Want to get an article published? Follow this one golden rule

If you’re looking after the PR for your company or use it as part of your mix, there will come a point where your comms plan is in place, your messaging is tight and you’ll ask – “How do I get an article published?”

My suggestion would be to follow one golden rule: Know the publication.

That’s it. Pretty obvious right? But ask any editor or journalist and they’ll tell you that this is seemingly beyond 95% of the marketing/PR execs that they speak to. So how do you join the 5% club?

For a start, read the publication. A lot. It’s not hard but surprisingly few people bother to do it. As a first check, you can confirm the publication is relevant and they’re likely to write about your firm or offering.

Then make sure you know the publication back to font – the regular sections, their editorial calendar, major features, their readership profile and circulation, what flicks the switch of the main journalists.

This means that, instead of calling them to say, “My company/product is so awesome, will you write about us?” your conversation can run more along the lines of…  “I enjoy the XXX section you run each month and noticed that you have an upcoming feature on XXX. Our CEO is an expert on this topic and has some interesting views, would you be interested in having a chat?”

Think of it like a sales engagement. The more you know, the more productive a conversation you can have. It shifts from being a one-sided pitch to being a collaborative conversation, where you’re speaking as equals and delivering mutual value.

Your level of understanding will be – grudgingly – appreciated by even the hardest hack. You’ll avoid wasting each others' time with lame, irrelevant pitches and end up seeing infinitely better results.

Three Templar tips for career progression

You may have realized by now that, in your early years, most business self-help books are utterly useless for career progression. Particularly when green & keen, we’ve all tried reading them – One Minute Manager, 7 Habits, Who Moved My Cheese, How to Win Friends, etc.

The irony is, especially when fairly junior, anyone spouting the business babble comes across as weird and so is unlikely to be promoted.

[As an aside, if you feel that emotional intelligence isn’t your strong suit, to the point that you need to learn it in a book, my advice would be to focus on the Big Data / Operations side of marketing. This is no bad thing, as you’ll most likely end up earning a lot more than your charismatic colleagues.]

With few exceptions, my experience of career progression has been that if you work hard, take the time to master your brief, are a reliable team member, have good organization & communication skills and are always upbeat, you’ll rise above most of your peers.

The one self-help book I would recommend is Richard Templar’s The Rules of Work: The Unspoken Truth About Getting Ahead in Business. It assumes you’re good at your job and suggests practical actions to help you get on and up. Rather than CEOs or wannabe Bransons, it’s aimed at those in the early stages of their career hungry to climb the ladder. Chapters include: If you can’t say anything nice, shut up; Act one step ahead; and Know the system – and milk it.

From the 100 rules, here are three I’ve found particularly valuable:

1)    Know something others don’t
Hopefully you know about a lot of things, however it’s worth being the go-to person for something crucial. This makes you indispensible and – if you pick your topic well – offers an opportunity to be a subject matter expert with insights the exec team crave. For modern marketers, you may want to consider:

• Funnel math – If there’s one thing likely to get you noticed by those up the food chain, it’s fully understanding and articulating Marketing’s impact on revenue. This is the difference between fluff & bluff and talking the talk of the top table. Refer to Rozzer’s Marketing Metrics post if you need some guidance.
• Systems and data – This is fast becoming one of the most influential areas of marketing and yet – due to complexity or dullness – one that many avoid. If you’re not one of these people then chances are you’ll be in high demand. Several years ago, one of my team took a punt that Salesforce was going to be the foundation of our company’s sales engine and so decided to master it. In her mid 30s, she’s now VP Global Sales Operations, one of the most influential people in the company, and pulling in massive coin.
• Market analysis – It’s often scary how many strategic decisions are based on a sales/exec manager’s gut feel – usually because they’re too time poor to undertake proper research and analysis. Being the oracle of market data – such as segment size, growth and potential – will give you a seat in strategy discussions. And being able to present this in a concise, compelling way, will take you far.

2)    The power of the unsolicited report
Personally, I’ve found this the best suggestion in the book. Most of the time, CXOs are too busy to do the research and so are suitably amazed/delighted when an interesting, snappy report appears out of the blue that addresses a pain point.

Chances are, when it comes to implementation, your name will be the top of the list and you’ll find yourself on some plum projects. In your manager’s eye, you’ll be elevated to a thinker and a problem solver, rather than just a foot soldier.

3)    Capitalize on moments to shine
Isn’t it annoying not to be appreciated for your brilliance at least a few times a day? The fact is, there’s likely to be only a handful of high-visibility opportunities a year where you get a chance to make a name for yourself. Like it or not, exec opinions of you are often based on these – so spot these opportunities a mile off and nail them.

Inside Sales training: Creating a playbook

As covered in Rozzer’s ‘11 Tips for Aligning Marketing and Inside Sales’, a high-performing Inside Sales team can send lead conversion rates sky-rocketing bringing joy and riches to you and your firm.

It may not be cool, fun or sexy but a large part of managing an Inside Sales team is having robust processes in place – when and how to contact a prospect; what to do before, during & after the call; correct use of your CRM and other systems; the handover to Sales; and of course how reps will be compensated.

Get these locked down and you’re free to do the fun part – the motivating, cajoling and rewarding. Get it wrong and you’ll spend most of your time on the back foot, neck-deep in admin.

Something that will make establishing these processes a lot easier is having a central guide or ‘playbook’ that documents the core Inside Sales processes and procedures. This keeps everyone on the right page and accelerates the on-boarding of new hires. Here are some sections to include:

1)     Aim & goals
Right at the top, lay it on the line as to why the team exists and what its purpose is. This could be along the lines of… “The aim of the Inside Sales team is to provide a predicable pipeline of qualified opportunities to the Sales team to increase new customer acquisition. This is achieved by improving lead conversion rates, enhancing market coverage, having more 1-1 conversations, qualifying opportunities early and thereby increasing win rates.”

2)     Sales process overview
Being an Inside Sales rep can be a tough gig so make sure the team knows their importance to the business by showing them an end-to-end view of how Inside Sales fits in the sales cycle.

Tip: Reps that are rock-solid on the Sales Process theory will likely find your processes and CRM tools a lot more intuitive.

3)     Demand generation
Leads don’t just fall from the sky, they take skill, money and hard work from marketing gurus to acquire. If Inside Sales reps understand and respect this, they’ll be more likely to treat leads like gold.

4)     Prioritization & Assignment
When your reps get to work in the morning, who do they call? Then who? Clear prioritization will keep them efficient and focused on high-priority prospects. Also make sure you get their territories and lead assignment processes crystal clear or face the inevitable turf wars.

5)     Call prep
I always give the same pep talk to new reps, “This lead cost $250 to acquire and could be worth millions to the company and thousands to you. So please make sure you do your homework before calling them.” A short (e.g. 5-step) research template they can pin up on their cubicle will help with this.

6)     The Call
After about a week on the phones, all Inside Sales reps consider themselves experts and will have developed their own pitch. However at least starting them off with a high quality script will give you the best chance of them staying on message. You can also lay down the SLAs e.g. “Leads will be followed up within X timeframe, and contact will be attempted a minimum of X times.”

7)     Post call
More process, but this is an easy one. “Log your call correctly in the CRM system and you get paid; don’t and you don’t.”

8)     Handover to Sales & opportunity progression
After a rep has booked a meeting, what happens next? If you’re primarily rewarding them based on sales-qualified opportunities generated (which you should be), then this will be of big interest to them. Any monkey can book meetings. What you want is qualified opportunities that have a high chance of closing.

9)     Metrics & reporting
Targets that need to be hit and how their output will be recorded, tracked and reported.

10)  Compensation framework
The section your reps will flick to the moment you give them the guide.