Self Education Archives - Fearless Competitor

Igniting Word of Mouth: How WOM Reduced Teen Smoking in South Carolina

May 21, 2013 Leave a Comment

This wildly popular post ran on the Marketo blog – with over 731 shares on social media. I invite you to check it out there by clicking the title below.

Igniting Word of Mouth: How WOM Reduced Teen Smoking in South Carolina

rage-against-the-haze

By: Dayna Rothman

Posted: May 9, 2013 | Modern B2B Marketing, Social Media

I’d like to welcome Jeff Ogden as today’s guest blogger. Jeff is President of the sales lead generation company Find New Customers. He’s also the Creator and Host of the syndicated TV on the Web show, Marketing Made Simple TV. Since this case study comes from Brains on Fire, you can watch Robbin Phillips, Courageous CEO of Brains on Fire here. Follow Jeff on Twitter at @fearlesscomp.

Word of mouth is generally considered to be the most powerful form of marketing available. But too often it is poorly understood, especially since most of us look at it from the lens of our experiences.

Why is it so important to learn the principles of Word of Mouth marketing? Simply said, it’s low cost, maybe even free. But it is also a lot of hard work. Perhaps the best way to explain the power and effort required with Word of Mouth marketing is to share a success story.

The Word of Mouth marketing firm Brains on Fire worked with the State of South Carolina in a project to reduce teen smoking. Other states were running TV ads, but when the ads stopped, smoking went back up. The goal was to develop something more sustainable. The project was named Rage against the Haze; here is their story.

Backdrop

When the state of South Carolina received their Tobacco Settlement stipend, it became the responsibility of the state to create an awareness campaign for teens about the dangers of tobacco use. And do it in Big Tobacco’s back yard was not an easy task.

Other states were pumping their settlement funds into huge media campaigns with in-your-face TV ads. But once the ads quit running, the teen smoking rates went back up (SOURCE: American Cancer Society).

Purpose

To spread awareness of the dangers of tobacco use
To cause a 5% decrease in youth smoking rates in South Carolina
To create something so powerful, it would survive budget cuts

Action

Instead of trying to engineer a media campaign, they created something much more sustainable. They gave the reins to the teens and helped them develop a youth-led movement. So, they hand-picked 92 teens who we knew could champion the cause. These teens played a key role in the development of everything – from the name and identity, to the proprietary curriculum that was penned. The agency trained and armed the teens with the tools to spread the word, and then sent them on their way to find other “ViralMentalists™.”

To help, the agency conducted weekend retreats, statewide tours, Festi-Viral events led by the teens in different cities across the state. They created an interactive website where teens could check in with each other, and a RAGE store where they could get SWAG – but only if they were out spreading the word and could prove it.

The agency sparked and shaped the movement. But the teens are the ones that owned and grew it.

Success

16.9% drop in youth tobacco use rates, surpassing the 5% goal – one of the highest in the nation. That’s with no mass media. And no tax increase on cigarettes.
There are 6,000+ active ViralMentalists Raging Against the Haze.
The smoking rate drop is unprecedented since SC has the cheapest cigarette prices in the nation. The rest of the US funded television and school campaigns from a $206 billion settlement — none of which was ever implemented by the state of South Carolina. And the budget did get hit by a bus. But RAGE lives on and continues to grow.
The RAGE movement has earned a WOMMIE Award, a National ADDY and a 2008 gold EFFIE Award.

Word of Mouth marketing is incredibly powerful, but you have to take risks, like putting teenagers in charge. You have to pick your champions careful – passion far more important than popularity. And you have to let your champions lead.

“We sparked and shaped the movement. But the teens are the ones that owned and grew it.”

This blog is powered by WPEngine – the best WordPress hosting on the planet. You can get a great offer on WPEngine here.

What do you think? Do you have anything to add or suggest anything I got wrong? We love to read your comments and appreciate those who share our blog posts on social media.

Jeff Ogden, the Fearless Competitor, is an award-winning marketing expert and President of the sales lead generation company Find New Customers. He’s also the creator of the very popular TV on the Web show, Marketing Made Simple TV. You can also sign up for free bi-weekly market tips here.

Jeff Ogden

Filed Under: Self Education Tagged With: Brains on Fire, Find New Customers, Jeff Ogden, Marketing Made Simple TV, Rage Against the Haze, TV on the Web

Weekend Summary of Highlights from the Fearless Competitor blog

May 18, 2013 Leave a Comment

fearless competitor blog The weekend has arrived and this is a new thing we’re doing on Saturday’s (at least till college football starts). We’ll be sharing highlights of the week just passed.

Here are some of the most popular posts from this week at this Fearless Competitor blog.

By the way, this award-winning blog is powered by WPEngine – the best and fastest hosting available. Want to supercharge your WordPress blog? Check out this to learn more and you’ll find a great offer for you.

Encore: Rise with @PattyAzzarello on Marketing Made Simple TV

We always do an encore show on Sundays and Patty was a great guest. If you don’t know her, she was the keynote speaker at the recent Marketo Summit and she wrote a great book for executives called Rise: 3 Practical Steps to Advance Your Career, Stand Out as a Leader and Like Your Life. I highly recommend the book and the show.

Marketing Strategies to Revenue with three top marketing experts

Gerhard of Selling Power is a great friend of Jeff Ogden of Find New Customers. Gehard has invited Jeff to appear on several shows. In this slick show, Jeff joined Jeffrey Hayzlett, Celebrity CMO and Cowboy and David Raab, marketing automation expert. Check out this fun show!

How to Get More Sales Leads

This is another of Gerhard’s video shows. In this one I am joined by Erik Luhrs and Anthony Ianarro, two top experts. And if it is a Gerhard show, you can bet it will be slick.

How ITSMA is Leveraging Marketing Made Simple TV to promote their offering

In 2013, I became heavily involved with ITSMA.com. In the past, I’ve been with organizations like the HIA (local to me) and the Business Marketing Association. Both are nice, but their members are not my ideal customers. ITSMA on the other hand, is a small organization focused exclusively on technology and professional services firms. Very good fit for Find New Customers. But what I wanted to talk about here is the innovative way they used the video content from their Marketing Made Simple TV show. Not only did they use it on their landing page, but they sent it to all their members in their monthly newsletter. Very smart move!

Insights from @TheCMOClub Innovation Summit – @margaretmolloy on Marketing Made Simple TV (Over 80 Tweets already!)

One of the reasons I loved having Margaret on the show this week is this. She is a long-term fan of the show. She invited me to her company Christmas party and she introduced me to every one there and raved about the show. And I shared the early YouTube version of her show with her. “I’m really pleased with it, Jeff. It looks great. You are soooo good at this.” And if you are a Chief Marketing Officer, I bet you’d love to know what other Chief Marketing Officers are thinking. And I also wish to thank The CMO Club, especially Peta Krainik for this.

If I Have Negative Content, Why Can’t I Just Delete It?

We’ve had some rather nasty stuff written about Jeff Ogden of Find New Customers. Jeff had a very short and deeply unpleasant experience with a certain unnamed company in Atlanta. This led to a formal disagreement and a negative article at Marketing Automation Times. (Which we are now fighting.) But why can’t I simply ask Marketing Automation Times to take it down? The answer: I can’t. The law’s on their side. But you can drown out negative content. Two key tips are shared in this post on how you can rid yourself of negative content.

What do you think? Do you have anything to add or suggest anything I got wrong? We love to read your comments and appreciate those who share our blog posts on social media.

Jeff Ogden, the Fearless Competitor, is an award-winning marketing expert and President of the sales lead generation company Find New Customers. He’s also the creator of the very popular TV on the Web show, Marketing Made Simple TV. Lastly Jeff Ogden holds a degree in Marketing from the University of Notre Dame, which is why Saturdays in the Fall matter.

You can also sign up for free bi-weekly market tips from Find New Customers here.

Filed Under: Self Education Tagged With: content marketing, David Raab, Find New Customers, Gerhard Gschwandtner, Jeffrey Hayzlett, Marketing Made Simple TV, SalesOp TV

Marketo prices IPO at $13, at high end of the range

May 17, 2013 Leave a Comment

The SAAS marketing automation space is red-hot. IPOs and Consolidations continue.

Marketo just raised $79 million dollars – at the top end of the range predicted! Find New Customers congratulates our many friends at Marketo.

(Marketo sponsored our very first white paper, How to Find New Customers, and has published several of our guest posts, including this recent one: Igniting Word of Mouth: How WOM Reduced Teenage Smoking in South Carolina. So Find New Customers likes Marketo a lot.)

I believe the ramifications are great. Marketo will have deep pockets to invest for even faster expansion – new employees, offices and even more marketing and feet on the street. And with an estimated value of $435 million, they should be able to raise additional funds as needed. This also points to future IPO’s – with the most likely to be the fast growing company, Act-On Software.

Consolidation continues too. Oracle bought Eloqua and ExactTarget bought Pardot. I expect you to see even more buyouts of smaller firms, like InfusionSoft.

What do you think?

Here’s what was on the NASDAQ site. (BTW, I used to work for Robert Greifeld, CEO of NASDAQ, many years ago.)

Marketo, which provides on-demand marketing software to SMBs and enterprises, raised $79 million by offering 6.1 million shares at $13, at the high ened of the $11-$13 range. Marketo will list on the NASDAQ under the symbol MKTO. At the offer price Marketo commands a fully diluted market value of $540 million and an EV of $435 million. Goldman Sachs and Credit Suisse acted as joint bookrunners on the deal.

Filed Under: Self Education Tagged With: Find New Customers, marketo

If I have negative content out there, why can’t I simply remove it?

May 15, 2013 Leave a Comment

The only way to remove negative content is to bury it with positive links and content

Almost everyone who has been online for any length of time has content that they would like to eliminate. In my case, it’s a lawsuit from a former employer in Atlanta that was documented in Marketing Automation Times. For me, this has been “the nightmare that never ends.” But how can I get rid of that nasty article?

Fortunately, I’m now well positioned now to fight the ridiculous charges in that lawsuit. (Ironically, a man who used to work with the CEO there said to me “What I don’t understand is why you decided to work for them in first place.” If I knew the CEO like this man did, I never would have done so.)

(Upon advice from counsel, we’re changing nothing on our website or blog.)

But this begs a question:

How do you get rid of negative content?

Unfortunately, there’s no easy way. You cannot compel website owners to take it down – the law’s on their side. Even if they do, there’s a good chance it’s been indexed by Google and is still findable. A Google search will take the user to the negative content, even if it was deleted.

Here are just two good ways to bury negative content:

Keep blogging all the time
I blog every day and over time this negative result appears less and less. In fact, it’s hard to keep negative content in the limelight against those who publish a lot. The key is to keep it up and never stop. Over time the negative content will fade away. In fact, the negative article has stopped showing up. When I look at the way people find the posts on my blog, that article no longer appears.
Use BrandYourself.com
This is a tool I’ve been using lately. It enables individuals to optimize their personal profiles for search. BrandYourself.com let’s you submit positive links and optimize them for search. By boosting your links you can push them to the top of Google and push down the negative content. You can see my Brand Yourself profile at Jeff Ogden.

The bottom line: The only way to get rid of negative content is to keep publishing.

What do you think? Have you ever had negative content you wished to bury? We love comments and those who share on social media.

Jeff Ogden is an award-winning marketing expert and President of the digital marketing company Find New Customers, as well has the creator and host of the popular TV on the Web show, Marketing Made Simple TV. Sign up for free bi-weekly marketing tips here.

Filed Under: Self Education Tagged With: blogging, Brand Yourself, Find New Customers, negative content

My Real Passion. It’s not what you think.

May 10, 2013 Leave a Comment

Jeff Ogden, the award-winning marketing expert and President of sales lead generation company Find New Customers is a proud graduate of the University of Notre Dame.

Graduates of Notre Dame are called “domers” and there’s a saying too. “Tradition never graduates.” Notre Dame grads joke that other schools give 4 year degrees, but Notre Dame hands out 40 year degrees.

I have a closet passion that I would like our fans to know.

In fact, as a 1982 graduate of the University of Notre Dame, Jeff returned to South Bend a year ago for his 30th college reunion. It was a blast, and I saw a lot of old friends, but there were drenching rains the first two days. In fact, it was raining so hard that my shoes and pants legs were soaked, despite the fact I had an umbrella. With the rain and mist, the visibility was quite poor.

The final day, a Sunday, the sun arose warm and clear, the sky turned deep bloue and I had an awesome view of the spectacular Golden Dome – right outside my window.

golden-dome

Ironically, as bad as the weather had been, it was forgotten on that warm and beautiful morning on the Notre Dame campus.

Believe it or not, I remember our commencement speaker from so long ago. It was Pierre Trudeau, then Prime Minister of Canada. You can read about Pierre Trudeau on Wikipedia here.

What do you think? Do you have any particular affinity for your alma mater? We love comments and those who share on social media.

sales lead generation NDFootball 20080419_Notre_Dame_Scrimmage_sm_0591

Brian Kelly

Filed Under: Self Education Tagged With: Find New Customers, Golden Dome, notre dame, Notre Dame football

Why You Should Not Believe Ads on TV – the Need for Trust

May 9, 2013 Leave a Comment

Don Peppers

More and more I’m finding ads on TV completely unbelievable. They fail the Trust Test!

Many times I watch TV ads boast about products that I know don’t live up to the hype. Advertisers need to gain trust first and foremost.

Case in point – T-Mobile advertises their “nationwide 4G network.” But in a recently article in the Wall St. Street Journal, I read that T-Mobile was the weakest carrier and lacked a good 4G network. So someone who buys a phone on the T-Mobile network based on a TV ad will be VERY disappointed. (The acknowledged best 4G network belongs to Verizon Wireless)

From Consumer Reports

“Verizon once again topped the charts in the overall rankings of national carriers — and it’s pulling away from the rest of the pack. Verizon outscored Sprint by 6 points in Consumer Reports’ customer satisfaction ratings, a gap that widened since last year. T-Mobile came in third, trailed slightly by AT&T, which got worst-in-class rankings for value, voice quality and customer support.“ Trust

This is a BIG problem for companies using TV as an advertising platform. The simple fact is that a quick Google search will destroy everything you tried to do in your TV ad. Hubspot rails on TV ads because of DVRs etc., but I think the trust factor if more important. This is why I think TV advertising in on the way out – most of it lacks credibility.

Case in point, I was in a Best Buy store recently and watched a customer look up product reviews of laptop computers on his smartphone before he made a purchase. How do you think he could have been influenced by TV ads? He relied on credible product reviews at the point of purchase. No amount of TV advertising would have swayed him.

Trust is everything in business today. Trust is built over time carefully and by being 100% honest with your prospective customers. TV fails that litmus test!

The Need for Extreme Trust

To learn more about Trust, check out Don Peppers of Peppers and Rogers in a Marketing Made Simple TV show entitled “How and Why to Gain Extreme Trust” (click the underlined words to watch the show or click the photo of Don.)

What do you think? We love to read your comments and appreciate those who share on social media.

Please note: We are also publishing our blog posts first thing in the am, as that was suggested by Dan Zarrella, Social Media Scientist at Hubspot. What do you think about blog posts at breakfast? Tell me in the comments.

Jeff Ogden is an award-winning BtoB marketing expert and the President of the sales lead generation company Find New Customers. He is also the Creator and Host of the popular TV on the Web show Marketing Made Simple TV.

Filed Under: Self Education Tagged With: Extreme Trust, Find New Customers, Marketing Made Simple TV, Trust, TV ads

Who’s the Hero of our Story? – Part 2

May 7, 2013 1 Comment

sales lead generation We recently wrote a post entitled Who’s the Hero of the Story? You are! The idea is simple. Salespeople are sick and tired of getting crappy leads from Marketing. So we’re championing every salesperson out there that’s expected to call on “bingo” leads, 98% of which are worthless.

You are our hero! You are our Luke Skywalker!

It’s not fair to you. You should not have to call on crappy “sales leads.” It’s not your fault.

Here’s what the leadership of your company should have done instead:

Developed deep buyer insights using Buyer Personas
Leveraging those insights on buyers to create highly relevant content.
Attract new prospects with fun content – like the new Marketo coloring book.
Gently nurtured target people with highly relevant content (of value to them)
Scored behaviors to identify the “digital hand raise”
Hand over fully qualified leads – based on a Service Level Agreement
Arm the salespeople with content to answer buyer questions, like case studies and implementation facts.

That’s what makes up a great sales lead generation program.

But if your employer has failed to do those seven things, you are our hero. You should not have to suffer anymore. Instead, print out this blog article and hand it to your VP of Sales. Tell him that Jeff Ogden, the award-winning marketing expert is in your corner and is willing to talk directly to him to explain what really needs to be done.

There’s no need to take it any longer, Luke. Obi Wan Kenobe (Jeff Ogden) is here to help you. Just send a note to sales at findnewcustomers.com and I’ll get right back to you.

Jeff Ogden, the Fearless Competitor is an award-winning BtoB marketing expert who has twice been named Top 50 Influencer in Sales Lead Management. He’s also the Creator and Host of the very popular TV on the Web show, Marketing Made Simple TV. You can follow Jeff on Twitter at @fearlesscomp. You can also sign up for free bi-weekly market tips here.

Filed Under: Self Education Tagged With: Find New Customers, luke skywalkter, sales lead generation, sales-challenges

How to Organize a Digital Marketing Team – Lessons from Hubspot

May 5, 2013 2 Comments

Learn how to organize your marketing team from the best in the business, in order to crank up digital marketing.

Recently I was communicating with new Chief Marketing Officer of a software firm based in London – who told me he’s working on his “staffing plan.” (He’s considering adding the award-winning marketing expert Jeff Ogden to his team.)

The staffing plan idea got me to thinking about lessons I’ve learned about organizing digital marketing teams from my experiences with Hubspot and I (@fearlesscomp) was even a featured guest on Hubspot TV with Mike Volpe and Karen Rubin (see image below).

I thought it would be useful to share lessons learned on digital marketing organization organization and strategy from Hubspot, as it would undoubtedly help marketing leaders develop staffing plans.

If you don’t know Hubpot – they’re a fast growing inbound marketing software company based in Cambridge, MA – and they’ve raised a kings ransom in venture capital. They’ve grown extemely fast. Brian Halligan is their CEO.

First a disclaimer: I don’t actually subscribe to Hubspot any longer. They create too much content – far too much in my mind – leading to continuous smartphone alerts. And I even asked Content Marketing expert, Joe Pulizzi (@juntajoe) “Joe, it it possible to create too much content?” He said “Absolutely, Jeff.” (We were talking about Hubspot.)

And a bit of news: Dan Zarrella is the Social Media Scientist at Hubspot. His new book is entitled The Science of Marketing and he’s an upcoming guest on a special LIVE Marketing Made Simple TV show later in May – it will be broadcast LIVE on Facebook. Stay tuned.

Mike Volpe is Chief Marketing Officer of Hubspot. Mike is a very sharp (and very tall) man. He has organized the HubSpot marketing team into three categories:

Top of Funnel (Tofu)
Middle of Funnel (Mofu)
Bottom of Funnel (BoFu)

Let’s explore what Mike and team put under each category in order to crank up digital marketing. And we’ll share the goal of each team too.

Top of Funnel (Tofu)

Jeff Ogden on Hubspot TV

This is the “Get Found” team. That means blogging, paid advertisements (like Google Adwords, Facebook, SlideShare, etc.), search marketing, social media activity, and other attraction strategies. (Everyone in Hubspot is expected to blog, by the way) The goal of this team is to grow the marketing database and bring in net new names.

Middle of Funnel (Mofu)

This is the “trust building” team in Hubspot. They are the ones responsible for nurturing leads and earning trust over time. They also do the scoring of leads. The goal of this team is to take names generated by the Tofu team and convert them into qualified sales leads to pass to Sales.

Bottom of Funnel (Bofu)

This is the team that works closely with Sales. They create the content Sales needs to close deals. The goal of this team is to win the highest percentage of sales leads possible. This is, I think, one of the most important and most frequently overlooked areas of marketing. Case in point, in the recent Content2Conversion conference, one of the complaints I heard – lots about content but not much about “conversion.”

I hope these insights about how Hubspot organizes their marketing teams was helpful. What do you think? We love to read your comments and appreciate those who share on social media.

Filed Under: Self Education Tagged With: blogging, Digital Marketing, Find New Customers, Hubspot TV, management-best-practices, marketing budgets, Marketing Made Simple TV, Marketing staffing

The Fixed vs. Growth Mindset – to Which Do You Believe?

May 4, 2013 1 Comment

Do you believe that change is possible or do you believe that, no matter how hard one tries, change is impossible?

The Fixed Mindset or
Growth Mindset?

Mindset: The New Psychology of Success was written by Carol S. Dweck and focuses on how differing attitudes affect the way that people view both themselves and their interactions with others. In Mindset, Dweck argues that there are two fundamental mindsets that people use: the fixed mindset and the growth mindset.

Dweck describes the properties of these mindsets in great detail, and demonstrates their profound effects by applying them to education, sports, relationships, and personal change.

As one currently going through a divorce, my soon-to-be former wife is clearly a believer in the Fixed Mindset. She insists that I am who I am, and nothing will ever change.

However, I completely dismiss that assumption. I believe that people at any age are capable of growth and development. Change happens because you are committed to life-long learning and growth – because you are committed to growth. For example, I helped 0ut a senior marketing leader looking to make a career change – connecting her with a top marketing expert friend. She was so thrilled with my help that she wrote a wonderful, glowing personal endorsement to a prospective employer on my behalf.

Can one with a fixed mindset do that?

Let’s look at what Wikipedia says about Relationships and Personal Change:

Relationships

Some people allow relationship experiences to scar them and prevent them from forming satisfying relationships in the future. Others are able to heal and move on. What separates them is that people with the fixed mindset allow relationships to scar them and as a result, they want to get revenge after a break up. They feel permanently branded/labeled.

With the growth mindset, people are more understanding and wish to learn from the experience. In relationships, two more subjects enter into your mindset; your partner and the relationship as a whole. This means that three things are able to be “fixed” now. The person with a growth mindset would believe that these three things are able to change.

Personal Change

Perhaps the most important message throughout the book is that your mindset is not permanent. The growth mindset is based on the belief in change and it is important to know that no matter what stage you are at in life, it is not too late to make a change. This change is a challenge, but it is possible and well worth it. People’s beliefs dictate more of their emotions and actions than they are aware of.

If you can become conscious of your own mindset, then you can begin to pay attention to what you are telling yourself and if necessary, change that inner monologue so that your beliefs will support your goals instead of hindering their attainment. Often this change from a fixed mindset to a growth mindset is difficult because it requires people to ‘give up’ on using personal (fixed) traits as a source of self-esteem, and instead derive their self-esteem from effort and embrace things formerly thought of as threatening, such as challenge, struggle, criticism, and setbacks.

What do you think? Do you and the people around you believe in the fixed or growth mind-set? I love to read your comments and appreciate those who share on social media.

Jeff Ogden, the Fearless Competitor, is an award-winning expert in sales lead generation and is the President of Find New Customers. In addition, he hosts the popular TV on the Web show, Marketing Made Simple TV. You can also sign up for free bi-weekly market tips here.

Filed Under: Self Education Tagged With: Find New Customers, fixed vs variable mindset, management-best-practices

Should You Hire Your Demand Generation Leader from your Competitor?

May 1, 2013 Leave a Comment

A West Coast marketing recruiter wrote this to me a few days ago:

“Typically my clients are looking for someone who has a successful recent track record as a full-time, permanent employee, preferably coming out of a direct competitor.”

I have to ask a simple question. Is this a good or bad idea? And how do you define successful?

On one hand, hiring from a competitor means the person has some industry knowledge. Many undoubtedly think that makes for a safe choice.

But I also think it highly unlikely that this cast off from a competitor can touch an award-winning marketing expert like Jeff Ogden of Find New Customers. Clearly, Jeff has assets unlike anyone else. Here is a list for you:

A world-class network of contacts from his TV show, Marketing Made Simple TV.
In fact, when Social Media Club wanted top speakers for their conference, they first called Jeff Ogden! Why is this important? Let’s say your company needs a strong metrics dashboard. With a couple of phone calls, Jeff could line up two of the top experts in the USA.
Awards, like Top 50 Influencer in Sales Lead Management.
Awards are the Good Housekeeping seal for marketing professionals. I strongly you consider people who have won this award. Jeff Ogden has won it two years in a row!
Content
Has your candidate created content? If he has a blog, how long has he been writing it? (Jeff Ogden Has he written any white papers or e-books? Does he have a SlideShare channel? Does he have a YouTube channel? (For Jeff Ogden, the answers are “Yes”, for almost 5 years, “Yes” and “Yes.”)
Social media
Clearly you want someone comfortable in social media. One way to measure is to use Hubspot’s TwitterGrader tool. The top people in this get 100 out of 100 points, and Jeff Ogden gets a top score of 100 out of 100.
Training
Last but not least, which kind of training do they have? Jeff Ogden is trained in Buyer Personas by the Buyer Persona Institute. And while he is trained in Silverpop, he’s actively working on additional certifications.

So when evaluating people, look for these four things – contacts, awards, content and social media. That way you will hire only the best demand generation professionals.

What do you think? Should companies hire from competitors? Or should they look for the best athlete available? Please tell us in the comments.

Jeff Ogden is an award-winning marketing expert and President of the sales lead generation company Find New Customers. Sign up for free bi-weekly marketing tips here.

Filed Under: Self Education Tagged With: Find New Customers, Jeff Ogden, management-best-practices, recruting