Philadelphia—Day two of the BTA Grand Slam here at the Marriott Downtown was a spirited affair for the approximately 50 dealers in attendance, with an educational agenda that was uplifting, informative and even downright frightening. But the combination of these lively presentations, coupled with an impressive array of sponsor exhibits, proved to be an invaluable experience.
Attendees mingle at the sponsor exhibits during the BTA Grand Slam in Philadelphia.
As we chronicled in Day One, former Navy SEAL Brent Gleeson delivered a high-energy presentation that illustrated the importance of leadership and teamwork on the battlefield and in the boardroom. West McDonald of Print Audit followed suit with an overview of the benefits of seat-based and device-based billing at the baseball-themed event. But one of the early-morning sessions held on day two certainly provided more jolt than a cup of coffee.
Safeguarding Against Cybercrime
An unnerving presentation on cybersecurity delivered by Sejal Lakhani-Bhatt, CEO of Livingston, NJ-based TechWerxe underscored the prevalence of technology-based crime and the need to safeguard against it. A late replacement prompted by a Hurricane Irma-forced cancellation, Lakhani-Bhatt wasted no time in illustrating the degree that ransomware and cybercrime have inundated 21st-century business. While headline stories have detailed the high-visibility breaches of major entities such as Merck, Target, Home Depot and, most recently, Equifax, most attacks go unreported.
Lakhani-Bhatt said that 556 million people are victimized each year, costing them a staggering $103 billion. Cybercrime is easy to perpetrate, much safer than selling drugs and infinitely more profitable. In total, more than 80 percent of breaches are inflicted on small businesses and 33 percent of the firms end up being paralyzed for at least three days. SMB targets are becoming more prevalent, as many tend to not have data backups or disaster recovery plans in place.
“They’re not sending viruses in, not doing some magic, voodoo stuff,” Lakhani-Bhatt noted. “(Cybercriminals) are waiting for you to do the work. You are the one clicking on the links, opening emails and clicking on the attachments.”
Cybercriminals benefit from the fact that there is that one employee at a company who will always open every email and click on every attachment. And far too many companies still don’t have backup systems in place after being victimized, and that can result in repeat attacks.
Lakhani-Bhatt stunned the audience when she revealed she had researched five Grand Slam attendee dealerships on the dark web and found sensitive information on four of the firms, including emails and passwords. “Those passwords can be bought for only two bucks on the dark web, but it ruins your life, your business…it takes away everything,” she said.
Fishing for Prospects
Kate Kingston, founder and president of the Kingston Training Group, provided a high-energy presentation titled “Going After the Big Fish,” a tutorial on helping office technology dealers acquire net-new deals with the largest prospects within a sales rep’s territory. She outlined a step-by-step process that reps can use—backed by often free apps that can aid in the process—to have a better chance at securing larger accounts. Kingston abides by the motto of being “persistent, not a pest.”
Some of the free tools Kingston detailed include:
Hunter: A domain search that lists all the people working at a given company, with their names and email addresses found on the web. Hunter has more than 200 million addresses indexed, and the free version of the tool allows users to conduct 100 searches per month. Users can visit a given company’s website, or use Hunter in LinkedIn on a prospect’s profile.
LeadFerret: A free B2B database cataloging 30 million companies, with complete information for every record, including company, name, title, address, phone number and other pertinent details. The free version of this prospecting and lead generation tool allows users to download five records per month, but the basic plan ($20) provides 200 monthly downloads. Two higher tiers (Plus and Pro) provide access to premium features.
ContactOut: A Google Chrome extension that enables users to find email and phone numbers on the LinkedIn profiles of prospects. Users can export LinkedIn profile information to a spreadsheet in a single click.
Top-Flight Engagement
Inbound marketing trends and best practices in outsourcing business services was the scope of the presentation “Is Your Marketing Plan Taking You to the Danger Zone?” The entertaining and informative session was presented by the Clover Imaging Group tandem of Aaron Dyck, vice president of solutions, and Matthew McGuire, director of solutions. The duo touched on multiple talking points, including website lead generation drivers, how to self-assess a dealership’s inbound marketing strategy and the evolution of the sales lead.
Dyck and McGuire seamlessly bounced ideas off each other while using video snippets from the film “Top Gun” to draw parallels between the antics of actor Tom Cruise and the need to connect and engage with customers. They cited five critical ways for dealers to accomplish this, borrowing popular (and sometimes modified) lines from the movie:
Your ego is writing checks your company can’t cash. Dealers need to identify their prospect targets and find ways to educate them on the topics they care about, using tools such as podcasts and YouTube videos.
This is what I call a target-rich environment. Make your website the main virtual hub of your brand’s activity.
It’s time to buzz the tower. Provide content in exchange for contact information. This content includes webinars, videos, white papers and executive papers that can help build interest.
Tell me a story or lose me forever. Become a thought leader. Prospects who are further along in the engagement process can make use of authority papers, ebooks, technical papers and research reports.
Talk to me, Goose. Leverage social media to help spread the word, building a following on third-party platforms such as LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook and YouTube.
The next stop of the BTA tour is the Fall Colors Retreat, to be held Oct. 19-20 in Asheville, NC.
