Penguin, Random House Merge to Focus on Digital Publishing |  |
- Penguin, Random House Merge to Focus on Digital Publishing
- Ways to Reduce Your Sales Stress
- Invisible Capital Reveals The Resources That Builds Success
| Penguin, Random House Merge to Focus on Digital Publishing Posted: 04 Nov 2012 11:00 AM PST The book industry is changing, and digital media has made it easier for more people to distribute their writing to an audience. Now, two of the major players in the book publishing industry have teamed up to better keep up with these trends and potentially offer more options to these new writers.
Publishing companies Random House and Penguin just announced that they plan to join forces next year in order to better take on emerging markets and the digital publishing era. Penguin Random House, as it will be called in late 2013 when the two companies are scheduled to officially merge, will include all of the publishing divisions and imprints of the two companies in the U.S. and several other countries around the world. The purpose of the merger is for the two companies to strengthen their presence in emerging markets and the digital publishing industry. For independent authors or small businesses looking to get published, this merger could mean that Penguin Random House will have greater resources to invest in this type of content. The merger still needs to go through the regulatory approval process, so the benefits to authors and businesses still remain to be seen. But it hasn't been difficult to see that the two companies haven't kept up with the digital publishing options as well as online giant Amazon, which itself offers a lot of options and opportunities for authors, individuals, and small companies that wouldn't necessarily have been made available under more traditional publishing channels. If the two companies joining together leads to stronger competition with Amazon, it could possibly lead to even more innovation and options for these potential independent authors. Upon completion of the merger, Bertelsman, the parent company of Random House, will own 53% of Penguin Random House, and Pearson, the parent company of Penguin, will own 47%. Management of Penguin Random House will be split between the two current companies. Until the merger is complete, the two companies will maintain separate operations and keep up with business as usual. The post Penguin, Random House Merge to Focus on Digital Publishing appeared first on Small Business Trends. |
| Ways to Reduce Your Sales Stress Posted: 04 Nov 2012 08:00 AM PST Every customer hates the feeling of being pressured into buying something – you can hear the urgent neediness in a sales person's voice when they're desperately trying to close a deal, whether or not you're receptive to the offer. Sales neediness comes from a place of stress. When a sales person feels like every customer is a make-or-break moment, they're going to act accordingly. Your challenge as a sales leader is to help your sales team avoid driving away customers with this kind of neediness by reducing their sales stress.
To reduce your sales stress, you need to focus on all the activities that lead up to closing a deal, and build a strong pipeline that protects you against the loss of a big account or the last-minute collapse of a promising deal. Here are 5 ways to reduce sales stress for you and your sales team: Maintain A Full Calendar of New Business Development If your sales team is busy managing existing accounts and closing deals with repeat customers, it can be hard to persuade them to spend more time on prospecting. But the truth is, unless your sales people are regularly meeting with new business prospects, they are vulnerable to suddenly having the rug swept out from under them when their "busy" times come to a stop. Being a sales person is like being a juggler – you have to keep multiple balls in the air at the same time; keeping your existing clients happy while also introducing a steady amount of new business prospects into your daily mix of activities. By always maintaining a pipeline of new sales opportunities on the horizon, your sales team can stay busier, happier and more profitable. How does this reduce your sales stress? If you know that you always have multiple opportunities on the horizon, you'll be less likely to "overdo it" in pursuing any of your current prospects. It takes the pressure off to know that even if one promising prospect doesn't pan out, you still have many other people waiting to hear from you. Take It One Day At A Time Make prospecting into a daily habit. Do a little bit of prospecting work every single day you are at your desk. Even if you only have time for 30 minutes of calls, make sure you dial them. Depending on your sales conversion rates, a certain number of dials will lead to a certain number of appointments, which leads to a certain number of sales – but you can't get the sales without making the dials. Breaking up your prospecting into a daily repeatable routine helps reduce sales stress by lowering the stakes for every prospecting call. If prospecting is something you do every day, automatically, it becomes a low-stress, low-pressure activity – just part of your regular routine; nothing to get worked up about. Instead of procrastinating and suddenly having to make a long list of high-stakes prospecting calls, daily prospecting helps you build a better pipeline that lowers the pressure for any individual sales call. Be Prepared Every sales call requires you to do your homework. Have a plan for the call. Know why you are calling, know who you will be talking to, and know what you want to say to them. More importantly, be prepared to listen attentively to the prospect and uncover additional needs based on what the prospect is saying. Understand what you are hoping to accomplish with each call, whether it's getting a sales appointment, offering a sales proposal, or finalizing a time to meet to discuss closing the deal. Being prepared will reduce your sales stress because you will feel more in control of the situation, ready for any questions or objections that the prospect might raise. It's the difference between being a kid in school who didn't do his homework and is trying to fake his way through the final exam, and a kid who came prepared and aces the exam with confidence. Who would you rather be? Don't Assume Too Much Many sales people make the mistake of assuming that every so-called "qualified" sales lead is completely ready to buy. Unfortunately, different sales prospects have different standards of "ready to buy." Some prospects might have indicated an interest in your solution just as a way of getting off the phone with whoever was making the lead generation calls. Other prospects might be interested in getting more information from you, but are not yet actively in the market for your solution. Approach your list of "qualified" sales prospects with the expectation that you're still going to have to do some work to build relationships, uncover customer needs, and align your solution with those specific needs. Managing your assumptions helps reduce your sales stress because it makes it easier to go with the flow. If you go into a conversation expecting to have to build relationships, you'll be better able to handle questions and objections along the way. Keep Following Up Many sales people make the mistake of only focusing on the highest-potential short-term sales leads because these are often more likely to buy now. But as part of building a strong sales pipeline, you also need to nurture your long-term sales leads. Keep following up every few months with sales leads that had expressed an interest, or even the ones that initially said they were "not interested." Circumstances can change at every company, and even a "not interested" prospect can become interested as their business needs evolve. Keeping up the daily, weekly and monthly routines of following up with sales leads can reduce your sales stress by uncovering unexpected opportunities, even from sales leads that your competitors might have overlooked. Regular sales lead nurturing also helps reduce sales stress by making these activities part of the standard sales routine. Instead of a high-stakes, high-pressure, do-or-die sales pitch, your conversations can take on more of a friendly air of a trusted industry peer and colleague just checking in. Which conversation would you most like to be part of? Sales can be a stressful job, but true sales professionals find a way to take control of the situation and reduce their stress levels by doing the incremental work every day of setting appointments, following up with sales leads, and dialing the phone. If you approach the sales process as a long-term endeavor instead of a high-stakes last-minute do-or-die conversation, you can significantly reduce your sales stress and increase your sales conversion rate. Stress Photo via Shutterstock The post Ways to Reduce Your Sales Stress appeared first on Small Business Trends. |
| Invisible Capital Reveals The Resources That Builds Success Posted: 04 Nov 2012 06:00 AM PST
If you're in business and seeking perspective on how to build a business properly, reading the book Invisible Capital: How Unseen Forces Shape Entrepreneurial Opportunity by Chris Rabb is very appropriate. Even Rabb's background is appropriate, for this book's theme. Currently on assignment at Temple University, Rabb is a writer, consultant, and speaker on numerous topics related to entrepreneurship, media, civic engagement, and social identity. He's been highlighted on programs such MSNBC’s Up with Chris Hayes. Note: You can watch the program featuring Rabb alongside JJ Ramberg at the end of this review (also read Ivana Taylor’s great review of JJ’s book It’s Your Business). Rabb's management of entrepreneurial programs for a business assistance program in an underserved neighborhood, along with research from sources such as the Kauffman Firm Survey and the Panel on the Study of Entrepreneurial Development (PSED), forged his examination of the resources that make or break business success. I spoke with the author via phone after a friend's Facebook connection, and I connected with the values he presents whether on news programs or in print: Entrepreneurs must constantly assess their regular connections and how those connections are deployed as capital necessary to success. Why Knowing “Who Did It” Is Important If you followed the controversy about President Barrack Obama's "You Didn't Do It" comment regarding business owners, you'll appreciate what this book sets out to explain. Written well before the debate, the book notes that many concepts of entrepreneurship are overemphasized. Rabb feels that the U.S. is facing "entrepreneurial illiteracy"—a lack of meaningful insight among ordinary people becoming entrepreneurs as well as the leaders who promote entrepreneurship.
Invisible capital is defined as a set of tactical assets that works for a given organization. The book details those assets, the:
Rabb reviews these influences, highlighted by data and studies. Chapter 2 gives a brief overview of the composition and performance of U.S. businesses. Chapters 3 and 4 connects and contrasts how invisible capital operates with American society's appreciation for "striking out on our own in search of greater independence and good fortune." For example, the way minority and women owned businesses are defined by federal programs can blur how invisible capital access remains lopsided for many of these businesses. Develop An Economy That Creates True Strategy For Entrepreneurial Growth Rabb's belief "to inventory what you already have, and to learn what you need" manifests in the solutions and support suggested in Chapters 5 and 6. Rabb makes clear that policies should discern beneficial economic development from simple adoption of individual beliefs that do not leverage resources and encourages the entrepreneurial illiteracy about developing resources. Rabb supports Druckers' differentiation of an entrepreneur vs small business, and from there the text expands the thesis. For example, Rabb shows a figure that notes the diminishing chances of a U.S. start up existing 10 years and achieving over $100,000 net per year:
Now this sounds like a fall-of-the-American-way-of-life tone, but Rabb's true belief in a person's capability in acquiring invisible capital balances that tone. The capacity to collectively make better choices about our capital is achievable, and Rabb speaks loud and clear to that objective:
Answers for each economic segment are not detailed, but Invisible Capital does enlighten many books in which detailed solutions are presented, such as that in David Gladstone's Venture Capital Investing. The ideas about capital combined with the historical aspects makes the investment questions raised in Gladstone's book more poignant. Reading Invisible Capital will challenge you to examine your own resources more critically and appreciate the appropriate steps to build resources for success. Bonus: Below is an MSNBC segment of the show “Up” with Chris Hayes which features JJ Ramberg and Chris Rabb. Check it out: The post Invisible Capital Reveals The Resources That Builds Success appeared first on Small Business Trends. |
Appropriate can be a funny word. The word suggests knowing something before tacking action. And in business, appropriate decisions are needed to be successful. | You are subscribed to email updates from Small Business Trends To stop receiving these emails, you may unsubscribe now. | Email delivery powered by Google |
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