With so many tools available to connect with anyone, anywhere, there are many options to build trusting relationships online. Buyers trust online relationships more than ever, according to this eMarketer study.
Here are five tips to help you make sure you’re doing it in the right way:
If there is one thing I love more than travel, it’s shopping for travel.
Lately I’ve been enthralled with the overflow of tech gadgets and travel products recently released into the market. As a fine purveyor of almost all things, I enjoy researching what’s new for the avid traveler and will occasionally allow myself to dream of life-made-easy with clutz-proof netbooks, noise-cancelling ear buds and microscopic GPS devices.
Special “teleworking” titles need not apply, according to InfoTrends, almost all knowledge workers have an element of travel within their day and with technology trending toward mobile, global and social, you can work from almost anywhere. Dial into a conference from the car? Sure thing. Finalize a presentation from the airport? That’s an easy one. Send that final email before take off? Please.
But even with the rise of a mobile workforce, working on the go is anything but easy. Even with calling ahead to confirm the WiFi, charing up your devices overnight and backing up your data, it takes a minor miracle for it to actually come together. That’s where technology and good design come in and cash in on our quest for faster, smaller, smarter… and if possible, cuter.
What’s on my Digital Nomad wish list? Just about everything on CNN’s 10 Best Travel Products for 2012 , especially their laser keyboard, loose-leaf tea cup, water bottle with built-in purifier and laptop-bag-of-the-future that will charge your gadgets en route to your next destination.
You probably know what it’s like to have a meeting that makes you feel worse after it’s over, as though you’ve accomplished less for attending than if there had been no meeting at all. You aren’t clear on your next steps, attendees are frustrated, communications were cloudy, tense, or worse, or maybe even some of the primary stakeholders weren’t even in attendance.
How do you overcome what just happened and preserve relationships? Do you meet again, continue to take up more valuable time, or suffer in silence with questions and confusion, potentially delaying projects and eroding relationships?
Communicate, but don’t challenge
If you are encountering a person in a meeting who demonstrates behavior patterns that are perpetually distracting or disruptive, it’s not usually the wisest idea to challenge him or her directly as this will typically place them in a defensive posture and tends to escalate matters. However, not addressing the issue at all can be frustrating for the rest of the team, so focusing on the behavior rather than the person is generally a satisfactory middle ground to begin positive conversations. Suggesting improvements to the process that can structure the conversation or changing the format for attendee contribution from verbal to written ones such as interactive chat or asking attendees to use iMeet’s Evernote collaboration feature are just two ways you can diffuse an overbearing attendee.
Also, use common sense, common courtesy and common meeting ground rules as a neutral “judge”—some of these would include “only one person talks at a time,” “all viewpoints are valid,” and “meetings start and end on time unless all attendees agree otherwise.
In our incredibly competitive global market, companies are constantly looking for ways to position themselves as thought leaders with investors, prospects and customers. Webinars are one of the most popular ways to distribute 
messages to target audiences without travel costs, scheduling conflicts and time commitments — making it an incredibly powerful tool for businesses to expand their reach even with limited budgets and dispersed audiences. But with the plethora of webinars offered to your target customer and prospected bases, how do you make your webinar stand out of from the crowd? Here are seven ways to transform your efforts into successful webinars to get the most bang for your (modest) buck.
1. Research the best date and time. Internet habits vary by user. For example, the best days to send a marketing email are Monday-Wednesday, but if you’re reaching out to a sales marketing list, those are the days your user group is out pounding the pavement. Start out with a survey of your user group asking when they are most likely to attend a webinar, and then create a strategic study by hosting webinars at different times and comparing the attendance results.
2. Don’t just rely on email. One of the biggest mistakes companies make is marketing webinars only by email invitation. With social media, your company’s message can be posted, tweeted, liked and shared by your employees and target audience — reaching prospects you never thought to target. And don’t forget to leverage your own employees, especially if they have established trust with your target attendees. Create incentives that encourage your employees to pick up the phone and lock-in prospects the old-school way.
I know I always hated lugging around a backpack full of textbooks throughout the school day… One of Apple’s most recent product developments aims to end the days of oversized, hardback manuscripts for good: iBook Author. With the new app textbooks can be written specifically for iPads, enabling an intricately rich user experience, and ultimately enhancing the learning process. In junction with a “revamped iTunes U interface,” Apple clearly endorses the digital education movement.
Perhaps it won’t be long until the norm becomes learning from anywhere via the web, with implications of access to a better education for all. The statistics show a continued growth in the field, as distance learning becomes more widely accredited and technology becomes more accessible: “The U.S. Department of Education found that from 2000 to 2008 the percentage of undergraduates enrolled in at least one distance education class expanded from 8 percent to 20 percent.” Now, The GMAT and GRE are now taken digitally, before long the SAT will likely be on the computer too. Need homework help? Tutor.com brings experts to your computer screen anytime, day or night.
Last week, I said sales leaders must demystify the why behind sales results to build and sustain high-performing teams. Today, I’ll show how we can use hard science to leapfrog those hurdles.
If you trust your gut in sales, you’ll get a stomachache:
(Thanks to Nancy Martini, PI Worldwide for this data. She lead PGi’s webinar, How science will drive sustainable sales results in 2012, last week with Gerhard Gschwandtner. Download the recording here.)
The only way to can fill in these talent gaps is with scientific assessments that show exactly what skills our teams are missing. With the right sales data and analytics, we can benchmark, measure and duplicate the success of our top performers.
Nissan used scientific data to gain market share in a down economy. Using human analytics, Nissan assessed its sales team’s skills and launched customized coaching and training programs to bridge the gaps. Nissan’s 
customer loyalty scores skyrocketed, and dealers increased their profits.
Here are my “4 Commandments for Scientific Selling”:
1. Internalize the “new normal”.
Equip your reps to sell in today’s conditions. Teach them to use technology effectively and sell better to today’s better-informed buyers.
2. Survive the talent famine + retain your best players.
Excel at talent acquisition & retention. CSO Insights shows turnover was 26% lower for firms with a formal retention strategy. It’s not enough to hire the best; you have to keep it. Talent retention is critical in 2012—Rule of thumb says it costs about one year’s quota to replace a rep.
3. Make decisions with precision.
Increase accuracy of driving a high performance sales team. Get it right; don’t guess.
4. Go Einstein.
Leverage scientific tools to create predictable & sustainable results. Create an environment attractive to top performers—one where they can truly work smarter, not harder.
When you use science to augment the art of selling, you know what to do—and what not to do. You won’t waste resources on irrelevant or counterproductive activities. Managers will use key performance indicators to predictably improve sales results. Most important, you’ll create a culture that attracts and retains top performers—essential for growth and profitability in today’s market.
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Nancy’s book, Scientific Selling, is due out in April 2012.
Happy Chinese New Year from Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia! Last night Will and I welcomed the auspicious year of the dragon in the heart of Kuala Lumpur surrounded by old friends, good food and new traditions.
My First Ang Pow! The Traditional Chinese New Year Red Envelope
As we look forward to a prosperous 2012, we want to set our fellow teleworkers (and teleworker wannabes) up for a successful year of mobile working.
Forget the official title.
Even if you work in the office, odds are you’ve joined a call on the way home, logged in to your computer at the airport or maybe even worked from home one afternoon. As the workforce becomes more mobile and the “office” becomes less defined, very few workers will be confined to the traditional office environment and most will require a crash course in remote working.
Gear up for a year of successful working-on-the-go with my top 10 teleworking articles from PGi.
Cora the Digital Nomad’s Top 10 Teleworking Articles for the Mobile Workforce
PGi focuses on delivering an optimal customer experience wherever possible. It’s built into the details of our video conferencing solution, iMeet, from its sleek interface to its security settings to the latest development, the integration of Evernote—a creative and dynamic organization and note-taking tool that allows for greater collaboration. In the human resources department at PGi, our customers include prospective, new and long-term employees. This story is about the customer experience we give our new hires, care of iMeet.
We have employees – and therefore new hires – in 33 U.S. states and 24 countries. One of the most convenient and simplest iMeet qualities is that iMeet rooms are accessible from virtually anywhere with an internet connection, enabling our employees to enter an iMeet room no matter where they live or work.
When we hold new hire training and orientation, we can bring everyone together at once, creating a sense of genuine community uncommon in large companies. iMeet’s virtual meeting rooms also help our HR team avoid repeating the same information over and over again. And iMeet is especially beneficial for those who work from home to be able to join a video conference meeting “in person” and not miss out on human connections because of geographic distance or location.
In one part of the orientation process, Pam, our HR representative in PGi’s Kansas office, uses her iMeet room to take new hires on an employee self-service tour. We use our intranet site, PGiLife, to introduce new employees to our vast internal corporate resources. In PGiLife, new employees learn know how to access various external systems to handle their personal payroll set-up, benefits enrollment, etc. They log into our intranet via Pam’s iMeet room, and she leads them to the various pathways to our benefits and personal records portals.
Pam also uses iMeet’s audio and video conferencing features so everyone can see and hear each other in person. She uses the “view document” feature to show the payroll calendar, how-to aides, benefits information, and more. She uses the “guest access” feature to grant visitors the ability to view, print or download files stored in her iMeet room. Pam also regularly uses iMeet’s embedded chat feature when hosting large sessions as a way to help employees troubleshoot accessing their own records. For example, during one class, several members needed their confidential login IDs to our payroll system, and she was able to chat with each of them individually in the iMeet interface, quickly and efficiently giving them their private information without interrupting the training session for the team.
Pam has been holding these new hire meetings in iMeet for almost eight months and with the efficiency iMeet brings, it’s not unusual for her to hold between four and six meetings each week. “I LOVE meeting all of our new associates! I get to talk to them face-to-face using video and answer any questions they may have. It’s fun when they tell me, ‘No, I didn’t get that,’ and I can tell them, ‘No problem! You can download it now from my iMeet files!’“
We regularly hear how much new PGi employees appreciate having someone walk them through the process. It’s more personal. It’s more engaging. It’s more fun!
We believe our new hires when they say, “Because it’s new technology, it’s easier to be attentive. This isn’t your typical old-school orientation.”
Last week, a double-leg takedown gone wrong had me down and out. Twice a week for the past five months, my whole family takes Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu training from Freddy Assuncao, an up-and-coming MMA fighter. And twice a week, I get bruises and gi burns while having a great time 
while meeting my New Year’s fitness resolutions. During training last week, however, I tweaked my back and couldn’t drive my car, go to the office or even get off my couch. I was 100% home-bound. Thankfully, being stuck at home can still be productive when you have iMeet.
Before I joined PGi in 2009, tweaking my back (which I do at least twice a year) meant spending my much-needed PTO sitting helplessly on my couch and worrying about the balls dropping at the office. Today, the chains to our office chairs are broken. Instead of wasting my PTO — and, more importantly, missing deadlines — I popped a couple of ibuprofen, kept pillows and my laptop handy and logged into iMeet meetings from my couch. And because iMeet is so personal, intuitive and mobile, I didn’t skip a beat. I even used my iMeet for iPhone app to log into a meeting from the chiropractor’s waiting room.
I joined group meetings with our Austin team, turned on my webcam for a newsletter design meeting, hit the mute button during planning meetings, Facebook friended Cora Rodenbusch during a PGiLife meeting, shared my Evernote folder in a strategy meeting, dropped my weekly blog in Lea Green’s iMeet filing cabinet — and even watched my niece hit her dad with a toy magical wand. All from the comfort of my couch and iMeet room.
Thanks to iMeet, my PTO is saved for that flu I always get from May’s pollen season and September’s back-to-school germs. And the newsletter still went out on schedule (and looks great, too).
What can iMeet do for you?
They say if you trust your gut, you’ll get a stomachache. This is especially true in sales today.
In our warp speed economy, we need precision like our lungs need air. But there’s never been more roadblocks to accuracy than there are now.
Last week, a group of 100 sales leaders ranked their top areas of difficulty:
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