Best Thinking Reports
Social Media Today communities feature the best thinkers across a wide array of disciplines and our eBook library offers a great opportunity to glean insights from our expert contributors for free with your site registration.
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Small Business
Rising Costs, Unclear Mandates for Small Business
The cost of covering employee health insurance has has emerged as one of the leading obstacles to U.S. business competitiveness. Use this free eBook, featuring 5 tips from tax expert Barbara Weltman and pages of useful resources, to navigate the health insurance realities facing employers and employees and help your business reduce costs this year.
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Social Customers
The Evolving Social Customer (sap)
The Social Customer (TSC)'s latest survey suggests that companies are increasingly leveraging social tools and strategies to engage their customers. Conducted jointly with the Society of Consumer Affairs Professionals (SOCAP), our survey shows that the percentage of customer service interactions taking place on social media has accelerated substantially in the past six months.
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Rethinking Customer Service: The Call Center as Corporate Information Hub
This exclusive The Social Customer eBook looks at how the call center in particular can help drive a proactive, rather than reactive, approach to business. Experts from the call center world share strategies and mindset shifts that must take place within companies if they are to be vital and nimble in the 21st century.
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New Trends in CRM (ms)
Customer Relationship Management (CRM) systems have tended to produce mixed results for the sales and marketing professionals that once hailed them as a magic bullet. There's no denying that CRM implementation has been a fraught and expensive process for most companies. Even so, sales organizations worldwide now use these tools to serve their customers, gain market insight, obtain product feedback, monitor competitors and improve organizational efficiency. CRM is here to stay.
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Big Data, Smart Data
Business Intelligence: Solving Smartgrid Data Management Challenges (sdc)
This exclusive SmartData Collective eBook explores the relationship between data and the SmartGrid. The data management challenges are significant, but the benefits
to utilities, consumers, and our global environment gained from computer-aided analytics and decisions make the efforts worthwhile.
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Turning On Power Consumers (sap)
Smart grid implementation allows power consumers to double as electricity producers. It also helps incorporate more renewables onto the grid. Customers will have new choices and responsibilities. Regulators will face new challenges. Bottom line: The electricity market is on the cusp of a major evolution.
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The Broken Data Promise
The marriage of CRM systems and near-boundless quantities of market and customer data was supposed to produce the holy grail of sales: The 360 degree customer view. It would be comprehensive. Predictive. And foundational for lasting, profitable relationships. Except that promise was never fulfilled. So how can you use CRM to tame the data beast and get the jump on your competitors? Find out in this new eBook.
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About Social Media Today
Ardath Albee is CEO and B2B Marketing Strategist for her firm Marketing Interactions and an author. More »
Dave Brock is President and CEO of Partners In EXCELLENCE, a global consulting company. More »
Charles Green is founder and CEO of Trusted Advisor Associates and an author. More »
Paul Greenberg is the author of the best-selling CRM at the Speed of Light and President of The 56 Group, LLC. More »
Gavin Heaton is the author of one of Australia's leading marketing blogs. More »
Jill Konrath is a recognized expert in B2B sales and the author of Selling to Big Companies. More »
Kendra Lee is author of the awward-winning "Selling Against the Goal" and a popula speaker on sales prospecting/lead generat More »
Mike Merriman is Director of Strategic Service at MZinga and has an extensive background in product development and management. More »
Natalie Petouhoff Dr. Natalie serves as the Chief Strategist for Social Media, Digital Communications and Measurement at Weber Shandwick More »
Anneke Seley is the CEO and founder of Phone Works, a sales strategy and implementation consultancy, and an author. More »
“When you go to a motivational speaker speaking to a group of sales people, what you might find is that they will ask the sales team to form goals. What might surprise most people is that the aim is not for financial rewards, but more intrinsic motivations. Self growth, and getting recognition are huge factors for motivation amongst sales people, and financial reward is a by product of success.”
“Great post. Some excercises on doing this would help. In the book Go Givers Sell More they spoke about thinking of your attention as a flashlight. It either shines on you or the customer. Always do a check to make sure it's shinning on the customer. I also saw a doc on Richard Branson and how his mom said he used to be shy. She would tell him to stop thinking of himself. Seems like it was an ...”