August 2017 - ProSellus

What to do if You get Hacked on LinkedIn

As of August 30, 2017, our LinkedIn page was hacked. Luckily, after 24 hours, we got it back. As you can imagine, most of us here in Houston, TX, were not too happy. On top of this, there’s the obvious disaster at hand: Hurricane Harvey.

Considering the tremendous losses others have incurred from belongings to homes and even lives, losing access for 24 hours to a social media platform seems like a walk in the park. But it got me thinking….whether you’re an individual sales rep or an enterprise level med-tech company, you need ways to protect yourself, your data, and your intellectual property. Specifically, with LinkedIn, there isn’t much recourse for users to take if a data breach such as this occurs.

Start With LinkedIn Customer Service Recommendations

Though this seems obvious, it’s a necessary step — especially reviewing your currently active sessions. If you see anything unfamiliar or suspicious, investigate it right away! The follow up check of your personal and work emails is also a must. You can avoid further compromises in one simple check.

TIP: I run a company and as CEO I can be a bit impatient – like I want results now – so when I have to fill out a bunch of online forms and wait…and wait…well – that doesn’t quite sit well with me. So after much digging I found this email: linkedin_support@cs.linkedin.com – and they responded rather quickly. You just have to be proactive! Also make sure that you have back up emails loaded on your account in case someone does try to change your primary email – they will notify your secondary email that there was a change.

But WHY Did I get Hacked In the First Place?

Great question! No idea. Apparently, hackers like to target LinkedIn accounts for the greater access to network information. Think about it: you can get to know A LOT about a person by looking at their LinkedIn profile. You can even identify more targets by looking at people’s connections. Gaining access to login credentials enables hackers to potentially crack greater codes than just a few LinkedIn profiles.

They target people in many ways, but an old favorite is the classically threatening security themed farce. You can see in the image below that this is a fairly well reasoned email, but it doesn’t look as official as one from LinkedIn should look. It is a phishing email aimed to capture all your details.

By falling for this email scam and filling out the attached HTML file, you unwittingly hand the hackers your login information on a silver platter. While you might not fall for this, a coworker might. Your parents or your kids might. Who knows? Two-factor authentication is a great way to thwart these kinds of schemes if you have been compromised.

Simple Steps to Security

As we’ve mentioned, getting hacked is no picnic. But there are ways to mitigate the effects of being hacked. The following list is a great way to start:

Anti-virus software like Avast, Malware Bytes, and Webroot
Changing passwords every 3 – 6 months
Encryption or scrambling software
Proxies or VPNs
Keeping up with data breaches by following Twitter accounts such as haveibeenpwned as operated by Troy Hunt
Request a data archive of your profile
Add a second backup email to your profile
Download all of your contacts in case you lose your account

Why Do Some People Not Know That They’ve Been Hacked?

Though LinkedIn is great for many things like networking and thought leadership, the communication about security breaches leaves something to be desired. Though there was a ton of coverage on the 2012 LinkedIn data breach that affected nearly 6.5 million users, other breaches were swept under the rug. The reason why: its data from the initial 2012 breach either being released or used years later. That explains why the 2012 data breach gets listed among the worst data breaches of all time regularly.

What Else Can I Do to Protect Myself?

TIP: Go to a website called haveibeenpwned.com. I know — it looks like a spam website, but it’s actually one of your greatest tools in protecting your login information and email security. It automatically checks any email you put in for security breaches or compromises. The person who operates it, Troy Hunt, is a known specialist in this area and regularly writes about data breaches.

Avoid our mistakes: get a data archive, download your connections, and enable that two-factor authentication. Data matters more and more every day. The ProSellus Growth Engineers still have a little growing to do in some departments, but then again, shouldn’t you always be growing?

We’ll let you think on it a bit.

ProSellus - 08/31/2017

5 Ways to Succeed as a Medical Device Sales Rep

Medical device sales is the Wild West and Game of Thrones combined. The competition is fierce even for the most well-equipped and savvy of reps. The best of the best are always on the lookout for tips, tricks and new strategies to help them up their game and stay on top. ProSellus is dedicated to providing accessible resources for medical device sales reps and improving their sales business. If you are one, let’s see if one of your go-to techniques makes our list of 5 ways to succeed as a medical device sales rep.

Time Management & Value Propositions

The first key to succeeding as a sales rep is crucial: time management. You cannot bounce from meeting to meeting, keep up with emails, read news about medical technology and thought leadership, and look like a boss without it. Pro-tip: watches are great. Setting them to be fast is better. Bonus — remember that old proverb about what “being on time” actually means? Time to redefine your understanding of what “being early” is.

Our second tip is to be completely versed in what a value proposition is and how to implement one. Establishing value for a client is a main part of being a sales rep. If you flounder at this step, you’ll probably (definitely) struggle to become a successful sales rep regardless of industry. For more info on establishing value, check out some of our other blog posts.

Measured Expectations & Balance

You always want to close the deal and convert that competitive customer when you make even the shortest of pitches, but…sometimes even the best sales reps fail. In an industry so heavily focused on profits and numbers, it can be disheartening sometimes to see yourself as just a percentage. Prepare yourself mentally for the negatives or the “no’s”. Another old adage about “missing all the shots you never take” applies here, but you probably already knew that.

Another thing many sales reps forget about is establishing work/life balance. In order to be at your utmost successful level, you need to recharge. You’re no good in a business meeting if you’re running on two hours of sleep in a wrinkled suit (or scrubs) and a far-off look on your face. Whether you miss out on those critical 6 – 8 hours of sleep because of work or “recreation”, you’re setting yourself up for lackluster performance in your chosen career. Be flexible with regards to your clients and schedule, but also with yourself. (Folks, I was guilty of this 100% of the time. I remember burning the candle at both ends with a blowtorch! I would literally end a Friday forgetting that it was Friday. When you’re young in this business you’re expected to hustle in order to make an impact. And don’t kid yourself, you’ll always hustle, but you need to have some sort of balance. I know, I know, sometimes it seems impossible, but no surgeon or physician wants a rep who makes errors because they’ve only slept 10 hours all week! That would be the quickest way to lose business!!!!!)

The Final Way to Succeed in Sales (With or Without Really Trying)

Make good on your word. That’s it. No, really — it is that simple. As a sales representative, your reputation is an integral part of your brand and your business. The minute someone drags your good name through the mud, you could be toast (and not avocado or butter; just burnt). Tired of the crispiness in your life?

Email me at Scottwalle@prosellus.com and let’s see if ProSellus can transform your fire hazard into the ability to control fire.

Sales - 08/21/2017

Sales Acceleration is Your Turnkey Sales & Marketing Strategy…But What Is It?

Turnkey solutions are fantastic for enterprise and small sales businesses. They’re lean, often affordable, and — ideally — extremely effective. ProSellus offers such an all-in-one-tool in the form of a service that combines the capabilities of LinkedIn (hunting) and Salesforce (contact and revenue management). It also utilizes a little known sales strategy that could be the one thing you need to boost your sales numbers and improve your medical device sales business.

Customer Management Meets Inter-connectivity

As a medical device sales rep, if you could do more with leads, you would jump at the opportunity right? As a medical device marketing person what if you could find the hottest opportunities to feed to your reps in a matter of seconds? Sales acceleration offers the unique fusion of customer management with the inter-connectivity of the 21st century. You can house and access client information, manage relationships, find new opportunities in your territory, and more all from the palm of your hand with ProSellus. The trick to sales acceleration: you.

One of the best weapons a sales rep has in their arsenal is their ability to establish value of a product/service based on personal interactions. Establishing a rapport with a client or prospect is just as important as understanding the product/service you are selling. Sales acceleration is a combination of tactics and approaches that utilize your best tool and extrapolate sales skills into actionable intelligence.

One of the best weapons a marketing person has in their arsenal is data intelligence. Having access to valuable healthcare data within an easy-to-acquire solution is a medical device marketing person’s dream. Finally, something that marketing can DO to effectively help sales – find quality leads and fast. No more wide-net fishing.

Don’t Get Bamboozled

Many companies offer sales acceleration tool packages, but at a cost or with confusing and difficult-to-understand interfaces. (Trust me, I’ve been where you guys and girls are. My former companies would provide “great” software platforms that quite frankly my sales counterparts and myself would give up on rather quickly. They were simply un-intuitive and impossible to use.) It’s understandable as the business of sales acceleration has reached more than $12-billion. It’s hard to ignore the numbers — especially when they indicate that you could be doing something better, but you don’t have to spend beau coup bucks to do it. ProSellus offers this turnkey solution right from your mobile device. Imagine it: having all the information you need on-the-go and more organized than any cabinet could ever be.

Optimize or Fall Behind

If you want to learn more about how sales acceleration can improve your sales & marketing business (and I know you do), email me. Scottwalle@prosellus.com. I want to personally help your business grow using my expertise and knowledge of medical sales gained over more than a decade of experience in the industry. So what’s it going to be — are you going to adapt to the modern age or stick with the dinosaurs?

Sales / Sales Acceleration Tools / Strategy - 08/14/2017

Can Google & Big Data Teach You Something About Sales?

The importance of metrics and insights is no longer a well-kept secret; it’s a business necessity. “Big Data” provides the kind of information that can transform lackluster profit numbers into skyrocketing stock prices. Of course, this isn’t a magic trick or an easy button — it’s months and sometimes years of hard work and management. Don’t believe us, ya know the team from ProSellus who are the Sales Growth Engineers? Then take it from the biggest of “Big Data” companies: Google.

Online Tracking Meets Brick & Mortar

The internet giant began tracking online users to outward facing stores — both stand alone and those in malls utilizing the data received from online sales. As a result, many users developed valid concerns about the privacy and safety of their information. Just take a look at the very first statement on the “Google Ads” page. Despite protestations, cookies and other tracking mechanisms are commonplace in today’s online environment.

By harvesting data on millions of users, Google can offer a variety of useful conclusions and services such as:

● Informing advertisers of the effects of their ad campaigns
● Utilizing data to make ads more relevant to users
● Offering security tools to developers
● Sharing information to develop a safer internet surfing experience

And more! As a sales rep, you probably have an active social media platform or website of some kind. Google Analytics is a free service you can utilize to garner such data. Of course, that’s old news and it offers a myopic data set that doesn’t really service a sales business — enterprise, small, or individual. What is missing? Meaning and intelligence. Data is one thing – what is MEANINGFUL about it is another.

The Key to Understanding Data Management & Use

If you’re a sales rep transferring files from paper to digital, you might have encountered some frustrating roadblocks. If you are a sales (or marketing!) rep who is also trying to interpret data from analytics or metrics, you might be one PPC campaign away from giving up altogether. Trust me, I was there. As a sales rep, many companies think they’re doing the reps a big favor by sending them huge Excel or .CSV files and saying, “Just create a pivot table or two and filter through the attached 50,000 row document, it will give you everything you need!” Excuse me… you want me to create what? And do what with it? I didn’t even know where to begin! Don’t feel shame in that: there are several planets worth of data you’re navigating. Pro-tip: you don’t have to do that alone anymore.

ProSellus Growth Engineers focuses on aggressive and effective data interpretation and data management strategies for medical device sales reps. We provide that meaning in a useful and simple way. Unlike any tool or program before it, ProSellus offers several avenues to increase efficiency, revenue, and quality of life for your sales business. Don’t believe me? Email Scottwalle@prosellus.com and let’s discuss any reservations or questions you have.

Business - 08/07/2017

Does Marketing Matter In Sales?

For Sales Reps…Does Marketing REALLY Matter?

Many people, including ProSellus Growth Engineers, place importance on the differences between marketing and sales. We have also talked about the relationship between the two. But…does marketing really matter for medical device sales reps? The short answer: you bet it does.

Enterprise Sales Teams and Mavericks…Listen Up

Regardless of the size of your sales business, marketing means more than pamphlets or social media ads. It means your entire brand identity and even how you interact with clients. In today’s modern age of 140 character interactions and algorithms that track mouse movements on websites, not only do you have to monitor your tone and diction, you have to be transparent, too. Whether you have a marketing team to support you or you’re flying solo and clocking in extra hours wearing a dozen hats, you’ve got to adapt and adapt fast.

Increasingly, sales and marketing tricks of the past like fear of loss, the “Jones effect”, or the impulse factor aren’t trade secrets anymore. To top it off, many consumers are more proactive than even five years ago. The immediacy of “Googling” something on their phones means that your clients could be 12 steps ahead of you in 30 seconds or less.

This also works in the reverse fashion: not only are consumers being proactive, but so should the salesperson. What does that mean exactly? How can you be more proactive as a salesperson? How about by being smarter? How about utilizing technology available to help understand who your customers really are (or should be!) and what THEY are searching for before they even know it. Its called “behavior analytics” and there are many types (listed below) which is created from data all around you! It is collected every time you do ANYTHING as a consumer, professional or business.

Wait…So How does Marketing Affect Sales?

You’re a discerning sales rep, so quick quips and industry jargon aren’t going to distract you from your objective. How does marketing affect your sales business? For individual sales reps operating their own LLCs or businesses, it can be the difference between a deal and a flop. Your personality is your brand and your brand is your business. Consider consulting several of our blog posts about developing a brand identity and voice. You can parlay this identity into your social media platforms, your web copy, and every other facet of your sales business.

For enterprise sales team that have marketing support teams beside them, the process is a bit different, but the variables are the same. You need the tools of brand development in order to implement them in your sales approach and process. Something as simple as a company logo can impact your ability to close a deal with prospective clients no matter how clever or charismatic you may be. Hey — the truth isn’t always pretty in the world of sales.

While branding, voice, personality and technique are all vital to help seal the deal, I cannot emphasize enough the crucial impact that data and analytics have to the success of both types of sales teams (Small LLC’s and Enterprise). Where does the data come from? Well, most marketing professionals should know where to access it. In fact, there are stacks and stacks of technology tools that offer data analytics (diagnostic, descriptive, predictive and prescriptive) available to both the marketing and sales professional. It’s all the rage and guess what, your competitor, you know the one that just poached your customer? They are taking advantage of these tools. This is indeed where the rubber meets the road with regards to marketing helping sales achieve quota. Marketing obtains the analytics and supplies the sales team with the data intelligence to help point them to the warmer leads and low hanging fruit. It’s a cyclical relationship. Boom – the family has finally found a way to work together.

Still feeling stumped?

ProSellus Growth Engineers is a company dedicated to growing your sales business using these revolutionary techniques – in a simplified way built for the sales rep in the field and the marketing professional in desperate need of some REAL leads. The future is already here, so you might already be old news. Email me at Scottwalle@prosellus.com and let’s get to the bottom of your sales and marketing questions

ProSellus / Thought Leadership - 08/01/2017