What is your sales organization doing about the current economic downturn? What will make a difference for your company? While the economic forecast may be “uncertain,” it is certain that our customers are reducing their budgets and spending more carefully, forcing their vendors to do the same. This economic challenge will accelerate the adoption of Sales 2.0 from a “nice to have” to a “need to have” philosophy. Companies that continue to sell the way they sold in the past will become less profitable or fail altogether. Customer preferences, the ever-rising cost of sales, and the availability of next-generation technologies are making change mandatory for companies that want to outperform the competition and minimize the impact of the economic slowdown.

What is Sales 2.0?
Sales 2.0 is not a new technology. It is the use of innovative sales practices to improve business results, creating value for both the buyer and seller, and is often enabled by Web 2.0 or next-generation technology. Sales 2.0 initiatives typically center on process and customer-engagement improvements to increase sales productivity. Sales 2.0 practices combine the science of measurable, process-driven operations with the art of collaborative relationships, using the most profitable and expedient sales resources required to meet your customers’ needs. The goal of Sales 2.0 is to produce greater, predictable, repeatable business results, including increased revenue, decreased sales costs, and sustained competitive advantage.

Sales 2.0 initiatives require changing mindset and adjusting sales strategies. A relatively simple Sales 2.0 practice involves selling more through video or web conferencing. This can be done by inside salespeople or by field salespeople who perform more of their jobs from their desks. Selling more efficiently should also mean selling more effectively, as many buyers now prefer to meet remotely via conference calls with video or web conferencing, and salespeople benefit from additional selling time that otherwise would be spent traveling. A traditional sales process that included three or four onsite visits might now have zero or just one face-to-face visit. The financial impact of reducing travel expenses can be significant and is easily measured, but the economics of giving your most expensive sales resources — your field salespeople — additional selling time is even more compelling.

Many products and services, especially those of relatively small to average value, can only be sold profitably with a remote or low-touch sales model. The definition of “small to medium orders” is different for every company, but they are generally those that fall into your bottom 50% in value. If ignored, these mid-market customers or transaction types are missed opportunities for organizations that rely solely or too heavily on a field-based sales model. And when they are sold through field sales, these smaller opportunities can derail focus and drain the organization’s profitability.

Another Sales 2.0 practice uses some “science” to accurately capture key market information and metrics such as average sales cycle, average deal size and sales-cycle conversion rates. By using a defined sales process and data analytics, you can determine how your sales force should be structured and which customers and transaction types justify the assignment of field account executives, inside salespeople, channel partners or no selling effort at all. Data analytics in this sense can range from rudimentary (pen and paper) to moderate (spreadsheets, CRM, and most reporting systems) to advanced (dashboards and on-demand sales intelligence). Rather than simply measuring the final result (revenue), a Sales 2.0 approach measures the effectiveness of every stage in your sales process by salesperson, giving managers the opportunity to provide targeted coaching. Data analytics also can be used to correlate and analyze the specific characteristics of your most profitable customers (size, industries, locations, buyer types, etc.) that produce the most revenue and profit. Sales and marketing leaders can then use this information to fine-tune your sales model and activities to ensure the loyalty of your most valuable customers and find more prospects like them.

How do I begin a Sales 2.0 initiative with limited staff and budget?
A key Sales 2.0 tenet involves experimentation, often through testing new process ideas and piloting new technology. Testing a new sales message, pricing options, new technology, or even a new sales process enables the organization to be innovative with minimal risk. Small pilot programs that use minimal resources enable ineffective ideas to fail on a small scale, while good ones can be rolled out more aggressively.

Becoming a Sales 2.0 organization requires that we proactively adapt and continually improve so we can become closer to our customers and weather the economic storm better than our competitors.

Dr. Hyman Minsky's explanation of boom and boost in a capitalist economy is based on structure (or rather change of) of financial relationships. It is highly relevant today as it describes what is happening with the housing sector. The practice...

RT @JackAda07710351: I found that three arrow capitol is using bot to dump all invested tokens to the market that include $ddx. They are se…

Indoor bike trainers and the various types.

How nutrition can enable you to boost your cardiovascular workouts.

How and why to use a rowing machine at home or at the gym.

An effective and very fast way to treat wasp and bee stings and mosquito bites

Benefits and uses of the natural product kratom from southeast Asia.

How to do the ab rollout exercise using the ab wheel.

Use your living room to exercise, use your living space to carry out more productive workouts.

Infrared sauna to relax, rejuvenate your body. Offering a variety of possible health benefits.

Shoulder shrugs exercise options using 2 dumbbells or the Smith machine.

Cheap Computer Guide - Learn how to set up and use your new computer system.

MacWise terminal emulation supports AppleScript commands. Many functions of MacWise can be controlled by a script (such as transferring data to and from the host and sending commands to the host.

A few tips for making a connection with your Mac modem and the modem at the office.

MacWise allows a host computer to control the functionality of special keys on the keyboard. The keys can be re-programmed by the host. Information for host programmers.

What if you could use your Mac Powerbook to check your email and get on the internet wirelessly. Yea sure, you can drive around looking for wireless hotspots, or pay to use the wireless service at Starbucks. But what if it did not matter where you were.

Use Your Mac Powerbook to Connect to the Internet using your Motorola Razr V3xx Bluetooth Phone and a 3G High Speed Internet Connection .
(Browse the Internet and check your email)

It is very cool to use your iPhone from anywhere and post to your blog. All you need to do is record your audio, take a photo or movie, turn on the map location switch and send your email to your blog.

There have been several requests to create a MacWise iPhone app. Unfortunately, that would require a jail-broken iPhone and a year of programming time. But the next best thing is actually very cool and has advantages over a limited-function iPhone app. It uses Virtual Network Computing (VNC) to let you see and control your Mac screen from anywhere on your iPhone. It's just as if you were sitting in front of your Mac using MacWise via your iPhone.

Virtual Network Computing apps have been on the iPad since day one. And I have recommended them for use with MacWise. But there is a new kid on the block that really improves the experience with MacWise...

Use the web detective's search tools and how-to reports to find all the information that is available on the internet about you, or almost anyone else in the world!!

Financial institutions are reaching out to clients using RSS feeds. While banks and financial institutions are usually slow to adopt new technology, that is not the case with RSS adoption. More and more professionals are using RSS in innovative ways, to stay ahead of their competition.

1. Bank Rate Changes
Bankers are using RSS to communicate bank rate changes. Feeds are updated regularly to reflect changes to adjustable rate mortgages or the interest rate for CDs.

Financial Companies Using RSS Feeds

With all the vast amounts of information available on the web, it is becoming more and more difficult to sort through and find what you are looking for. RSS significantly lowers the signal-to-noise ratio. RSS has the unique ability to compile information and filter it, so you only see unique and relevant content. The information superhighway has become packed with content, and those familiar with technology are using RSS to filter the content, allowing them to drill down and access only the content they want, without having to wade through all the noise.

What Can be Published Using RSS Feeds?

Ninjalane Podcast - In this episode Darren talks about building a budget system using AMD FM2 Trinity

As part of my developer advocacy efforts at IBM, I often build and share demos to showcase our products and how developers can integrate them into their own applications. The IBM Developer site provides a wealth of resources for developers with a focus on code, content, and community. And code patterns are our way of […]

The post Build a cross-platform mobile app using React Native first appeared on Tom Markiewicz.

Here’s a little productivity hack I’ve come to rely on just about every day to keep me sane — using Amazon Alexa to add a todo to a list wherever you are in the house. Are your hands too occupied to type or write down an idea? This productivity tip has got you covered. Users […]

The post Productivity Tip: Using Amazon Alexa to add todos hands-free first appeared on Tom Markiewicz.

Is web hosting with dedicated (static) IP address better than having a shared IP address for your website? Due to the rapid increase of the number of registered domain names and the finite number of IP addresses, web hosting providers are forced to use shared IP's when possible. In fact, hundreds of websites often share the same address. Dedicated IP hosting is no longer the norm and usually costs more.

Repurposing content is not a terribly new concept. Webmasters that picked up on the trend have benefited from traffic surges for a while now. Repurposing content is all about presenting the same content in a variety of different ways, or using different mediums to present the same content. Webmasters can manipulate content in order to provide the same content in any number of different formats.

Why would publishers want to do this? There are a number of benefits to repurposing content, not the least of which is that it allows customers to select the format they wish to access your information.

Re-Using Content

With all the vast amounts of information available on the web, it is becoming more and more difficult to sort through and find what you are looking for. RSS significantly lowers the signal-to-noise ratio. RSS has the unique ability to compile information and filter it, so you only see unique and relevant content. The information superhighway has become packed with content, and those familiar with technology are using RSS to filter the content, allowing them to drill down and access only the content they want, without having to wade through all the noise.

What Can be Published Using RSS Feeds?

Repurposing content is not a terribly new concept. Webmasters that picked up on the trend have benefited from traffic surges for a while now. Repurposing content is all about presenting the same content in a variety of different ways, or using different mediums to present the same content. Webmasters can manipulate content in order to provide the same content in any number of different formats.

Why would publishers want to do this? There are a number of benefits to repurposing content, not the least of which is that it allows customers to select the format they wish to access your information. Additionally, repurposing content often does not require a lot of extra time, expense, or additional effort. The content itself already exists -- the format is just different. Additionally, there are a number of software tools available that can assist users in easily repurposing the content.

Re-Using Content

Podcasting is simply distributing audio content using RSS. The process is suprisingly simple, and by making audio content available using RSS, podcasters give listeners more control over what they listen to and when. Also, many podcasts are available for syndication, which increases a broadcasters exposure.

Step by Step ... How to Podcast Using FeedForAll

With all the vast amounts of information available on the web, it is becoming more and more difficult to sort through and find what you are looking for. RSS significantly lowers the signal-to-noise ratio. RSS has the unique ability to compile information and filter it, so you only see unique and relevant content. The information superhighway has become packed with content, and those familiar with technology are using RSS to filter the content, allowing them to drill down and access only the content they want, without having to wade through all the noise.

There are very few subjects or topics that do not currently have an RSS feed available. Perhaps it might be easier to ask what can not be published using RSS?

What Can be Published Using RSS Feeds?

With all the vast amounts of information available on the web, it is becoming more and more difficult to sort through and find what you are looking for. RSS significantly lowers the signal-to-noise ratio. RSS has the unique ability to compile information and filter it, so you only see unique and relevant content. The information superhighway has become packed with content, and those familiar with technology are using RSS to filter the content, allowing them to drill down and access only the content they want, without having to wade through all the noise.

There are very few subjects or topics that do not currently have an RSS feed available.

What Can be Published Using RSS Feeds?

Repurposing content is not a terribly new concept. Webmasters that picked up on the trend have benefited from traffic surges for a while now. Repurposing content is all about presenting the same content in a variety of different ways, or using different mediums to present the same content. Webmasters can manipulate content in order to provide the same content in any number of different formats.

Why would publishers want to do this? There are a number of benefits to repurposing content, not the least of which is that it allows customers to select the format they wish to access your information. Additionally, repurposing content often does not require a lot of extra time, expense, or additional effort. The content itself already exists -- the format is just different. Additionally, there are a number of software tools available that can assist users in easily repurposing the content.

Re-Using Content

Repurposing content is not a terribly new concept. Webmasters that picked up on the trend have benefited from traffic surges for a while now. Repurposing content is all about presenting the same content in a variety of different ways, or using different mediums to present the same content. Webmasters can manipulate content in order to provide the same content in any number of different formats.

Re-Using Content

With all the vast amounts of information available on the web, it is becoming more and more difficult to sort through and find what you are looking for. RSS significantly lowers the signal-to-noise ratio. RSS has the unique ability to compile information and filter it, so you only see unique and relevant content. The information superhighway has become packed with content, and those familiar with technology are using RSS to filter the content, allowing them to drill down and access only the content they want, without having to wade through all the noise.

There are very few subjects or topics that do not currently have an RSS feed available. Perhaps it might be easier to ask what can not be published using RSS? RSS is a standard format to syndicate Internet content, not just blogs or podcasts, but any type of content. Podcasting clearly shows that feeds can be media-rich, and while podcasting is generally considered a medium for entertainment, the educational value of podcasting has not been lost on many educational institutions. The business community has been a little slower to embrace the power and importance of RSS as a communication medium, but industry leaders are gradually adopting it as a new and powerful method of communication. But back to the original point... RSS can deliver virtually any type of content, including spreadsheets, power point applications, database updates, video tutorial, and much more. The true value of RSS feeds is that the subscriber can review and evaluate the information at a time and place of their own choosing.

What Can be Published Using RSS Feeds?

In addition to Ram Navami other local religious Yatras (processions), Ganga Aarti, (Prayer for river Ganges),Satsangs (religious meeting) , and other religious programs are being started with similar goals. The example of Kanwad Yatras (holy pilgrimage to collect Ganges water and to be put on Lord Shiva) is another example where the participants become aggressive.

Many claim that search results from ChatGPT are better than traditional searches, and now there's an easy way to test it out.

Sudanese entrepreneur brings Sudan’s culinary traditions to Egypt, aiming to introduce Egyptian palates to Sudanese culture

Bengaluru’s rental housing market saw an average price correction of 5-10% during the April-June quarter of the current calendar year, according to local brokers who spoke with HT.com. This news should cheer up tenants in the city. The primary reasons … Continue reading →

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The real estate industry in Mumbai has suffered the most as a result of the heavy rains and the numerous cases of waterlogging that have been reported. Real estate experts claim that between July and August, during the monsoon, walk-ins … Continue reading →

Try these 12 incredible iPhone tips and tricks for 2024 that will change the way you use your iPhone! From a hidden sleep timer in the Clock app to bypassing annoying ads in Safari WITHOUT an ad blocker, these hacks will save you time and headaches!

One of the issues regarding information on the web is ensuring authenticity, especially in regards to government information. The GPO recently announced they will be soon begin using public-key infrastructure and digital signatures to ensure authenticity of documents released online....

Summary: The abundance of X.509 certificate authorities who already perform identity proofing for businesses provides a rich resource that can be leveraged to boot the verifiable data ecosystem.

When you used a verifiable credential to prove something about yourself, the verifier can know cryptographically: (1) the identifiers for the issuer, (2) the credential hasn't been tampered with, (3) the credential was issued to you, and (4) the credential hasn't been revoked. These four checks are important because their establish the fidelity of the data being transferred. They don't, however, tell them whether they can trust the issuer. For that, they need to take the issuer's decentralized identifier (DID) that they got from credential presentation and determine who it belongs to.

At the most recent Internet Identity Workshop, Drummond Reed gave a session on how X.509 certificates could help with this. The first step, like always, is to resolve the DID and retrieve the DIDDoc that associates keys and endpoints with the DID. The endpoint can be an HTTP server and, of course, should have an X.509 certificate providing TLS security. That certificate, at the very least, has a a domain name to bind that to the certificate's public key. It can, if you pay for the feature, also include information about the entity that applied for the certificate. The certificate authority proofs that information and is vouching for it when they sign the certificate.

The key to making the X.509 certificate useful for checking the provenance of a DID lies in one key change. X.509 certificates can contain and extended field called a Subject Alternative Name. This following figure shows how it can help.

In this figure:

1. The issuer (Attestor) creates the DID they will use to issue the certificate along with its associated DIDDoc, including an HTTP endpoint for DID verification.
2. Attestor applies for a X.509 certificate for that endpoint, including in the application the DID they created in (1).
3. The certificate authority does it's usual proofing of the application and issues a certificate that includes the DID in the Subject Alternative Name field.
4. The issuer creates a credential definition in the usual way that includes their DID and writes it to whatever Verifiable Data Registry their DID method dictates.
5. Attestor issues a credential to a holder (Alice) using that credential definition.
6. At some later time, Alice presents the credential to the verifier (Certiphi).
7. Certiphi resolves the DID to get the DIDDoc and retrieves the verfication endpoint from the DIDDoc
8. Certiphi retrieves the certificate for that endpoint¹.
9. Certiphi verifies the certificate by checking it's signature and ensures that the DID in the DIDDoc for the credential matches the one in certificate.²

The issuer's DID has now been tied in a verifiable way to whatever information is in the certificate. Provided the certificate includes information about the entity beyond the domain name, the verifier can use that information to determine whether or not the credential is authentic (i.e., issued by who the credential definition purports issued it). That might be all the evidence they need to determine whether to trust the entity. Certificate authorities could also issue verifiable credentials to the customer attesting the same verified claims—after all, it's one more product they can offer.

The benefit of doing issuer validation using X.509 certificates is that there are already many trusted X.509 certificate authorities in business who already do proofing of attributes about businesses. That's a huge chunk of the verifiable data ecosystem that doesn't need to be built because it can be leveraged. To make this work, digital certificate authorities would need to start offering to validate DIDs and include them in a certificate as a Subject Alternative Name. I don't discount that this will take some bureaucratic maneuvering. Certificate authorities will need to see a business opportunity. I'd love to see Digitcert or someone do a pilot on this.

Notes

1. Note that this step might be combined with the previous step if the Verifiable Data Registry is the same server as the endpoint, but that's not necessarily going to be the case for a number of reasons.
2. Note that this does not create a call back wherein Attestor can determine which credential was used, preserving the privacy of the presentation. Attestor does know one of its credentials has been presented to Certiphi. If this information leakage bothers you, then any web-based DID method is potentially a problem.

Tags: identity ssi decentralized+identifiers verifiable+credentials x.509

Data-driven attribution is the default attribution model in Google Ads. Understand how and why to use it in your Google Ads campaign.

The post Using Google Ads’ Data-Driven Attribution Model appeared first on Portent.

Unlock the power of ChatGPT for advanced data analysis with our comprehensive guide. We've even included screenshots.

The post Guide: Using GPT for Digital Marketing Analytics (with examples) appeared first on Portent.

Google Alerts is a free service offered by Google that will alert you to new content Google finds on the web that contains keywords you specify. Google Alerts is most commonly recommended as a way to monitor your brand – and your competition's brand – online. But I also use Google Alerts as a way…

The post Using Google Alerts to Find New Affiliate Programs in Your Niche appeared first on Sugarrae.