What’s your number: A strategy for publicity
By Bob Johnson, NAID CEO I spend a little time in the Shred School workshops talking about the use of press releases to get publicity. Over the years, I have found that most secure destruction companies miss the opportunity to use them effectively due to a number of misconceptions. They aim at the wrong target. They don’t […]
Read more »How to create an incident response plan
By Holly Vandervort, NAID Chief Compliance Officer One of the more game-changing additions to the NAID AAA Certification Program in 2014 was the requirement for certified companies to develop a written incident response plan for suspected or known security incidents. The NAID Certification Rules Committee developed this criterion in direct response to data protection regulations […]
Read more »He who listens, gets the sale
By Ray Barry, NAID Deputy Executive Director The sales professional who listens the best, wins the sale. It is the most important part of the sales process yet it is the most overlooked sales skill. Unfortunately, most salespeople would rather talk instead of listening to the client. Salespeople are not trained properly how to listen […]
Read more »You’re not their friend, you’re their adviser
By Bob Johnson, NAID CEO As I write this, I’m at the Los Angeles Shred School workshop. At the front of the room Ray Barry is teaching 35 industry professionals how and when to best submit a proposal for maximum results. It is hard to describe how captivated the audience is. Ray is giving them information they […]
Read more »Do you brag or provide proof?
By Ray Barry, NAID Deputy Executive Director We are taught at a young age to not brag about ourselves. I tell my son this all of the time. Any time we brag about ourselves and our companies, our prospects are unimpressed. But why do 80 percent of sales professionals start each proposal they give to […]
Read more »Creating a barrier to entry into your market
By Bob Johnson, NAID CEO In my most recent SDB magazine column, I ruminate on the low barrier to entry in the secure destruction industry. I encourage you to read it if you haven’t. First, as I stated in the aforementioned SDB column, established service providers should see barriers to entry as a good thing. Low […]
Read more »Top questions to ask in the decision-making process
By Ray Barry, NAID Deputy Executive Director One of the most challenging things in developing new business is identifying the stage of buying in which your prospect is and aligning that with your sales process. If you looked at the last 10 opportunities that you lost, I bet you lost them for failing to truly […]
Read more »What data destruction firms can learn from Apple
By Bob Johnson, NAID CEO Recently, I read an article about how sales is changing in many ways. I could not help but draw comparisons to NAID members who are taking the same approach with great success. In the past, businesses responded to customers’ needs or problems. The key to success was finding the pain […]
Read more »What is your follow-up strategy?
By Ray Barry, NAID Deputy Executive Director In previous NAIDnotes posts, I have discussed how important it is to stand apart from the crowd of “shred-a-likes” in order to not blend in with your competitors. Unfortunately, an area that I see many sales professionals and owners blending in with their competition is the post-call follow […]
Read more »Zero tolerance on data breaches is inevitable
By Bob Johnson, NAID CEO I’ve been a bit preoccupied with the early signs of the consequences of data breaches entering a new era. As I have written, when (not if) those distant smoke signals become an accepted reality, data breaches will no longer be survivable. Though statistics show some organizations that have data breaches don’t […]
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