In the beginning, there was time. Time was the only "currency" man could allocate or trade (beside manual labor) to achieve his needs and goals. Somewhere around 2000 BC, the Egyptians invented the second currency; money. For over 4000 years, these two currencies have really been the only things man has been able to control and trade for personal gain. (Clearly there is much more to this issue, but I'll leave that for others to spend their time on.)
For the last 10 years, for reasons which everyone is aware, a "third" currency has become mainstream; information. Today, there is a continuous stream of information being willingly provided by consumers and businesses. Information is being bartered every nanosecond for goods and services all of the world. In many cases it has become the predominant currency in use today.
This has never been more true than in today's B2B selling environment. Our prospects are providing more information about who they are, what they want and what makes them tick (both corporately and personally) than ever before. If you're going to offer a "free" download that requires THEIR information, YOUR information better be darn good, because it wasn't free - they just used their information currency to "buy" it. What that means is that the more time you make them waste answering questions for information you should already have, the less money they're going to give you!
ROI now stands for Return on Information. Be sure you invest your time to not only gather, but also analyze and package the information you find on your prospects and use those insights to share how much more money (read: profit) you're going to make them. Do this first (and well) and your very first conversation will yield the greatest ROI you've ever experienced.
How good is your ROI?
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