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A very popular sales book on the market right now is The Challenger Sale by Matthew Dixon and Brent Adamson. Its popularity is based on two things. First, the theories in the book are based on a very large data set - the actual performance of thousands of B2B salespeople. Second, the theories break through traditional thinking about which type of salesperson performs best in a relatively complex selling environment.

Today I was driving east on Midlothian Turnpike going to a meeting at GRTC headquarters on Belt Blvd. in the city's southside. Living in the Midlothian area I drove straight east. I have always cringed at putting my car through the rough roads on Midlothian Turnpike east of Chippenham as well as observing the seediness of the area. Today was a very different experience.

As a sales professional in an online marketing agency your role is to identify the best solutions, maximize profitable sales for your company and create raving fans of your customers. This article is about maximizing profitable sales and achieving a 100% close ratio – you heard me right…100% close ratio of qualified customers.

The most important thing you can do to improve your sales closing performance is to master “trial closing” techniques. Trial closing achieves two critical things:

In the next 5 years industry experts predict online marketing will comprise 35% of total marketing spend compared to 21% in 2012. Online display marketing, more practically known as banner ads and the like, is expected to grow at a compounded annual rate of 20% over the next 5 years, surpassed only by growth rates in social and mobile. By 2016 experts expect display marketing to represent 36% of total digital marketing spend and nearly 13% of total marketing spend, offline and online. While search engine marketing, including SEO and paid search, will still have the lion’s share of total digital spend at 44%, online display marketing spend won’t be far behind at 36%. This all makes sense as more consumers’ “eyeballs” go online to consume content, including that of traditional TV. In summary, branding activity will continue to move online and much of it will be in the form of display marketing.

For the first time in history, marketers in 2012 will spend more on online marketing than advertising in print magazines and newspapers. It is expected that online marketing spend by 2016 will double from that in 2011. Consequently, sales and lead generation from websites will likely grow proportionately.

How much should I be investing in marketing? How much of my marketing budget should be directed to online marketing vs. offline. These are questions I get asked frequently. So, recently I experienced an intersection of data from credible sources that combined go along way to answering these important questions. The two sources referenced in this post are the annual survey of CMO’s by CMOSurvey.org sponsored by the American Marketing Association and the Duke University Fuqua School of Business; and a recent report by Forrester Research Group about interactive marketing trends and predictions.

Background

Google has upped its game once again with the latest Penguin update and SEO pros have to up their game to achieve the results their clients deserve. No more easy link building – links have to be obtained the “old fashioned” way…through quality content. But that is much easier said than done.

I was inspired this morning after reading a great leadership article in HBR - an article that described well the difference between high achievers and real leaders. In the twilight of my own leadership career I felt it appropriate to share some lessons as they relate well to the HBR article. Anyone who aspires to become an effective leader of others needs to read this blog post.