Shimabukuro and enjoy.

Happy Holidays!

Experience Mobile Mobile from James Théophane Jnr on Vimeo.

Gary Vaynerchuk - Crushing it at the Le-Web Paris 2009

Wow oh wow, this guy knows his sh*t, knows how to bulid a business and reaching the audience works in a new age. I probably learned more valuabe business lessons in this 25+ minute segment then reading some not so great business books. Will definitely be checking out his book.

So much to learn and so little time.

http://garyvaynerchuk.com/

First Snow! 20 CM Woot!

 
 
 
 

My #2 favorite fighter of all time Lyoto "The Dragon" Machida

Another epic fighter who is UNDEFEATED (16-0), humble and respectful Lyoto Machida. On my list very close to the #1 Fedor "The Last Emperor" Emalianenko (31-0)

http://lyotomachida.net/

Excellent thoughts from Earl Nightingale's Strangest Secret

1. Set yourself a definite Goal
2. Quit runing yourself down
3. Stop thinking of all the reasons why you can not be successful and instead think of all the reasons why YOU CAN
4. Change the image you have of yourself by writing out a description of the person you would like to be
5. Act the part of the successful person you have decided to become

Success is measured by quality and quantity of service you render, and money is a yardstick for measuing this service.

No man can get rich himself unles he enriches others

Don't worry, worry brings fear, and fear is crippling

Each day do more then you have to.

A message from one of the most important books in history of mankind

This says it all I do not even have to explain it pure and simple...

"Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you."

My Compilation of Favorite Progressive Uplifting Trance Tunes

My wishes :) and links to remember

Was looking through petfinder again and saw her:




I would love to own a Husky (Siberian would be great) except we can't have one in our apartments. Besides these beautiful animals need a lot of space and attention which i can't provide at the moment :(

As soon as we get a house I will be looking for one via Nebraska Humane Society http://nhs.convio.net/ and/or petfinder.com to adopt 1.

http://www.shca.org/shcahp2a.htm <- Siberian Husky Club of America.

Scottish Fold cats are also adorable little creatures.

"Democratising public art" bus-stops.com

London from Arts Council England on Vimeo.

Updated "Did You Know" 2009

Huge, Impactful, Engaging & Expensive Digital Board

Hand from Above from Chris O'Shea on Vimeo.

Ads on Edge

Excellent presentation

Ads on Edge

View more documents from Geert Desager.

Inspiring Experience

Walking across China for a year...great vid, and now I'm a fan of The Kingpins

The Longest Way 1.0 - one year walk/beard grow time lapse from Christoph Rehage on Vimeo.

How fast the world is changing...

Amazing presentation on how today's technology is changing our lives and future:

Blog Khushbaht-a :) Esli vas interesuet.

Vsem privet,

Vot reshil vam vsem srazu napisat i dat' znat' address moego blolg-a.  Esli khotite ne poluchat' avtomaticheskie novosti pojaluysta dayte mne znat i ya udalu vash e-mail iz razsilochnogo spiska :) 

Cel' etogo bloga kak vi naverno uje prochli, ya budu zdes pisat o novikh novostyakh,  ideyakh, i budushikh planov.  Esli chto vi mojete ostavlyat svoi kommenti pod kajdim blogom.

Dayte znat' kak vam design blog-a, chto b vam khotelas videt'/chitat i t.d.  

Do sleduushego posta ;)   

P.S.

Skoree vsego ya budu pisat' na angliyskom esli chto vi mojete ispolzovat google perevodchik chtobi perevesti moi blogi.  Link zdes:   http://translate.google.com/translate_t#

Ranking and Prioritizing Opportunities by Using the Weighted Method Lead Scoring

Ranking and Prioritizing Opportunities by Using the Weighting Method Lead Scoring

Based on research on lead scoring here is a summary of why scoring is important and how to effectively score leads using a weighted method lead scoring.

Qualifying leads is important because not all leads are created equal.  Some leads require more attention than others and based on the score each lead will receive various levels of attention and contact.  For example a score of:

·         130-150 means that a qualified (preferred) customer is ready to see a sales presentation

·         100-129 a sales call is needed

·         80-99 prospect needs nurturing and an email from sales/marketing is needed

·         40-79 prospects are interested to learn more send a direct mail piece with necessary information 

·         20-39 a prospect that is not worth the effort, keep in the mailing list but don’t bother nurturing

·         0-19 politely decline service or ignore

Qualifying leads can be done using various methods of communication such as asking qualifying questions in the web site questionnaire such as the ones used by RightNow and other companies (see appendix 1.1 and 1.2), via email, phone and others. 

As the number of leads grow it is crucial for the company to develop an automation system that will automatically generate an appropriate response based on the score each lead receives.  For example if there was a product inquiry from a customer using our website, and based on his or her responses to the online questionnaire he or she gets a score of over 120.  The lead will be moved on high priority list and an email will be sent out to sales reps to contact the lead.   To work more efficiently and avoid confusion it is helpful to assign each sales rep an industry or geographical location to work with.

A well thought out lead scoring system will help us close more sales and more importantly close the right kind of sales if the 80/20 rule applies.   If 80% of our revenue is generated by 20% of our customers from a specific industry or of a specific size/type than we must spend more time nurturing those in top 20% relative to the ones in the rest 80%.  

Numeric lead scoring Vs. Hot/Cold or A/B/C scoring

A numeric relative lead scoring (mentioned above) as opposed to others (hot, warm, cold or A B and C) allows us to ignore psychological issue of categorizing each lead thus saving time and allowing us to know exactly who rates higher on the chart and directly compare the two leads. 

There are two categories of information that will help us score leads using weighted method, they include explicit and implicit information.

 

The explicit information includes:

Budget - Is the purchase budgeted, and what size of budget does the prospect have available.

Authority/ Title - Does this person have the authority to make the purchasing decision?

Company Size / Revenue – How big is the company, how much is their annual revenue?

Returning Business – Is it an existing business/returning customer; if so is it a profitable one?

Geographic Location – Where is this customer located?  Do we have sales rep in their location?

Industry – Have we worked in this industry before, how profitable are we in this industry?

Product Interest – Are they looking for hardware, software or complete solution?

Lead Source – where did the lead came from (direct e-mail/phone call to our sales/marketing or a mass email list we were in)

 

Implicit Information includes:
 

Need - How important is the product or solution to the company. How deep is their pain?

Timeline – Is the customer ready to buy the product? When is the purchase likely to be?

Emphasis on Brand Value – Is this customer conscious about its company’s brand?

Interest Level – How interested is this customer? Does he/she sound excited about our solution?

 The following chart is a lead scoring method using explicit and implicit information about each lead.  It is important to note that by no means is this suggested scoring system final or complete. It is just an overview of how we could score our leads.  This rating scale will be tweaked based on feedback received.

Weighted method lead scoring chart:

Criteria	0-3	4	6	8	10	12
Budget		$1,000- $2,500	$5,000-$10,000	$15,000- $30,000	$50,000-$80,000	$100,000 +
Authority, Title, Decision Maker		Recommend Sales Person	Specify Tech Rep / IT	Use	Approve Manager	Purchaser VPs and Senior Executives
Company Size / Revenue		500K -1Mill	25Mill-50Mill	100 Mill-250Mill	$500 mill -1Bill	5 Bill +
Timeline		Undecided	12 months +	7-12months	3-6   months	Less than 3 months
Returning Customer		Yes, but was not a good business	No	Yes	Yes, was a good business	Yes, was a cash cow
Emphasis on Brand Value ( Brand Conscious)		Not at all	Somewhat	Average	Above Average	Very Brand Conscious (i.e. Apple)
Product Need Urgency		Just for show, to say that we have it	Somewhat Important, we are ok without it	Important, we need this product  to be efficient	Necessary	Can’t do business without this product
Geographic Location			Overseas	USA	USA with Nanonation Sales Rep in that state / region
Industry / or Defined Target				Tourism:  example Royal Caribbean
Interest Level		Low	Average	Above Average	High	Very High
Products Interested In		Hardware Deal	Software Deal	Software + Hardware	Complete Solution	Complete s/n + Support Purchase
Lead Source		Mass Email To Companies	Trade Show Interest	Direct e-mail to a sales rep	Direct phone call to sales/marketing	In person

Based on this chart each lead can have a score of anywhere from 0 being the worst, to 144 being the best.  The scores will help our sales reps rank and prioritize their opportunities, which will help boost productivity. 

Please note a different scoring chart for implicit and explicit information may be required.  Some criteria is more important than others, thus should weight more in the chart (i.e. two customers receive a score of 115 but one has $100k+ budgeted for our product the other has $10K.) 

Appendix 1.1 Note in the red box RightNow’s qualification questions:

Appendix 1.2

References

http://blogs.salesforce.com/blogs/2005/07/use_lead_scorin.html

http://www.nysia.org/events/past/2005/Lead%20Generation.pdf

http://www.leaddogs.com/MarketingArticles/ScoringYourLeads.aspx

http://theinnovativemarketer.blogs.com/ideas/2006/04/how_to_get_star.html