Fish use tools, too

Fish use tools, too | Ubergizmo window.fbAsyncInit = function() { FB.init({ appId : '139683546053659', status : true, // check login status cookie : true, // enable cookies to allow the server to access the session xfbml : true // parse XFBML }); }; (function() { var e = document.createElement('script'); e.src = document.location.protocol + '//connect.facebook.net/en_US/all.js'; e.async = true; document.getElementById('fb-root').appendChild(e); }()); Network:Ubergizmo English, French, SpanishUberphones Subscribe to RSS Ubergizmo ReviewsMobileGamingAndroidAppleComputersGadgetsConceptsPhoto/VideoEvents |  Jobs Home > General > Fish use tools, too Fish use tools, too Edwin Kee 09/29/2011 08:52 PDT

Mankind aren’t the only life forms to use tools you know – even fish who have fins and a streamlined body for underwater living have a tool mindset as some species have been proven to use rocks to help them in everyday life. In fact, a researcher has stepped forward with a video to prove such a thing, having shot some footage in Palau while describing it in the journal Coral Reefs.

This is the first legitimate video of its kind to show off a fish using a tool, where an orange-dotted tuskfish dug a clam out of the sand, carrying it over to a rock and throwing said clam against the rock in order to crush it. Impressive, no, considering how fish only have their tails, fins, and mouth to begin with.

Ah well, I would say that this is just another small discovery in the larger scheme of things – it seems that the more we find out, the more we realize just how little we know about the world around us.

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Sales Performance - Choosing the Right Tools

Recently we interviewed fourteen sales executives to learn what they think really contributes to improved sales performance. We asked them the following question: what is the correlation between the tools they provide to their sales teams, and the results those sales teams achieve? Our colleagues told us that the way management goes about selecting, designing, and implementing sales practices, processes and software applications makes the difference in sales performance, not the tools themselves.

Our colleagues all represented major corporations in the B2B sector, with large sales organizations, major or national account teams, and well over a hundred years of combined field experience. They included senior executives, sales managers, and individual contributors. But overall, they agreed on four key points, with a bonus point thrown in for good measure:

1. If they build it, they will use it. In other words, if sales people who will use the sales tools have a say in building or selecting them, those sales people are much more likely to adopt and use the tools.

2. They will use it if they understand it. In the world of sales, ease of use seems to mean rate of adoption. If the tools make sense to sales people, if they produce useful insights without imposing a lot of data entry overhead, then sales people will use the tools.

3. If they use it, they are more likely to get desirable results. Once sales people have easy access to tools, methods, training programs, or technology that they had a hand in building, they use the tools. Then both sales and management can measure results. And once you measure the results you can manage them pretty well.

4. Once they get results, they want more and better results. So it was worth the effort to get the right technology, training and business processes in place, in the first place.

And the bonus: if you don't let them build it, and they don't adopt it, you probably won't get the results you want.

Ease of Use vs. Rate of Adoption

The first thing we discovered was ease of use doesn't really mean ease of use at all. It means "did you guys come up with something that makes sense to us sales people and makes it easier to do our jobs? Because if you did, we'll use it. If you didn't, forget it."

Of the fourteen people we interviewed, one thing was absolutely consistent, regardless of the size of business, industry sector, experience level of the sales team, or anything else. The sales team simply won't use any processes, methodologies, training programs or technology tools if they don't make sense and provide meaningful feedback no matter how elegant, popular, powerful or fashionable they may be.

In our limited sample, those who reported the greatest success and the happiest outcomes said that their sales force had had direct input into the choice or design of the tools, understood what they were designed to accomplish, or both. Further, several interviewees reported a correlation between the narrowness or specificity of the problem to be addressed, and the success of the tools chosen to address it. In other words, solving a small and easily identifiable problem had more success than sweeping change.

Examples:


A high-tech manufacturing firm sought and obtained sales input to design a new CRM solution to replace their outdated investment. Result: a streamlined system with significant increases in adoption followed by improved employee engagement and measurable growth in sales dollars.
At a transportation company, the account managers had a hard time managing their pipeline, so they chose a web-hosted software package to simplify pipeline management, and do nothing else. Result: high adoption, greater sales control, increases in business and virtually no budget impact on the IT department.
A provider of commodity products wanted to change from a product/channel focus to a market-segment focus. To make it easy for the sales force to adopt the new approach they invested in a formal change-management process that engages the people involved in the change. Result: a sales organization that has renewed motivation and is showing positive early results.
A large communications company maintains its competitive advantage with a consistent focus on customer retention and executive sponsorship based on carefully documented processes and policies. Sales people find it easy to engage a senior executive, even a C-level person, in account campaigns and visits. Result: commanding market share. Sales people in this company really know that Sales is king.


On the other hand, those reporting lower rates of success believed that management seemed not to understand or appreciate the realities of the sales mission, function and organization. As a result, sales people were less likely to be included in designing the desired tools and methods, or in identifying the need for change in the first place.

Examples:


An otherwise successful company provided all kinds of useful tools to its sales force, with high levels of adoption and success, but management decided not to address the need for mid-tier sales support. So those senior sales people must do their own "administrivia" at the cost of hours of productive face-time with customers.
One large industrial firm has spent years changing the business model from product focus to industry focus to account focus and back again, producing the response of "duck, here comes another initiative!" from sales people. Sales reps distrust management and are reluctant to adopt the next iteration. It's tough for this company to improve results in a systematic fashion.
A group of technical experts, none of whom had field sales experience, launched a successful business. But when they decided to launch a national account team, they failed to provide effective sales-force automation or rational sales processes. The national account team now spends a considerable amount of its time making the internal sale, again cutting into productive face-time with customers and prospects.

Sales Performance and the Right Tools

So what's the relationship between sales performance and the right tools? The answer lies not in the tools themselves, but in the strategies by which those tools are selected, designed and deployed.

When sales people are equipped with the right tools, they have two advantages. First, the right tools capture pertinent information and data that helps sales people to make consistently good decisions, contributing to predictable and consistent sales results. Second, and even more important, good tools, methods, and processes make the sales job less time-consuming, more efficient and less costly. And that means that sales people can devote MORE time to selecting the most qualified prospects, cultivating high-potential relationships, offering the most beneficial solutions, and winning the most profitable deals. Those are the sales tools that predict success, no matter what the state of the economy.

Ellen Bristol is the founder and driving force behind Bristol Strategy Group, the Miami-based sales-force productivity company, and developer of Selling the SMART Way®, BSG's flagship solution for productive sales teams. BSG's latest offering is the SMART Way® Scorecard, web-hosted toolkit for improving sales-force productivity. Visit the BSG website http://www.bristolstrategygroup.com email her at ellen@bristolstrategygroup.com or phone 305-935-6676.

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Using Desktop Sharing Tools to Drive Sales Success

In the traditional sales model, presentations are made in person at the client's place of business. Today, however, rising fuel costs have translated into higher airfares and gasoline prices. As a result, the travel budgets of companies around the world are straining at the seams. Similarly, company executives are recognizing that traditional business travel consumes a significant amount of a salesperson's time, thereby negatively impacting employee productivity. Both travel costs and a salesperson's time increase the cost of on-site meetings, and represent resources that could be better leveraged to generate additional sales. As a result, businesses are increasingly seeking less expensive technological alternatives to on-site sales presentations.

This paper explores computer desktop sharing solutions as a means of leveraging resources to drive sales success. Specifically, this paper addresses four questions:

What is desktop sharing and how does it work?

What are the benefits of desktop sharing?

How can desktop sharing tools be used in sales?

What features should an effective desktop sharing tool include?



Although business travel and on-site sales presentations are sometimes necessary, many on-site pitches can be replaced by online presentations at a fraction of the cost. Effectiveness and efficiency increase, positively impacting both the sales professional's and the client's bottom lines.

Desktop Sharing: A Simple, Innovative, Technological Tool

Desktop sharing is an innovative software program that allows one or more people in remote locations to view the primary user's computer screen. Using a Web-based interface, the user can show others any document or application that is open on his or her desktop.

Desktop sharing is initiated when the presenter invites others to participate in a session. The presenter begins the session, and participants join via the Internet, using a unique session ID. During the session, the presenter's screen - including mouse movements, documents, and applications - is visible to the participants. The participants simultaneously interact with the presenter by phone or audio conference call.

The Benefits of Desktop Sharing

By delivering sales presentations online, desktop sharing allows sales professionals to increase the effectiveness of their presentations while leveraging their time to reach more clients and prospective clients.

Through the use of desktop sharing technology, sales presentations are amplified with visual components. The instantaneous, real-time delivery of documents, slides, or software applications allows for better communication and increased flexibility in addressing the specific needs and concerns of the customer.

As a Web-based tool, desktop sharing enables the sales professional to make a presentation instantly to anyone, anytime, worldwide. Because a session can be accessed by anyone with an Internet connection, traveling to a customer's place of business isn't necessary. This not only represents a significant savings in travel costs, but also a tremendous savings of time, allowing the salesperson to exponentially increase the number of sales presentations he or she can initiate.

Desktop Sharing in Sales

Lead Generation

Many companies have found that desktop sharing quickly becomes a critical tool to generate leads.

Breaking Down Geographic Barriers: As part of the salesperson's repertoire, desktop sharing provides sales professionals with the ability to schedule online meetings with larger groups of prospective customers, regardless of their geographic location. Web conferencing allows companies to gather leads in new markets without incurring the travel expenses associated with reaching these prospective customers.

Passive Lead Generation: Companies can, through their websites, offer visitors the opportunity to register for informational online meetings or for the launch and demonstration of a new product or service. Potential customers self-select as leads through the registration process. The data collected from registrants and from those attending the online meeting can be used by the company's team of sales professionals to convert leads to customers. When a company archives their informational meetings and educational seminars on their website, potential customers can register to download or listen to the information, which generates additional passive leads.

Existing Customers Become New Leads: Desktop sharing allows new products, services, or specials to be shown in order to upsell or cross-sell existing customers. Current customers make excellent prospective customers for new products, and desktop sharing enables a salesperson to upsell or cross-sell without having to make an on-site sales call.

Educational Seminars Hook Prospects: Online meetings can also be utilized as a non-sales marketing tool to present live educational seminars to potential customers, who then become qualified leads. In contrast to online meetings that introduce a company or a specific product or service, the topic of an educational seminar serves to address a common challenge faced by the company's potential customer base. For example, a company that provides shopping cart software might hold an educational seminar on cost-effective marketing techniques to drive traffic to e-commerce sites. The information gleaned from the attendees of these lead generation seminars can be passed on to the sales team, which can convert sales by using the collaboration features offered by desktop sharing.

Qualifying Leads

When marketing tools, such as white papers, recordings of product demonstrations, and customer testimonials, are posted on a company's website, potential customers self-select by downloading or accessing the materials. This process begins the selling process prior to a sales team member contacting a prospect.

Similarly, an online meeting utilizing desktop sharing technology can drive prospects to download or access supplemental materials that can further pique their interest and speed up the sales cycle.

Sales Calls

Desktop sharing is most useful during sales calls, and represents a tremendous savings of resources. The salesperson can invite one or more prospects to a presentation or project demonstration, regardless of the geographic locations of the potential clients, thereby saving both time and travel expense.

Presentations and Product Demonstrations: By enabling prospects to view the sales professional's computer screen, desktop sharing allows the salesperson to easily present information about the company and its products and services. The salesperson can also turn over control of the desktop to a participant, allowing him or her to try the product or browse through various parts of the presentation. This hands-on experience gives the prospect a clear understanding of the benefits of the product or service.

Building a Virtual Bridge: When some members of a potential client's company can attend an in-person meeting but other key personnel cannot, desktop sharing allows those who can't be physically present to participate in the meeting to attend from a remote location.

Cold Calling: During cold calls, the sales professional can quickly initiate a desktop sharing session and invite the prospect to review the company profile and view slides or other information about the product or service.

Immediate File Sharing: During an online meeting, desktop sharing allows the sales professional to provide potential customers with any material they may request. This capability communicates efficiency and a commitment to customer support.

Closing the Sale

Desktop sharing is a powerful tool for closing sales and shortening the length of the sales cycle and increasing revenue streams.

Document Collaboration: Desktop sharing streamlines the process of working on proposals and contracts, since it allows both the salesperson and the client to modify proposals together in real time.

Team Leader Involvement: A salesperson's upline or supervisor can sometimes be instrumental in closing a sale. Desktop sharing solutions enable sales team leaders to join a sales presentation without ever leaving the office, thereby enhancing the interaction and increasing the client's level of satisfaction.

Client Authorization: When a sale hinges upon the go-ahead from a potential client's higher-level manager, desktop sharing solutions can smooth the way to closing the deal by allowing managers to attend meetings without ever leaving the office. In addition, the flexibility inherent in the tool makes it possible to initiate or reschedule a presentation at a moment's notice.

Customer Support

Once the deal is closed, desktop sharing tools can be utilized to enrich the relationship with the customer.

Transitioning to Customer Support: Desktop sharing can become a bridge to provide the customer with the support needed to implement the company's product or service. For example, desktop sharing can be used to introduce the company's customer support team and walk the customer through the support services offered.

Follow-Up Meetings: Desktop sharing can also be utilized to conduct follow-up meetings, during which the sales staff can stay in touch with new customers. A series of weekly conferences, for example, can go far in demonstrating a company's commitment to their new clients.

Customer Retention: Similarly, desktop sharing can be incorporated as a way of keeping in regular contact with existing customers. Inviting customers to educational seminars, new product launches, and company news events are just three of the ways that desktop sharing can help ensure customer satisfaction and pave the way for future sales.

Features of Effective Desktop Sharing Products

There are a number of desktop sharing solutions in the marketplace. To ensure maximum accessibility and security, you should consider a number of factors when selecting a desktop sharing program.

In order for clients and potential clients to embrace participating in a multimedia sales presentation, there cannot be any barriers to accessing the technology. From a technological perspective, this means that the desktop sharing product should enable participants to connect through corporate networks, firewalls, and proxy servers. They must also be able to connect using a variety of operating systems, such as Windows, Mac, and Linux. Similarly, customers should not be required to install software in order to participate in sessions.

In order to facilitate spur-of-the-moment presentations, participants should be able to connect using any Internet browser and without having to register or submit any personal information. The desktop sharing interface should be intuitive and easy to use.

From the presenter's perspective, a desktop sharing tool should allow him or her to show his or her computer screen without first having to upload the content to a presentation server. Likewise, he or she should be able to hide confidential screen areas and have the ability to pause transmission in order to browse through confidential files. In order to facilitate discussion, the participants should be able to highlight items on the presenter's screen.

Finally, a desktop sharing solution should have strong security features. Transmission should be encrypted to the best practices standard, and connections to individual sessions should be made using unique, random session IDs.

Leveraging Resources to Boost Revenues

With tight travel budgets and time at a premium, using innovative tools to conduct remote sales presentations can leverage both your time and the time of your clients. Desktop sharing solutions can reduce routine business travel costs and increase productivity. The result is the ability to reach more prospective clients and an acceleration of the sales cycle. When sales presentations can start with a click of the mouse and reach customers and potential customers around the world, the result is an increase in the bottom line.

Mark Patrick Zondler is responsible for software development and global operations at http://www.BeamYourScreen.com, a software company that develops simple, easy-to-use, secure business communication tools for small and medium-size enterprises. Mark developed the technological vision for BeamYourScreen.com and defines the long-term development plan. He has several years experience in developing and operating Internet software systems. Prior to BeamYourScreen, he co-founded Allegro Solutions, a Singapore-based software firm specializing in dynamic price negotiation and online auction systems. Mark also worked in the consulting divisions of IBM and PricewaterhouseCoopers. He studied business administration in Germany, Singapore and France.

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Non-Patent Literature Search Tools

Non-patent literature search is of great importance in the IP domain. Patentability search of any new invention is very crucial and can be achieved by both patent s and non-patent literature search. As far as, my knowledge the patents database is only domain set which is highly organized and easy to access either through free databases or commercial databases. But, the non-patent information such as journals, research publication and disclosures, thesis, etc. are scattered all over the web. There are few databases and vendors which have a good collection of this information and have tried to organize them in easy to access manner. But there are still big whit spaces for further improvements.

Thus for a patent professional, non-patent information search is not an easy task. They have to use various data sources such as PubMed, Science direct, SCIRUS, etc. Most of the well organized data sources are paid, thus not accessible to smaller firms.

As someone said that "Need is the origin of innovation", people have developed various small tools to aid in there targeting relevant document form the scattered and huge information present on the web.

Some of the tools, which I came across are:

GoldMed


TexMed


HubMed

I have found HubMed as an ultimate tool to target relevant information. The various function such as clustering, similar words, export, etc. are very useful and might reduce at least some of the valuable time. There are many other similar tools and software which are freely available, along with some paid, which can be very useful for a patent professional in location relevant document and save their valuable time.

Vinod Kumar Singh

Content Writer - IP/Patent Intelligence

Email: vinod.patent@gmail.com

Mobile: +919392387277

My Personal Web Page [http://www.patentanalyst.com]

My Blog - Competitive Technical Intelligence Toolbox

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Facebook Business Applications and Marketing Tools - Even Create Your Own

The idea behind using Facebook as a venue for doing business is building a user base in the form of a community who respond to you as a person or to your product. If you just turn your page into one big advertisement, you are not going to get much in the way of a response. You need to educate people about the product without coming across as a hard sell.

You want to create the impression that you are here for socializing, not business. People will come to trust you and be more likely to buy your product or service if you can do this.

Facebook has built in tools which can be used to build your business. These include:

- Social Ads

- Pages

- Beacon

- Insights

- Platform

- Polls

These tools can help you to build awareness of your brand through Facebook and bring in potential clients. Needless to say, you are going to have to learn to use them effectively. Read on to find out how to harness these tools to build your business using Facebook.

You can learn how to take further advantage of these features by visiting the facebook website business section.

SOCIAL ADS

Social ads have a lot of promise for building your business since they can go directly to the news feeds of your Facebook friends. Anyone who is on your friends list will be able to get the word about your business right on their profile page.

This is also a very easy way of target marketing. You can control exactly who sees your ads - and target marketing is the way to get sales.

FACEBOOK PAGES

You can make a Face book page for a business, just as you would for yourself. This allows people to interact with and even become friends with your business. It is a great way to make a lot of people aware of your product and your brand who would not otherwise.

You know when someone becomes friends with your business on Facebook that you have a potential client; at the very least, they have shown some interest. People can interact with your business as they would with any of their other Facebook friends - they can leave comments and generally enhance the experience of a visit to your page.

You can use Facebook to your best advantage by adding features that will appeal to your target market and fit in with the brand image you are aiming to create. Quizzes, games, a Facebook group and so on.

FACEBOOK BEACON

Like social ads, Facebook Beacon gives you the ability to build your business by promoting yourself via your Facebook friends news feeds. You can set Beacon to notify all of your Facebook friends whenever you have a new product available, or any other sort of news or information you would like to disseminate amongst your Facebook friends. All you need to do is to add a little code to your Facebook page (this can be done by copy and paste, so no need to panic).

This encourages more interaction with your page, the website of your business and your company in general. This also helps get the word out about your businesses product or service.

Do not fret that you will be mercilessly spamming your Facebook friends and invading their privacy - they can opt out of these updates at any time they choose. You of course have the same ability for Facebook Beacon updates from others.

FACEBOOK INSIGHTS

If you are using facebook as a method of promoting your business you will of course want to know just who is checking out your Facebook page, clicking on your ads and joining your friends list. Facebook Insights is a tool which can give you a lot more detail on these sorts of statistics, which can help you to evaluate the efficacy of your campaign.

Armed with this information you can make the call as to whether viral marketing is working in your favor. Word of mouth is one of the best means of advertising and Facebook can facilitate it on a large scale. Facebook Insights lets you figure out what parts of your campaign are working and which are not as well as giving you valuable demographic information which will help you refine your campaign further.

FACEBOOK PLATFORM

Facebook Platform is an exciting tool for business indeed. Programmers can use this tool to build programs which will work with Facebook and add to the usefulness and fun of your Facebook page. If people like what you have on your page, they will spread the word and this build your client base.

You can add all manner of different applications to your site using this platform. Many opt for games, quizzes and other interactive features. You can have a look at the Applications page on the Facebook site to get an idea what sort of things others are using the platform for. These kinds of features can really help you build your brand image; take advantage of them.

FACEBOOK POLLS

Facebook polls can be a great way to gather demographic information from people using the site. Since you can make the poll interactive and fun to use, you'll have no trouble gathering data. Best of all, you can target your polling.

You can make sure your polls are targeted just where you want them to be since you already have access to some data such as marital status and age of your Facebook friends. This helps you keep your polling relevant.

Do not forget about these valuable tools - they can really help out your business.

Anyone who is willing to put in just a little bit of effort can make their own applications for Facebook. You just need to learn Facebook Markup Language - there are plenty of tutorials online which can help you learn the ropes of this quickly.

Remember to have a look through what is already out there in terms of Facebook applications before you develop your own. If everyone is already using a very similar application, not too many of your fellow facebook users will be enticed by it. Do something a little different if you want to grab the attentionof people.

CREATING APPLICATIONS FOR BUSINESS

With just a little bit of programming know how, anybody can make and distribute their own applications. You'll be doing this to build your business and it can make a big difference. Applications can really draw in people and keep them on your site. Games are especially popular and can build your brand while keeping users engaged and entertained.

You would be unwise to neglect the use of these applications available to you through Facebook. They can help get the word out about your business - and that is why you made a Facebook page for your business in the first place, no?

You will also be building a sense of community amongst all of these potential customers which will help you get sales.

Here are a few tips for getting the best results from your applications:

1) Make it relevant

In marketing, relevancy is everything. If your potential customers can not get into it, or if it is unclear how the application ties into your product or service, rethink your application.

2) Privacy policy

Even if they are on facebook to socialize, people still want their privacy to be respected. This is why there are friend lists and groups, to which one must be invited. Privacy is a natural human desire and Facebook facilitates this while still allowing for socialization. Remember to respect the privacy of users and retain that trust you have worked so hard to build with them.

3) Free distribution

Once your application is finished and ready to go, you will distribute it. You can do this by listing it on the site along with all of the other Facebook applications and then invite others to install it. If your facebook friends like your application, they will spread the word.

Leon Edward helps people to start, build, market and promote internet based home businesses and ways to earn money at home

Learn More about Facebook Business Applications at http://www.homebusinessit.com/facebookaplications

Learn the secrets to awesome success and wealth from the greatest minds in the field of personal achievement..Leon Edward recommends personal development training at [http://www.PersonalAchievementOnline.com]

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