Blogs

It’s another chance to win big in Connect’s next quarterly contest!  The goal? From now until November 30th, 2018, add or update as many contacts as you can to win!*

It’s anyone’s game!

Remember, the format for our quarterly contests are Rainmaker vs. Rainmaker, DDs vs. DDs, and the Community vs. the Community. The top adders/updaters in each category will win. For the community, you can win 500 points added to your account and a $100 AmEx gift card. Rainmakers, you can win a $150 AmEx gift card!  And let’s not forget the Data Defenders, who can win a $250 AmEx Gift card!

All submissions will be verified for accuracy and quality before bonus points and prizes are awarded. Additionally, contest winners must have at least a 90% rating at the time the contest ends.

It’s another chance to win big in Connect’s next quarterly contest!  The goal? From June 1st until August 31st, 2018, add or update as many direct dial phone numbers for Executive, VP-level, or Directors in IT or IS roles as you can!*

It’s anyone’s game!

Remember, the format for our quarterly contests are Rainmaker vs. Rainmaker, DDs vs. DDs, and the Community vs. the Community. The top adders/updaters in each category will win. For the community, you can win Data.com swag, plus 1,000 points added to your account. Rainmakers, you can win a $150 AmEx gift card!  And let’s not forget the Data Defenders, who can win a $250 AmEx Gift card!

All submissions will be verified for accuracy and quality before bonus points and prizes are awarded. Additionally, contest winners must have at least a 90% rating at the time the contest ends.

After much consideration, the decision has been made to retire Data.com Connect as of May 4th, 2019. Consequently, as of May 4th, 2018, you will no longer be able to purchase plans, contacts, or points with a credit card, and as of May 4th, 2019, you will no longer be able to purchase contacts with points. Having myself been a member of the Data.com Connect family since 2009, I understand how challenging this news may be to you, and expect you may have questions about how this impacts your Data.com Connect membership. As such, we've provided a list of FAQs to address a number of concerns you may have. Our goal here is to provide visibility into what you can expect as we move toward the retirement date and make this process as simple as possible for you.

It’s another chance to win big in Connect’s next quarterly contest!  The goal? From March 1st until May 31st, 2018, add or update as many C-level contacts at Fortune 1000 companies as you can to win!*

It’s anyone’s game!

Remember, the format for our quarterly contests are Rainmaker vs. Rainmaker, DDs vs. DDs, and the Community vs. the Community. The top adders/updaters in each category will win. For the community, you can win Data.com swag, plus 1,000 points added to your account. Rainmakers, you can win a $150 AmEx gift card!  And let’s not forget the Data Defenders, who can win a $250 AmEx Gift card!

All submissions will be verified for accuracy and quality before bonus points and prizes are awarded. Additionally, contest winners must have at least a 90% rating at the time the contest ends.

The Data.com Connect community is comprised of many dedicated, knowledgeable, passionate members. Among all Connect members, a small percent are Rainmakers, people who have reached the highest tier of membership based on their quality data contributions. Among these top contributors, we have selected just a handful as Data.com Connect Champions for Winter 2018. These Champions are not only Rainmakers - they act as positive influencers, role models and leaders. They also shine in one or more of the four Champions areas:

• Corner Elite
• User Group Leaders
• Data Defenders
• Top Adders and Updaters

Thinking that you should cut back or give up on prospecting altogether during this time of year? What to do when…

It’s the Holidays!

It’s another chance to win big in Connect’s next quarterly contest!  The goal? From December 1st, 2017 until February 28th, 2018, add or update as many contacts as you can to win!*

It’s anyone’s game!

Remember, the format for our quarterly contests are Rainmaker vs. Rainmaker, DDs vs. DDs, and the Community vs. the Community. The top adders/updaters in each category will win. For the community, you can win Data.com swag, plus 1,000 points added to your account. Rainmakers, you can win a $150 AmEx gift card!  And let’s not forget the Data Defenders, who can win a $250 AmEx Gift card!

All submissions will be verified for accuracy and quality before bonus points and prizes are awarded. Additionally, contest winners must have at least a 90% rating at the time the contest ends.

Our quarterly kudos contest is back again! The Corner is the perfect place to come and share your thoughts about Connect or find answers to your questions, and kudos are the community’s way of giving a "thumbs up" to the information that’s shared. Last year, we held contests rewarding your activity and were so excited by the level of participation that we decided to continue the contest on a quarterly basis with even better prizes for the winners!

Here's how it works: Starting tomorrow, December 1st, 2017, for every kudo you receive for A) a question answered on Ask the Experts or a new thread started on B) All Things Sales, C) All Things Marketing, or D) The Water Cooler, you’ll receive one entry to win one of five $250 Amazon gift cards!*

So get posting your best stuff today and be rewarded!

With the end of the year in site, we sometimes face hard choices as to where to put our efforts. Put everything we have into closing and renewing what’s here and now; or ensure that we are well set for the next quarter, or year? Unfortunately, and often for all the wrong reasons, including guidance from a manager, the former wins out. For professional sales people, this is business as usual, but it is more pronounced, and has much more at stake, at the end of the year. Knowing this, we should always be looking at our time not in a linear way - now or then - but in a compartmental or sectioned way. Each section, focused on core activities, is based on the here and now. This allows the calendar to be used to drive daily activities, not as cause for crisis 12 or four times a year.

You can start by looking at, and spending your time in, an additional way:

Salespeople need emotional intelligence (EQ) skills – defined as the ability to recognize what emotion you are feeling, why you are feeling it and to manage how it affects how you choose to show up each day – in order to win and retain business.  Emotional intelligence enables salespeople to consistently execute the right selling behaviors and attitudes.  High EQ salespeople have the ability to choose their responses, rather than react, to the various triggers that can happen during sales calls and meetings. 

For example, picture a salesperson running a meeting with a prospect that immediately starts asking, “What’s your price, what’s your price?” The pressured salesperson may default to an emotional response.  Instead of executing the appropriate redirect, the salesperson blurts out a price – but without uncovering the prospect’s needs. Or worse, he delivers a bad one liner such as, “Well, are you looking for a Yugo or a Lexus?”  Emotions start running the meeting rather than selling and influence skills.

Everyone seems to be going to Google these days to find answers to their questions and search for products or services they’re looking for. The top few search results are going to get the clicks since people don’t tend to look much beyond that. If you want your business to succeed online, you need to have your business to appear in the top few results. So how do you do that? Every business really needs to have a search engine optimization (SEO) strategy and keywords are the foundation of that strategy.

The Week 10 winners in the Dreamforce Experience contest have been chosen! Taking home a $25 Amazon gift card & some Connect swag are (drumroll, please)...

The Week 9 winners in the Dreamforce Experience contest have been chosen! Taking home a $25 Amazon gift card & some Connect swag are (drumroll, please)...

Mindfulness, compassion, competition and joy are the four core values upon which Steve Kerr, head coach of the Golden State Warriors, has built the team that has achieved unprecedented success over the past three years, including winning two NBA championships. 

This team, which is widely considered to be one of the greatest teams ever, is notable for playing a brand of basketball that is remarkable for its teamwork, selflessness, ruthless efficiency and flat out exuberance. 

The temptation is to chalk this success up to the collective talent of the players. Or their process. Or their devotion to modern analytics and film study. All of which they value.

However, Kerr and his players believe that their team's success, and compulsively watchable style of play, is largely a factor of the degree to which they all have embraced and bought into the culture defined by Kerr's four core values: mindfulness, compassion, competition and joy. 

Let’s take a second and think about how we could incorporate these values into our sales cultures to transform our sales results. It would make quite a change from the excessive focus on sales process, and "what have you done for me lately" sales cultures traditionally favored by too many sales leaders.

Let’s take a quick look at how Kerr’s four values apply to sales.

The Week 8  winners in the Dreamforce Experience contest have been chosen! Taking home a $25 Amazon gift card & some Connect swag are (drumroll, please)...

The Week 7 winners in the Dreamforce Experience contest have been chosen! Taking home a $25 Amazon gift card & some Connect swag are (drumroll, please)...

Our quarterly kudos contest is back again! The Corner is the perfect place to come and share your thoughts about Connect or find answers to your questions, and kudos are the community’s way of giving a "thumbs up" to the information that’s shared. Last year, we held contests rewarding your activity and were so excited by the level of participation that we decided to continue the contest on a quarterly basis with even better prizes for the winners!

Here's how it works: Starting tomorrow, September 1st, 2017, for every kudo you receive for A) a question answered on Ask the Experts or a new thread started on B) All Things Sales, C) All Things Marketing, or D) The Water Cooler, you’ll receive one entry to win one of five $250 Amazon gift cards!*

So get posting your best stuff today and be rewarded!

It’s another chance to win big in Connect’s next quarterly contest!  The goal? From September 1st until November 30th, 2017, add or update as many IT and/or IS contacts as you can to win!*

It’s anyone’s game!

Remember, the format for our quarterly contests are Rainmaker vs. Rainmaker, DDs vs. DDs, and the Community vs. the Community. The top adders/updaters in each category will win. For the community, you can win Data.com swag, plus 1,000 points added to your account. Rainmakers, you can win a $150 AmEx gift card!  And let’s not forget the Data Defenders, who can win a $250 AmEx Gift card!

All submissions will be verified for accuracy and quality before bonus points and prizes are awarded. Additionally, contest winners must have at least a 90% rating at the time the contest ends.

The Week 6 winners in the Dreamforce Experience contest have been chosen! Taking home a $25 Amazon gift card & some Connect swag are (drumroll, please)...

As the sales leader of a B2B technology company I am simultaneously a promoter and target of prospecting outreach. I encourage my team to reach out to customers with respect, conviction, perseverance, and empathy. Yet, as a prospect, I’m very hard to reach. I don’t generally respond to cold emails or LinkedIn requests from business development reps. In the age of distraction I look for every opportunity to promote relentless focus and prioritization. Two of my favourite books, The One Thing and Essentialism, remind me that extraordinary results only come from knowing what’s important, how to bias towards those things, and block out distractions. It’s hard but apparently I’m not alone.

The Week 5 winners in the Dreamforce Experience contest have been chosen! Taking home a $25 Amazon gift card & some Connect swag are (drumroll, please)....

Unfortunately, as sales people we often get caught in our rut and start to do the ‘same ole-same ole’ with our customers; we ask a few questions, listen for our cue to pounce, and move in for the close. Customers can smell this a mile away. Time to get fresh! Time to really be curious and listen.

There is nothing better than genuine curiosity as a way to encourage people to tell you all sorts of things that are meaningful to them. I LOVE how Jason Calacanis described listening in his LinkedIn blog, If you want my money, you’ll have to answer to these four questions: Lessons from an angel investor. I can’t say it better myself, so I won’t.

http://community.data.com/t5/Blogs/Did-someone-say-Dreamforce/ba-p/323604

The Week 4 winners in the Dreamforce Experience contest have been chosen! Taking home a $25 Amazon gift card & some Connect swag are (drumroll, please)....

The Week 3 winners in the Dreamforce Experience contest have been chosen! Taking home a $25 Amazon gift card & some Connect swag are (drumroll, please)....

With over 170,000 registrations in 2016 and 15 million viewers joining online, Salesforce’s annual Dreamforce (Nov. 6-9, 2017) is undoubtedly the learning event of the year. The largest software conference in the world, Dreamforce features truly inspiring keynote speakers, thousands of insightful breakout sessions, and countless opportunities to network and improve your business, all in the heart of San Francisco. Whether you’re a company of five or a Fortune 500, Dreamforce is a unique opportunity for everybody! Need more convincing? Those that attended Dreamforce 2016 have reported on average a 25% improvement in top line revenue, 34% increase in sales activity, 40% increase in marketing campaign effectiveness, and 48% faster integration.

Here at Connect, we are passionate about helping Connect members experience Dreamforce, and there’s a variety of ways you can get involved.

The Week 2 winners in the Dreamforce Experience contest have been chosen! Taking home a $25 Amazon gift card & some Connect swag are (drumroll, please)....

The Week 1 winners in the Dreamforce Experience contest have been chosen! Taking home a $25 Amazon gift card & some Connect swag are (drumroll, please)....

The Data.com Connect community is comprised of many dedicated, knowledgeable, passionate members. Among all Connect members, a small percent are Rainmakers, people who have reached the highest tier of membership based on their quality data contributions. Among these top contributors, just a handful are selected as Data.com Connect Champions. Connect Champions are not only Rainmakers - they act as positive influencers, role models and leaders. They also shine in one or more of the four Champions areas:

• Corner Elite
• User Group Leaders
• Data Defenders
• Top Adders and Updaters

Twice a year, we select a new group of Connect Champions based on their activity over the last six months.  Today, I am proud to introduce the Summer 2017 Champions!

Whenever I conduct a workshop or webinar training, invariably someone asks the question: “What should I say when the prospect says, ‘I’m not interested?’”

My response invariably is: “It’s probably too late.”

Certainly you can try to recover from that "I'm not interested" response. You can ask, “I understand that you are not interested. May I ask you why?” (Say this gently, as though you are confused and really, really want the answer.) This will often get prospects to start talking and explain themselves. They will tell you the reasons that they say they are “not interested.” The truth is, however, there are only two reasons that prospects say, ‘I’m not interested.”

The other day I was in the car with my 6-year-old, Mason, when we spotted a rainbow.

That led to a discussion of the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.

You can imagine how his eyes lit up talking about that one. For a 6-year-old, a pot of gold is about as good as it gets.

But that got me thinking ... everyone has a different pot of gold. Maybe your pot of gold is retiring early, or a fancy car, or more time away from work.

For most people who are in business, especially salespeople and entrepreneurs from professional services, there is one “pot of gold.”

They want to increase their client base and their revenue.

But here’s the problem… most businesses can’t handle what they wish for.

And if they double their customer base, it means double the workload while paying less attention to each customer. Not so good, right?

If you’re a typical consultant, coach, writer/speaker, or other professional services business owner who provides a “done-for-you” service like a huge chunk of the businesses that make up the U.S. economy, then getting a flood of new clients all at once would be both a good thing and a very, very bad thing.