How to Create a Successful Referral Selling Program

Sales is the backbone of any organization. Wouldn’t it be great if you had loads of people generating new leads for you and even making sales on your behalf? You have a hidden, powerful sales team already with you who can potentially generate leads for you and this team includes  your clients, colleagues, business associates, friends, and family. And every one of them could be a great referral source—if you have proactive, disciplined, measurable referral system .so referral sales is a technique which can be used for generating the leads more easily. Referrals are your biggest competitive differentiator, Here's what it takes to create a referral program that enables you to convert prospects into clients:

Make it a priority

Referral selling requires laser-like focus, commitment, and determination (just like anything else that's important to you). It becomes your primary business-development outreach. Asking for referrals is proactive and intentional. You put a stake in the ground and commit to referral selling. You implement essential processes and enroll your entire company in the effort.

Integrate it into the sales process

Getting referrals should not be a bonus. It becomes the way we work—an integral part of our daily routines. Start by documenting your current sales process. Keep it simple, and get your team to agree on the major steps. Then integrate asking for referrals into your sales process (i.e., when and how you will ask).

Create metrics

Decide what makes sense to measure—something easy to quantify and that will indicate your referral initiative is successful. You might set metrics around revenue generated from referrals, the number of new customers, the number of referral meetings set each week or month, the number of qualified opportunities that come from referrals (with revenue attached), or even new markets that you expand into because of referral opportunities.

Develop the skill

We often assume that asking for referrals is easy. It's simple, but it's not easy. Referral selling is a series of building blocks. The first step is gaining clarity on the business results you deliver and exactly who you want to meet. Most people won't refer you just because you're a nice person. Their reputations are on the line, so they want a concrete business reason to refer you (just as you would if asked to refer someone in your network).

Become comfortable

Most of us aren’t completely comfortable asking for referrals. We worry that it's pushy and intrusive to ask busy people for referral introductions. And sometimes we fear asking for help implies we’re desperate or can’t do it on our own (not cool in our independent, driven society).

Asking for referrals isn’t pushy, nor is it a nuisance to those who believe your solution is valuable. We give referrals all the time—often without being asked. We tell people about terrific restaurants we’ve discovered, exciting books or movies, mechanics who got our cars working and didn’t overcharge, spas where we’ve had great experiences, or anything else we’ve enjoyed. It’s in our DNA to share great finds.

Are you ready to commit to referral selling, get every meeting at the level that counts, and boot your competition? Start by making referral selling your No. 1 priority. Without that commitment, nothing else matters. It takes a little work, but the results are worth the effort.

To learn more about the power of referral selling, stay tuned for more posts and check out my No More Cold Calling webinar for five referral-selling tips

http://blogs.salesforce.com/company/2013/09/sales-referral-program.html

Hybrid Cloud

Something About Hybrid cloud computing

  A hybrid cloud offers both affordability and security by splitting business requirements so that each process demand goes into the right cloud as private cloud has the problem with higher cost and public cloud has some security concerns but the hybrid cloud can overcome over this problem. With shrinking IT budgets and rising business demands, companies are looking for an intermediate model of cloud computing technology. The hybrid cloud computing solution rightly fits into this space. By integrating the public cloud with the private cloud; businesses get the flexibility to isolate sensitive data while still benefiting from the many advantages offered by the cloud.

What is hybrid cloud computing?

    A hybrid cloud is basically a combination of at least two clouds; the clouds may be the mixture of public, private, or community. In short, a hybrid cloud computing solution strikes the right balance between scalability, agility, performance, operational flexibility.

Benefits of hybrid cloud computing

A public cloud brings world class technologies into your environment at an affordable price. At the same time, security issues are a concern. A private cloud is solutions for these security issues but is expensive. A hybrid cloud offers both these benefits by splitting business processes so that each process demand goes into the right cloud. Following are some advantages:

Flexible business operations

The greatest benefit offered by hybrid cloud technology is the flexibility in operating your business. Every enterprise runs multiple business processes that are different in nature. While some processes work on critical data, some of them perform regular day-to-day activities. If a business function does not process critical data, you can use a public cloud to run the project. At the same time, mission critical functions can use a private cloud.

Optimized costs

One of the main benefits of the cloud is reduced costs. Depending on your business processes, you can configure your hybrid cloud using private and public clouds. As mission critical processes are comparatively fewer, the operational expenditure is greatly reduced by scalable solutions offered by the cloud.

Enhanced security

One of the main concerns of a public cloud is data integrity and security. Hybrid clouds offer extra security to your data. By keeping your data out of the public cloud, companies can add extra security to business processes. At the same time, applications can seamlessly work between different environments to reduce operational costs.

Every Minute of the day !!!

SEO STRATEGIES

Procedure for content writing
Content Writing is like flying an aircraft one can consider author as a pilot and flying an aircraft has following four main steps:
1) Planning
2) Taking off
3) Flying
4) Landing
The main factors that one needs to focus while content writing is, who are the readers? What is the subject of the article that writer is writing? , what are the goals of writing the content?
This all questions are needed to be answered while content writing

Planning:
While planning the content writing one needs to look on foll aspects :
Collecting information for which one is writing the content, having all the data on the topic on which content is to be written, checking the issues, verifying the facts is very important as the data that is collected nedd to be verified .and final step of planning the content is creating a logical outline.
Identifying the text’s features is important part while planning for the content writing; the features such as Goal, Reader, Topic, length, and type are needed to be considered. Gather ideas what are information and ideas of the topic which the one is going to write about .List ideas in an outline, which clusters of ideas and concepts are been created and what is there logical sequence?
These factors are needed to be considered while planning for content writing
Taking off:
When one is ready with the planning part then next step is taking off so consider three main factors while taking off:
1) Sort the topics
2) Create the sequence
3) Confirm concept’s course
The following points are considered for perfect content:
Summary: one can start with a summary that presents the topic and why it is important.
Anecdote: one can introduce the text with a fact, a story, curiosity.
Short phrases: Use journalistic language, few words having effect.
Answers: one can introduce his topic with a direct answer about it.
Analogy: one can compare his own topic to another similar one.
Quotations: They are very effective to catch the reader's attention. It can be a proverb, a verse or a famous quotation.
While starting the content writing remembers that, this is the first approach for readers.one has to phrase it carefully. As start of any topic introduces about the article that we are writing. It has to capture the reader's attention.
Flying:
Flying i.e. while writing Develop and separate individual topics, Use clear language, Use short sentences and phrases and most important avoid jargon.
Following factors are to be remembered while writing:
1. Use short sentences.
2. Use short first paragraphs.
3. Use vigorous English.
4. be positive, not negative.
5. Never use a metaphor, simile, or another figure of speech which you often see in print.
6. Never use a long word where a short one will do.
7. If it is possible to remove a word, then do it.
8. Never use the passive where you can use the active
9. Never use a foreign phrase, a scientific word, or a jargon word if you can think of an everyday English equivalent.
10. Break any of these rules sooner than say anything outright barbarous.
Landing
After completion of writing the final part is checking for the contents it’s similar to landing an aircraft.
1st part is the conclusion of the content or article that is written one has to conclude the text in a clear way. Do not leave anything unanswered in the article that has been written.
Finally check for following points in the articles and edit the content.
1. Review of topics
2. Clarity
3. Effectiveness
4. Grammar
5. Spelling
6. Punctuation
The final paragraph is a farewell from writer to readers. It has to summarize the topics and confirm the thesis

Cloud Computing in India - Opportunities and Way Forward

 Innovation in IT industry has always been faster compared to other industries. It has resulted in the industry witnessing a series of transformations over the last 50 years. Technology transformations started with mainframe computers than moved on to minicomputers, PCs and the web. The next wave of transformation in IT industry is cloud computing. We have already seen the success of cloud computing in the consumer world. Companies such as Facebook have grown over the last 5 years to reach over 400 million active users. The company is today valued at more than USD 15 billion dollars. The growth, revenue and the market valuation was only possible by using all three corner stones of cloud computing i.e., technology innovation, delivery model innovation and business model innovation.

However, there are few concerns with the adoption of cloud computing as well. Data security and lack of control on IT environment are the key concerns of CIOs. Like any transformational initiative, adoption of cloud also faces internal resistance to change as it alters the makeup of IT organization. Cloud changes how IT departments buy or develop, deploy, maintain and support applications. In the near future, these challenges will be resolved through better technology, transparency, cost, regulations and changes in mind set of the customer. Despite challenges and concerns, CIOs are aware about opportunities and benefits of cloud computing and related business models. In a recent survey conducted across 240 CIOs, more than 70 percent agreed to adopt cloud in the near future.

India has a legacy of jumping technology curves. The precedent exists in the telecom sector and now DTH is also witnessing transformation. It is expected that cloud would also show the similar behavior. The companies that are currently not adopting IT and don\'t have major investments in datacenters and server farms are expected to shift directly to the cloud model. There are ample opportunities in every industry. Verticals such as retail, manufacturing, banking, education, and healthcare will rely upon cloud services for better reach. The key themes for most opportunities are cloud, mobile, market place, price discovery, collaboration and analytics.

Cloud computing and related business models will act as a leveller for Indian ISVs. Cloud has just not opened up opportunities for Indian ISVs. It has also opened up interesting opportunities for large service companies both in traditional services and services that will drive non-linear growth. In terms of traditional opportunities, cloud has helped Indian services companies to enter into areas such as SaaS enablement.

Cloud is opening up new windows of opportunities for Indian companies both from global as well as domestic opportunity stand point. Having realized the immense potential of cloud, it is essential for companies to come together and enable collaborative innovation to address both India and global market needs. The key focus should now be on developing the ecosystem. It should include developing talent for cloud development, connecting start up ISVs with large system integrators, enabling start ups on the cloud market places and finally, influencing government policies to become cloud friendly. the near future, this ecosystem together with Indian capabilities of exporting business models will provide the right mix to leverage opportunities created by cloud.

Happy New Year 2014!!