Why Are Lottery Winners So Unhappy?

April 6, 2012 Leave a Comment

Life Lessons From Sad Lotto Winners - What I Learned Interviewing the CEO of Delivering Happiness

Lottery Winners are an unhappy bunch. Despite that $1.5 billion dollars was spent on the recent MegaMillions lottery. Why do people do it, when so many lottery winners are unhappy?

Jenn LImare unhappy?

Delivering Happiness is a company started by Zappos. They’ve examined the science of happiness and they found that most people are utterly unable to predict what truly makes them happy.

Jenn Lim is the CEO and Chief Happiness Officer of Delivering Happinessand I interviewed her on my online TV show, Mad Marketing TV. One of the slides she shared is below.

Notice the processes outlined here. Get a girlfriend/boyfriend, find a soulmate, get married, etc. Too many people confuse the early steps – getting a girl or boy friend, landing a new job, etc. with actual goal, Happiness. Delivering Happiness found that people want a higher calling and to feel empowered.

Why don’t you check out Delivering Happiness today?

What do you think? We love to read comments and those who share on social media.

Jeff Ogden is the President of Find New Customers and wants to deliver happiness to salespeople everywhere – quality sales leads. Check out our SCORE Demand Generation Program too.

Filed Under: Self Education Tagged With: Happiness, management-best-practices

Good-Bye Chase. Hello American Express

April 5, 2012 1 Comment

Update on 4/5/2012 We won a new account! That means even more money coming in and making Chase look even more foolish!

We have a happy problem at Find New Customers. Business is booming. So we are bumping up against our credit limit on our JP Morgan Chase credit card.

No problem. Pick up the phone and talk to them. Ask for a credit line increase. After all, I’ve paid on time and Find New Customers is a long time customer and the credit limit has been the same for years.

I spoke very nicely to them. “I’m sorry, Sir, but we’ve determined that your current credit line is adequate.” After trying and trying, they would not budge. I hung up.

My next call was to a company I respect a lot more – American Express. 10 minute talk. Approved. New card came overnight.

Good-bye JP Morgan Chase. Hello American Express.

Here’s the marketing take-away. Work with your customer to find a reasonable compromise (like a small credit line increase) That way you keep a customer. Chase failed to do that. Shame on them.

Jeff Ogden is President of the lead generation company and global marketing firm Find New Customers. We also invite you to check out our new SCORE Demand Generation Program.

What do you think? We love comments and those who share on social media.

Filed Under: Self Education Tagged With: Find New Customers, management-best-practices

CMO.com | Study Finds Marketers Don’t Practice ROI They Preach

March 29, 2012 1 Comment

More Than Half Don’t Use ROI Metrics to Plan Budgets; 28% Rely on Gut Instinct

This article, which published at CMO.com on 3/16/2012, points to how few marketers leverage ROI metrics. It directly points to the need to bring in outside experts in B2B demand generation like Find New Customers.

According to a study of 243 CMOs and top marketing execs, almost 6 out of 10 don’t establish budgets according to ROI measures. “Sixty-eight percent of respondents said they base their budget decisions on historical spending levels, while 28% said they go with gut instinct. And 7% said most of or all their spending decisions aren’t based on any metrics at all.”

The study was conducted in January and February by the Columbia Business School Center on Global Brand Leadership and the New York American Marketing Association, and results were presented at the Brands Innovation Technology conference in New York on March 5.

To read the rest of the article, please visit Study Find Marketers Don’t Practice the ROI They Preach.

“We at Find New Customers believe the inability of marketers to use ROI points to the need to bring in outside help with B2B demand generation. Since we’ve interviewed metrics experts like the Lenskold Group for Mad Marketing TV, we have not only the knowledge, but a world-class network to draw upon.”

Filed Under: Self Education Tagged With: Budgets, CMO, Metrics, ROI

12 Beliefs of Good Bosses – from the book Enchantment by Guy Kawasaki

March 23, 2012 2 Comments

Guy quotes Bob Sutton, a professor at Stanford University and author of Good Boss, Bad Boss: How to Be the Best…and Learn from the Worst. Professor Sutton compiled a great list of twelve beliefs of good bosses, which we share here. (Click the highlighted words for the permalink).

Also, check out my review of Enchantment here. (Our only 5 star book of last year!)

We’ve personally worked for the very best – and the very worst bosses, including Robert Greifeld, CEO of Nasdaq/OMX (One of the best!) Jeff Ogden of the lead generation company Find New Customers is happy to share these leadership tips from Enchantment.

I really hope you find a way to share this post with your boss…..

I have a flawed and incomplete understanding of what it feels like to work for me.
My success – and that of my people – depends largely on being the master of obvious and mundane things, and not on magical, obscure, or break-through ideas or methods.
Having ambitious and well-defined goals is important, but it is useless to think of them much. My job is to focus on the small wins that enable my people to make a little progress every day.
One of the most important, and most difficult, parts of my job is to strike the delicate balance between being too assertive and not assertive enough.
My job is to serve as a human shield; to protect my people from external intrusions, distractions and idiocy of every stripe – and to avoid imposing my own idiocy on them as well.
I strive to be confident enough to convince people that I am in charge, but humble enough to realize that I am often going to be wrong.
I aim to fight as if I am right, and listen as if I am wrong – and to teach my people to do the same thing.
One of the best tests of my leadership — and my organization — is “what happens after someone makes a mistake?”
Innovation is crucial to every team and organization. So my job is to encourage my people to generate and test all kinds of new ideas. But it is also my job to help them kill off all the bad ideas we generate, and most of the good ideas too.
Bad is stronger than good. It is more important to eliminate the negative then to accentuate the positive.
How I do things is more important than what I do.
Because I wield power over others, I am at great risk of acting like an insensitive jerk – and not realizing it.

What do you think? We love comments and those who share our content.

Jeff Ogden (@fearlesscomp) is President of the B2B lead generation consultancy, Find New Customers and in his long career, has worked for a few of the best and many of the worst – bosses anywhere. This is why he is looking to share key ideas.

To learn about Jeff, please click About Me.

Find New Customers helps companies (with between 150 and 5,000 employees who sell complex products to businesses) to implement world-class lead generation programs. As companies struggle to create quality sales opportunities, they turn to lead generation companies like Find New Customers.

“Find New Customers can certainly help your business dramatically improve the flow of sales-ready leads to salespeople.” Paul Dunay, CMO at Networked Insights.

Filed Under: Self Education Tagged With: management-best-practices

To Make Marketing Automation Truly Hum, Look Beyond Software

March 21, 2012 4 Comments

Last week, Jeff Ogden, President of Find New Customers spent a full day with a client of Marketo. This company was kind enough to demonstrate what they had set up in Marketo – for nurturing, lead scoring, etc. I was not impressed. The content contained in there was deadly boring. The scoring approach was weak.

I had an epiphany right there. This company, who was struggling to get value from their software, did not lack technical skills- they had Marketo knowledge in-house. But they clearly needed strong buyer personas, a content map, agreed lead definitions and more. They were unable to create quality content for Marketo and saw a major problem. This led me to reach a conclusion.

Companies are hiring the wrong skills

This points to so many companies who say they need a Demand Generation Leader with deep experience in their marketing automation software. I beg to differ. You want to hire a talented and innovative demand generation manager who knows how to craft world-class lead nurturing programs, conduct buyer persona interviews, craft engaging content and engage with sales. In addtition, they need a world-class network of experts to draw upon.

They should be experienced working with marketing automation – and able to demonstrate their work deployed in marketing automation. But they need not be experts in your software. Someone with this level of talent is rare and hard to find (and prohibitively expensive), which is why most companies should turn to outside firms - lead generation companies like Find New Customers.

Yes, you need someone trained in the software. But the cost and skills needed for that role are far lower than the demand generation manager above. You can simply send someone to training. The skill level to operate software such as Marketo has virtually nothing to do with lead nurturing, lead scoring, sales enablement and more.

What also became clear is this: The client did not have the level of talent needed in-house. Fortunately they are, we think, hiring Find New Customers to help.

What do you think? We love to read your comments and when you share on social media.

Filed Under: Self Education Tagged With: Find New Customers, lead-generation, lead-nurturing, marketo

What Happens When You Google Your Own Name?

March 19, 2012 2 Comments

Everyone says it is a useful exercise to see what comes up when you type your own name into Google.

What happens if I type “Jeff Ogden” into Google (making sure I logged out first)

As you can see, I do very well. Jeff Ogden of the lead generation company Find New Customers appears a lot – Linkedin, Twitter, Facebook and my blog, Fearless Competitor. And the former NFL player with my name pops up too.

This was no accident. It comes from years of publishing great content. What do you think? What comes up when you Google your own name?

Filed Under: Self Education Tagged With: blogging, content marketing, Find New Customers, lead-generation, Mad Marketing TV, management-best-practices, marketing-campaigns

Happy St. Patrick’s Day 2012 from Find New Customers

March 17, 2012 Leave a Comment

Jeff Ogden is President of Find New Customers“Lead Generation Made Simple” He’s also the host of Mad Marketing TV.

Find New Customers helps business develop and implement programs to improve the way they find and acquire new customers using best practices in lead generation.

And on St. Patrick’s day, he’s also proud to share that he’s a graduate of the University of Notre Dame and can declare “I am the Fighting Irish.”

Filed Under: Self Education

Why B2B Companies Ought to Bring in Pros BEFORE Hiring In-House

March 13, 2012 2 Comments

More and more, I’ve grown convinced that it is in a company’s best interest to bring in top professionals before hiring in-house for key demand generation roles. For a related article, check out Find New Customers introduces Demand Generation using the SCORE Method. (Simple, Complete and Optimal Revenue Enhancement)

Go to Linkedin and search for “demand generation” roles. There are a lot there. Those companies would be far better served by hiring an outside firm before staffing up internally.

Why? I think this is best illustrated by an example.

One of our clients asked a question:

How much do software firms spend on marketing (percentage of revenue)?

Now let’s assume this company just hired a Director of Demand Generation. We’ll call him Tom. We say to Tom “Go research what companies are spending on marketing and get back to us.” In a few days, Tom comes back and says “The numbers are all over the map, but the median is 12.5% of revenue.” We take Tom’s findings to the CEO but we are shot down. The CEO is unconvinced that spending 12.5% of revenue will yield needed results.

Let’s contrast Tom with outside pros like Find New Customers.

The client asks Find New Customers “How much do software firms spend on marketing (percentage of revenue). Find New Customers says “We could certainly research marketing spend on average, but there is a much better way to calculate it.” Surprised, the manager says “There is? Tell me.” Find New Customers explains how to work backwards from revenue goals to calculate marketing spend needed. (See our free Sales Lead Calculator for a free calculation tool.) The client is thrilled and the CEO quickly blesses it.

This actually happened. One of our clients asked this question and we pointed them in a different direction. That would have never happened with a staff member.

It’s the ability to bring fresh perspective and a wealth of experience and knowledge – and document best practices – this is why companies would be best served by hiring professionals for a time before hiring permanent staff. If you wish to contact Find New Customers, please call 516-495-9350 or send an email to jeff dot ogden at findnewcustomers.com. Please check out the profile of Jeff Ogden on About.me.

What do you think? We love comments and those who share on social media.

Filed Under: Self Education Tagged With: buyer personas, content marketing, Find New Customers, lead-nurturing, lead-scoring, management-best-practices, marketing-campaigns

Why Michael Jordan would get a rejection letter | The Fatal Flaw in the Job Description/Resume Process

March 12, 2012 3 Comments

(This is one of the most popular posts ever here.)

If you read our earlier post More Reasons to Outsource B2B Lead Generation, you saw the damning data from LeadershipIQ – lots of new hires fail and many more are so-so at best – and very few are stars.

(CSO Insights found that only 7% of companies said they “excelled” at interviewing and hiring salespeople.)

The bottom line: Companies are doing a good job of hiring mediocre employees and terrible at hiring stars.

I believe the reason for that is the fact we use what I consider to be an antiquated process for finding employees – which has the unintended consequence of eliminating stars – the job description/resume process. For more on why resumes don’t work, read Here Are 8 Important Traits That A Resume Just Can’t Illustrate

Why doesn’t it work?

The current process, especially with the flood of resumes in a weak economy, caused hiring executives to look for the unblemished candidate – in effect, one with perfect skin, figure, hair etc. After all, with so many candidates, we can be very choosy. Flawed candidates have no chance.

Therein lies the problem.

Failure is a hallmark of all very successful people. Superstars are risk takers – so they fail a lot, but succeed beyond wildest dreams. But our antiqued process prevents us from hiring stars.

Let’s look at hypothetical case to illustrate:

Star Basketball Player Needed for Company Team
Young 15-18 year old needed to play for company basketball team. Must be great shooter with unblemished record.

We post a job to Linkedin and receive hundreds of resumes from you, aspiring basketball players. We sit down and start going through the pile. It takes hours.

As we look at resume after resume of great players, one catches our eye for a moment. This kid scores a lot of points and his teams win. But upon closer examination, we notice that he was cut from his high school team. So we throw it in the discard pile. Must be something wrong with him – he was “fired” by a coach. (No one hires someone “fired” by a prior manager, do they?)

The kid in the Discard pile we just threw out is Michael Jordan – the greatest basketball player in history. When Michael Jordan was 16 years old, he was cut from his high school basketball team. In hindsight, it was the best thing that ever happened to him, as he worked twice as hard to become the best of all time. Failure helped him.

The key point: Flawed candidates are often the best, but our antiquated process is designed to weed them out.

If the job description/resume process fails to uncover stars, what can we do instead?

Here are my three tips to uncover superstars of tomorrow:

Look well beyond the resume
Recommendations on Linkedin. Blog articles they wrote. Content they created. Run their Twitter and blog through Grader.com – a free evaluation tool from Hubspot.
Search for fast failure with bounce-back
Look for cases where they encountered a difficult situation and bounced back. Stars fail because they are courageous enough to take risks. And industry studies have shown that personality traits, such as coachability and ability to work well with others, is far more important than industry experience.
Evaluate their overall online presence
Google their name. Today, executives need a strong online presence. Should not be hard at all to find them. Are they on social networks, do they write a blog, do they have recommendations?

What do you think? Do you have other ideas on how companies can uncover stars of tomorrow? We love comments and those who share.

Jeff Ogden (@fearlesscomp) is the President of the B2B lead generation consultancy Find New Customers. Find New Customers helps companies dramatically improve revenue results by transforming the way they attract, engage and win new customers. Contact Find New Customers by calling (516) 495-9350 or sending an email to sales at findnewcustomers.com.

How to Find New Customers is the simple guide to B2B demand generation.

“If more companies listened to (Find New Customers) a lot more would be sold.” Dan McDade, Pointclear.