The Making of a Lioness…
I recently attended a pipeline training course at Hubspot HQ in Dublin, the affectionately named ‘Project Lion’ boot camp was delivered by the infectiously enthusiastic Hubspot sales guru, Dan Tyre. Dan taught myself and 11 other Hubspot Agency Partners the inbound approach for populating our sales funnel with new leads and nurturing our existing leads.
This course really taught me that ‘always closing’ is a thing of the past and the Napier approach is that we are ‘always helping’.
Dan taught me three key things:
Just keep digging…
To really understand someone’s goals, you must dig at least 3 times:
- Dig 1 - ‘what your goals are for the coming year?’ this will give you an overview of the where the company would like to see themselves.
- Dig 2 – ‘How much are you looking to grow compared to last year?’ this will give you a more realistic figure based on the previous year.
- Dig 3 – ‘Why is it important for you to double your business this year?’ now this is the interesting part, the why provides all the insight, where is the goal being driven from? What are the risks of not achieving this goal?
By digging at least three times, you can better identify a good fit for your business and really understand your prospects drivers and objectives.
Keep curious & listen!
‘What else?’, ‘But Why?’ curiosity comes naturally to me, just ask my colleagues & clients… I challenge most things and like to understand the what, the why and the how, although being curious can be a little irritating, it’s important to ensure you get to that third level of the dig and you really understand your client/prospect and hear what they are telling you.
Be helpful.
The crux of Project Lion is to ‘always be helping’, whether your prospect is trying to understand if they are ready for Marketing Automation, or comparing your service offering to your competitors, always be helpful, stand up & smile.
I’m looking forward to helping future clients exceed their objectives and become inbound marketing experts, if you receive a call from me in the near future, let me know how I’m doing – I’m a lioness in training!
A year in the life of an Apprentice Ambassador
What a year! Since completing my apprenticeship in June 2015, I have received four awards; two CIM certificates, presented on the radio, addressed over 300 apprentices at a graduation ceremony and even met the Prime minister at No.10! – how did I get so lucky?
Humble Beginnings
It all started in May 2015, myself and Mike were presenting at the local FSB Apprenticeship Event, a member of the audience suggested that I enter the National Apprentice Awards 2015 in the intermediate apprentice of the year category, with only a week until the entry closing date, we submitted my entry and hoped for the best.
Soon August arrived along with an email stating that I had been shortlisted as a Regional finalist and an invitation to the South East Region Apprentice of the Year awards. On the 21st October myself, Dave and my partner travelled to HMS President in London, where I was awarded with the South East Intermediate Apprentice of the Year Award! It took me completely by surprise, and I felt incredibly proud. The recognition from this award was amazing, I was invited to present my experience on local radio stations and an Apprenticemakers webinar as well as short news stories being written about Napier and our apprentice journey in local papers!
Shortlisted for the National Finals!
In December 2015, I received an email notifying me that a decision had been made by the national judging panel, and I had been shortlisted as a National finalist – it was now down to myself and two others out of over 12,000 original submissions. Myself and three guests (Mike, my mum and my partner) were invited to the National Finals in January at The Grosvenor Hotel, London.
Invite to Number 10
On 4th January, something crazy happened – I received a formal invite requesting my company at a drinks reception to celebrate Apprenticeships at Number 10, Downing Street! I could not believe it, of course I accepted the invite and enjoyed an unbelievable evening behind the famous black door.
Achieving Highly Commended
The National awards soon arrived in late January, and after an evening of fantastic entertainment, delicious food, and great company, I received an award and was highly commended. In recognition of my hard work and dedication to my apprenticeship I also received a Chichester College Star of the Year award, and FE Sussex Apprentice of the Year award. I also launched The Apprentice Ambassador Network, and have presented my experience to several schools in the area.
I am incredibly proud to have received such fantastic recognition of my achievements and that I have had so many opportunities to share my apprentice experience, and encourage others to join an apprenticeship programme - to think it all started with complex tea rounds and 32-bit microcontrollers two years ago!
I am now 2/3 of my way through a CIM diploma, managing accounts at Napier as well as supporting the team in a variety of ways from traditional PR through to Digital campaigns. I have attended international trade shows, written and placed articles and achieved so much more than I ever expected I could.
Most importantly, I am still learning every single day.
Elektroniikkalehti rebrands to ETN
Elektroniikkalehti, published twice a week on Wednesday's and Friday's, is a Finnish online publication focused on the electronics industry. The magazine has been covering high tech news and electronics in Finnish for more than two years and felt it was time for a refresh by announcing a name change from Elektroniikkalehti to ETN.
They are staying close to their roots with the name change, and want their new name ETN to reflect the essence of the new world of technology. This new name carries with it some deeper meaning with E representing Electronics being everywhere as this is an inherent part of their scope.
The T reflects the long Finnish tradition in telecommunications and the N refers to Nanotechnology. This describes the miniaturisation of devices and components and the emergence of new materials that often combine intellect with nanoscale structures.
Under its new name, ETN will continue to be update readers with all the latest news along with its newsletter providing a recap of the most important news twice a week.
We wish the Elektroniikkalehti team every success for the future, writing under their new name, ETN.
Legal exams, direct marketing & mint matchmakers
Great news, I passed my Unit 2 exam!
Unit 2 was based on Legal, Regulatory and ethical requirements in marketing. Alongside my weekly three-hour lecture at Chichester College, I have also been studying direct marketing for my work based assessment.
Direct marketing is a key part of my role at Napier. Recently I have focused a lot of my time on a mailing campaign for one of our clients.
After initial database analysis I was asked to source boxes of Matchmakers; create and assemble mailings; collate letters; apply labels; and finally send them out to the database. This campaign went on for three months and it is safe to say I am sick of the sight and smell of mint Matchmakers! Despite the queasy feeling I get when I see them, I really enjoyed this campaign, and my colleagues certainly enjoyed the spare Matchmakers!
In other news; we are taking on another apprentice! I am really looking forward to sharing the experience with someone. You have to absorb so much information in such little time and the examples given at college tend to be B2C, so they frequently don’t always relate directly into my everyday work in B2B. I think it will be really good to debrief and discuss with the new apprentice, if only for reassurance that I am on the right track!
At Napier we have changed the internal structure and started working in two teams as of Monday. This is an opportunity for me to have more responsibility, and working more closely with a set of specific accounts will help me build stronger relationships with journalists and client contacts. We’re all looking forward working in the new structure, which has been designed to help us improve the services we deliver.
Freya