Bloggertone » Announcements » HP SugarTone: Making Your Business Amazing

HP SugarTone: Making Your Business Amazing

by Facundo Villaveiran on August 24th, 2010
63 Comments



Bloggertone and BizSugar would like to announce our second Sugartone “Sweet Business Blogging Contest” called HP SugarTone: Making Your Business Amazing. We are delighted to welcome HP onboard as sponsor for this event. In case you missed the latest one, here’s how it will work:

The mechanics

#1 WRITE A BRAND NEW BLOG POST ABOUT BUSINESS in your area of expertise (e.g. Sales, Management, Finance, etc) and cover “How to make your business amazing!”. It must be fresh content (not pre-published elsewhere)

#2  SUBMIT YOUR ARTICLES TO tweakyourbiz.com: Click here between Monday August 30th at 4pm GMT / 9am EST and Monday September 6th 4pm GMT / 9am EST to submit your article to Bloggertone.

#3  VOTE ON THE ARTICLES OVER AT BIZSUGAR.com: Click here between Monday August 30th at 4pm GMT / 9am EST and Thursday September 9th 4pm GMT / 9am EST to go to BizSugar and vote on the articles.

The winners

Bloggers:

The winning article will be the one with the most votes (sweets) and will be announced on Thursday, September 9th after the voting closes.

Readers:

A special prize will be awarded for the most engaging comment to be decided by our judges.

The Prizes

First Prize. The blogger receiving the highest number of votes on the BizSugar community will receive  $350 in HP products or gift certificate.

Second Prize. $250 in HP products or gift certificate will be awarded for the “most engaging comment” as selected by our judges.

Plus. A selection of the articles will be made available to download as a super business E-book.

Some simple guidelines:

#1 Submit your article to tweakyourbiz.com

  • If you are already a Blogger at Bloggertone, simply submit your article as usual remembering to categorize it as “Sugartone”.
  • If you are new to Bloggertone simply attach your article here and we’ll publish it for you. You’ll also get a login and password after the event to make regular contributions to Bloggertone!

#2 Vote at Bizsugar.com

  • Simply go to Bizsugar.com under the category SugarTone (one vote per person so get your friends to help!)

#3 We publish and you vote & comment!

Bloggertone will submit all of the articles to BizSugar.com, the small business news and social media site. Just sit back and wait until your article is up on BizSugar. This may take a few hours, especially when it’s night time in the UK. But we’ll get it done for you as quickly as possible.

You and your friends vote & comment on the articles on both sites. You can vote and comment on more than one article!!!

Help us promote the contest:

Sugartonem

Grab any promotional banner here and embed it on your site

Ready to blog?

SUBMIT YOUR ARTICLE HERE (submissions finished, vote below!)

VOTE ON THE ARTICLES HERE

small business news and social media site


Category: Bloggertone announcements, Promotions, SugarTone, Uncategorized

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The Author: Facundo Villaveiran

Facundo is a founder here at Bloggertone and a director at Dublin based Web Agency Channelship, where he works with directly with key accounts, particularly in creative and strategic capabilities. Naturally involved in Bloggetone's and Channelship’s business development and promotional efforts, he enjoys networking in the Irish Business scene. http://www.channelship.ie

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  • Tori Hawthorne

    Heya Debbi, thanks so much for your comment.. Its so true, we have to be well researched in who we are calling, why we are connecting and how to get the right message across.

    So true, its the value and them that’s important and not the sale… Its the cold calling term that makes it sound like such an awful task :( I much prefer business development because that’s what it is ;)

    Thank you

  • Tori Hawthorne

    Oh wow, thank you Elaine *blushing*

    Its so true, I have never viewed my work as prospecting, but always relationship building. Trust and nurturing is key. We have to be open, honest and as helpful as we can as sales people, it’s never just about the sales we make today but the sales in our future business. The initial stages of the relationship build the foundations for a strong future, once we trust the foundations are there we should always have lasting business and referrals.

    Thank you again Elaine 

    T

  • Derbhile

    You’ve sold me on cold calling. 

  • Tori Hawthorne

    WOW, Thanks so much for your comment Larry,

    I love your fish analogy, that’s it, the river is as important as the fish ;) I am so glad my post has helped your plans.
    It takes time and it’s not a process that will bring immediate results but it will bring firm results and good Business Relationships.

    Good luck with your process, hope it goes well

    Tori ;)

  • Tori Hawthorne

    Hi there,

    Thank you so much for reading and commenting.

    Tori

  • Puneet

    I have always used a friendly and a genuine conversation to “explore” and common areas of “interest” and that has got many coffee meetings. I like the way you have put it in a more transitioning manner from the traditional cold calling to the new age business development discussions.

  • Tori Hawthorne

    Hi there Puneet,
    Thank you for your comment. That is really it, we need to move on from the hard sell and build relationships, this way we have a firm foundation for a great business relationship

    Thanks again
    Tori

  • Alagu Subramani

    Tori, your post helps one regain their confidence on cold calling. The honest approach works and not all customers are irate, they would also like to listen to what is out there in the market. There should not be a restricted timeframe within which you would like to complete the cold calling activity. It should be an ongoing practice. I am sure there might be questions about Gatekeepers not allowing you to speak to the right contact, there are different timings when you can call the contact and also crisp emails do get the customers attention. This is a really good post.

  • Tori Hawthorne

    Thank you Alagu,
    Its true, it is an ongoing process, we can try and set days to ‘do it’ but that time frame can change by the prospect dictating when they can be called… We have to be flexible and patient and polite to Gatekeepers ;) Thanks againTori

  • http://www.caribonix.com/blog Myron Yarde

    Hi Tori, thanks for your perspective. I still see cold calling as important as well. It really is a good way of getting out there as long as you’re not being “COLD”.

  • Tori Hawthorne

    Thanks Myron,

    Me too. We need to connect as businesses and when we don’t know who we are calling the call is ‘Cold’. Mindset needs to change, it needs to be seen that we need to make these calls to grow and we need to receive these calls to know what or who is truly out there… 
    Thanks again Tori ;)

  • Francie

    I love this article and have posted on my FaceBook. Cold Calling is truly an OPPORTUNITY… a platinum opportunity to learn a great deal in a timely fashion. Thank you, Tori, for the GREAT article.
    Francie

  • http://twitter.com/neilsisson Neil Sisson

    Great post Tori.

    I used to work for an IT training company that built it’s entire business from a database of 0 with cold calling. They had a great process though which involved cold calling to give something away for free, the thinking being that if you can’t give a company something for free, then there is no chance you will be able to sell them something.

    The follow up, post training day, was where as a sales person you were able to get some great feedback about the product being sold, the service delivery levels and obviously there was a super opportunity to build rapport, leading to goodwill and eventual further sales down the road. Not to mention a huge Database of the right contacts who you had marketing approval to contact.

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